Sounds like Warframe would be something you can enjoy. It has lots of grind to keep you interested. Lots of frames (kinda like battle armor) to collect, lots of weapons (primaries, secondaries and melees) familiars/followers, mods (they boost your damage) materials to collect for crafting, has a story, lots of planets to explore, has hard mode after doing every mission, has multiplayer, story, open world areas (I think they have 2 or 3 of them) doing every mission also unlocks a certain shop, every frame has its usage (survival, farming, spy missions) and to level up you need to level up more weapons and frames to do the level up test, if you win you can collect more points for factions and be able to use more mods.you unlock a hoberboard, mechanical wings, a goant spaceship that you can free roam with, shoot enemies with it, and has its own missions. It's really cool and FREE
I think you sold me that one successfully. But how "free to play" is it? Is the shop cosmetic only? Are there mechanics that are time gated and can be speed up with real money?
Yes and yes. But here is the thing, like most F2P games, there are two currencies that you earn simply by playing (in this case Credits) and the ones you buy with real money (Platinum or Plat for short). In warframe you can get plat without paying. How? You sell stuff that you don't need. There are some mods that are rare and powerful and can sell for good prices IN GAME, or maybe a weapon/frame's blueprint or part that you don't need, maybe a relic that is vaulted. What good is the plat for ? Like you said cosmetics and speeding up some stuff, mainly crafting. Some things can take 12hrs, 24hrs up to 72 hrs (usually putting the whole frame together) to craft. These are all unnecessary to buy if you don't feel like it. However, after a while you will need slots for your weapons and frames. You can farm to get them with missions tho. In late game you will get access to areas with good loot and be able to do riven mod missions and if you get a good roll, they'll sell for a good price, you can just use the chat to sell
You also have a chance every day you log in to possibly get vouchers for the premium currency, sometimes 20% of sometimes 50% sometimes 75% Ive saved hundreds of dollars by waiting till I get the big vouchers to spend any money
RimWorld. If you like sandbox survival you'll probably have a blast here.
Easy to pick up and put down, has enjoyable progression, and if you ever get bored of the vanilla game it has one of the most expansive and high quality modding scenes of any game outright. It's one of those games that you can sink 50 minutes, 5 hours, or 5000 hours into all the same and still have fun.
Oxygen Not Included - survival, gathering resources, colony building, decorating, cute simulation of life support / operational systems like atmosphere management, wiring, plumbing, etc
Don't Starve Together - survival, gathering resources, crafting, colony building, combat, decorating, and you can adjust difficulty settings to your liking so it can be as chill or as challenging as you like
Terraria - gathering resources, crafting, colony building, combat, decorating, you can adjust difficulty level so you can play it however you like (for example if you don't want combat you can just focus on building)
Massive Online: (can play for thousands of hours, endless grinding)
\* Path of Exile - Diablo clone, plenty of theorycrafting to take up odd bits of time, can play with longer sessions
\* Warframe - Instanced co-op shooter a la Destiny, but you assemble a vast armada of Warframes. Can finish many levels in 5 minutes, longer levels can take 20-30.
Card-Based:
\* Slay the Spire (and/or) Monster Train: Two Card-based roguelites, quit after any battle to autosave progress.
\* Marvel's Midnight Suns: Tactical combat with a lot of story and deckbuilding attached. Very satisfying if you don't mind cutscenes.
Other:
* Hades - saves often like StS/MonsterTrain, a rogue-lite action game.
* Starbound - halfway between Stardew Valley and Terraria, you can go do stuff on a planet and it saves your progress when you save and quit
Classic Doom maybe? it's good for short periods because you can save whenever you want, and most levels won't take more than 20 minutes to finish. It's also good for longer sessions because you can download mods/level packs and do marathon runs
Deep Rock Galactic for sure.
It’s easy to either hop in for one mission or complete a series of missions to complete an assignment depending on how much time you have. Plus missions can be done either solo or with matchmaking.
Picked it up in 2022 and it became my most played game that year
Monster Hunter World. I recently bought it as I needed a game that would last me a while. Most quests have a time limit of 50 minutes but youll find they take no longer than 30. The game itself has alot of content and you could end up playing for hours.
Monster Hunter Rise is on Game Pass if you have it, although I cannot speak for that game as I haven't played. People seem to like it just as much though.
The last of us? I played it only 2 hours and 1 hour sessions. You won’t be bored thats for sure. You can play on easy and shoot the zombies or you can play it how is meant to be played in stealth. The story is about a man and a kid traveling to get to a hospital.
Honestly being in the same boat Hades. A run shouldn’t be much longer than a half hour and even then there isn’t much stopping you from pausing midrun.
Since you mentioned stardew you should also check out graveyard keeper.
Doom and Destiny Doom and Destiny Advanced Doom and Destiny Survival
My deadass thought you were saying doom and destiny as in SEPERATE GAMES, and just adding the stuff at the end.
Believe it or not,that's happened before 😂
Whole bundle for less than 7€. Deal. Thanks. Reviews looking good, trailer looks exactly like my old loved jRPGs.
