A bit of a weird title, but basically what’s a game that’s more than a year old but still considered “modern” that you love? There’s no real strict definition for modern, I’d just like to see some discussion around great games that aren’t quite classics yet (but probably will be one day).
The nature of this community typically attracts discussion around decade-old games (which is what I mostly play too), but I’d like to see some newer (but not too new) games on this post.
Control
Cyberpunk 2077 (with phantom liberty)
Control is a really special game. I only got around to playing it last year but it was a wild ride!
I hope Alan Wake 2 goes on sale later this year so I can scoop that up. I got about halfway through AW1 (after getting it for ~£2 on steam) but the gameplay was too repetitive for me in the end.
Definitely second both of these. Cyberpunk 2077 post 2.0 is very solid, with an engaging, 100+ hour story. Similarly, control is a spectacular single player narrative, easily 20-30 hours of mindfuckery and atmospheric storytelling.
The Hex! By Daniel Mullins, of “Inscryption” game. The Hex is HORRIBLY overlooked because of its graphics, but they’re not… really… its graphics? It’s a marvel of creative game design and I love it so much. The graphics make sense almost immediately when playing. MORE PEOPLE PEAS PLAY THE HEX it is so good
Hot take for me: I thought going into Inscryption was going to be a pure deck builder game with a goal of beating the first guy. Then I really enjoyed the deck building in the 2d zone, and wanted so much more of that, but after beating the game, it has next to no replay ability. It turns very ARG centric and to get the whole story required going outside of the game into the “real world” (internet) to learn the rest of the story. It never stuck with me, or striked me right. It felt like I was being led on and thrown into something I didn’t really care about.
I know that they added an infinite mode, but I think that’s just in the first zone, not all of them. .
In any case, the game was just ok, since it’s not the Slay the Spire esque card builder I thought it’d be.
I really liked it, precisely because it wasn’t a Slay the Spire-esque game all the way through. I got tired of STS after beating it a few times, whereas Inscryption felt like the perfect length and held my attention throughout.
That said, I don’t look for replayability. In fact I prefer games to not be replayable because that pushes devs to make that experience really good. It’s really easy to cop out on “replayability” if you don’t have good world building or story, and a lot of indie games do just that (i.e. it’s easier to add more cards, classes, etc than a memorable story).
Everyone has different tastes. For me, Inscryption was right on the money. I got far fewer hours vs STS, but I came away far more satisfied.
Kids these days want endless
…CoNtEnT
It baffles me
Fair point
Counterpoint: y’aint gotta play forever, you can just play a game and dig it
Multicounterpoint: the hex, but if you want forever games and battle passes and dailies and loot boxes and quests and achievements and new things added all the time for dopamine it might not be your thing
Quick edit: I didn’t arg anything
Oh I get it. Standalone, it’s great. It’s just not what I thought it was. I bought it for one reason, was surprised that it wasn’t what I thought I’d be receiving as a consumer, reflecting, I’d definitely say it’s a good game.
Battle passes/ dailies / loot boxes aren’t really my thing either. I do love roguelikes and the idea of “runs” and it being a sandbox to play in to experiment with builds.
Noita, for example, is probably one of my favorite games of all time. (Also a game I recommend everyone to play and give a good college try.)
Vampire Survivors isn’t that old yet, right?
It’s such a good Robotron clone.
Every 2-3 years I’ll fire up Terraria again
Me too, thinking I’ll finally have some enlightenment as to how to kill the first night or twos zombies without getting killed and rage quitting.
I’ve even watched “beginner tutorials” on that game game, and conveniently they ended the first video just after nightfall of the first night, and started the second video during the second day, but that’s not how it friggin works, you need to murder the enemies lest they murder you, and in 5 different starts of the game, across 3 different devices, I’ve yet to kill the first or second nights horde without them breaking down my doors and wrecking my shit.
That game is one of my biggest regrets, I bought the 4 pack when it first came out thinking my friends and I would all have a great time, it makes me feel like I’m old and disconnected that I can’t enjoy that stupid (supposedly fantastic) game.
If you dig a 2x3 pit immediately adjacent to your door outside the zombies can’t break in
…
Thank you for that! Maybe it’s that time of the decade again.
Why couldn’t any of the tips for noobs have given that advice? (I watched at least half a dozen, many years ago though)
Also if you have an entrance on the ground and build the rest of the base above it you should be set for the early game stuff. (see the first picture on the bases wiki page)
I hope it works for you. I think I’ve played it more than any other game. The wiki is a fantastic resource if you’re feeling stuck.
Subnautica
Minecraft believe it or not. Every few years I come back and install a mod pack and it’s like an entirely new game almost. Plus I love the factory and automation mods. The game just never seems to die.
Pretty stoked for the upcoming Vault Hunters “vanilla” mod.
Superliminal, very well done puzzler with a good narrator.
