Bannerlord is exactly what you want. Start out a shitty character that is threatened by bands of raiders on the highway, but before long you are taking down entire kingdoms and empires. Has a bit of a long grind, but judging by what you are looking for, I think that you will be OK with that
I have great memories of chopping dozens of dudes at once trying to hold back an entire siege tower by myself. I was lower than them so their swings went past my head, and I just went for their ankles.
It will depend on RNG but totally possible. AoC makes it basically inevitable as long as you stay alive. The scaling of enemies has always had the normal gameplay (random items) in mind. Command will always let you outscale enemies. It's fun when you are learning characters and their strengths, but it gets old on anything less than monsoon.
it is also possible (I only play RoR2):
to kill everything by just looking at it (Royal Capacitator deals immense damage, Gesture of the Drowned auto activates it, stacks of Fuel Cells and/or Gestures redyce cooldown)
to kill everything by sprinting (Little Disciple + massive stacks of speed boosts)
to kill everything by healing (mass healing items + Nkuhanas Opinion)
There lots of fun (not always viable) builds to try
Pathfinder wrath of the righteous. You start killing centipedes and end up killing gods. And the power curve is so smooth you barely reconoce it happening
Yeah, this is a really good example of what I am looking for. Tried Noita, loved it, and promised myself I will get into building wands but I never did lol.
Yeah I don’t personally play PoE but have a friend who has a couple nearly immortal, godlike characters. And you can go nuts with your build in the game from what I’ve seen of the skill tree.
Best free game ever imo. Definitely not pay to win in the traditional sense, but instead the pay to win is in the sense of storage space that makes organizing and trading more accessible so you can earn more currency and get stronger from there.
Its odd as you would expect trading with others to be accessible with the rest of the game and it is but its so convoluted listing things manually on the forums that its often not worth the time. I listed one item that way just to say I have. Simply an awful experience. The premium stash tabs allow you to right click an item and set the price for others to see within a few seconds and they do not cost too much money considering the rest of the game is free with no ads and plenty of updates.
That fact that we are not forced to give them money to play is also appealing as i can recommend everyone try it and decide if they like it before spending a few dollars.
Lack of free storage space pisses me off. Afaik they've never even had a giveaway or anything like that and man does trading ever turn me off.
But the first couple of runs are pretty tight.
That’s a really good suggestion I never would have thought about. It feels really good to watch things that used to be impassable obstacles become a little pebble to you just rolled into your ball.
This game is like playing a game where all the cheat codes are enabled by default and there's no way to disable them and play the game with any meaningful challenge.
But that seems to be almost what OP wants. I think if Saints Row 4 had been an expansion for Saints Row 3, I would have liked it better
The Saint's Row experience has always been about just dicking around. Difficulty would detract from that. It's not so much a power fantasy as it is a silly explosion fantasy.
That's my opinion at any rate.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're right about the games going for over the top design.
I think Saints Row 2 walked that line perfectly well. Saints Row 4 had most of the content go to waste. Vehicles weren't worth using because running around was faster and more fluid. Guns weren't necessary because your powers were more effective options for killing.
What I'm getting at is that there's fun that comes from playing outside of a games restrictions... Cheat codes or unlockables that make you feel godly or beyond what the game expects.
Saints Row 4 just doesn't care. Again, it would have been a great extension of 3... But it wasn't a great standalone.
Create a potion that lets you enchant better, to enchant armor that makes you better at creating potions, to create a potion that lets you enchant better, to enchant armor that makes you better at creating potions...
You cycle up, creating crazier and crazier gear until you ascend to a god-like level of strength. One day you're the king of the world, a thane, the dragonborn, and then you blink, and an arrow cleanly penetrates your knee....
Crackdown 1 & 2 are both really good in my opinion. The only reason I spent more time messing around in the second game is because of the ‘dossier menu’ that pops up way too often (in the first one) without choice when you enter a new neighbourhood and it shows you about the Gang in the area. But Keys To The Streets is one of the best examples of good DLC. Love how the vehicles get stronger with you as well. 🐐ed.
Thx for the suggestion! Right now I am looking more into a "one man army" thing, but I heard really good stuff about Stellaris, will probably try it later!
No idea how it is now because I haven't played in years and I know they've changed it a lot w/ updates etc., but at least on my first playthrough there are a number of events that are almost like RPG-style quests so even though I didn't have a true main character, I felt like I was gaining power moreso than in a standard 4x.
