I recently finished The Last of Us 2. My girlfriend sometimes watches me play my games. And while I thought that TLoU would be a great game to follow, it was hard for her to watch (due to the violence). I wonder if there is a game that would be easy or even interesting for her to watch while I play, without it having to be something strictly “family friendly” , that also has fun gaming mechanics and isn’t just a walking simulator. Looking forward to any ideas! :)
The Outer Wilds is my vote. The kind of game that can be made much better with a spectator helping keep track of things and figuring out puzzles with you
There’s a whole channel that kinda answers this! Girlfriend Reviews started as a channel where the presenter reviewed what it was like to live with someone that played games - i.e. how good it was to watch someone else play. She’s started playing some of the games herself lately, but the point still stands.
In a recent video Should Your Boyfriend Play Spider-Man 2? she says it’s
the best game to watch someone else play this year
(at which point I paused to go find this post and see if anyone else had posted this channel already).
Yes, I just remembered this too!
I dunno but many said ‘stray’ was good, but it’s defo also a walking sim in some ways
My wife played Pokemon and Mario Kart before we dated. After dating for a bit she took a bit of interest in what I was playing and even started playing some games on her own.
My wife liked watching:
- Witcher 3
- Red Dead Redemption
- Assassin’s Creed (pre-Origins style games)
- Portal
- Devil May Cry (besides DmC)
- Prototype
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- L.A. Noire
- Spiderman
She joined me or played some others on her own:
- Stardew Valley
- Rust (surprisingly)
- Conan Exiles
- Golf with Friends
- Animal Crossing
- Dinkum
- Core Keeper
- Terraria
- Truck Simulator
- Ori and the Blind Forest
- Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (she liked to gather supplies and do small secondary quests, or just sail around)
The all-time winner was Breath of the Wild, she loved to watch and play it, and sometimes I watched her play it too. She solved problems in very different ways than I did and it was interesting. Example: my primary way to kill Guardians was to deflect blasts, while she just rode her horse at them and cut them apart. You can imagine how nuts Tears of the Kingdom has been lol.
I feel it might be worth mentioning she did not enjoy watching or playing:
- Monster Hunter
- Any flight/space sims (Ace Combat, Elite Dangerous, etc.)
- Factorio
- Minecraft
- Remnant
- Deep Rock Galactic
- Vermintide/Darktide
- most Metroidvanias
- Civilization
If I had to guess at what these share in common, its a lack of story and NPC interactions, or pacing that makes it less interesting to watch.
Thank you for this personal recommendation. Was interesting to read from first-hand experience!
Horizon Zero Dawn. It actually got my wife to put her Switch away and watch. That’s saying something.
“Baba is you” the game induces the “ah-a” moment when you just came up with a solition to the puzzle. The player has perfect knowledge about the state of the game but they don’t know the solution. It could be played with two heads and one controller.
imo, the funniest part of the game is listening to the player(s) repeatedly stating things from the game like cavemen
“baba is you, rock is push, water is sink… what? ok ok, rock is float… AARGH”
I like the low ominous sound when you accidentally erase yourself.
“Ah, but what if baba is key? Oh…oh no”
Stray is great for an audience
Anything story heavy would be good because then for her it’s like watching a movie. Like spiderman, uncharted, god of war, telltale games etc., I would stray away from most RPGs though even though they are story driven but there’s usually a lot of fluff gameplay where you’re just grinding which wouldn’t be very fun to watch.
My Dad really liked the Uncharted series. It’d be great for OP if his girlfriend doesn’t mind some violence. TLoU is a bit high on the graphic stuff
I think how they portray the violence in uncharted games is very different to how bleak it’s shown in TLOU though. The tone is overall very cheery and Indiana Jones-esque.
Definitely! It wasn’t clear if the goal was closer to “no violence” or “less graphic violence” though
This. Basically anything that you could watch “as a movie” on YouTube that doesn’t have excessive filler in between
I am a very casual gamer, but my partner is much more invested and skilled when it comes to gaming. I ended up really enjoying watching him play Returnal, to the point that I’d be annoyed if he played without me. It was visually beautiful, the story was movie-like, and I was even helpful in watching where the monsters were so they didn’t sneak up on him.
I hope he wants to replay it, because I’d love to watch it again. Highly recommend!
To The Moon is worth playing even if the story has some sad points.
Point and click adventures or visual novels might also be a good fit to play together without it mattering much who has the controls.
Ooh. Been a while since I’ve heard of To the Moon. There’s a sequel to that called Finding Paradise, which I also remember liking. Haven’t followed them since, but their latest game Imposter Factory seems great too judging by the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam.
Imposter Factory is, indeed, amazing.
I shall try it out then!
Have you asked her if there are any games she would be interested in watching? If there’s a game I want to see the story of but am not interested in playing it myself, I ask my husband to play it. (BioShock, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, shooters or platformers in general). I usually help with puzzles or give input on dialogue options if I want to.
Life is Strange would be a great one! Just don’t get the remastered because it’s very buggy and has a worse art style in my opinion
Undertale and Night in the Woods might be interesting choices, the former more than the latter, in my opinion. Neither has any voices, so if your girl won’t stop to read, she’ll easily “get lost”.
If she’s into futuristic stuff, the Deus Ex games might be good options. They can be violent, but in a non lethal manner if you play “pacifist”. Mass Effect would probably fit into that, too. Would be great for your girl to tell you which lady or dude your Shepard should bang
My spouse really enjoys when I go through the Yakuza games.
