I think this is a whole genre now. I believe Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation called them “dad games” (in the process of finding out he enjoyed them a lot) – there may be plot and/or violence, but the core gameplay loop is learning to do a complicated job.
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The Fuel Rats! Yes, they’re a player faction who just turn up and save people. Very cool.
It is FAR too complex, and explains almost none of it. I’m getting good at mining and exploring, haven’t a CLUE how combat works.
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After spending like, 200 hours playing Cyberpunk: 2077 over September, October and part of November, I have spent about another 200+ hours since then playing Gunfire Reborn on Steam.
Not normally a rogue-like/lite kinda person, but there’s just something about Gunfire’s core loop that has really clicked with me in a way I did not expect. Tried it initially on Game Pass, but moved over to Steam when that version had issues for a friend–probably a good thing too, the console version is running a much older version of the game.
It has a lot of different characters who all play reasonably different, the between-run progression is solid but the mid -run progression is great. Most of the characters have multiple viable ways to play them, especially if you play with a group.
Playing solo on the higher difficulties can force you to lean more towards one or two builds, but there’s still been enough variety for me.
Plays great solo, and with 2,3 or 4 people, and best of all for a parent like me, when playing solo, I can pause. I also love that once a room is cleared out, nothing spawns there, so that’s also useful when my daughter wakes up at night and I have to go tend to her.
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I played a ton of King Arthur Knight’s Tale a turn based crpg though the focus is very much on the battles. I love that genre, turn based strategy games are my favs. It is a good one, can recommend 
I also finished Eternal Threads, a time travel detective game if you want to call it that. You have to help prevent 6 people from dying in a fire by learning about them and changing their decisions. If you like stuff like Return of the Obra Dinn you should enjoy this one too (though Obra Dinn is much better ofc 
).
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I finished As Dusk Falls on Game Pass and found it to be a very good interactive movie game. Decisions who really matter, a good story and voice actors. And no annoying walking around like in the Telltales games.
Been playing some Against the Storm, the mini settlement builder that keeps resetting. It’s interesting, but I’m still waiting for the challenge to kick in. It provides the illusion of tension, but it seems almost impossible to fail, and that’s not good for a roguelite. I just seem to be grinding bonus to counter the difficulty increases that I unlock…
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I’ve been rediscovering my love of CRPG’s lately. As such I can highly recommend Wasteland 3, Solasta and Expeditions: Rome.
Wasteland 3 feels a lot like they deliberately addressed many of the issues I had with 2. The power curve is a little weird though - by the late game on normal I felt completely overpowered in all the encounters (though I did talk my way out of the final boss fight (and I’m always pleased when that’s an option)). And some great covers on that soundtrack!
Solasta I’ve finished my first play of the main campaign. It was a lot of fun - very faithful recreation of 5e D&D combat. It does feel a bit like a series of combat missions though - it’s a little light on the actual roleplaying. It’s not very polished and the writing is pretty amateurish though. But my fondness for 5e has led me to pick up all the DLC and contemplate tackling some of the custom campaigns folks have made for it, so there’s that.
Expeditions: Rome, I haven’t touched the others in this series (honestly I didn’t even know they existed before now…) but I’ve been super pleasantly surprised by how compelling they’ve made this historically themed RPG. I’m only a half dozen hours or so in but so far it’s been really interesting. Great encounter design too - definitely lots of more interesting missions than just ‘kill all the enemies’. I bought the gladiator dlc for it but am yet to find a gladiator among the companions or praetorians (though I did opt for the final companion to be a gladiator, so it’s probably not far off).
I’ve also picked up Baldur’s Gate 3, and am pleased to find that it is ‘Baldur’s Gatey’ (though the D&D implementation is far better than the originals) and not just Divinity OS 3. I’ve been pretty strict about not overplaying it beyond detemining that I am excited for it’s full release later this year.
Oh and Bug Fables is a charming Paper Mario inspired rpg I’ve been playing on the side.
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Expeditions Rome is indeed a great game, loved it a lot. The Expeditions Vikings is on my wishlist, saving it for the moment when I want another crpg.
I play King Arthur: Knight’s Tale right now which is another great crpg. It is based on the Arthur mythology which I like a lot. So if you enjoy Expeditions Rome, you can go for that one too.