LOOOOOVED that game. Had such a fun time playing it. 100% with you on that.
Grim Dawn.
Personally, my favorite games in the last few years were the talos principle (1 and 2), and Grow: song of the evertree. They aren’t really popular but I’ve replayed them a lot. Also have over 400 hours in core keeper.
Talos Principle is a master piece. Kinda hoping they make a third one, but would be interested to see what Croteam does after even if it’s not Talos 3.
I’ve been looking to get core keeper for quite some time…
It’s an adorable game, and has multiplayer!
Kerbal Space Program
Titanfall 2. I could keep playing that all evening. Its just a shame its not as popular as it was in its heyday.
It’s a shame that it wasn’t 4-8 times longer! I could have kept going for a very long time
Obligatory Fuck EA for the bullshit they pulled.
They buried the game launch intentionally behind Battlefield 1.
Voices of the Void, slow horror
The Witcher 3. It’s not far from being 10, but got a very nice graphics update for free and has 2 DLC. The game and the DLC and the free graphics update and a very recent mod kit, all for around 10-15 USD right now on GOG . it’s a steal! I highly recommend it. It became my favorite game of all time, very fast. And it will offer around 100h, and it will also offer replayability. What is there not to like?
Edit link
got death stranding when it was free for a day on epic a while ago, been playing it for the last few weeks pretty nonstop and just finished the story. i’ve always been a kojima fan for mgs but oh my god this is magnificent. an absolute masterpiece, imho. i get it’s not for everyone but i’ve had a blast and may immediately do a very hard offline second playthrough. definitely recommend, especially if you can grab it free or heavy discount.
It’s the game I would have hated as a young adult but absolutely love as a… less young adult.
How have the “interactive” features been now that there are fewer players? Is it a wasteland, or does the game still randomly place in user generated content from when the game first released?
online stuff smattered everywhere. plenty of people still playing and i imagine a good handful also snagged it like i did when epic gave it away for a day. there’s also older stuff like well placed safe houses and joke bridges on flat land or mountain peaks that have an insane number of likes so they must’ve been there for years.
also there’s a page where you can see the players you’ve interacted with, your likes for them and their likes for you and it also shows last login date, and most of mine are online recently like me with some maybe last logged in in january, or late last year. i did see one who hasn’t played since '22 but they’ve still got stuff in my world, too, so i think there’s some playtime syncing where a bridge or whatever might actually be destroyed in their game if they logged in today but since it was there from hour 5 to 25 of their playthrough you’ll get it at hour 5 and will stay if you repair it unlike they did. but that’s a guess.
edit: for quick reference when you log in you get a summary of people liking your stuff and yesterday i saw “75 players are pleased with you, 7328 likes”. so definitely still active. also no spoilers but there are a game mechanic or two that affects how many other players you are connected to, so your actions in game can determine how many people’s stuff shows up, as well.
Can you confirm which game mechanic gives you more player stuff? I don’t remember since it’s been a year since I last played. I think this game is old enough for spoilers, ha. So it’s okay.
yeah sure. there’s the connection level of each knot itself, with higher levels giving you more chiral bandwidth and i’m pretty sure gives you higher numbers of online structures in that area too, but i’m not certain about that.
other than that tho there’s bridge contracts which state they give you a stronger connection to that player so you both share more of your structures with each other. i actually forgot about that until the last few days and after adding the max 30 contracts i def have more structures.
i also suspect that if you like online structures actively rather than just letting it get a like when you use it the game gives you more other players and structures as well, but i’m not certain on that one either. it makes sense to me what with the ‘likers get liked’ sign mechanic and how the amount of likes you can get overall is a skill to improve as well as your time to give likes increasing with skill as well.
I played it like a year ago and there were still a ton of active users showing up my list. I think it could surprise you.
Satisfactory. It’s been in early access for a few years now, 2019 I think? At the beginning of this year (2024) they announced the next update would be the 1.0 release. I’ve been playing it on/off for years, especially recently with all the strides they’ve made in development.
The game is like Factorio, but presented as an FPS. You get dropped onto a planet in a pod straight out of Halo: ODST by a space-future megacorp called Ficsit, with the goal of harvesting the planet’s resources for Ficsit off-planet divisions.
I have almost 1500hrs in Satisfactory since I got it, there’s no shortage of gameplay. Coffee Stain (devs) have been posting videos regularly, updating the community on new/discontinued features, revamped recipes and production rates, and even just being silly as much as being helpful, to the point where Coffee Stain is my go-to example of good devteam-community interaction.
Oh, and it also has a really good modding community, so if there’s anything that’s not in game, that you want in game, it’s probably already been made by one or two modders.
There are mods? Dude, I have been playing this game for the past month, and I am almost done with the game. Thanks for the info man!
And trains! Those are the best part. Both a joy, and a nightmare.
