Hey all, I’m on the hunt for games that really suck you into their world, the kind where you look up and suddenly three hours have gone by.
Games I’ve loved and couldn’t put down:
- Plague Tale
- Horizon
- Subnautica
- Mass Effect
- Expedition 33
- Homeworld
Doesn’t matter the gente, as long as it’s got that vibe where you just exist in the atmosphere and forget about everything else.
What are your go-to games when you want to disappear into another world? Bonus appreciation if it’s something underrated or off the beaten path.
Edit: Thank you all. I will definitely keep this thread bookmarked. You all dwarved what I found on Reddit ir any other platform! Well done!
No Man’s Sky. Take advantage of the custom game rules to tweak to your preferred gameplay. Personally, I skip all the tutorial stuff and boost resources as I like flying around/upgrading my ship more than the core gameplay loop.
- Subnautica
>“Atmospheric” game
>Looks inside
>Water.
Noita.
Just be prepared to die. A lot.
Firewatch was a good game for me to get immersed in for an evening. It involves hiking around an isolated open world park. It follows a linear story which is pretty interesting, but I think there’s an option to wander freely after completion
If you’re willing to hunt for a 2009 oldie, I have a guilty love for The Saboteur.
GTA/Assassin’s creed esque where you play a race car driving Irishman helping the resistance in WWII, Nazi occupied Paris.
Gameplay can be repetitive, but free roaming Paris was a lot of fun. Plus, when I finally travelled to Paris IRL, I had a few “I know this place!” moments that felt really cool as a first-time visitor.
Dishonored and BioShock come to mind.
They’ve likely already been mentioned.
Bioshock… couldn’t stop until all three were binge-played.
Gravity Rush.
OMG I could float for hours in this game and I HATE TRAVERSAL. Like, literally traversing long distances is one of the main reasons I never play open world games.
Gravity Rush is one of a kind though.
I’ve been getting into Avowed and having more fun than I expected. The dialogue is a bit bland though so I’m glad you can speed read and skip.
This is Breath Of The Wild or Death Stranding. Both got me through COVID lockdown.
Caves of Qud has a pretty substantial learning curve, unfortunately. But if you can get through it, the story and world are deeply engrossing. I think they even won a few writing awards a while back.
Edit: Also, Hyper Light Drifter has immaculate vibes.
Caves of Qud is one of my favorite games of all time! The writing got a Hugo award last year. The story is developed algorithmically for each playthrough, with historical events that affect the towns and factions within the game. It’s tone is amazing, I can’t recommend it enough for people who enjoy roguelikes.
If you don’t mind a somewhat old game, The Void by Icepick Lodge https://www.gog.com/en/game/void_the
Similarly, if you don’t mind an actually old game, Thief 1 + 2 have probably the best ambiance I’ve ever seen: https://www.gog.com/en/game/thief_2_the_metal_age
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Outer Wilds
Space puzzle exploration game. It’s the kind of game where it’s best to go in as blind as possible. I will say no more.
I tried it. I think I’m not smart enough for the puzzles. I go to a place and don’t seem to be able to complete much. It says there’s something left, and I can’t find it. It gets frustrating. I still have it installed because I love the atmosphere so much.
One thing to be aware of is that you can’t just go to a location and “complete it”… It’s not like normal video games where you just grind until there’s nothing left to do in a specific spot. Many times you don’t have the necessary knowledge to complete a location, and you must go and explore elsewhere to learn how to proceed in your previous locations.
If you want a more tailored nudge to proceed, feel free to DM me with what you have discovered, and preferably a screenshot of your computer in “Rumor mode”
The game is very nonlinear. If you can’t solve a puzzle in one place, you should go to another. Some puzzles require hints from elsewhere.
I had to look up a few solutions when I was done with exploration. That was a little bit unsatisfying but it didn’t ruin the game for me.
They’ve been making games like that since FOREVER. The original Myst is like that. It can be extremely frustrating and I’d just give up on recommending games like that to people if they push back. It can be very anxiety inducing to walk into an area and wonder obsessively if there is some clue you missed or object you need to pick up to combine with another object and if there is a puzzle where the solution lies…
Ah, I see. I love these kinds of games so I’m a bit ignorant to how others perceive them. If that’s how you feel then of course the game’s just not for you.
I want to play Myst one day. Everything I hear about this game says me I’m gonna love it.
I’ve got this problem too. I played a bit more than you, but now I’m stuck and don’t know how to proceed. It’s more frustrating than engaging. I feel like I already looked for every hint the game provides.
Also I never experienced the much hyped revelations or what everyone talks about.
The revelations come later… The early game is mostly driven by an “oh that looks cool” exploration. You start seeing some puzzle pieces. Then as you explore for the sake of exploring, you find a few patterns but can’t see how they interact. This is where the game starts to get frustrating, you don’t know where to go, and the knowledge you have gained doesn’t make enough sense to be able to start piecing things together, this ms where most people get stuck. But if you persevere, then at some point you will discover a piece that connects some of the patterns you found before, and suddenly you can start exploring in a more focused fashion. Only well into this section you start experiencing the revelations.
If you want a more tailored nudge to proceed, feel free to DM me with what you have discovered, and preferably a screenshot of your computer in “Rumor mode”
Thanks, I’ll need to get back to the games some time.
