Patient Gamers

No game has ever affected me as much as Outer Wilds. Out of every life changing piece of art I've ever experienced, whether it be film, television, music, literature, or videogames, this is the first and only time I've ever gotten chills by the end.

The story isn't super deep and it isn't necessarily profound -- it's not really a belief-changer, outside of, perhaps, your idea of what a videogame is -- but the experience itself is beautiful and rewarding and I'm not sure it can be recaptured.

SOMA. Duplicating consciousness across multiple bodies and the branching off of one particular conscious mind to carry the narrative while the others were left behind was a fascinating concept for a game to engage with. Plus the atmosphere was a sublime nightmare.

My game time is limited so I play what I hope to be most impactful. My list is chock full of unforgettable experiences:

• Control
• RDR2
• Uncharted
• Dead Space
• God of War
• Ori and The Will of the Wisps
• Disco Elysium
• The Artful Escape
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Gris

The first three I’d say there was life before and then life after. The rest, I wouldn’t want to miss if I had a redo in life.

For me its Subnautica because the progression works so well. I've tried lots of survival games and sandbox games with similar progression afterwards, but none of them had the same impact on me. It's also because of the genre - Sci-fi on an alien planet, discovering what actually happened, and all that baked into some real satisfying gaming loop. Also, without spoilers, the end sequence always makes me emotional, regardless of how many times I've played it. It just speaks to me on a personal level.

Another vote for outer wilds. Its weird how often it pops into my head.

Games that play with metanarratives stick with me:

• Beginner's Guide
• The Stanley Parable (Ultra Deluxe especially)
• Break The Game really stuck with me the ending especially.

I think "What Remains of Edith Finch" traumatized me to this day.

Some games have already been posted, so I’ll share two games that really stuck with me:

• Life is Strange
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

I could mention Persona 5 Royal, but it’s such a hugely popular game so there’s no need to elaborate.

Life is Strange took me on a mystery journey, and I felt such nostalgia for my early days as a teenager. It’s an old game, but I won’t spoil it here. I’ll give a small plot. You’re Max Caufield, and you’ve returned to Arcadia Bay and see your old best friend, Chloe Price, whom you haven’t spoken to in years. She gets into some crazy stuff and Chloe is about to be shot by another student, but Max intervenes and discovers she has the power to rewind time, allowing her to save Chloe’s life. There’s an underlying mystery in Arcadia Bay where another young girl mysteriously disappeared, and Max and Chloe team up to try to find her.

Hellblade allowed me to experience what psychosis is like, through the lens of the main character, Senua. This game is unforgettable. Senua needs to save her lover, without letting the rot that’s festering inside her to consume her. That's all I’ll say about this gem.

Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I've heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.

I will forever rave about CrossCode, an indy game I found on gamejolt in 2016. It's a top-down JRPG with great action, a cool parkour mechanic, and really pretty pixel art. It officially released in 2018, and it's one of my favorite games of all time.

• Limbo
• The Long Dark
• What remains of Edith Finch
• Subnautica
• Ape Out
• Fire Watch
• Prey
• Hitman 1,2,3

There's nothing like a great story married to good gameplay and simple yet beautiful and effecting visuals. I guess also a small but skilled team of developers with common focus.

Outer Wilds.

Gris and Subnautica. For different reasons, they made me feel things I didn't think I could feel while playing video games anymore.

I think Final Fantasy 7 and 10. the worlds were so well build. And in current times of terror, climate crisis, wars, so many topics were in the games.

As other games i mention Limbo, Ori and Hollow Knight. The have a really great athmosphere. Just thinking about these games, makes me remember of the feeling playing them.

And the biggest game in my list is Elden Ring. So many wow things in there. And the shear amount of content ... Just blew my mind.

Nier Automata

The Last of Us

Undertale

Prey 2017

Rollercoaster Tycoon. What was a silly little game which we got for free out of a cereal box is now a main stay on any computer I own. Runs on everything and has aged incredibility well.

