I hated the Xbox controller when it first came out, probably because my child-sized hands couldn’t reach the buttons comfortably. So it was Playstation style for a long time.
Now as an adult I’ve switched over to the Xbox style (easier to plug and play for Steam gaming) and I like it a lot. It feels a lot more durable than any other controller I can remember using. Though I feel the size and weight of the controller makes it slightly more difficult to use the bumper and trigger buttons compared to PS controllers, it’s not a big deal because I’m not playing FPS these days.
They do it because if you have to be online, connected to their servers, you have to look at their store and be tempted to buy something else for the game. It’s also just straight DRM. The industry spent the better part of 20 years complaining about piracy and used game sales, and now they’ve found a way to defeat them by just designing their games to disappear when the servers are gone. That does come with a catch though. Building and maintaining the online infrastructure costs a lot of money, and given how many of these games just instantly flop and die, customers are less willing to invest their time and money into a game unless they know it’s a winner, which has less to do with the game’s quality and more of how many other people perceive it to be quality. This looks to me to be why the industry is crashing right now.
As egregious as horse armor was decades ago, that doesn’t offend me the way server requirements do (you can always just choose not to buy the horse armor and still have the game you bought in perpetuity). If the game requires an online connection, don’t buy it. There’s always another game out there like it without the requirement. A game that requires an internet connection is just a worse version of a game they could have sold you without it, and the online requirement gives it an expiration date. If multiplayer requires an online connection, make sure it supports LAN, split-screen, direct IP connections, or private servers. This information is very hard to find just by store pages, perhaps intentionally so, but I usually check on the PC Gaming Wiki these days; otherwise you have to hope the developer responds to a question about those features in the Steam forums.
This is one of many reasons why I boycott a lot of AAA gaming companies nowadays. Not going to name names here, but they know who they are. I prefer indie devs/pubs, and stay the fuck away from anyone pushing FOMO crap, especially pre-order/early access DLC packages.
The one I never get tired of replaying is Mafia 2. Maybe a weird choice since it’s very linear and every play through is pretty much the same. But the story is just perfect for me. The gameplay perfectly suits the story, nothing especially clever, just well executed.
Then there’s games like Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells where every play through is different.
If you don’t mind top down colony managers, rimworld is an absolute gem. The base game itself is infinitely replayable because every game is basically a story. Think dwarf fortress with graphics (well, df has graphics now but). Also incredibly easy to mod to customize or completely change your game experience.
For me, Noita. I don’t recommend it unconditionally, but for me that game will forever be the only permanent game in my library. I expect it’s possible that I could finish Elden Ring. I know I will never finish Noita.
Fallout: New Vegas, Caves of Qud, Project Zomboid, Minecraft, Terraria, Morrowind, Skyrim, Dwarf Fortress, Kenshi, Rimworld, Elden Ring, and so much more.
The detail in Kenshi is pretty amazing. I don’t normally get sucked into single player games, but the design really does give the impression of nearly unlimited freedom, every different starting scenario feels genuinely unique. The slave start particularly was a ton of fun.
It’s pretty amazing that it was designed by basically one guy. He was really efficient in how he chose what game elements to invest his limited development time into and clearly had a really strong vision. I hope he can get a few more devs onboard to develop a second one, I feel like even two or three other people would make so much more possible.
Absolutely, it’s one of the few games that genuinely give the player absolute freedom, but does so in a hand-crafted world with detailed lore and worldbuilding. It’s great.
For the most enduring single player experiences, you really should give some grand strategy games a try, like older Total War entries, Crusader Kings, Civilization, Swords of the Stars, etc. Stuff like Factorio or Cities Skylines can also become addictive, but none of these games is action oriented.
Also, Age of Empires 2. I haven’t played 4 yet, but I think it speaks volumes that, at least on steam, AoE2 has more players at any given time than 3+4 combined.
Ziggurat might be an interesting pick, as it’s a roguelike FPS with magic weapons, though it might feel super neutered compared to Ultrakill. Risk of Rain 2 is 3rd person and roguelike, so every run you start from scratch and enemies will keep spawning at certain intervals, but it’s a fine shooter
Fallout 4 might have a rather clunky shooting, but if you get into it, you can spend many, many hours blasting a variety of enemies, finding all sorts of places and weapons. Skyrim is a close second, while better played in 1st person, it’s medieval sword and sorcery.
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