I could check a guide. But am too stubborn to do that. Checking a guide feels like falling. 😄
I bought it two years ago, still haven’t played past the first little cave thing. I suppose I’ll find my way back to it this winter.
I bought it specifically because its soundtrack was absolutely amazing (not knowing anything about the game itself).
Unfortunately, it did not play as well as it sounded 😿
There were so many moments where I got lost in the environmental details. One of the more memorable ones was finding an office environment where almost everybody is emailing each other about how much they hate a guy because he’s too hardworking and overzealous.
When you actually find that guy’s desk, it’s obvious that he’s been given no resources to do his job… and that he’s only trying to contribute any way he can. Even worse, he’s got a whiteboard that if you flip it around, you find that it’s got mathematical equations on it, hinting that he might have been a lot smarter than people gave him credit for.
EDIT:spelling
✅ Arkane Studios, hot off Dishonored 2
✅ Spiritual Successor to System ShockThat’s enough for me. Wishlisted!
I have had this on my steam wishlist for a while. I’ll definitely pick it up the next time I buy a game :)
Red Dead Redemption (both games) would get my vote. Easily in my top 5 games.
First time playing RDR2, I waved at a dude on a carriage and asked him to stop. Next thing I knew I was being shot at by the sheriff. No idea why that would be considered bad or a punishable offense. Lost all interest in playing after that sadly. And it was like in the first town you get to visit in the game too.
Stage coach robbery.
Thank you for actually giving me an answer to the mechanic behind this. Legitimately had no clue.
I feel the game is not the issue here.
Ah yes, the game definitely isn’t the issue. I should have just known that hitting the prompt to wave to a passing by stagecoach twice in a row was against the law somehow. In a game I just started playing. Yep, definitely a skill issue.
And you decided to stop playing because of that one event. Definitely not the game at fault here.
I do believe I said it definitely isn’t the games fault for not telling me about a mechanic that would have me shot at and killed. We’ve already established that it’s absolutely my fault for not knowing something I wasn’t taught in-game before it happened. The game is without flaws. Perfect. 10 out of 10. Impossible for someone to have a bad time in without it being their own fault.
Howdy stranger. Are you just waving down random stagecoaches wearing a gun in order to say hi and be friendly-like, or is your intent to draw your weapon and deprive us of our property and/or our lives? Because if you’re going to rob us, I am afraid to inform you that I will be taking defensive action that might include running away and/or killing you. It’s fine either way, but I just want to be crystal clear about your intentions and I want you to be crystal clear about the consequences of your each and every action beforehand so there are no untoward surprises.
Absolutely gripping gameplay and dialogue.
Look, on one hand I see your point, but on the other it’s a fuckin game and tutorials are a thing. Except apparently when they aren’t. It’s the wild west, by the amount of people that were shooting at me afterwards it’s clear just about everyone carries a gun so…not sure what your point there is either. Contrary to popular belief, you can indeed be carrying a gun without the intent to use it on every person you have an interaction with. My intention? New town. Talk to NPCs. Stage coach rolls by and button prompt pops up to wave? I do. It pops up again? I do it again to see what happens, to see if the dialogue changes. Chaos ensues followed by a quick death that didn’t make sense to me right off the bat. Games can be flawed. I don’t have to love a beloved game just because people think I should.
I think people are objecting because you are asking it to be something it isn’t.
An open world game is something you immerse yourself in and you learn as you go. It is 100% incompatible with strict “win conditions” for every instance. Example: I was playing Fallout: New Vegas and ran into a character who was trying to collect bottlecaps. I offered her some of mine, but, discovering I had bottlecaps, she wanted all of them and IMMEDIATELY started shooting. That was a fun experience, not quite emergent game play, but at least surprising. That is the fun of open world games, they can be unpredictable and context-dependent, and sometimes you only know the context by getting shot at. Your job is to learn the rules of the world as best you can. Though I do understand why you get frustrated, I think it just indicates that open world games are just a genre that you don’t enjoy, or at least there are aspects of them that rub you the wrong way.
It would be like if I said, “I don’t like tetris because it doesn’t have a story. Like, where are the cutscene animatics? Where is the character development?”
Edit: Might be better to say “A to Rob Stagecoach”, but that is kind of implying your intent, when all your character is doing is waving it down to stop it, and the response depends on the context… like now every prompt has to predict what the response of the action will be.
This has been the best take I’ve seen on my issue with the game so far. Cuz you’re right, I’m not super hot on open world games. Saying that, I did indeed take the whole experience as a learning moment but the game in general just didn’t keep my interest afterwards. That was just the most memorable part of the game in my brief time trying it out.
And look, while I completely understand that not every game is gonna hand hold (I honestly prefer they don’t), I do expect some sort of in-game example or…hell, even some side dialogue saying that could happen that could still be fully in-world and immersive. The game is huge, it’s gonna have some flaws here and there, and at the end of the day it just wasn’t for me. And me having an issue with a small part of the game has clearly rubbed some people the wrong way, and me the wrong way in their response.
Isnt rdr2 just wild west gta? Why not just shoot back or reload and avoid him? I’m just curious
I did try a few times, died each time. So moved on for a bit but quickly lost interest in it sadly. I’m sure I’ll give it another shot down the road somewhere and get better enjoyment out of it then.
