Hello everyone
I recently upgraded my PC and I’m excited to explore new games that can take advantage of my improved hardware. Previously, my old PC was limited, and I had to be selective about the games I played. I also have a Steam Deck, but I’m looking for offline single-player experiences on my PC.
I’m looking for games that offer an unforgettable experience and high replay value. I enjoy open-world games that give me the freedom to explore, similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I know it’s not a PC game, but it gives you an idea of my playstyle.
Here are some games I’ve enjoyed in the past:
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - My favorite game, I love the freedom to explore without being bound to quests.
• Far Cry 3 - Great open-world experience that didn’t get boring.
• NieR: Automata - Engaging story, but it got a bit repetitive.
• Scarlet Nexus - Great story, high replay value, and a beautiful world, although it can be repetitive.
• ULTRAKILL - Challenging and high replay value.
• Portal 2 - High replay value.
• Portal 1 - Enjoyed it, but didn’t love it.
• Subnautica - Absolutely loved it.
• The Witcher 3 - Didn’t enjoy it, but I’m giving it another try soon.
• Doom Eternal - Liked it.
• Horizon Zero Dawn - It’s an average game, with a mid-story and a beautiful world.
For me, a good story is often the top priority, but I also enjoy games like Breath of the Wild where I can relax and play without thinking too hard.
If you’re curious about my specs, here they are:
New PC:
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• RAM: 64GB DDR5 Memory
Old PC: • GPU: AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.50GHz
• RAM: 4GB DDR3 Memory
I’d appreciate any game recommendations that fit my preferences.
Edit: Thanks already for the recommendations, I might also add, that I love the Halo games. Except the newer ones.
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Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk
Ghost of Tsushima is amazing! I’m not usually the biggest open world fan, but that one really worked for me
Honestly I thought Valhalla was pretty meh…
It’s not a bad game, I just didn’t find it interesting enough to keep me engaged.
Sorry didn’t even finish reading yet. You thought nier was repetitive?! Like maybe if you playing through it again to get the other endings but damn that first playthrough is a fresh experience. As you progress it feels like a different genre. Shit was great.
Sounds like somebody didn’t see all the endings. Seriously though, Yoko Taro loves bullying gamers and there is a lot of painful grinding involved in some of the endings - the scrapyard, flower, and fishing side quests particularly come to mind. Oh, and the one side quest where the item is right outside the door to the final bosses, so you have to go through the final dungeon, backtrack through the dungeon to turn in the quest, then go through the final dungeon again to get to the final fights.
I found the combat to be quite annoying personally, so I can see where this is coming from. And having to replay for other endings was also annoying. I ended up just looking up the endings
You might want to check out Red Dead Redemption 2 in story mode. The graphics and physics are pretty incredible. It’s a little old now, but I think it still holds up well, especially if you like the “old west cowboy” aesthetic.
Thanks for the suggestion. Might be a hot take, but what I dislike about Red Dead Redemption 2 and also Horizon Zero Dawn is that it is like a movie. Just a cutscene after another and I feel like that you aren’t really free in RDR2. But I didn’t play it so it might be better than expected!
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Prey (2017). Good FPS gameplay with RPG mechanics, incredibly detailed semi-open world, emphasizes exploration and player freedom.
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Watch Dogs 2. Above average for an Ubisoft game. Great open world that emphasizes player freedom.
Honorable mentions that you’ve probably already considered: Cyberpunk 2077, Control, Alan Wake 2
Prey looks great, and I think I will like it very much. Judging from the Steam review’s it’s very versatile which I like.
Watch Dogs 2 Also looks very cool. The story peek from the Trailers looks like it matches with my overall interests. The trailer really hooked me, but I’m still looking through other suggestions, thanks.
I have bought Cyberpunk right after Release, but then after watching some reviews, it just waited in my Drawer (physical copy). Because of that mishap from CD Projekt Red, I’m a little hesitant on that. I know that the patch is out, but I somehow not ready to play it yet.
Control seems promising, but I feel like the story is Whack. Guessing by the name, it seems like I can control everything, so that has some appeal.
Alan Wake 2 seems interesting, but not as compelling as Prey or Watch Dogs 2.
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Outer wilds
Outer wilds does sound like a really fun game. Thanks.
Outer Wilds is an unforgettable experience, but has very low replayability. Everything is knowledge based, and playing the game means figuring everything out for the first time (so be sure not to look anything up).
But it’s all exploration, it has an excellent story, and I would recommend it to anyone.
outer wilds outer wilds outer wilds
Remember outer WILDS, which is distinct from outer WORLDS.
Red Dead Redemption 2 will probably hit all the nerves. Open beautiful world that still hasn’t been matched by another game.
The Spider-Man games are also great and Spider-Man 2 is just around the corner.
And Path of Exile 2 is currently all the rage even though it’s still in early access.
And when you still have time you can play Baldur’s Gate 3, first game to win Game of the Year in all contests.
Thanks for the recommendations.
Spiderman does look interesting, but I don’t know. I guess I’m searching for another Zelda:BotW. Which isn’t Tears of the Kingdom. I really like that game, since it’s the only one where I am free, not bound to some quests or something. I can go anywhere I would like in every order I want to and so on. I just think that the Spiderman Games aren’t as freeing.
Path of Exile 2 looks fascinating, since I haven’t really played a good Dungeon Crawler in a long time.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is definitely on my list, but I think to understand it properly I need lots of time, so I will put that aside for now.
I guess I’m searching for another Zelda:BotW. Which isn’t Tears of the Kingdom.
I’m confused by this. TotK is very much just BotW but with more. The construction mechanism is really fun, the three overlapping maps are cool, it’s a good time. You get to see how the world of BotW has changed in the intervening time, and being able to make hover cycles to fly around the world is awesome.
