I'll go with some classics if you haven't tried them yet. Planescape: torment is a really engaging crpg if you don't mind old graphics and dig lots of lore and dialogue. Morrowind if you prefer first person for another old school rpg with lots of stuff to discover in a weird surreal environment. Dwarf fortress sounds like another older one you might be into too.
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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dwarf fortress?
If you liked BG3 and Divinity 2, I'm obligated to mention the Pathfinder games: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. The graphics are a touch simple, but the writing is great and the detailed character building scratches an itch for me. As far as I'm concerned, Owlcat is currently the only real competition Larian has.
Obligatory FromSoft lineup suggestion.
I would like to recommend Dave the Diver, Inscryption and Curious Expedition (first one). All of them are superb indie games. It might not be the genres you're asking for but I would still highly recommend them if you want to try something new.
This thread is actually huge, so apologies if this has already been recommended, but take a look at Against the Storm. It's an indie city-builder with a bit of a rogue-like spin. You can usually get it on fairly deep sales, and the rogue-like elements combined with some meta-progression gives it a real play length, even though a single city-building session is a ~45-60 minute experience.
Some further suggestions I haven't seen mentioned in all these comments yet, surprisingly:
- Foundation
- Manor Lords
- 0 A.D. (FOSS and impossible to get ripped off, AoE clone)
- shapez / shapez 2 (the first one is only $2)
And maybe a little more casual, but still similar vein as city management:
Out of all of these, I think I've played Mini Motorways three times as much as the rest, combined. I dunno why, I just love it.
Endless Sky. Open source and crowd developed. Its story lines, assets, and general size have only increased with age. Active Discord server as well (but it's only single player, for now anyway).
Even when the prompt is better (at all?) articulated, threads like these are a waste of time. People who respond barely read the prompt and OPs generally don't even know what they are asking for. So obviously you should play a little cult classic indie game called Hollow Knight.
My suggestion is to instead put some time in to find an influencer/reviewer you like. Even if you don't have a similar taste in games, a good reviewer will say WHY they do and don't like something and you can make informed decisions from there.
Factorio. If you like satisfactory and w&r then cracktorio is right up your alley.
There is also a free demo on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/
If you enjoy the base game I would 100% recommend the expansion called Space Age with adds 4 more planets and space flight between them.
I played several factory games which is right up my alley. I know Factorio is the best of all by far, but I couldn't get in to it somehow.
Look into Drova - Forsaken Kin. It’s been great so far.
One of the best games I have played in recent years. Finally scratched an itch that Gothic left me with for years
If Baldur's Gate 3 is your speed, that game gives me countless hours of trying new ways to change the story and game.
Finished the game 7 times. Single player and couch coop with friends. I tried to never go for the same route :)
So, I’ve spent over 2 hours on Steam searching for a nice game to play. But it’s all junk, as far as I’m fed with Steam recommendations.
Steam does many things well, but its recommendations system is one thing that, in my experience, really falls flat on its face (which surprises me, because they have enough information to do what I would think would be fantastic recommendations).
For finding games on Steam, I've had the most luck simply sorting by user rating (which is a pretty darn good metric of what I'll like, in my experience), and then using the tags to look for games in a genre. There has been one or two times that it's led me astray, but in general, an Overwhelmingly Positive game is something that I'll get a ton of fun out of, and a low-ranked game will rarely be a lot of fun.
Sometimes I've had luck with looking at "similar games" to a game, which are shown on that game's store page.
But the recommendations queue is just awful, in my experience.
I basically do the same, searching overwhelmingly positive games. But most I haven't tried are poorly looking indie games or weird Asian games. I played several really good indie games, I'm not against that, but what I see generally doesn't catch my interest. And I have over 600 games in Steam alone, so many good ones I already played.
Now it's just a sea of junk, having to find a needle in a haystack. And user reviews aren't a gold standard anymore. I've seen amazing reviews of mediocre games, as young people don't have standards anymore as most games these days are empty of story, full of bugs or both.
The game dev community was outraged by bg3, warning people they shouldn't see bg3 as a new standard. While back in the days when you still bought physical games in a store, it indeed was a standard to sell you a proper product for the price you pay.
These days I illegally download triple A games to check them first, if they are good I'll buy them. I haven't bought a triple A game for a long time. Often 2h of playtime for a refund on steam isn't enough, when you want to see all the storyline videos and conversations. Not enough time to experience the gameplay.
