Gaming

I am going to recommend, perhaps, my favorite game of all time, Outer Wilds from the studio Mobius Games.

But please please promise to go in completely blind. Your awareness and knowledge of the world is the key mechanic, so almost any info not only spoils the mystery, but also robs you of literal measurable minutes in gameplay.

All I can say - it is a very touching first-person immersive stimulation game in space about, essentially, alien archeology. Expect wonder, discovery, some frights, have your mind completely blown every 10-20 minutes. It will probably make you cry a couple times as well.

It is one of those games when, after finishing it, you immediately get sad because you will never experience it again in the same way. So you start annoying everyone into playing it, just to enjoy discussing it and seeing someone else play.

And the DLC is equally awesome.

Right now is a great time for PC gaming as the Steam summer sale is happening! If you enjoyed Portal, you might enjoy other Valve games like Half Life. At the moment, you can pick the franchise up for a few dollars.

Morrowind is a fantastic game even if its clunky by modern standards, def use OpenMW and a UESP guide tho.

Both Knights of the Old Republic games are great (the second is a lot better imo) if yr into star wars.

With Those we Love Alive is a surrealist hypertext game with an awesome creepy ambient soundtrack.

Journey, Spiritfarer, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us.

I will never not recommend Subnautica.

It's a brilliant game, probably my all time favourite. I wish I could play it again for the first time.

If you have never played the Halo games, they are worth it too, Halo 1 to Halo Reach are fantastic.

• Spiritfarer link
• Eastshade link
• Grim Dawn
• Morrowind
• Freelancer
• GreedFall
• Stardew Valley
• Witcher 3
• Kynseed link
• Divinity: Original Sin 2

I'm a diehard firewatch fan if you'd like a slightly spooky, heart full, storytelling masterpiece about the Wyoming forest. Everyone should play this game at some point.

If you liked Portal, any of the games that run on the source engine would be a good fit for you. Half Life 2 has an amazing single player story in FPS style and is on sale right now for $.99. Left for Dead 2 is another classic - probably the best zombie shooter of all time (and has a world of third party content) - also on sale right now for $.99. Straight military, go for CS:GO, or Team Fortress II if you prefer more of a Fortnite style game. All of these are older games, so run amazingly well on even the most mediocre hardware.

• Disco Elysium
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Sayonara Wild Hearts
• Gorogoa (really pretty much anything by Annapurna)
• Stardew Valley
• Night in the Woods
• Gris
• Firewatch
• Slime Rancher
• Oxenfree
• Fallout 3
• Fallout: New Vegas (Fallout series isn't so much about great stories though)
• The Witcher 3 (Pretty good story, but imo it's more focused on world building)
• A Short Hike

More games that are more about gameplay then story:

• Factorio
• Satisfactory
• Deep Rock Galactic (Rock and stone!)
• Goat Simulator
• Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
• Townscaper
• Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel (maybe 1 as well, avoid 3)
• Papers, Please
• Tomb Raider
• The Stanley Parable

I highly recommend Hades! It's a top-notch game with excellently balanced combat (and I say this as someone who doesn't really like combat in video games), an awesome story, and outstanding art direction and voice acting. Because of its structure as a roguelite, you're restarting every time you die but getting a little further every time, so it basically trains you up. It really made other combat games much more accessible to me. Plus you can use God Mode to lower the learning curve a bit while still keeping it moderately challenging.

Doom Eternal. So smooth for an FPS.

An FPS with a grand story, play Mass Effect if you haven't already.

I cant believe nobody has recommended any of the Fallout games. New Vegas is much loved and I really enjoyed Fallout 3 as well. I havent played either of the new ones, but I think especially 4 was well received.

Based on your description and games played I'd say "Furi" and "Transistor". Second is made by Supergiant Games and all thier stuff is fantastic. I loved thier stories and the gameplay was unique in each.

I tend to stick to games with interesting stories, with occasional exceptions if the gameplay is good enough.

Top pick from me before anything else would be The Last of Us Part 1 & 2.

Other than that, some I've enjoyed the most that come to mind are

• Bioshock. I haven't played the remaster yet, just the original. Bioshock Infinite was also heaps of fun. I haven't played 2 yet, it's on my backlog - I've read it was made by a different team.
• Alien Isolation.
• Resident Evil 4 (I've only played the 2005 version, not the recent remake).
• The Turing Test.
• X-Com Enemy Unknown.
• What Remains of Edith Finch.
• Horizon: Zero Dawn.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum + City + Origins + Knight.
• The Talos Principle.
• Prey (2017, not the original Prey which has nothing to do with it as far as I know).
• Dishonored.

The Uncharted series is also great, but only 4 and The Lost Legacy are on PC. I'm not sure I'd recommend playing it without having played at least 2 and 3, which are only on PlayStation currently. 1 is fun but dated and the story is not as strong as the later games (but I'd still recommend it if you get the chance to play 1-3).

Hades

Just to add a amazing story game but with no words and a shorter time investment:

• Stray

If you love cats and robots, well worth the time

If you are on PC and have never check them out, I totally suggest checking out NIS games as they almost always have a fun story mixed with humor as well as some really heart wrenching things you accompany the characters on.

If you just want something super relaxing give Stardew Valley a try. It's cute but all the characters have some real depth to them.

