Related to a post I made last year, but a little different because (1) you get to choose 10 now instead of 5, and (2) other games don’t get deleted, you just aren’t able to play them, so you don’t need to think about the good of humanity or anything, purely just selfish picks because it only impacts you.
A couple notes:
- Any equipment necessary to play the games, you’re obviously allowed to have
- You can play any DLC for the games you choose
- You’re not allowed to make any games for you to play. If you make video games, either as a career or hobby, only other people are allowed to play them
- Mods are allowed, but you’re not allowed to make any for you to play. You can try to commission someone else to make them for you, though
- If there was historically a trilogy, for example, that now is sold on a major storefront (Steam, Xbox, PlayStation) as a single game (such as Mass Effect or Hitman) that counts as one game now. Game bundles, though, do not count. Basically, if it’s in one entry in your steam/xbox/ps library, it’s one game
I’m interested to see what this community chooses, and hopefully it’s different enough from my old post to warrant some good discussion here.
Oof, going to have to trim my favorites (story, single-player) simply for the replay value ones.
- Minecraft: been a decade or so but the open-ended style means almost infinite replay value.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Just love the lore and world. I have over 1k hours, another 1k won’t be hard. With mods, even more.
- Metal Gear Solid Master Collection 1: These games are ridiculous and I love them.
- RDR2: Story-based but I can kill a LOT of time just by not rushing. Lovely game.
- Stardew Valley: So much replay value, so much to do in one playthrough alone. Easy pick.
- Minesweeper: Great for killing small amounts of time.
- Timberborn: Scratch that colony sim itch.
- Subnautica: scratch that survival-craft itch.
- Balatro: for variety i guess. Enjoy it well enough.
- Sekiro: Haven’t finished but I need a hard skill check for when im feeling masochistic.
Runner Up: Mass Effect trilogy LE. Fantastic games, and I need that space itch scratched too. Bumped for genre variety reasons.
Open world, ending and moddable games with huge modding communities are the best bet
- Minecraft
- GTA VI
- Roblox (yes, I know, but that’s the most game-engine-like game out there with the largest dev community)
- Skyrim (mods)
- RE9
- etc
- Also, aren’t there games that contain retro games emulators as part of the gameplay?
- Factorio
- Hollow Knight
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Runescape
- Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando
- Path of Exile
- Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage (PS2)
- Elden Ring
- Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire
- Lies of P
- Luanti
- OpenTTD
- The Sims 2
- Mahjong
- Brutal Doom
- OpenRCT
- Sim Tower (Haven’t played. Looks fun)
- One of the early Sim City games
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Unciv
Stipulating what happens with MMO’s in this timeline might be prudent. I’m assuming that live servers remain online and/or reputable vanilla like private servers are available.
Path of Exile 1
Final Fantasy XIV
Minecraft
Escape from Tarkov
Beatsaber
Elite Dangerous
Dark Souls 3
Skyrim
EVE
Mario Party (maybe 6?)
Grand theft Auto 5 (assuming FiveM remains)
My tenth spot stayed open and I didn’t feel compelled to fill it with anything. I was writing out all the games which could have taken that slot and noticed that GTA V fills an important void in my original list, so for the sake of completeness I decided it deserves the last spot.
The list of games which could have had the spot I was writing… Fellowship, World of Warcraft, Sea of Thieves, Civilization V, Breath of the Wild, Dark Souls 2 SOTFS, Hogwarts Legacy, Oblivion Remastered… If I think on it enough there could be more. And in fact, I’d probably rather have Hogwarts legacy in that 10th slot if it wasn’t unfortunately abandoned so quickly after launch, it desperately needs and deserves a new game plus mode and further story expanding DLC.
My logic with my list is pretty simple, as there’s only a handful of experiences in gaming that really compel me any more, so I just picked my favorite game for each of those categories. ARPG, sweaty ability based tab-target MMO, fantasy sandbox, sci-fi sandbox, rhythm, soulsborne, party game. EVE, Skyrim, and GTA5 don’t fit into any of the categories I listed, but I don’t really know how to classify them articulately.
Dark souls Bloodborne Elden Ring OSRS Death stranding series Caves of Qud Dwarf fortress Crusader Kings Anno 1800 Mechwarrior 5 mercenaries
I like your taste
Hell yeah thanks bro; holy shit I stacked those on top of one another and it just turned it into a jumbled, comma-less, mess. Lmao
Jarvis, generate a list of games with the most replay value.
- DotA 2
- Dwarf Fortress
- Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup
- The Sims 4 or something
hmmm, I’ll want some classic RPGs
- TES V: Skyrim
- Fallout New Vegas
- Red Dead II
better throw some MMOs in there
- WoW
- Runescape
one more… I guess
- Minecraft
Oooh sims 4 is a really good take.