Indie games I often buy immediately, they really put in effort to make something worth playing. Big companies however just put in effort to make it look really good to make a lot of pre-orders, then to abandon it after a few minor bug fixes while gameplay is poorly written and just a few hours. As long as you peek the interest for just over 2h so people aren't eligible for a refund anymore. This is scamming people, I don't understand why they keep getting away with it.
In 2024 almost 19.000 games were released on Steam. I have yet to find a single title from 2024 worth playing.
In 2024 almost 19.000 games were released on Steam. I have yet to find a single title from 2024 worth playing.
Oh man, there's so much. My top 10 from last year would be:
- The Rise of the Golden Idol - puzzle/deduction game, sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol
- Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age - fighting game that gracefully handles 4 players at once and has all the good feels of the Xbox Live Arcade era
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - lite immersive sim and action game that captures the spirit of the best parts of those movies
- Metaphor: ReFantazio - a political metaphor in JRPG form
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - a beefy expansion pack to one of the best games ever made
- Dread Delusion - a lite RPG with fantastic exploration
- Indika - a very interesting cinematic story game with some puzzles
- UFO 50 - 50 unique games designed to replicate the 80s
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - a giant escape room, and the puzzles are HARD
- The Thaumaturge - an RPG inspired mostly by Persona and The Witcher, but you almost certainly haven't seen a setting like this in a game before
In 2024 almost 19.000 games were released on Steam. I have yet to find a single title from 2024 worth playing.
looks at my own Steam library, adds a shelf sorted by Release Date, looks for notable games
Satisfactory was released in 2024. It was in Early Access for some time before that. You mentioned that you liked it.
Ditto for Caves of Qud and Nova Drift, games that I've played quite a bit
2024 release following time in Early Access.
Dominions 6 is a pretty involved fantasy strategy game. I haven't played 6 much, but I've played the series a lot in the past, and each game is a pretty direct expansion of prior games. Not sure if that's up your alley, though. The game turns can get pretty long late-game, as there's a lot going on.
I liked Balatro, a roguelike deckbuilder, quite a bit.
Have you considered Rimworld or 4x games? Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.
I played Stellaris, also HOI4 but those games were hard to learn, even harder to master.
I'll go check Rimworld, thanks!
Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.
I like Stellaris quite a bit, but I should note that OP mentioned how he didn't like spending money on DLC. Stellaris follows the typical Paradox approach of creating a lot of DLC to expand and extend the game and its gameplay as long as people are interested in buying it, and winding up with a large game that'll cost you a lot if you want all the DLC. It may be worthwhile, but if one wants to get all the DLC, it's gonna add a fair bit to the price.
(checks Steam)
The base game is $40. Buying every available piece of DLC (and it looks like they're still coming out with more stuff) is another $429.
That being said, I've also got a lot of hours of gameplay out of Stellaris, so that does bring the cost-per-hour down quite a lot. But it depends on how much someone is going to play the thing.
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Always gonna recommend Project Zomboid. Yeah it may look like the Sims (which oddly is where TIS got their art influence from), but it's pretty darn unforgiving. Hell, I lost my last character without realizing how, chalking it up to some strange drug interaction (aka don't drink and take sleeping pills, kids). Resource management, while not a direct focal point for PZ, is still important as you are watching every aspect of your character's health and wellbeing.
The latest beta build 42 has incorporated some new mechanics and a nicer lighting system so things feel proper spooky when slinking around in the darkness. And don't even get me started on the modding community. Infinite possibilities and a constant influx of new content, some which gets so popular it's adding into the base gameplay. Look up Week One if you want more than just a zed simulator.
I also second Stardew if you are also looking to scratch that cozy gaming itch.
