The Outer Worlds is pretty much what Starfield could and should have been and was made by Obsidian, the developers behind a ton of other great games such as (in chronological order, with the best of all games ever bolded)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
Neverwinter Nights 2
Fallout New Vegas
Pillars of Eternity
Tyranny
Pillars of Eternity 2
There’s even a sequel to it coming out some time this year so you don’t run as much of a risk of running out of game any time soon!
Hard disagree. They’re both equally boring as shit, but Starfield at least had decent ship flying/building mechanics. What did outer worlds have? Nothing.
It did? Outer Worlds was just an over-exaggerated parody of capitalism, Starfield at least had some somewhat-believable world building in terms of how the tech progressed, how/why did humans start to live among the stars, conflict between different religions or factions, the xenomorph threat...
Like I'm not saying any of these were done well, but it did have decent worldbuilding and some neat ideas, it was just the execution that sucked. OW might have some better parts than SF, like companion writing (although it was pretty cliched and cheesy there too) so I'm really surprised you use world building as your example lol
im just salty about starfields world building shouldve chosen different example
OWs world building was fine. nothing special, just fine. there were stupid things but they were either a joke or there to back up a point (“we moved this dangerous animal to this planet to make a deodorant and now its killing us” 👈 this shit is supposed to be funny and anti corporation. does it work? dunno, its stupid, might be funny to someone, its fine, little cringe )
starfields world building just grinds my gears. when there are stupid things, they are there because someone at bethesda thinks its coool as heck or didnt think it through. fucking space cowbois. fucking colony war. why add mechs into your world and ban them? why artificially limit the number of star systems the nations can control?
Totally agree the dlc really made it one if those “it gets good after x hours” sorta things; All different vibes for the dlcs too. The raider one was lonely but it felt like it was supposed to be.
Thank you! Felt like I was I playing a different game than everyone else.
Everyone mocked Starfield’s Neon for being Discount Cyberpunk. But at least they played it as straight as they could. Like, I could believe people live there and had a life.
It felt like Outer Worlds kept trying to make jokes about how cruel capitalism is versus tell a real story. Like, “Oh boy time to go increase shareholder value!” Or “I love Space nuts. I have to say that or I die.” Like wtf, where’s the subtlety?
It’s not Borderlands 3 bad, no where near it. But it’s pretty bad.
In this genre of “big space games”, The Outer Worlds stands near to Mass effect, because it follows “the Bioware formula” pretty closely: The player and a group of followers visit several semi-open worlds, where they look for a MacGuffin related to the main story while solving local problems. (I’ll write a short essay about the Bioware formula someday…)
The Outer Worlds was a good game (not great) and I look forward to the sequel. I’ve played most Obsidian games and I wish they wrote more sci-fi.
Starfield was much better than Outer Worlds IMO. I enjoyed my time with Starfield, it’s not perfect of course. I’ve tried to get through Outer Worlds three times but it’s just not fun, I also strongly dislike New Vegas. Just ok writing doesn’t make up for shitty gameplay.
Perhaps Starsector? It’s a top-down sandbox rpg. I personally find the lore and world-building interesting. Has great mechanics, and you can really get into the nitty-gritty when it comes to ship and fleet builds, you can basically do anything you want, whether you want to do solo stuff or form an empire. It also has a fantastic modding community.
Came here to suggest it and here it is, the newest comment! The modding scene is insane, too, for such a relatively small and unknown game.
I love Starsector. I just wish it was written in something more performant than fuckin’ Java. But, if it were, there probably wouldn’t be the mods for it there are today.
One of these days, I’m going to get around to writing a quest line of my own. Honest.
Yeah, Starsector is probably my favourite lesser known game. There’s a mod/tool called “Mikohime Java 24” that’s supposed to help a lot with the performance, but I haven’t had a chance to test it myself. Would be great to see another quest line, if I had the skills I’d love to make a mod myself lol.
Against the Storm is a Rogue-lite City Builder, which sounds like 2 things that shouldn’t go together but works surprisingly well. It has a generous demo on Steam that lets you freely play up to level 6 or something in the standard biome, so give it a try
Shape-Hero Factory is a Rogue-lite Factory Builder. Another weird combination that is surprisingly effective. It’s in Early Access so there’s a lot of features that are still planned, but you can do full runs and go up to I think Ascension 6. It had a demo during nextfest, not sure if the demo is still there.
Okay but really I agree that Starfield is a mess. The thing is, nobody else has really delivered on the whole package yet. Ground and space combat, trading, and a narrative.
Mass effect and Freelancer gave two different sides of the coin and I think they’re the next closest.