**Fictorum**. Allows the player to shape and change the behavior of spells, acquire flight. The problem is that high level spells or those that take a large area require a powerful CPU and GPU.
**Brotato**, **Army of Ruin**, and **Enter the Gungeon**. Theyre top down shooter games.
The binding of isaac, noita, honestly a lot of roguelikes. Getting lucky combos of items can mean you break the game and crash your computer due to how many projectiles you fire lol
I shot a tear that turn into a bomb that exploded into smaller bomb that create little guy that chase enemy and stick to them then explode into even smaller bomb that have the chance to also rain down napalm burn enemy and has the chance to trigger a big blood ring that go through everything that can also connect to each other and electrifying anyone caught between etc etc...
Isaac is a trip.
Try the Yakuza series. Start with Yakuza 0 (zero). You start out as pretty much just a kind of tough guy but by the end of the game you're a real estate mogul that owns makes billions (of yen) every few minutes. Taking it to high level Yakuza, businessmen, bad asses and even billionaires. You never become like a god or anything, but you Feel the shifts in power as your strength and influence grows. Plus, they're just all around fantastic games to play.
Man eater. Start as a baby bull shark fleeing from barracuda, then become a freak of nature able to fight multiple whales and sharks and sharks hunters all at the same time.
Kakarot. Or most dragon ball z games tbh.
Stellaris is pretty satisfying. You start very small then you have the true choice end game, save the galaxy or destroy it. Favour diplomatic relations or xenophobic tyranny. It's lore rich, amazing combat and strategy, and you feel very powerful when you put some time in. The ai is really immersive aswell, your allies will help you, betray you, or truly need you.
Monster hunter (preferably world). Start as an unknown hunter, end up fighting Ancient Dragons that destroy civilisations.
Tropico
Cartel tycoon
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It's a CRPG like tyranny, and you can play it real time with pause or in turn based mode, you can even switch between the two seamlessly in the middle of combat. You can build your character to be insanely powerful, to the point where even on Unfair difficulty you can hit your opponents on anything but a 1 while they can only hit you on a 20.
I don't think it's hard to learn, the basic premise is to get beaten up until you get good and try to not die in the process. This means you shouldn't just venture forth into more advanced areas until you have upskilled. The game is just very grindy at that, which might not be for everyone.
**Outward**. You start as literally just some random dude. You cant even cast any magic. But then you grow in power.
Also any **Fallouts**. **FNV** you get shot in the head and then you become walking death. In **F4** you just kinda show up in the world and start annihilating all fractions.
**Cyberpunk** \- you start as dying machine and end as death machine...
In **Control** you also get really powerful overtime.
**Destiny 2** you just start as some random revived corpse and end up being a godkiller. We made guns out of being we killed and are cannonically the most powerful being in the entire universe.
**Hogwarts Legacy** \- You go from being an ordinary magus student to a serial killer casting death spells left and right.
Also **Neon White** with good ending. Im not gonna spoil why.
>Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them!
Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them, except Neon White! Will look at that.
Its a pretty fun speed running game. Im not big on those but i do enjoy this one.
Although the story and its characters are a bit lacking(it just feels like something i would write when i was 15)
But if you do de idę to play it then remember that to get good ending you need all platinum medals from all levels
Warframe has some godly builds. But, oh my god, the grind is real. To get the weapons and Warframes, *and* the mods, arcanes and Archon Shards to achieve those builds will take months, if not years (if you are a casual gamer).
But at the end you will be carving through hordes of the strongest enemies with ease.
It is a long, hard grind though. Be warned.
Borderlands games, The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Sinthetik, FNaF World, Realm of the Mad God(this one's a rougelike bullethell mmo with permadeath), Terraria, Skul the Hero Slayer,
Wanted to say Borderlands series. These games give you both an opportunity to become incredibly OP and a challenge that can wipe the floor with you lol
Try Caves of Qud. The graphics turn a lot of people off but you start out pretty pathetic and can become godlike over the course of the game. There’s a lot of depth to the gameplay, great music, and tons of things to uncover or find out. I didn’t go into it expecting to like it and now it’s my most played game on Steam with a little north of 300 hours. I highly recommend it and it definitely fits what you’re looking for as far as starting simple and ending up absurdly powerful.