Skyrim! It's fun, it's immersive, and you can have as much or as little combat and quests as you like.

If you liked Hollow Knight, check out the Ory series. Will of the Wisps was amazing.

I got really drawn into the Plague Tale games. Playing both of them back to back is truly an experience.

You also can't go wrong with Disco Elysium if you like reading and absurdity.

Omori is a great RPG with forgettable gameplay but an unforgettable story.

Ultrakill is an excellent shooter with fast pacing, unique mechanics, and difficulty that is hard but rarely unfair.

Satisfactory is a factory building simulator which is pretty similar to Factorio, but a bit more chill and in 3D.

If you want good story in an amazing game, definitely check out red dead.

If you want story-focused, and you're good with retro graphics and semi-turn-based role-playing games, consider the Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster. That right there is the gold standard of Japanese RPGs.

Horizon zero dawn. It's got great game play, story, and voice acting. I don't usually like 3rd person or fps games, but this one got me.

FPS wise System Shock just had a remake come out and it is great, Bioshock is another one that is a spiritual successor that is a classic.

In a totally different direction, the Final Fantasy series is big on story. VII is the most famous and one I'd say everyone should play. Not everyone enjoys the Japanese RPG style though.

Planescape: Torment is a western RPG, or cRPG and it is just piles and piles of story. Don't bother if you don't like to read, but it is one of the best written games out there.

The suggestion for the Mass Effect series is also great, I don't finish too many games but I've finished the first 3 in that series, 1 and 2 are really good.

You've clearly already got a heap of comments, but fwiw, I recommend trying Xbox PC Game Pass for a month - you can subscribe and immediately cancel so it doesn't auto-renew.

Game Pass has flaws, for sure, but it can be great for just trying a whole bunch of different things you might not normally take a risk or or expect to like, so it can be great for figuring out what you like or expanding your genre horizons.

And there are lots of shorter, story-based games on there that you can play all the way through and finish, and probably won't want to replay for a while because there are so many other games to try, so if you play even one or two of those it's a great value for $9.99 a month imo.

@s0phia world of tanks and age of empires 2 DE

CTRL+F "Minecraft," surprised I'm the first to say it.

Mass Effect Trilogy, Skyrim, Doom(2016 and eternal), Xcom EW and 2, FF7R, Sekiro, Marvels Spiderman, Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassins Creed, Metro Trilogy, Dishonored, Deus Ex, Batman Arkham Trilogy, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, The Witcher Trilogy, Sleeping Dogs, GTA 4 and 5, Hitman World of Assassination, Resident Evil Remakes, and Cyberpunk 2077.

Little Big Adventure, 1 and 2.

roguelikes and rpgs are my favorite genre, but if you're not into adapting to potentially more unfair gameplay, and game play loops that are put in the same "framework", then I'd suggest staying away from roguelikes for now.

if they still sound appealing, I'd recommend Hades! it's one of my favorites, and honestly I really like Supergiant Games in general, Bastion was one of the first games I ever completed on PC.

I really like Stardew Valley and feel it's worth a try for everyone.

I will always recommend my favorite series, the Persona games, which have recently come to PC! Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal are both there, though Persona 3 is my favorite. I would avoid the Persona 3 in Steam for right now however, as a remake is coming out that looks amazing. please note that the Persona games have some...not so great moments, like in 5 there's the option to romance your teacher, but in 4 there's Kanji Tatsumi (one of my favorite video game characters of all time) and Naoto Shirogane, who are both really well written, and to me personally, feel LGBT+ because of how they're portrayed.

A Plague Tale: innocence is currently part of the steam summer sale and a great game. It's an action adventure with light stealth gameplay and puzzle sections, but what makes it special are the well acted characters. The sequel is just as good and i played both back to back, but innocence costs less than 10 bucks right now.

It's a rather short game (~12 hours for a play through) but that was time well spent.

Good stories: Witcher 3, Dishonored (starting from the first game), God of War

Extremely fun: Payday 2 (or wait for 3rd), Splatoon 3

If you like Hollow Knight check out Dead Cellshttps://store.steampowered.com/app/588650/Dead_Cells/ It's currently reduced in the steam summer sale.

Ori and the blind forest https://store.steampowered.com/app/261570/ori_and_the_blind_forest/ is also very good, many not as hardcore as Hollow Knight, but equally beautiful.

Some old story classics: BioShock (play 1 then the others if you like 1 enough), Mass Effect, Half Life 2 (You don't need to play 1 first).

The Mario RPG franchise is very good actually, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and Super Mario RPG being my favorites. I've heard good things about Paper Mario too.

Oh and the Earthbound series is very good too, but the Mario franchise is more beginner friendly.

I'll throw out 2 very different suggestions: Disco Elysium and Ghostrunner. Disco is a super interesting game, I can't recommend it enough. Get it on sale and don't be surprised if it takes a bit to click, it took me about 3 tries to actually get into it. Ghostrunner you get to be a cyberninja, its dope. Very fast paced, very technical but once you get the flow down you feel like a god.

I got my missus into gaming by playing Diablo 3 and Borderlands in co-op with her, then she started playing on her own - The Witcher 3, the three most recent Assassin's Creed games, Hogwarts Legacy and more