+1 for that. One of the best space sims, despite its age, and my first contact with actual zero-g dogfighting (boost, turn off engine, rotate ship to try and hit the enemy)
I can’t believe (actually I can) that Microsoft didn’t base starfield’s space mechanics (and overall everything else) from Freelancer. The template to improve upon was right there.
Considering all the problems Bethesda had with simply making space work at all, I’m not surprised they didn’t even try to look into better games to copy from
Lots, but only a few that are worth a damn. I’ve come to call them “Han Solo Simulators”.
Its a genre that seems to attract a lot of half baked game designers. Make a big universe sandbox where you fly a spaceship to space stations and planets and moons and trade stuff and do pirate shit or anti-pirate shit. Lots of people have this idea, only a few make anything good out of it. Doesn’t seem like it can go wrong, and yet . . .
Battlecruiser 3000 AD is a particularly infamous case of 90s Internet lore. By all accounts, it did eventually patch the game up enough to be decent, but it took years to get there. At release, the game’s installer would crash for most people. However good it might have ended up, the Internet drama was better than the game ever could be. Look up “Derek Smart” if you’re interested.
The X series is one I want to like, but it’s been really buggy for me. Like rage quit when it destroys my progress kind of buggy. I haven’t played X4, though.
No Man’s Sky was an infamous mess at launch. Unlike Battlecruiser 3000 AD, it did eventually change its reputation, but it was a long, hard road. I played it a few years ago and found it uninteresting, but basically playable.
And then there’s Star Citizen. I’ll just leave it at that.
Anyway, the Elite series is probably the most successful for single player or smaller multiplayer, and Eve: Online for massively multiplayer.
For those who fondly remember FTL and think they got everything out of it; I highly, HIGHLY, recommend getting the Multiverse mod. It’s essentially FTL 2 and adds an absolutely insane amount of content. Seriously, it’s like 10x bigger than the base game. Dozens of new ships and equipment, several new races, hundreds of new events, new paths, new victory conditions. It is amazing and has really breathed new life into such an awesome game.
Definitely do! If anything, I’m underselling just how much content it adds. It’s even set a few decades after the base game so it really is like a full sequel.
I’m thrilled that Into the Breach is available on Android, massively disappointed that I cannot purchase it. But at least that means patched APKs exist…
They annoyingly have some proprietary licensing. Cozy Grove 2 was Netflix only. I only have it because my spouse’s comfort show is on Netflix, otherwise it’s going to be gone
I’ve been recently playing Kingsway which is a pretty unique roguelite RPG where the entire game takes place in a fake operating system inspired by the Windows 95 interface. Only on Steam though iirc.
Pretty fun, though I wish there were mods to increase the amount of content in the game.
If you enjoy Slay the Spire and are interested in more rogue like deckbuilders, I’m a big fan of Griftlands.
It’s pretty small in scope but it has some fun ideas and three base characters/decks with their own stories you follow. It does have some meta-progression if you care about that. I find making builds in it really fun and it’s incredibly satisfying to see a deck come together and just destroy everything in your path.
Yeah I wasn’t sure if the art is for everyone so I didn’t mention it but I love the entire style, as well as the addition of the fake languages that the audio is done in. It really enhanced the immersion.
I have generally found roguelikes to be too difficult, so if you want a turn-taking, strategic one that leans into the easier side while letting you set up many ridiculous combinations, I enjoy “Backpack Hero”. You get a Resident Evil 4 styled inventory screen, and must arrange/place items for an optimal build. You generally get rewarded for stacking similar items.
The Bazaar is a similar game releasing soon. It’s still primarily focused on developing synergies between items in your build, but there’s more varied events between pvp fights and configuring your pack is simpler because it’s on a line rather than a grid, if that makes sense. It will be releasing as free to play probably in February or March.
Dead cells and rogue legacy 1/2 were a lot of fun. Check out nethack if you want something more casual for mobile or in a terminal, it’s a classic. Switch specific I’d say check out dead cells or Isaac. If you want something casual without a big story or learning a bunch of RPG systems you might want to check out donut county, goose game, or golf story.
The Dead Cells devs have been putting in work on their multiplayer rogue lite Windblown, which is super fun. Hades 2 is in a great spot and will keep getting better Risk of Rain (1+2) both fantastic
But for really obscure and interesting mechanics and a true rogue like experience: Noita. It’s pixel graphics but every foreground pixel is simulated and there are a craft huge number of interactions between substances and spells. There’s deep lore that you have to be very dedicated to decipher. There’s an actual alchemy system that changes depending on map seed. Oh, and it’s really hard.
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Aktywne