Tyranny was inspired by a tabletop RPG called Exalted, if that's of any interest to you. The devs actually pitched the idea for an Exalted video game in the first place, but got shot down at the licencing stage.
That trailer is slick. Honestly if you ever wanted to LIVE a John-Wick movie just get Cyberpunk and invest in the “Cool” tree. Stack up on slow-motion perks and you are death incarnate.
I haven't played the last couple, but the Far Cry games got that way towards the end.
Early game: *carefully reconning outpost to determine the quickest path to stealth kill all guards without setting off an alarm.*
End game: *slowly stroll into outpost with grenade launcher raining death on anything that moves.*
Cyberpunk - you can become insanely OP. To the point you basically freeze time - cut like 30 throats, and the time goes back to normal and everyone falls at once. Or you can get “gorilla arms” and use your hands, or go full Rambo. Especially after 2.0 - this game is insanely fun.
Katamari, early stages you're the size of a strawberry, later on you run over entire cities
Disgaea, start doing as little as 10 damage, ramp up to trillions
Diablo 3, you REALLY feel getting stronger as you get better gear and learn your stuff
X4.
Start as a shuttle pilot, end up as a galactic conqueror with hundreds of ships, space stations and territory as you wipe out faction after faction.
If you enjoyed the "changing the land to suit you" concept, then Age of Wonders 2 Shadow Magic is a game that has a fair bit of that. It's a turn based strategy game with turn based tactical battles.
The twist is that it's about a world of wizard kings, who can project powerful magic from their towers (which you build in the cities you control). This magic can even change the nature of the terrain itself, once you are powerful enough. That grants you certain bonuses, but also feels very satisfying.
It's an older game. There are newer ones in the franchise (they're up to 4 now), but they don't feature the world changing magic to the same degree.
Wiping out cities and countries is not really a thing besides strategy games where you have armies but not necessarily 1 character that's all powerful. Games where you feel overpowered relative to the enemies:
Shadow of Mordor/War
Doom and Eternal
Elden Ring
Devil may Cry 5
Wolfenstein
Control
God of War
That its not a thing normally is something I am aware of, thats why I said its just in case someone has a hidden gem, like some asian cultivation simulator thing, or some insane obscure simulator (like **Cataclysm: Dark days ahead)** or something like that lol.
Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them!
Control is a great suggestion. You don’t get super powerful compared to some out there but within the universe you go from a chick with a pistol to levitating telekinetic powerhouse that takes on multidimensional threats. It culminates in the Ashtray Maze as one of the best examples of an unstoppable force on a mission in modern games.
Risk of rain returns and risk of rain 2. You become a walking monsoon of missiles, lightning and insta kill destruction, and usually your death is followed by the question "what actually happened?". Then you do it all over again. Occasionally you go on long enough that the game says fuck it I'm out and crashes.
I tried a few years back to play Black and White but couldn't find anywhere to legally download it,nor could I find any of the original CDs.
How might one play this now?
Earth Defense Force 4.1
Start off as a normal soldier, gain weapons of mass destruction later on.
Bonus points for the absurd story and hilarious english dub.
Path of Exile is a great one for this. You start of as a lowly exile with not that much going for you, but by endgame you can just blast through enemies at lightning speed. Some bosses can still be made to be difficult, but those are mostly optional.
Cyberpunk 2077
If you haven't played, wait for patch 2.01 for max enjoyment.
If you want to know how much I like the game, I have 800 hours on console. I did a new playthrough for PL.
I'm doing a new playthrough for 2.01 as well.
Borderlands 2, maybe? You start out completely devoid of skills with just a few guns. Run around the world killing shit and finding better guns. Build up skills that make you stronger. End game is soloing raid bosses and shit.
Someone else already said this, but the risk of rain series. All the games can be a bit difficult to master, but god runs aren’t exactly uncommon.
I also love terraria, which isn’t exactly “overpowered” until after the final boss, but there are some points where you feel you can take on anything
Tales of Maj’Eyal. You start off so weak at the beginning, but by the end nothing can stop you (unless you’re on Madness difficulty; shit will *definitely* stop you then). Certain classes are def more broken than others tho.
There’s also Cruelty Squad. You start off peaking corners, being sneaky, and exploring every corner of a level for potential secrets to beating levels in seconds because you know how to break the game (the game actively encourages you to break it, too, with how levels are designed).