- Diablo 2
- Grim Dawn
- Path of exile 2
- Celeste
- trackmania
- Valheim (itd be enshrouded if it had mod support)
- hollow knight
- silksong
CyberpunkOxygen is not Included!- Skyrim (only because of mods, otherwise id pick morrowind)
Edit: I cant believe i forgot oxygen is not included! Sorry cyberpunk.
Ironically I’m probably not going to choose my favourite games because those are usually just very simple story based games, and can be just as enjoyable to read as a book instead.
The games which instead give the most fun-value and replayability:
- Balatro (my go-to “I’m bored and don’t know what to do with myself” game.)
- Stardew Valley. Super good, something is so satisfying in the art, animations and little gameplay loops. I replayed it to death earlier this year and now I’ll try not to think about it again until that time next year.
- “The Sims Medieval” is one I keep on coming back to, so I’ll definitely add that.
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon (don’t think this counts as a mod.) Super good replayability, I’ve been playing it intermittently for about 11 years now.
- Anno 117. Gotta have some strategy games - I’m kind of boring in that I only do anno and not more complicated stuff like city skylines.
- Fields of Mistria is a new farming sim that I have high hopes for.
- Pentiment has a lot of replayability despite only being a linear story game.
That gives me enough time to add 8. Minecraft, which I don’t play anymore but it’s a great boredom buster, and 9. Life and Suffering of Sir Brante and 10. Life and Suffering of Prince Jerian - afforementioned visual novel stories which are also fine to enjoy in book form.
Doom 2016 Carmageddon Battletech Deus Ex Titanfall 2 StarCraft C&C Yuri’s revenge Neverwinter Nights Saint’s Row 3 Mass Effect 2 or 3
I love lists, so this is an easy one for me:
- Bayonetta: unfathomably high skill ceiling. I could spend forever getting better at this game and consistently having fun.
- The Wonderful 101: same as Bayonetta.
- God Hand: not many games provide the exhilaration of a perfect God Hand run. I would have the best time spending the rest of my life perfecting my God Hand gameplay.
- Ninja Gaiden 2: peak action groove. Playable crack cocaine. Would never get tired of it.
- Gunvein: no shmup encourages you to concquer and obliterate the screen like Gunvein, even though it’s tough as nails. It’ll take me forever to no death the highest difficulty, and I’ll savour every moment.
- Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R: I would like to be Shadow Gallery-looping people into eternity with Zato/Eddie.
- Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes: immensely deep systems with one of my favorite fighting game characters of all-time: Chaos. Infinite potential to get better at both the game and playing Chaos.
- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Ken Amada is the most lighthearted fun I’ve had in a fighting game. I will need him to always be available.
- Hellsinker: easily most mechanically dense shmup of all-time. Easily at least hundreds of hours to digest and internalize everything.
- Gravity Rush: best traversal in gaming. I’m content to just boot it up and float for hours.
With your tastes (impeccable btw) you might enjoy HYPER DEMON. I think it’s a little too fast and overstimulating for me but it’s still on my to-do list. I’ve had it heavily recommended.
For me, I’d probably have to go with:
- Skyrim - my most played game of all time, and nearly endlessly moddable
- Elden Ring - probably my favourite game, if you twisted my arm and forced me to choose
- Hitman: World of Assassination - my second most played game of all time, and tons of content there. Way more replayable than a lot of people realize
- Dishonored - the best linear stealth game of all time imo
- Pokémon SoulSilver - I’ll get in occasional Pokémon moods and this is my favourite one
- Forza Motorsport 6 - maybe a weird choice, but I play this game every Christmas with my dad, and I wouldn’t want to throw that tradition away
- Halo: Master Chief Collection - CE was my first ever video game, and I played the hell out of Reach back in the day, so this is mostly a nostalgia pick, but seriously who’s gonna argue against some Halo
- Batman: Arkham City - I have such strong nostalgia for this game for some reason, way more than lots of other games I’ve played. Not too sure why, but it definitely draws me back every now and then
- NHL24 - I guess it could be any NHL game since they’re all basically the same just with updated rosters and occasionally a new feature, but 24 is the most recent I own so I’ll stick with that one. Anyway, I love hockey and this is a great game to pull out when friends come over
- GTA V - when my wife and I first got a place together, we used to play this game together (pass the controller back and forth) after work every night. We still occasionally pull it out to play together, and I wouldn’t want to put a stop to that
GTA V - when my wife and I first got a place together, we used to play this game together (pass the controller back and forth) after work every night. We still occasionally pull it out to play together, and I wouldn’t want to put a stop to that
You inspired me to see if my partner would want to share playing GTA 6 in this way. That sounds fun! Thanks :)
There’s lots of fun stupid stuff you can do, at least in 5. Obviously I can’t comment on 6.
