Yes, but indie games helped fix that. Dunno how deep you’ve gotten into indie games, but here’s a list of them to try:
Cruelty Squad (it is unironically one of the best games I’ve ever played. Give it a chance, it’ll grow on you)
Balatro
Buckshot Roulette
WEBFISHING
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (++if you enjoyed Jet Set Radio (Future))
Abiotic Factor
Lethal Company (I personally wasn’t a fan, but I can see the appeal; I would be more into it if there was more random junk to pick up)
Hypnospace Outlaw
Factorio (just released an expansion! Also don’t wait for sales, you’ll be waiting forever)
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (edit: forgot to mention that this is basically “be gay, do crimes: the game”. It’s short so I highly recommend 100% it, but it’s also good).
Hylics 1 & 2
The Long Drive (looks like YouTube bait, and it kinda is, but it’s also the best driving game I’ve ever seen. Literally you, a car and 5000km of road. Any engine can go into any vehicle, so yes, you can put a bus engine on a moped. I love it. There haven’t been any big updates lately though because the dev is rewriting the game to fix spaghetti code).
QT (cutesy PT parody that’s all about secret hunting. Also has two extra levels with more secrets. It’s kinda like i-spy but in first-person 3d)
Voices of the Void (I adore this game, it’s a sci-fi pseudo-horror game styled after some weird mix of gmod and Half-Life. The premise is that you’re a researcher who’s been shipped off to a radio telescope array, alone. Your goal is to search the sky for signals and learn more about the cosmos. It takes itself just seriously enough and has lots of secrets and surprises to find.)
Snufkin undoing the cops’ expansionism on natives’ land is rad. Game is short, has it’s downsides as per forum threads about difficult run sequence and being kinda lost on the remote island, but it’s good for everyone who doesn’t even know about moomins, ages 5-99. It’s highlight are watercolor-stylized graphics making the picture look very pretty and good writing, albeit about simple things.
Oh yeah, the game is short so I highly recommend 100% it. I think I took 6ish hours to play the entire thing, and I think I missed a side quest. But yeah, the game is basically “be gay, do crimes: the game”.
There is no “TV version”. The switch docks to a docking station to make it output to a TV. You just need a docking station and controllers to make a single Switch into a shared screen experience in the living room. Anyone’s Switch can use the dock.
Physical games are sharable, but only one device can use that game at a time, because they’re physical cartridges.
Personally, I’d go with a Steam Deck over a Switch, unless your family specifically is looking to play Switch games that are exclusive to it (which technically with emulation the Steam Deck can also play, but that’s not legal unless you own a switch and the game). The nice thing about Steam games is that Steam’s Families feature lets you share the entire game library digitally to 5 family members, so unless they want to play the same game at once, you only buy games once and they can all play them. There are also some games that let you own one copy and let multiple people play multiplayer at once on it, too.
Plus, games on Steam are cheaper than Switch games and the Steam Deck is only a bit more money upfront than a Switch is, especially on sale, which I expect it to be on sale for Black Friday coming up.
Finally, Steam games also can be played on a PC. Any PC. The Steam Deck is just an easy to use, skinned UI PC. As such, when the Steam Deck becomes obsolete, you don’t have a bunch of games that are now locked to an obsolete platform. There are PC games that are decades old that still play on PCs today (although sometimes a bit of fiddling is required for REALLY old ones).
Edit:
FYI the regular switch and OLED can dock. The switch lite cannot.
Helldivers 2 is an awesome game for this as it’s very cooperative and is also a shooter. Though you do need either a pc or a ps5 for it so I’m not sure if you can play it.
I want a new, modern Battle for Middle Earth 2 with better balance, modern graphics, and maybe different modes like quick vs longer form games. Definitely some reform like making it more difficult to build walls, but the walls stand up better to infantry and you really need siege engines.
The game was not balanced competitively (men so OP) but holy damn the battles felt epic and building your own forts and castles to defend was amazing.
I want a city builder with a Civ-like timeline. You start off building huts and farms and keep on going until you get space elevators and fusion power. I want to see roads go from footpaths to trails for horse drawn carriages to full on highways. I also like the idea that you could choose your starting period so it could be used as a standard city builder too.
Here’s a full list of crossplay Xbox and PC games. I figure if it’s on the pc, there’s a good chance it could be played on the steam deck as well.
Notable mentions in there that I’ve played and enjoyed are Destiny 2, Overwatch 2, Remnant 2, Left4Dead 2, (I’m seeing a pattern here), and Deep Rock Galactic.
check out Supreme Commander, it’s a game from the erra of good RTSes, and I think has some of the features you’re taking about, e.g. beforehand of multiple bases, automation… you can do things like produce x units, send them to this area, have them start doing this patrol, etc. You can pause the game, to make these orders too. My favorite gimmick though, is that the map is zoomable, from a classic here’s your dudes and tanks view, up into a strategic view with icons representing everything. This also opens up the ability to have units be different sizes. vehicles are appropriately larger than infantry, and you can have giant mechs to which other units are literally ants.
one thing i’d be interested in: is it possible to make a fun 4X-style game that challenges the very premises of 4X (which are mostly patterned after the models of expansion we’re familiar with in the West)?
I think it would probably become “2X” in that case, given the “exploit” and “exterminate” parts. :P
Against the Storm is sort of a citybuilder/ 4X hybrid, that’s all about a bunch of fantasy species (humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies) working together to reclaim the world from this (un)natural blight.
The Bustling World is an RPG/ Citybuilder/ 4X hybrid that looks pretty interesting, but is not out yet.
I can’t really think of a 4X that leans towards the Grand Strategy side, that isn’t pretty combat-heavy. Distant Worlds: Universe can be played without focusing on combat, but it’s definitely still there.
If you want pausable combat and a logistics focus, the Hearts of Iron games might be interesting to you. They're pseudo-real-time in that things happen on an counter that ticks forward once per in-game hour of the day (so the results of two units fighting, a diplomatic message being sent, construction on a building), but you can speed up, slow down, or pause however you wish. If you want to zip along at a few seconds of real time per day in game, cool. Want to slow things down to a few seconds per in game hour instead? Also fine. Need to pause while you read a description? Also fine.
I’m a huge fan of Borderlands so would recommend that and I’m also a huge fan of Halo, the Master Cheif Collection is an absolute bargain considering what you get. Your brother with the Xbox will need to get Game Pass of some sort to join in for any games that are not free to play. Halo Infinite is free to play and has a PvE game mode, if that tickles your fancy.
If you want to play against each other, there's always fighting games, if you're into that. I'd recommend Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter 6, and Tekken 8, which are the most popular fighting games right now. There's also Mortal Kombat 1 but I haven't played it, so I can't comment on it.
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