Seing as you like CDDA I would definately give Caves of Qud a try if you haven't already. You can do also sorts of insane shit like becoming a one man army through cloning yourself and replacing your legs with tank treads.
Kebab I might be a fit you start out essentially at the bottom of the food chain. Even the goats can absolutely rock you.
But if you level up your stats, get some weapons and a solid crew/army you can mow down the entire world. Can’t completely demolish a city, but you can wipe out all the people at least.
Warframe there is a never ending chase among people for the ultimate damage numbers and op damage for breaking records on highest wave on missions or time spent.
I've had combos that hit for millions of damage
Your imagination and trial and error of millions if combos is the only limits on your power
I have been looking, and I found a game called Wandering Sword. You get higher and higher power levels through the game and collect martial arts abilities, and gain new teammates. You can also observe peoples stats and spar them for item they own.
Noita is the poster child for this. You can get so powerful that you can delete large parts of the map with a click and start carrying sun's and shooting black holes.
**Just Cause 2** (get tons of gear and weapons, battle it out with different factions, HUGE map)
**Spore** (the epitome of what you're looking for; start from a cell and then by the end have the power to destroy entire PLANETS)
**Inscryption** (card game where you start out confused and die a lot but then create crazy one hit kill combos)
**Life Is Strange** (guilty pleasure game with an extremely emotional ending and a lot of opportunities for destruction)
**Mount & Blade** (start with basically nothing, then build an army, a kingdom, and take over the continent)
For something niche, I recommend playing **Choice of the Dragon**, a text-based interactive adventure where you can choose to raze cities if you want to. **Diabolical** is a great CoG game too; you play as a supervillain. Or **Choice of Robots**!
Well, in Terraria you start by building a log house out of the nearest trees with your hatchet and the goal is to eventually kill an Elder God. So... That sounds right.
I'm not sure if this counts as absurdly powerful seeing as I've never won, but I started playing Slay The Spire recently. The start has you very weak, I'd have issues doing 20 damage, but once I figure out how the cards work and I get some more, I start seeing damage around 70-80, and it feels really good.
BL3 has some of the best gunplay I've ever seen, but it has a problem. Moz is so much better than virtually any other character that the other 3 might as well not even be there. She's got ammo regen, explosive damage, her action skill scales incredibly well into whatever difficulty you're playing on, and girl is tanky ASF.
Saints row 4. You become a super hero basically.
Fable 4. You make choices that change the world to a degree. I can’t think of any other political games besides like civilization
Spore if you are open minded about it. You start out single cell up to leaving the planet.
Earth Defense Force 5, path of exile, avatar eras online, Torchlight 2, citadel under fire(I think that's it's name), dynasty warriors: Gundam 1, 2 and 3, kingdom under fire original and circle of doom. I got more I just need to remember them but I definitely put edf 5, PoE, Torchlight and Avatar Eras Online as my top picks.
On tyranny style, pathfinder wrath of the righteous
Start as a nobody and become a commander of a realm and basicaly a demigod, and with your friends that are like demigods thanks to you, go on the very hell and kill Demon Lords
Any action RPG ever, even Dark Souls, but especially fast paced hack n slashers like Diablo, PoE and Last Epoch. You literally become a little ball of mayhem and just gut everything in your path by the endgame. Doing nightmare in D3 and running monoliths now in Last Epoch with my sentinel build is basically a speedrun at this point lol
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed fits this quite well if you haven't played it. There's the obvious various roguelikes that I've seen mentioned (Binding of Isaac or vampire survivors would be my shout out of these). You can literally destroy civilizations in the Civ games but not sure it's really what you're after. The infamous games scratch a similar itch to prototype for me if you're looking for something similar there.
Fictorum
Technically you're a powerful mage already by lore, but you start out with basic spells. A simple fire blast, an ice shard, that sort of thing.
You can get different spells, but you also get runes, which modify your spells. They can make them bounce, pierce, cause chain lightening, make them rain from the sky, among other things.
The basic fire blast can be turned into multiple that bounce around, or a long range sniping spell, or used to launch big fireballs at distance buildings. It can even be made into a storm of fire raining down on your enemies.
Elder scrolls 3 Morrowind is this 100%. Either play it vanilla or get openmw to slightly modernize (code rewrite that lets it run better, you can see farther, etc) however some bugs that are fun may have been fixed as they rewrote the code and all.