Shoutout to OpenRCT2 for modernizing it, even if the original games run fine as is

I have many choices but here's a few that really stand out to me

1. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine If you've played just the base game of Witcher 3, you've missed out. I decided after playing the base game and waiting for a couple years that I'd go back for the DLC. I spent upwards of 100+ hours with this game on the hardest difficulty and the story in the base game is long, engrossing, and whimsical. But at the end you aren't really completely satisfied despite several moving moments. Enter the DLC of Blood and Wine though and now you're basically in The Witcher 3 part 2. This is where you leave the baggage of the main game behind and play out the best ending to any character I've ever seen. It's full of adventure and new sights to see, its full of interesting characters to meet, and it captures the sense of love that Geralt has for the other characters. I legitimately cried at the end of the epic adventure when you sit down next to Ciri and just.. realize that its over. Every good book I've ever read makes you really feel an empty heart to see the last page and read the final words on it. It felt just like that and I was sad to leave that world behind.

2. Kingdom Hearts Series Just an incredible game series that appears almost made for children but turns into a very convoluted and at times extremely beautiful story. Whats so wild about it is that the story is somewhat complex but the emotions throughout are so simple, pure, and understandable. It gets to the core of what we all feel and makes cartoons of our emotions and never leaves that space. And the music matched with those emotions is just the purest art.

3. To The Moon Its short, its sweet, it has great music, go play it and bring tissues. Its a sad tale with very simple gameplay but I listen to the soundtrack once in a while to this day and I never stop thinking about the themes of this game. What exists in this game is so thoughtful, thought provoking, understandable, and most importantly human. I can't discuss the story at all without spoiling it but just go play it. It takes a few hours and I recommend never leaving your seat for the whole thing. You can probably even just watch it be played on youtube without commentary and get 95% of the experience.

Personally I have to mention The Talos Principle and its sequel. It has helped me formulate a kind of philosophy of mind that I couldn't entirely grasp before. It's also just an absolute masterpiece of a puzzle game. If you've played portal, you'll enjoy Talos too most likely.

I’m really surprised that nobody’s mentioned The Last of Us yet. It really used the uncommon technique of changing POV to really suck me in to its storyline. Right from the start when Joel’s daughter dies in the tutorial it was a gut punch as I had ‘been’ her just a few minutes ago. But the whole story was so immersive I found by the end I was really engaged with the characters and their stories. Spoilers for the end of The Last of Us if you’ve not played or watched the series. In the last big action piece in the Fireflies Hospital on my first play through I shot both the nurses in cold blood because I was so upset about what was happening. I like to think of myself as a ok person, at least better then the kind of guy who’d do that but in the heat of the moment I was so angry I totally empathise with Joel and his desire to kill everyone threatening Elly.

For me it would have to be BioShock infinite the gameplay, story, characters everything about it was amazing to me.

There are certainly a lot of games I remember fondly; but ever since ~~I first played~~ I clicked with Dark Souls, it, its sequels, and the spin-offs have stuck with me. Consumed me. I have put hundreds of hours into every single one. Seen everything I can see, done everything you can do, including the DLC that just came out for Elden Ring and I still. Want. More!

Oneshot, Undertale, Mother 2 and 3 are games I think about years after playing them, great worlds and characters. Super Metroid too, the ambience alone still strikes a chord with me.

My big three are Outer Wilds which at this point barely needs mentioning, Disco Elysium which seems to be getting more famous by the day, and Hollow Knight.

Outer wilds is an exploration game, and if the other comments haven't been clear, that's all I'm saying.

Disco Elysium is an unbelievably dense police procedural set in a unique setting, it can also be fantastic to explore without hearing much beforehand but unlike outer wilds, you don't really need to beat yourself up for looking up the occasional piece of lore.

Hollow Knight is a souls-like metroidvania, so it's ticking the Sekiro / Dark Souls box well.

I got about 90% through the game with only a rough understanding of the lore before ending up watching video essays about it and I was absolutely blown away. I don't think the lore is overly difficult to find, and isn't that complicated, but like FromSoft's games, it's not always delivered in a way that you naturally pick it up.

I play a lot of games with the "media literacy" part of my brain firmly switched off, because often games handhold you through the storytelling. With Disco Elysium, you know from the getgo that it's a pay attention kind of game, but Hollow Knight, it sort of feels like a storyless flash game, and sometimes key lore is delivered in a beautiful set piece or creature design, so I only realised I should have been paying attention when it was too late to catch up.

