And older game that people seem to like a lot is Sword of the Stars (2008), while despising the 2nd for lacking features and bugs aplenty. You can get it on GOG too, if you prefer, and being old makes it very cheap even out of a sale. I’ve tried it once but got slightly intimidated by the UI, but then again I barely spent 10 minutes in game (I also gave up on X3 the very first time I played, so…)
For a “lite” version of space empire building, Sins of a Solar Empire can probably satisfy you as well. It’s an RTS, you only play skirmishes, but there’s a lot of setting up new colonies, researching new tech, building stuff besides shipyards, propping up your fleet, etc. Combat doesn’t require a lot of micromanagement, usually just using a capital ship’s power every few seconds and defining target priorities.
Civilization is also an obvious answer that I’m not seeing mentioned. I feel like it’s more manageable than Stellaris, especially older versions (I tend to play IV or V).
I had exactly the same experience. I played Ghosts of Tsushima after Elden Ring and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, I was surprised how shallow the mainstream open world games are. I don’t hate them, but the gameplay really boils down to:
Walk slowly while characters talk to eachother for 5 minutes
Open the map, click on where you need to go, then walk in a straight line to your objective
Trail an enemy without being seen
Liberate an enemy camp (kill the same 3 enemies and collect the 5000 twinkly useless items in the area)
The Elden Ring withdrawal is really hitting me. Most AAA games are trying so hard to be cinematic and movie-like that it’s boring me to tears.
hollow Knight: 2d metroidvania so very different genre, but great exploration with no hints. Souls like fights, so similar there to some games you’ve played and liked. Metroidvanias in general are good at exploration.
genshin impact: most varied biomes I’ve ever seen in a 3d game. Will hold your hand first time you see a mechanic, but won’t tell you anything subsequent times. Cons: starting areas have the blandest exploration and quests. You need good willpower to not swipe. Combat is often very easy.
I liked Gensin Impact for the first few years, but last time I played it, that game was the worst example of this.
Teleport to location. Chat with npc for 5 minutes. Teleport to next location. Chat with another npc rehashing the first conversation for 5 minutes. Quick fight with trivial enemies. Teleport back to first npc Chat about random crap, slow walk to another npc, rehash the earlier conversation again, walk back to starting location, receive the most basic of rewards.
The game is 90% dialog of which very little is relevant or meaningful and none can be skipped. There is an auto advance option for conversations, but so many meaningless dialog prompts (with options are always the same semanticly) that it doesn’t work.
Of course this is all by design as the real goal is to sell you characters, not play a game.
Geralts talking to self never bothered me. The characters, story and world were really interesting for me. The side quests were definitely all filler. I found a few that were amusing but most were the same thing: go kill this over here.
Actually this is what I liked about the Witcher 3 is that the side quests were really great. Of course there were generic ones that felt like doing chores but a surprisingly big amount of quests were actually unique with great stories.
This for me was the best thing about the game. Combat was kind of meh, especially the oils, etc. but the world was very well crafted and not only the main story but also a big chunk of side quests were really engaging.
The chores ones are what I mean. Boring. But there were some really good ones for sure. I really liked finding all the Witcher gear too. The world is incredibly vast and detailed, packed with stuff in every nook and cranny. Same with elden ring. Though I felt the dlc lacked in that regard.
The blood and wine dlc was amazing. I loved the main story/mission. There was a lot to love in the Witcher 3. I’ll have to play it again some day.
You’re right. The witcher 3 never grabbed me because of these reasons. It’s got such phenomenal quests and storytelling but in between feels like a chore aince.im just staring at the minimap the whole time. I installed mods to remove HUD elements to help fix it but I still needed a toggle for them to show me direction occasionally since the games design relies on those HUD elements to drive the player.
It’s such lazy design in an otherwise rich experience. It boggles my mind.
Also, Witcher has some heart-punch right-in-the-feels moments in side quests, FFS. 😶 Even when you’re purposely avoiding what you know is gonna be an emotional wringer in a prominent quest line, they cut ya while you’re wandering around? Genius. Damn. 🤌🏾🙇🏽♂️
I haven’t played Forbidden West yet, but I had a very different experience from most with Zero Dawn. I think a lot of people view these games as Ubisoft style open world checklists, but if you turn the difficulty up a few notches, it really forces you to engage with the mechanics. A game where you used to just charge headlong into a fight you were surely going to win changes into one where you need to pay attention to weaknesses, lay traps, and pick off their deadliest weapons. Plus, you end up actively hunting certain machines for their upgrade parts, because those upgrades become more crucial to your own success.