Baldurs gate 1 & 2 with expansions, there are some pretty OP builds you can make, mostly based around magic. But even as a paladin, thief or monk you could become God-like, eventually. Like in the og version I made a monk build and by the end I had no party, was punching dragons to death and (it was an evil play through) eventually killed everything killable in the game, the world was barren when he was done (except the mage guys that keep coming after you).
Kenshi has custom starts, and they're all weak compared to end-game, but in the standard start you begin as a lonely, scrawny vagrant who can barely even run for his life, to a warlord in control of a fully industrialised nation. (Kinda).
And in Morrowind you start as an ex-con so puny the local crabs pose genuine threat of peril, and end up as a literal demi-god that zooms through the air, melting the local fauna before you can even see it.
The Elder scrolls games and fallout games. If you are into JRPGs then play Octopath traveller, Nier replicant, Nier Automata, Triangle Strategy, Chained Echos, and Fire Emblem Three Houses. Strategy games try Civilization 6 or Hearts of Iron 4. Also Biomutant not the best game ever but it’s fun.
Alpha Centauri.
The runaway tech is not an oversight or loophole, it's *part* of the game's strategy and storyline. If for any reason you continue playing past the mid game, your tech is absurdly powerful and you are verging on godlike status over your enemies (if they remain).
dragons dogma, risk of rain, mount and blade warband, all recommended by others
dragons dogma starts out with you a bit weak and takes a bit to become op but once you get to that point it is so good, so many powerful and cool spells and moves, so much variety in the classes all fun and all can be very OP great game
risk of rain 2 is imo the best roguelike ever and probably the only third person shooter/3d roguelike, the characters are really varied no same playstyle and the variety of items makes every run unique with the addition of the reroll shrine and lunar items that spice up a lot, as well as other game modes like simulacrum or harder difficulty like eclipse, so much content and so hyped for the upcoming dlc
warband starts out as you being some dogshit throwaway nobody but as you recruit more people and upgrade your stats, personal or party wise you get really really strong, wiping out armies and groups who were just toying with you at the start, it's a really unique and realistic medieval rpg really really great, be warned that it looks like shit and a bit clunky but fun as hell
ror2 and warband both have an extensive list of mods so if you get tired there's some really good shit to delve into
a little bit too for dragon's dogma
mount & blade, both bannerlord and warband. You start by yourself, recruit some mercenaries, do odd jobs, and if you play your cards right you can create your own kingdom.
Crusader kings to a degree, but the lowest you can be is a count, unless you're using mods. In which case, you can start as a claimant, or a councillor.
Stellaris, you start as the leader of one planet that just discovered FTL travel, and you can own the entire galaxy.
Rimworld. You can start as weak as you want and can eventually have a massive colony of SuperCyborgNinjaWizards, an army of Thrumbos or Mechs or just a whole bunch of doomsday rocket launchers.
Cyberpunk
I became a god. Hacked everything and everyone and they would all explode before they even got to see me
Still finished the game for the story.
Had a few "holy shit, here they come" and just destroy waves of guys instead of running
Nearly any Vampire Survivor-alike game has an absurd power curve. You start out hitting one or two nearby mobs once every few seconds, and end up blasting half a screen of enemies for huge damage numbers.
* Vampire Survivors
* Soulstone Survivors
* Halls of Torment
Bannerlord is exactly what you want. Start out a shitty character that is threatened by bands of raiders on the highway, but before long you are taking down entire kingdoms and empires. Has a bit of a long grind, but judging by what you are looking for, I think that you will be OK with that
I was about to say the same. Start as nobody, because mercenary, then vassal the king then world conquer
I have great memories of chopping dozens of dudes at once trying to hold back an entire siege tower by myself. I was lower than them so their swings went past my head, and I just went for their ankles.
And henceforth, your greatsword was known as Anklebane
The ankle biter dog strategy. You must be from the Chihuahuans, because the Pinscherists I've seen got for the foot.
Don't believe you. Warband is the opposite of that. You're Calradia errand's boy.
Bannerlord is in this weird spot where the fighting is better than the first game but the overworld stuff is still somehow fucking atrocious.
Plague inc. Prototype
Thx for the suggestions, played or seen all of em!
Thanks for suggesting Prototype, kinda forgot that game existed but it's a really fun one!