TotK isn’t as freeing. At my first blind playthrough, I casually went for the wind temple just to find out that you need a quest to go there and have a bird NPC character to always follow you that is just in your way, but you need it to complete the game and advance. In BotW. I could just head for Vah Medoh, complete it and then head to the gerudo village.
Edit: The underground is just really empty, and the sky has a few islands, which is kind of disappointing since I’ve waited at least 5 years for the sequel.
SHEEPY
Just played through it, nice and cute little game. Thanks.
Someone else has said Baldurs Gate 3, and I second that. Great game.
Not sure if automation/building is exactly your tastes, but satisfactory is a good one.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is, as someone already stated, I think a huge investment. I think it isn’t a Game where I can just go and play, but I think it is more like a game I need to actively think and have more than two hours to get back in. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Satisfactory is awesome, but since the 4th Update or so it has become too advanced for me.
But thanks for the recommendations
As a huge baulders gate fan that has finished the game about 5 times, I would say that’s a mostly correct characterization. If you play on the easiest settings, then yeah you can totally drop in and out while enjoying the story. But anything beyond that will need either some tactical planning or doing research on best builds.
My favorite game is Descent, I just wish I had the hardware to play the successor, Overload…
Holy crap, a successor got released?!
I remember when the alpha was melting down years ago!
I loved D1. 2 & 3 weren’t that great, but something about that original game really stuck with me
Wait, what about D2 bothered you? Was it that stupid thief bot? If so, yeah totally agreed, that addition sucks, but the rest of D2 is awesome to me. I even got the source code and compiled it to run natively on Linux.
By the way, that damn thief bot, yeah… nothing ever brought me greater satisfaction than killing that slick fast bastard in the game!
As much as I hated the thief (and catching it early in each level was a priority!), I recognised it as a good mechanic.
My problem was the level complexity in d2 and 3 - it just got too tedious and hard to navigate which killed the fun. The annoyung guidebot was absolutely necessary!
Indeed, the game can be rather tricky to navigate. The guide bot was a really neat addition, but even without that, you do know Descent from day one has a map mode that shows areas you’ve explored right?
Oh for sure, I did plenty of level building. The d1 map mode was so hard to read when the wireframe layers occluded each other though (can’t remember what it looked like in some!)
Ah, you actually bothered with the level builder? I never quite got that deep into it, but I’ve looked into it, might even have a copy of that buried somewhere on an old backup HDD.
I never found the extra free time to try that out though, I just stuck with the stock levels.
Yeah, when I was a teenager a bunch of us went off the deep end in school. It was crazy complex, though! Gave me a huge respect for the amount of work that goes into things (especially the high polygon stuff! I’ve really no idea how it works nowadays though…)
Yes indeed, absolutely! I was able to test it on my shitty laptop for a short moment, and the graphics are absolutely amazing, even at lowest quality and resolution.
Sadly I only got like 3 frames per second on my piece of shit laptop, and I can’t afford to build a high end rig these days. ☹️
Still, an absolutely amazing game, if your hardware can properly handle it…
You’ve got a nice new pc and if you want to play something like BOTW, you might enjoy Red Dead Redemption 2. BOTW was also my favorite game of all time until i played rdr2. RDR has similiar mechanics to breath of the wild, like hunting, but the whole world is just so lively, immersive, and beautiful. I can’t think of a single issue with the game, it’s a true 10/10, can’t praise it enough.
I also recommend any other rockstar game, specifically gta v and max payne 3, they are both great as well.
If you want an FPS experience, play the original call of duty modern warfare games first, MW2019 next, then black ops 1-3+cold war+6. I wouldn’t recommend new mw2 or 3.
I’ll also say the Metro games are great, they are like post-apocalyptic COD with a great story and nice gameplay. Super underrated series.
Edit: I have a specific taste for shooter games, so I’d suggest you read other comments if you are into other genres.
Uhh disagree with RDR2. There was an issue where I couldn’t see the game very well due to tears in my eyes. They really have to patch that out.
I haven’t even finished RDR2 yet, I got to the epilogue but then quit. I’ll finish it someday soon.
You gotta at least get to the house song!!
Factorio
It ain’t called Cracktorio for nuthin’!
And then after you get wore out on factorio, you can try factorio mods. Between the two it should hold you over for forever.
You’d probably enjoy cyberpunk 2077
I finished it a few months ago and their launch did the game dirty. Absolutely gorgeous game with a compelling interesting story. Big time recommend!
No Man’s Sky - One of the most beautiful games out there imo, and has vastly improved since its disasterous launch. Warning this one does require an internet connection (actually for a good reason) but you dont have to interact with anyone, and it’s difficult to even encounter another player in the wild outside of the Anomaly hub and campaigns due to its sheer size.
Project Zomboid - Even if you have zero interest in zombie stuff it’s still worth a shot. Has a massive detailed world based off Midwestern towns in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. It’s still in development so there’s some noticeably unfinished aspects, and they’ve only just begun to add non-zombie NPCs.
I actually played No Man’s Sky at launch, and honestly I didn’t think that it was such a disaster. But I haven’t played recently but I will pick it up again.
I’ve enjoyed watching YouTube Videos about Project Zomboid, so I think I will like it. Thanks.
The new Indiana Jones is great
Baldurs Gate 3 seems like a no brainer
Not open world at all. As a fan of all the games OP mentioned, I give Baldur’s Gate 3 a pretty low score due to its linear physical world.
OP said story was their main priority.
They did indeed say that was often their priority. Is for me too. And you’re right, it has a decent story for sure, and replay value for that matter given how easily you can change the story radically.
For real. It took me a minute to get into it but once I understood how to play it really blew me away. Excellent story, great art, fun tactical fighting.
