There are a host of open source remakes of old game engines that fix bugs and update them for modern systems as well as add support for higher resolutions and widescreen aspect ratios. Here’s a few off the top of my head:
OpenMW for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This is probably the most famous one.
OpenRA for Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn, Dune 2000, and (in pre-alpha form) Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 (the latter requiring extra fiddling with Github repositories).
OpenJKDF2 for Dark Forces 2 and its standalone Mysteries of the Sith expansion.
Arx Libertatis for Arx Fatalis, though IIRC the version sold now integrates an older build of it; one without the fixes for glyph drawing - it’s worth upgrading for that alone as spellcasting is a nightmare without the fix.
Tfix, T2Fix, and the Sneaky Upgrade for Thief 1/2/3 respectively. These are mods, not wholesale engine replacements, but serve the same purpose.
These are just the ones I know of. There are probably loads more.
Edit:the Ur-Quan Masters for Star Control II. I can’t believe I forgot about this! Star Control II is one of the best and most influential games that most people have never heard about.
OpenRCT2 is 100% the definitive way to play Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2.
But I would never recommend a new player try OpenRA. The game has stellar multiplayer support but they just can’t figure out the campaign scripting at all. Go with the remaster collection instead.
Still? I haven’t played OpenRA in several years and assumed they would have fixed it by now.
Then again Red Alert 2 is even less supported than it was the last time I checked, so I’m guessing their focus is mostly on the multiplayer side of things.
I could argue that experiencing the Groundhog Day bug builds character but… no. Nobody should have to deal with that.
Admittedly, a few tactics like filling your base with laser rifles to make attacking aliens spawn unarmed no longer work. But honestly, an experienced player treats base attacks like bonus levels anyway so it’s not like much of value was lost. Besides, you also now get all the loot from big missions and not just the first 128 items.
Also, UFO now actually remembers your difficulty setting and doesn’t revert you to Beginner after the first mission. That’s different but better. I probably should’ve mentioned that separately in my first comment.
Escape from Tarkov. I put some time into Arc Raiders and that but as a hardcore milsim really seems like it would be a nice experience. I won’t, however, give one penny of my money to Russia if I can help it.
I’ve been playing Genshin Impact, it’s been awhile since I’ve played so I still need to finish the last archon quests for Nodkrai. I did manage to get Columbina which I was really excited about. I also need to get back on to start lantern rite before it goes away and leaves.
Have a search for “universal pokémon randomiser” (there are apparently loads of different forks of it now), it’s main feature is to randomise which pokémon you encounter, their types, moves, etc, but you could skip that and just set “change trade evolutions” and “catch em all mode” to get exactly what you want. I would recommend playing it randomised though!
I swear every time I start looking into a romhack that claims to just be a mostly vanilla QoL update they always add in a bunch of random stuff to “fix” the difficulty.
Like, yes I am aware the games are incredibly easy. They’re for children. I originally played most of them as children. Just let me get high and stomp all through FRLG with a perfect-IV Feraligatr and the Gen 4 physical-special split. If I wanted to do Nuzzlockes I would… Do Nuzzlockes. If I wanted a game with difficult gym leaders and level caps, I would go play one of the thousands of romhacks that have that.
Fallout Community Edition, a reverse-engineered open-source reimplementation of the original engine. There’s also a version for FO2. It specifically says Fallout Et Tu is unsupported, but there’s no real reason it shouldn’t work, so… best of both worlds!
Huh, haven’t heard of Bezelbub mod, I’ll have to check if its compatible with DevilutionX the open source reimplementation of Diablo 1. I played DevilutionX on my steamdeck, but got stuck in beginning of nightmare as my character wasn’t powerful enough to continue.
Been having a lot of fun with the Exo Rally demo. You go rally raiding in a big six-wheeled sci-fi rover with RCS thrusters, but it's absolutely still leaning towards the sim end of things so you'd better be conscious of the terrain and take good care of your vehicle. The rally raid format (meaning there's not a defined course, just a series of checkpoints you have to reach by whatever route you choose) gives it a layer of strategy too, as you get a limited window of time to survey the stage with a drone before you drive. The demo only has one area and one type of rover at the moment, but the area is pretty big and there are three challenges with different routes each day so there's actually heaps to do given that it's a demo
On a much less serious note, RV There Yet with friends has been really entertaining. Drive your somewhat ramshackle RV across some progressively sillier and sillier terrain, nailing bits back together whenever you launch it off a big drop or a bear decides you have lost vehicle privileges
Chugging along through the Halo: Master Chief Collection.
I missed out on the series back in the day and now I’m playing through all of them. They’re great. The collection is insane value, especially since I got it on sale for like $10. 40-50 hours in and I have 1 and a half campaigns left still. Multiplayer is active and works well.
World of Warcraft. I’m honestly at my happiest when all I have to worry about are dailies and raids. Unfortunately, that’s not compatible with family life, my work, etc etc.
I’m the same way. I’ll try and stack up damage and then just rush the boss. Never goes well. I love poison though because when I finally decide to pull back there’s a flow of damage that keeps going
I’ve started playing Chrono Ark, a roguelike deckbuilder I’ve heard a lot of good things about. So far I’ve played something like 3 runs, so only just begun. It’s fun so far, it’s not completely reinventing the genre or anything but each run has been fun and the upgrades seem varied enough.
I’ve also heard good things about the story, and it does involve time travel to play into the looping roguelike nature in a seamless way, but that’s about all I’ve been able to glean from it so far. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
I’ve mostly been playing Arknights Endfield. After a while I got my team set up and it’s become a bit too repetitive. For some reason I expected better from this one than other gachas but it ended up being as shallow and boring as all others.
I’ve played a bit of Deadlock, I couldn’t try any of the new characters tho. I’m trying to get back into Rabbit&Steel. I haven’t played in a while so it feels like starting from zero.
I’ve also tried the demo for Magenta Horizon. It’s not my style of game, it feels inspired a lot by Ninja Gaiden, which I can’t get into, but it seems really well made and the artstyle is pretty interesting.
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