- Set a countdown timer and you have to switch right at the timer, then right before the timer goes off drive off a cliff or jump out of a helicopter and the other person has to try and survive. Basically death swap
- Try to steal a tank or fighter jet from a military base and switch after every death
- One person exclusively controls the left half of the controller, one person exclusively controls the right half of the controller, try to complete a mission or a custom objective
- Start a timer and see who can get a five star wanted level the fastest
Basically do stupid shit and don’t take it seriously. Extra points if you both suck at the game.
Yeah my wife enjoyed watching me play the GTA v campaign and we played a bit of online together for a while but the used GPU on her PC would always start to crash out
Games with tons of replayability, where I have already spent a ton of hours:
Roguelikes:
1 - Dwarf Fortress
2 - Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
Resource/construction based:
3 - Satisfactory (sorry, Factorio fans)
4 - Valheim
5 - Minecraft or Terraria
RPGs with deep systems
6 - Divinity: Original Sin 2 or Fallout: New Vegas + mods
7 - Baldur’s Gate 3
Classics that I want to play from time to time
8 - Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition
9 - Bloodborne
Some skill-based game that I’m never going to get amazing at, therefore infinite playtime:
10 - Either some fighting game (Skullgirls?) or something like Crypt of the NecrodancerNot a perfect list, but I probably would have enough stuff to play until I die :P
3 - Satisfactory (sorry, Factorio fans)
Everything is are good choices. It’s surprising you made the wrong one here. Even if you like the base game of Satisfactory better, for some crazy reason, keep in mind we get mods. Factorio has a modding scene as good as Skyrim, or maybe better. There are essentially totally new games available as mods for Factorio. Also, let’s say you’re a total expert after decades of playing it. There are mods that crank up the difficulty/complexity to the point where it takes thousands of hours to complete. It’s clearly the superior choice.
Shadowrun (Sega version) - one of the best RPGs of all time
Grim Dawn - I was a big Diablo 2 guy, and this is the next step up
Chronotrigger - probably my favourite RPG
Terraria - just a treasure of a game and fun for lan coop
Deus Ex - my favourite game of all time
Final Fantasy 6 - perfect example of what was good about the SNES
Sonic 3 and Knuckles - there’s a lot of excellent 8 and 16 bit platformers, this one is edging out some tough competition from Shinobi 3
KKnD - I’m going back to my PC roots in real time strategy, and I’m going with an old favourite that never lets me down when I go back to it
OpenTTD - I can (have) spent years building up a transport empire
Tyrian 2000 - the king of shmups
There’s definitely games I regret not being able to play again, but I’d be happy with this lot.
I love Shadowrun, but I’ve never played the Sega RPG. I hear a lot of people saying good stuff about it. I’ll have to track it down.
No simracers here, I see.
- Assetto Corsa - wheel, pedals, tripples. Could finish the list here
- Creeper World III
- Planetside 2
- Dirt Rally 2
- Dead cells
- Deadzone rogue
- Portal
- Minecraft Java 1.8.0
- Back4blood
- F.E.A.R
Off the top of my head…
Assetto Corsa is pretty cheap right now. I saw it and it seems interesting. Would you recommend it to someone who wants something more casual? (I don’t mean arcade, but not something I need equipment and a lot of time for.) I’d probably play with a controller, but I do have a wheel with force-feedback and pedals, but I’m not sure they work on Linux (and I don’t use Windows anymore), and I’d prefer not setting it up.
Also, I think this studio has a rally game they’re working on. I’m pretty sure they’re the page I saw that. I hope it’s good, because Dirt Rally is dead sadly.
AC is like 7€. I would suggest taking it, even without the wheel. Wheel use is A LOT better though, especially for online racing. ACR is good. Still early access, getting better. Can be compared to DR easily. For me, force feedback is lacking a bit but the rest is awesome. Set up the wheel!:-)
Oh, wow, F.E.A.R. now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while!
It still absolutely holds up. You will be amazed. Phenomenal shooter.
since any dlc is allowed, maybe by picking Minecraft you get all the other versions with it?
Approved.
If Planetside 2 had offline bots, I would never touch any other shooters. I have yet to find other ones with the same type of recoil patterns and gun stats system where every different carbines and smg have personalities and traits making them something to master, besides CS which I can’t enjoy.
Out of all the reasons I love Planetside 2, it basically ruined shooters for me.