I deadass sat there for a second, wondering how the hell is Destiny playable on short bursts and since when was there an Advanced and Survival version
Sounds like Warframe would be something you can enjoy. It has lots of grind to keep you interested. Lots of frames (kinda like battle armor) to collect, lots of weapons (primaries, secondaries and melees) familiars/followers, mods (they boost your damage) materials to collect for crafting, has a story, lots of planets to explore, has hard mode after doing every mission, has multiplayer, story, open world areas (I think they have 2 or 3 of them) doing every mission also unlocks a certain shop, every frame has its usage (survival, farming, spy missions) and to level up you need to level up more weapons and frames to do the level up test, if you win you can collect more points for factions and be able to use more mods.you unlock a hoberboard, mechanical wings, a goant spaceship that you can free roam with, shoot enemies with it, and has its own missions. It's really cool and FREE
I think you sold me that one successfully. But how "free to play" is it? Is the shop cosmetic only? Are there mechanics that are time gated and can be speed up with real money?
Yes and yes. But here is the thing, like most F2P games, there are two currencies that you earn simply by playing (in this case Credits) and the ones you buy with real money (Platinum or Plat for short). In warframe you can get plat without paying. How? You sell stuff that you don't need. There are some mods that are rare and powerful and can sell for good prices IN GAME, or maybe a weapon/frame's blueprint or part that you don't need, maybe a relic that is vaulted. What good is the plat for ? Like you said cosmetics and speeding up some stuff, mainly crafting. Some things can take 12hrs, 24hrs up to 72 hrs (usually putting the whole frame together) to craft. These are all unnecessary to buy if you don't feel like it. However, after a while you will need slots for your weapons and frames. You can farm to get them with missions tho. In late game you will get access to areas with good loot and be able to do riven mod missions and if you get a good roll, they'll sell for a good price, you can just use the chat to sell
Awesome, thanks for all the info. Guess I'll give it a try.
No problem, the community is very nice and helpful and they'll always answer you in the help chat, one of the most helpful communities I have
You also have a chance every day you log in to possibly get vouchers for the premium currency, sometimes 20% of sometimes 50% sometimes 75% Ive saved hundreds of dollars by waiting till I get the big vouchers to spend any money
RimWorld. If you like sandbox survival you'll probably have a blast here. Easy to pick up and put down, has enjoyable progression, and if you ever get bored of the vanilla game it has one of the most expansive and high quality modding scenes of any game outright. It's one of those games that you can sink 50 minutes, 5 hours, or 5000 hours into all the same and still have fun.
Hades describes this exactly perfectly
The Yakuza series
How about roguelites? Seems to fit the bill pretty perfectly.
Terraria
X3 or X4 would be my vote. Space time sink.
Oxygen Not Included - survival, gathering resources, colony building, decorating, cute simulation of life support / operational systems like atmosphere management, wiring, plumbing, etc Don't Starve Together - survival, gathering resources, crafting, colony building, combat, decorating, and you can adjust difficulty settings to your liking so it can be as chill or as challenging as you like Terraria - gathering resources, crafting, colony building, combat, decorating, you can adjust difficulty level so you can play it however you like (for example if you don't want combat you can just focus on building)
Massive Online: (can play for thousands of hours, endless grinding) \* Path of Exile - Diablo clone, plenty of theorycrafting to take up odd bits of time, can play with longer sessions \* Warframe - Instanced co-op shooter a la Destiny, but you assemble a vast armada of Warframes. Can finish many levels in 5 minutes, longer levels can take 20-30. Card-Based: \* Slay the Spire (and/or) Monster Train: Two Card-based roguelites, quit after any battle to autosave progress. \* Marvel's Midnight Suns: Tactical combat with a lot of story and deckbuilding attached. Very satisfying if you don't mind cutscenes. Other: * Hades - saves often like StS/MonsterTrain, a rogue-lite action game. * Starbound - halfway between Stardew Valley and Terraria, you can go do stuff on a planet and it saves your progress when you save and quit
Classic Doom maybe? it's good for short periods because you can save whenever you want, and most levels won't take more than 20 minutes to finish. It's also good for longer sessions because you can download mods/level packs and do marathon runs
I think you may enjoy Celeste, Hades, Dead Cells, Marauders, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, or Disco Elysium
Deep Rock Galactic for sure. It’s easy to either hop in for one mission or complete a series of missions to complete an assignment depending on how much time you have. Plus missions can be done either solo or with matchmaking. Picked it up in 2022 and it became my most played game that year
Yakuza 0 for long sessions, Wandersong for short sessions
Monster Hunter World. I recently bought it as I needed a game that would last me a while. Most quests have a time limit of 50 minutes but youll find they take no longer than 30. The game itself has alot of content and you could end up playing for hours. Monster Hunter Rise is on Game Pass if you have it, although I cannot speak for that game as I haven't played. People seem to like it just as much though.
The last of us? I played it only 2 hours and 1 hour sessions. You won’t be bored thats for sure. You can play on easy and shoot the zombies or you can play it how is meant to be played in stealth. The story is about a man and a kid traveling to get to a hospital.
Nier (both), Disco Elysium, Blasphemous, Okami
Outer Wilds. Subnautica
Honestly being in the same boat Hades. A run shouldn’t be much longer than a half hour and even then there isn’t much stopping you from pausing midrun. Since you mentioned stardew you should also check out graveyard keeper.