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Playing Divinity: Original Sin 2, and also just bought Disco Elysium. Managed to not die in the first room… on my second attempt.
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I loved DE although I bounced off it on my first try. Very happy to be the sorriest cop ever.
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I went and had a look on Steam… that game’s looking really promising. Made me want to play D&D again (and we had had a D&D library family friendly session that same afternoon). “Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!!!”
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One of my favorite moments in my time around D&D was discovering that there really is a D&D creature that is a giant space hamster, so Boo really is a miniature one.
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I don’t know about previous editions, but in 5e, giant space hamsters are beasts, while miniature ones are monstrosities.
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Never mind, the new movie trailer opened a can of worms with the tiefling druid turning into an owlbear, which isn’t a beast but a monstrosity…
Plus there is fact that was never cleared. Was Boo actually a normal hamster? We will never know…
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I am now about 4 hours into Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and enjoying the heck outta it.
What is it with open-world RPGs? Witcher, Cyberpunk, Assassin’s Creed… even the Mass Effect series (although those are significantly less “open world” than most). They’re just my jam. Give me a big ol’ playground with a story and boom, I’m a happy customer.
I’m liking this one more than AC: Origins, although if I had to say why I’d have difficulty… and, correspondingly, I think I like AC: Odysseus a little more thus far?
Ah, I know what it is: the water. The first chapter of AC:V takes place in Norway, and you’re constantly jumping into rivers and lakes. You should freeze your butt off. It removed a bit too much suspension of disbelief. And the story in AC:Origins was a bit too ambitious. The scope was too broad, and the ending still felt rushed.
Who knows. I am still newly arrived in England so the game has yet many hours to disappoint me.
Oh, and AC:V is right at the bleeding edge of too new for my computer. It can barely handle the game on “Medium” (which is really “Less Low”, because there are 5 settings and it’s the 2nd lowest). Which is a damned shame. It’s gorgeous even on the setting I can handle.
Need to get a new computer. That’s not in the cards for who-knows-how-long, but until then… definitely having fun with this one.
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I finished AC: Valhalla (as much as one finishes such an open world game) a few weeks ago. It was really fun, though you don’t really feel like an assassin at all through the game, as you can just plow through your enemies with axe, sword, or flail.
OT: After AC:V, I have been bouncing between Gotham Knights and Sifu. GK gets a bit repetitive in the combat, but I am really enjoying the story.
Sifu, on the other hand, is incredibly challenging because of how precise you need to be in each fight. The rogue like aspect of it, where you only unlock skills for the current run (barring upgrading them a total of 5 times, after which it becomes permanent) keeps you replaying previous stages, trying to get through with fewer and fewer deaths. Really cool game!
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After conquering nearly the whole map with Carthage, I got bored of Rome Total War Remastered, and I uninstalled it. I replaced it with Total War War of the Three Kingdoms, which I bought a few weeks ago on a Steam sale or other.
So far I am enjoying it, the much needed boost on the diplomacy section works better here (even though I thought there was and improvement on the original, Rome Remastered still was a bit simplistic). The theme brings back memories from the original Shogun, and so far I have enjoyed the first few seasons, I love how well you can tell apart the seasonal changes on the map.
I went with Liu Bei, and after an easy early expansion, Cao Cao has started being aggressive from the South, capturing 3 of my provinces before I could do much to get to the fright (I was far North by the coast expanding my territories there). I have managed to get my main army to the warzone, and it has become a back and forward where I feel way more challenged on the main map strategy that I have been before by any game from the series. I think I am tipping the balance of the war in my favour, but it has been a nice struggle, with a couple of epic victories from my smaller armies(and pyrrhic, on one of them I lost my main character spouse and gain a rival for life) .
I am playing the Romance version, where the general/heroes have a lot more weight on the actual combat. I have enjoyed the duels and the pre-duel challenges so far, and even if they are a bit OP against the normal troops, I welcomed the change. In the end, it let’s you romanticize a little bit the story, and why wouldn’t you? It adds to the narrative, it adds to the build up of the character, and it does not decrease the fun… Up till now generals were merely a bunch of stats 99% of the time.
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(Had I grown up in China I’d have done this stuff at school, but…)
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Oooh, I have to watch that…
GRIS on my phone. It’s great.