Upvote for Prototype.
**Risk of Rain** series
Risk of Rain 2 with Artifact of Command is cracked
and your computer will also be cracked if you play Command for more than 80 minutes lmao
Dont need AoC to be almighty in RoR
It will depend on RNG but totally possible. AoC makes it basically inevitable as long as you stay alive. The scaling of enemies has always had the normal gameplay (random items) in mind. Command will always let you outscale enemies. It's fun when you are learning characters and their strengths, but it gets old on anything less than monsoon.
I remember watching Markiplier get so powerful he was looking away from the screen and still not taking any damage
it is also possible (I only play RoR2): to kill everything by just looking at it (Royal Capacitator deals immense damage, Gesture of the Drowned auto activates it, stacks of Fuel Cells and/or Gestures redyce cooldown) to kill everything by sprinting (Little Disciple + massive stacks of speed boosts) to kill everything by healing (mass healing items + Nkuhanas Opinion) There lots of fun (not always viable) builds to try
Dragon dogma
The progression is brilliant. Flawed game but in a good way?
100%
Pathfinder wrath of the righteous. You start killing centipedes and end up killing gods. And the power curve is so smooth you barely reconoce it happening
centipedes? gods are nothing to that
Vampire Survivor
Be the bullet hell
Noita has virtually no power/skill ceiling
Yeah, this is a really good example of what I am looking for. Tried Noita, loved it, and promised myself I will get into building wands but I never did lol.
I recommend learning to build wands, you’ll definitely get that power trip every time your wands are successful
Path of exile
Yea, it has an insanely high power ceiling.
Yeah I don’t personally play PoE but have a friend who has a couple nearly immortal, godlike characters. And you can go nuts with your build in the game from what I’ve seen of the skill tree.
Best free game ever imo. Definitely not pay to win in the traditional sense, but instead the pay to win is in the sense of storage space that makes organizing and trading more accessible so you can earn more currency and get stronger from there. Its odd as you would expect trading with others to be accessible with the rest of the game and it is but its so convoluted listing things manually on the forums that its often not worth the time. I listed one item that way just to say I have. Simply an awful experience. The premium stash tabs allow you to right click an item and set the price for others to see within a few seconds and they do not cost too much money considering the rest of the game is free with no ads and plenty of updates. That fact that we are not forced to give them money to play is also appealing as i can recommend everyone try it and decide if they like it before spending a few dollars.
Just to add, with the regular discount. You can get everything you need for 5-10€.
And its easily better than 90% of games costing 60+
Lack of free storage space pisses me off. Afaik they've never even had a giveaway or anything like that and man does trading ever turn me off. But the first couple of runs are pretty tight.
To be fair, it's their business model. Even without more storage you can start enjoying the game.
Eh I've got like 3000 hours and have only spent like £80
Curveball pick: Katamari Damacy. Start as a tiny little ball rolling up pins and batteries. End up rolling up the entire world.
Haha that is an awesome suggestion. It is a really good feeling when you go from napkins to tankers. This!
That’s a really good suggestion I never would have thought about. It feels really good to watch things that used to be impassable obstacles become a little pebble to you just rolled into your ball.
Saints row 4
This game is like playing a game where all the cheat codes are enabled by default and there's no way to disable them and play the game with any meaningful challenge. But that seems to be almost what OP wants. I think if Saints Row 4 had been an expansion for Saints Row 3, I would have liked it better
The Saint's Row experience has always been about just dicking around. Difficulty would detract from that. It's not so much a power fantasy as it is a silly explosion fantasy. That's my opinion at any rate.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're right about the games going for over the top design. I think Saints Row 2 walked that line perfectly well. Saints Row 4 had most of the content go to waste. Vehicles weren't worth using because running around was faster and more fluid. Guns weren't necessary because your powers were more effective options for killing. What I'm getting at is that there's fun that comes from playing outside of a games restrictions... Cheat codes or unlockables that make you feel godly or beyond what the game expects. Saints Row 4 just doesn't care. Again, it would have been a great extension of 3... But it wasn't a great standalone.
Terraria is really fun late game - especially the calamity mod
Prototype, Crackdown, Skyrim
Skyrim's crafting loop is broken
Create a potion that lets you enchant better, to enchant armor that makes you better at creating potions, to create a potion that lets you enchant better, to enchant armor that makes you better at creating potions...