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Based on your enjoyment of management and strategy, Paradox's grand strategy games might be something you enjoy. Same publisher as Cities Skylines. There are four main series of them, each with their own mechanics but enough broad-scale similarities that knowing one helps with the others. They are:
- Crusader Kings, set in medieval Europe, North Africa, and about half of Asia. This one is the most roleplay-heavy, as you play as a succession of characters within a feudal dynasty rather than a country
- Europa Universalis, set from the European Renaissance up to the end of the Napoleonic wars. The whole world is playable, and exploration is a big mechanic
- Victoria, which covers the world through the rise of industrialism. This one is the most simulation-heavy, focusing gameplay around economic development and the diplomatic manoeuvring of great powers
- Hearts of Iron, which is the Second World War game. This is the one to go for if you want to play the military side of things
What distinguishes them from strategy games like Civ and Age of Empires is the greatly-reduced abstraction. There's no expectation of every starting point or playable country being balanced; if you start as Belgium in Hearts of Iron, you're going to have to do something clever to not get steamrolled by Germany. There's also no win condition beyond what you set for yourself. When I start a game of Crusader Kings, I'm not trying to win the game, I'm saying to myself "let's see if I can unite all of Britain and Ireland under a Gaelic ruler"
All Paradox games have quite a lot of DLC, but the base games are solid (often now including several of the earlier DLCs for free, in the case of older games) and they go on steep sales pretty often. If there's not a specific time period or mechanic that sways you towards one of the games, I recommend Crusader Kings 3 for the best new player experience
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Ksp2 was severely botched by Take2.. but if you're into the genre you might want to check out Juno.
In addition you might want to keep an eye out for KSA which is currently in early stages of development. As there's no official website yet, I try to keep on top of any dev updates and nuggets of information so I can update the lemmy community.
Ksp2 was a typo, I meant ksp1. Juno I didn't like that much, I can't want for ksa release! Watching closely the development.
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I mean Oblivion Remastered just came out.
It's weird replaying Oblivion but it looks like a modern game. All the original audio is there (along with a few new voices to break up the monotony of hearing the same handful of voices over and over again), and all the locations and gear, but it all feels different. Like it's very familiar, but it's still very different from what we remember. Leveling is a bit different this time around as you have seven or so points to divide among your attributes, rather than picking a couple that would get increased by random numbers. I'd recommend trying it if nothing else than to try out the new polished version yourself.
Although some of the jank has been removed from this version, like there are no more items duplication glitches, but the Bound Armor/Weapon glitch works.
Yeah but fuck Bethesda these days. I won't give them my money. They screwed me too often with their money grab junk. I'll wait for a cracked version.
Have you tried Kingdom Come Deliverance 2? It’s really good and difficult. It’s a history simulator with a really kick ass story and the hero is just a guy. I really like it a lot.
Yeah but I'm stuck after 2 hours. I got into a battle through a quest I stumbled upon, but there's an enemy I fail to win from. I seem to be unable to get out of the quest. I played 1, which was really nice although I didn't completely finished it due to bugs.
I would suggest to load up an earlier save. The beginning is the hardest part of the game (like brutally hard combat sometimes) and if you don’t train Henry up (either find Tomcat or Captain Gnarly, they are trainers) you’ll just die. Or you can do what i did and just brute force the fight with save scumming. The combat is not intuitive until you practice for a bit.
Thanks, yeah I should give it another try! I really liked 1 up to the moment the game got stuck during a loading screen from the main quest.
One tip i would give you so you don’t get overly frustrated is if you see what appears to be a combat situation (anyone hanging out on the road or beside it at camps) save the game by exiting. This makes an exit save which will be overwritten by the next exit save but it doesn’t cost you a saviour schnapps to save. This way you aren’t drunk in combat nor are you limited to saving only via schnapps. If you do that right as you see a combat encounter you should be able to try it a few times and if you can’t win just run or sneak past them.
Thanks, I'll try that. With 1 I added a mod so I could save any time. I don't like the snapps mechanic.
This time I saw a guy in a tree with wolves under it. I easily killed the wolves, but then had to carry the guy really far. In the end I had to kill some guys at an emcampment so I could bring this dude to his place, but I couldn't kill the more heavily armored camp leader. So I played an annoying side quest by slowly carrying a guy really far, then to end up being stuck. So rage quit haha
Lol Vostatek is great. If you can’t get Pepik back, try going at night and sneak in and kill the camp leader with a knife to the throat while he’s sleeping. If you’re lucky you can kill two or three before the others notice. Also at night they don’t wear armor or weapons except the guy on guard.
Alternatively you can just run in and grab Pepik and get back to Vostatek post haste. The mission is to get the horse, the guys are just extra loot.
KCD2 is a game which rewards you for thinking outside the box. Frontal assaults don’t work unless you’re a sword god and henry ain’t that in the early game.
Thanks I'll try that!
Glad I could help.
I did it! Awesome!
:) The game just gets more awesome as you go so I'm excited for you. Audentes Fortuna Iuvat!
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