I got no less enjoyment from it by catching up on the lore later though, these three games are absolutely my top three.

My final bonus suggestion is to bash out all the supergiant games in order, Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades all hit the marks for me to sometimes just stop in awe and let myself get chills, although less tban the three above. I also think Pyre is one of the most overlooked games of all time.

TUNIC

It's been years since I finished CrossCode, but I just cannot stop thinking about the characters and world. I won't spoil anything for anyone who hasn't experienced it yet, please go play this game it's on sale right now and make sure you get the epilogue DLC, but Lea holds a special place in my heart for what an emotionally compelling protagonist she is.

Gotta agree with others that mentioned The Outer Wilds. I haven't stopped thinking about that game in some capacity since I played it and the second (part? Game? DLC?) about 6 months ago. I never looked up anything before or during play, but loved reading all about it after finishing them.

It bears repeating...Do not read/watch anything about this game online. The best way to experience it is through discovery and I wish I could wipe the experience from my memory just to experience it again!

Other notable mentions are...

• Dead Space for it's integrated menus and systems that never take you out of the game.
• Prey (the Indigenous People one) for the unique story.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent for the story, voice acting, and fear.

There are other games to mention, but my kid just came in and broke my train of thought.

My answer is the original BioShock, just like OP. The story, setting, soundtrack, and overall vibe made a lasting impact on me.

Super Metroid - the atmosphere in the beginning of the game was something else when I started it the first time. The rain, the music... As a kid I was just mesmerized.

Gradius - being too fast is not always the best.

Factorio - planning goes a long way. Even if you think you planned for enough space for your construction it will never be enough as you probably need to make it larger later on.

• Rain World (top favorite game if all time)
• Cassette Beasts
• Lotr: BfME2
• Wizard of Legend (favorite Roguelike)
• Bloodborne
• Dark Souls (original)
• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy

Hollow Knight had me excited for the world like I was a kid. It shows the devs had an artistic vision.

Psychonauts has had a profound effect on how I view the world and people. Honestly, both games, but moreso the first one.

SIGNALIS has been haunting my brain for a full year now. I'll probably be thinking about that sad scary beautiful horrifying piece of art for the rest of my life.

Persona 4 as it was my first. the concept of having to choose how to spend your time, split between training in the dungeons, fostering relationships with friends, or studying and working part time was affecting for me, and its characters and stories are very good.

By extension Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney for showing childhood me that I liked visual novels, before I even knew what that was.

Monster Hunter. I learned to play MH purely because of its reputation as an obtuse game, I thought if I can learn to play and maybe even enjoy MH, that the other parts of my life I wasn't happy with couldn't be that much harder to figure out. Years later and I still adore this series, and don't think it's actually that complex, it's just hard to teach.

Dark Souls. Really taught me that games are more than just games. They're worlds, concepts, feelings. I'm sure I have more games than this that were formative to me, but these are what came to mind.

I have to go with Chicory: A Colourful Tale. It starts of kind of slow, but the writing and character interactions sucked me in with heavy themes of self doubt and searching for a place in society, which are very well implemented in my opinion.

There are many games that are about overcoming depression as an overall theme, but it's usually represented in a very metaphorical way and in doing so they kind of lose impactfulness, at least for me. Not here, Chicory straight up has depression, and you're trying to help her out.

The game also has pleasant art and music, and it cleverly pokes at you to be creative at various points. It actually got me to buy a cheap drawing tablet and start playing around with art haha.

Overall just a really well made game that resonated with me on a level that no other game has.

Mine's probably nostalgia tinged but here goes: FFVII, VIII, IX, and X I love the setting, I love the mechanic changes between the series from materia giving various boosts in 7 to the actual spell slots changing stats in 8 and the summons in 9, and blitzball in 10. The story for each was unique in their own world ending way and beautiful to run through. I replay them probably once every three-five years or so but they mark a high point for me. Adding to the list, Demon's Souls. I never fully understood the storyline behind it but the sequencing of zones around the central hub and the combat are some of my favorite aspects. I need another play on that soon.... It would probably be a little weeby of me to take some life lessons from them but they did help me to understand that hard decisions sometimes have to be made that include personal sacrifice and doing things that are unpleasant in order to move everyone forward and up.