I recently finished The Last of Us 2. My girlfriend sometimes watches me play my games. And while I thought that TLoU would be a great game to follow, it was hard for her to watch (due to the violence). I wonder if there is a game that would be easy or even interesting for her to watch while I play, without it having to be something strictly “family friendly” , that also has fun gaming mechanics and isn’t just a walking simulator. Looking forward to any ideas! :)
If you or your girlfriend aren’t prone to motion sickness, I’d recommend the Portal games and Outer Wilds.
All games from Supergiant games are an automatic recommend from me, but if you’re not into fast paced violent games which a spectator might not be able to keep up with, maybe skip Hades and go for their earlier titles.
Both Ori games may be a good choice too since she can enjoy the eye candy and story alongside.
Baldurs Gate 3.
Added bonus that she can help you decide on dialog options
My girlfriend loves to watch me play games. She likes to do “comms” as she says, where she researches tough boss guides, cool weapon locations, etc while I play. It’s interactive for her, and she doesn’t have to learn how to play the game (she doesn’t enjoy most video games and finds them frustrating). One of her favourites was Elden Ring, but really any RPG is a ton of fun for her. My dad used to watch me play video games sometimes too when I was younger, and he liked the Fallout games specifically.
My spouse really enjoys when I go through the Yakuza games.
I am a very casual gamer, but my partner is much more invested and skilled when it comes to gaming. I ended up really enjoying watching him play Returnal, to the point that I’d be annoyed if he played without me. It was visually beautiful, the story was movie-like, and I was even helpful in watching where the monsters were so they didn’t sneak up on him.
I hope he wants to replay it, because I’d love to watch it again. Highly recommend!
Slime Rancher? Or a puzzle game like The Gardens Between? You fight in Going Under, but I don’t remember it being bloody.
Undertale and Night in the Woods might be interesting choices, the former more than the latter, in my opinion. Neither has any voices, so if your girl won’t stop to read, she’ll easily “get lost”.
If she’s into futuristic stuff, the Deus Ex games might be good options. They can be violent, but in a non lethal manner if you play “pacifist”. Mass Effect would probably fit into that, too. Would be great for your girl to tell you which lady or dude your Shepard should bang
Outside is a great game. Lots of spooky shit but not outright violent.
Inside is a good game, but has quite a bit of body horror and violence, so I wouldn’t choose that one.
Haha Inside is correct! Yeah you’re right now I’m remembering some of the really weird stuff that happens in the game. I loved their game Limbo too but that also has some gruesome deaths
I don’t know how it would be for active watching, but I had a girlfriend that liked to read or do some light work while I played. She was absolutely captivated from time to time by Shadow of the Colossus. There’s something about the momentum and the music, I think.
The Spider-Man games on PS5 have great storytelling.
Cyberpunk 2077
God of War and God or War Ragnarok
- I believe both of these have settings that can reduce the “bloodiness”
Destiny 2…… lmao j/k
Possibly puzzle games like Return of the Obra Dinn or Antichamber where she can help solve things without needing to play. Portal may be good, too, though it may be hard to play along without control of the camera.
Also, though they’re not necessarily good stories, Supermassive Games stuff (Until Dawn and The Quarry) bring all the fun of watching cheesy horror movies together with the added bonus of controlling who dies! Granted, those may also be a bit violent for her taste.
The Quantum games (Heavy Rain, Beyond:Two Souls, Detroit:Become Human) are great for that. Also the Life Is Strange series. Abzu, Journey are “cinematic games” of their own. Maybe Firewatch? Outer Wilds?
I liked Firewatch a lot, but it basically is a walking simulator
It had me intrigued at first but it didn’t really lead anywhere. Overrated game with pretty dated graphics imho
I played it back when it first released and loved the graphics, I think it’s still generally agreed to be a beautiful game to my knowledge.
The only bit I was underwealmed by was the ending, but they’d also write something with grounded intrigue, which is a difficult thing to pull off without having a cynical ending of “of you thought this was gonna be exciting? This is real buddy”, which wasn’t really what firewatch was evoking.
Second this. My girlfriend has absolutely not interest in playing games but enjoyed going through Detroit with me and helping choose different options as the game progressed. We even went back to replay some of it to get to different endings which is something I barely ever do when playing games by myself.
Adding on:
LA Noire is pretty good, it’s slow enough that you can talk through the different options, or just be silly while having a laugh
“Baba is you” the game induces the “ah-a” moment when you just came up with a solition to the puzzle. The player has perfect knowledge about the state of the game but they don’t know the solution. It could be played with two heads and one controller.
imo, the funniest part of the game is listening to the player(s) repeatedly stating things from the game like cavemen
“baba is you, rock is push, water is sink… what? ok ok, rock is float… AARGH”
I like the low ominous sound when you accidentally erase yourself.
“Ah, but what if baba is key? Oh…oh no”
You can find games to play with her like Wingspan