I agree with you here. While turning up the difficulty means it takes me quite a bit longer to finish as I have limited time to play these days, I tend to enjoy the time more as I learn the mechanics.
Elden Ring and the other Souls games are just different in that there isn’t a difficulty setting so you have to do this from the get go. I prefer this style, but it’s possible to get a more enjoyable experience in other games.
In my opinion, easy games aren’t as fun and I lose interest much more quickly.
Speaking of this, I hate the fact that farcry just stuck with the farcry 3 format.
Farcry 2 had none of this “tag an enemy to make them always visible” bullshit. But then they did 3, and that was just their settled format from there on out.
I love Tears of Kingdom, that’s one of the few games that does open world really well and doesn’t do any of the things that OP mentioned. Sense of exploration in ToTK is even better than Elden Ring imo with some really clever environmental puzzles and multiple ways to tackle them.
I was a bit confused when you said local co-op. It implies 2 computers on the same local network(connected to the same router, no internet connection required). I think the term you’re looking for is split screen gaming.
When I looked at pictures of Spelunky games like Clonk and Liero popped into mind, I think there are options for split screen multiplayer in those games, they’re old school PvP games.
Listen, Crusader Kings 3 is really interesting. You’re specifically playing the ruler of your nation, not the nation itself. You’ll play as your heir when you die. It’s much more roleplay oriented than other grand strategy games. Even Total War Three Kingdoms with its focus on the characters and their relationships doesn’t come close. Give it a look.
Other people have mentioned Paradox several times, and they are unquestionably the big name of the grand strat genre. Their main games are:
Hearts of Iron. WW2 setting, pretty much exclusively about war. If you want to flex your strategic skills, this is the one to get.
Victoria. The 100 years before WW2. Primarily about industrialisation. Victoria games have by far the most in-depth economy systems.
Europa Universalis. These ones are about the era of European colonialism, spanning three to four hundred years with the Napoleonic wars at the end. EU4 is pretty the most like a Total War campaign map in feel.
Crusader Kings. 700 years of feudalism. The map in these ones is limited to Europe, the western half of Asia, and the north of Africa. Distinct in that you play as a dynasty rather than a country. These ones are the most roleplay-heavy
Stellaris. This is the only one I haven't played, so I'm afraid I can't say much about it
W 24h zebrała 100mln USD darowizn na kampanię. W niecałe 48h ogarnęła dość delegatów, by mieć zapewnioną nominację Partii Demokratycznej, oraz zapewniła sobie poparcie wszystkich Demokratycznych gubernatorów i całej wierchuszki partii.
Ze scenariuszem “Biden rezygnuje z ubiegania się o reelekcję” najbardziej martwiłem się, że Partia Demokratyczna się zachowa jak zwykle – kompletny chaos, obrzucanie się błotem. To by dało Trumpowi wygraną bez problemu.
Ale teraz, kurczę, nie wygląda to źle! W tych wyborach praktycznie nikt nikogo nie przekona do zmiany, na kogo chce zagłosować. Pytanie jest oto, ilu wyborców i ile wyborczyń zostanie w domach. Wygląda na to, że Harris mocno generuje entuzjazm, a więc mocno pomoże ludzi przekonać, by iść na wybory.
Generalnie czniać wszelką hegemonię i imperializm, ale Trump byłby realną katastrofą. Patrz: Project 2025.
Perhaps not exactly what your looking for, but there is an indie puzzle game based off picross 3d (one of my all time favorite puzzle games) that uses voxel styling
I loved Picross 3D 2 (or Round 2 or whatever it was called) on the 3DS! As you surmised, it’s not what I’m looking for, but I’ll try to snag it the first chance I get. Thanks!
I mean… Welcome to 4x! There’s so very much out there. Have you really played no sid Meier’s civilization? That’s just a half step up on the empire building complexity (and a quarter step down on combat, which you don’t have much interest in if I understand correctly.) there are a number of other civilization inspired games that are coming out right now, as well as some older ones that have a different spin on the civ framework (I don’t have a list in front of me). Galactic civilization 3 is another half step deeper into the empire building genre, Stellaris and sins of a solar empire are also rubbing elbows with greatness of space 4x (sins is a very slow rts which might be intriguing to you). Back on earth we go for the much more involved 4x, crusader Kings, Victoria, and Europa universallis, those are entries that will make creative assembly, and their total war series, look like children playing with blocks and a peg board.
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