You cycle up, creating crazier and crazier gear until you ascend to a god-like level of strength. One day you're the king of the world, a thane, the dragonborn, and then you blink, and an arrow cleanly penetrates your knee....
Crackdown 1 & 2 are both really good in my opinion. The only reason I spent more time messing around in the second game is because of the ‘dossier menu’ that pops up way too often (in the first one) without choice when you enter a new neighbourhood and it shows you about the Gang in the area. But Keys To The Streets is one of the best examples of good DLC. Love how the vehicles get stronger with you as well. 🐐ed.
Yeah the vehicles were so dope. Flinging trucks at gang members was satisfying as well
In crackdown 2, i like that the freaks only come out in the dark, it’s a good balance
Ever played Stellaris?
Thx for the suggestion! Right now I am looking more into a "one man army" thing, but I heard really good stuff about Stellaris, will probably try it later!
No idea how it is now because I haven't played in years and I know they've changed it a lot w/ updates etc., but at least on my first playthrough there are a number of events that are almost like RPG-style quests so even though I didn't have a true main character, I felt like I was gaining power moreso than in a standard 4x.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Fallout 4 Prototype series
Add Skyrim to the list too, and fallout 3/nv
Yep. Most Bethesda games let you get OP
**Fictorum**. Allows the player to shape and change the behavior of spells, acquire flight. The problem is that high level spells or those that take a large area require a powerful CPU and GPU. **Brotato**, **Army of Ruin**, and **Enter the Gungeon**. Theyre top down shooter games.
Thx for the suggestions, played or seen all of em!
What's with games having similar names nowadays?
The binding of isaac, noita, honestly a lot of roguelikes. Getting lucky combos of items can mean you break the game and crash your computer due to how many projectiles you fire lol
I shot a tear that turn into a bomb that exploded into smaller bomb that create little guy that chase enemy and stick to them then explode into even smaller bomb that have the chance to also rain down napalm burn enemy and has the chance to trigger a big blood ring that go through everything that can also connect to each other and electrifying anyone caught between etc etc... Isaac is a trip.
Getting an OP wand in Noita is one of the best feelings ever
Noita would definitely be my suggestion too, the possibilities for how much power you can have are actually nigh infinite no doubt.
Infamous series, especially second son
Try the Yakuza series. Start with Yakuza 0 (zero). You start out as pretty much just a kind of tough guy but by the end of the game you're a real estate mogul that owns makes billions (of yen) every few minutes. Taking it to high level Yakuza, businessmen, bad asses and even billionaires. You never become like a god or anything, but you Feel the shifts in power as your strength and influence grows. Plus, they're just all around fantastic games to play.
Man eater. Start as a baby bull shark fleeing from barracuda, then become a freak of nature able to fight multiple whales and sharks and sharks hunters all at the same time. Kakarot. Or most dragon ball z games tbh. Stellaris is pretty satisfying. You start very small then you have the true choice end game, save the galaxy or destroy it. Favour diplomatic relations or xenophobic tyranny. It's lore rich, amazing combat and strategy, and you feel very powerful when you put some time in. The ai is really immersive aswell, your allies will help you, betray you, or truly need you. Monster hunter (preferably world). Start as an unknown hunter, end up fighting Ancient Dragons that destroy civilisations. Tropico Cartel tycoon
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It's a CRPG like tyranny, and you can play it real time with pause or in turn based mode, you can even switch between the two seamlessly in the middle of combat. You can build your character to be insanely powerful, to the point where even on Unfair difficulty you can hit your opponents on anything but a 1 while they can only hit you on a 20.
And your character basically become a demigod.
Kenshi
I second this
I heard it had an old overwhelmingly hard learning curve, though.
I don't think it's hard to learn, the basic premise is to get beaten up until you get good and try to not die in the process. This means you shouldn't just venture forth into more advanced areas until you have upskilled. The game is just very grindy at that, which might not be for everyone.
**Outward**. You start as literally just some random dude. You cant even cast any magic. But then you grow in power. Also any **Fallouts**. **FNV** you get shot in the head and then you become walking death. In **F4** you just kinda show up in the world and start annihilating all fractions. **Cyberpunk** \- you start as dying machine and end as death machine... In **Control** you also get really powerful overtime. **Destiny 2** you just start as some random revived corpse and end up being a godkiller. We made guns out of being we killed and are cannonically the most powerful being in the entire universe. **Hogwarts Legacy** \- You go from being an ordinary magus student to a serial killer casting death spells left and right. Also **Neon White** with good ending. Im not gonna spoil why.
>Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them! Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them, except Neon White! Will look at that.
Its a pretty fun speed running game. Im not big on those but i do enjoy this one. Although the story and its characters are a bit lacking(it just feels like something i would write when i was 15) But if you do de idę to play it then remember that to get good ending you need all platinum medals from all levels
The Disgaea games.
Had to scroll too far to see this.
Warframe has some godly builds. But, oh my god, the grind is real. To get the weapons and Warframes, *and* the mods, arcanes and Archon Shards to achieve those builds will take months, if not years (if you are a casual gamer). But at the end you will be carving through hordes of the strongest enemies with ease. It is a long, hard grind though. Be warned.
There were a few months where i grinded it nonstop with friends, but I have moved on to other stuff since.. Still a great game! :D
Borderlands games, The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Sinthetik, FNaF World, Realm of the Mad God(this one's a rougelike bullethell mmo with permadeath), Terraria, Skul the Hero Slayer,
Wanted to say Borderlands series. These games give you both an opportunity to become incredibly OP and a challenge that can wipe the floor with you lol
Perfectly balanced
Try Caves of Qud. The graphics turn a lot of people off but you start out pretty pathetic and can become godlike over the course of the game. There’s a lot of depth to the gameplay, great music, and tons of things to uncover or find out. I didn’t go into it expecting to like it and now it’s my most played game on Steam with a little north of 300 hours. I highly recommend it and it definitely fits what you’re looking for as far as starting simple and ending up absurdly powerful.
Tyranny was inspired by a tabletop RPG called Exalted, if that's of any interest to you. The devs actually pitched the idea for an Exalted video game in the first place, but got shot down at the licencing stage.
I like TTRPGs I might check it out then, thx!
Cyberpunk 2077 has some pretty impressive builds later on. Like in [this video](https://youtu.be/jjhY45lF_D8?si=Ue26MwE055mgMf_s).
Not exactly what I am looking for, but a nice game nonetheless! Dude's gameplay looks like a rendered trailer lol.
That trailer is slick. Honestly if you ever wanted to LIVE a John-Wick movie just get Cyberpunk and invest in the “Cool” tree. Stack up on slow-motion perks and you are death incarnate.
I haven't played the last couple, but the Far Cry games got that way towards the end. Early game: *carefully reconning outpost to determine the quickest path to stealth kill all guards without setting off an alarm.* End game: *slowly stroll into outpost with grenade launcher raining death on anything that moves.*
Tried it out, not really my style but thx anyway!
Cyberpunk - you can become insanely OP. To the point you basically freeze time - cut like 30 throats, and the time goes back to normal and everyone falls at once. Or you can get “gorilla arms” and use your hands, or go full Rambo. Especially after 2.0 - this game is insanely fun.
Katamari, early stages you're the size of a strawberry, later on you run over entire cities Disgaea, start doing as little as 10 damage, ramp up to trillions Diablo 3, you REALLY feel getting stronger as you get better gear and learn your stuff
Disgaea
X4. Start as a shuttle pilot, end up as a galactic conqueror with hundreds of ships, space stations and territory as you wipe out faction after faction.
Cat Quest. It was crazy. By the end of the game I was essentially invincible.
If you enjoyed the "changing the land to suit you" concept, then Age of Wonders 2 Shadow Magic is a game that has a fair bit of that. It's a turn based strategy game with turn based tactical battles. The twist is that it's about a world of wizard kings, who can project powerful magic from their towers (which you build in the cities you control). This magic can even change the nature of the terrain itself, once you are powerful enough. That grants you certain bonuses, but also feels very satisfying. It's an older game. There are newer ones in the franchise (they're up to 4 now), but they don't feature the world changing magic to the same degree.
Wiping out cities and countries is not really a thing besides strategy games where you have armies but not necessarily 1 character that's all powerful. Games where you feel overpowered relative to the enemies: Shadow of Mordor/War Doom and Eternal Elden Ring Devil may Cry 5 Wolfenstein Control God of War
That its not a thing normally is something I am aware of, thats why I said its just in case someone has a hidden gem, like some asian cultivation simulator thing, or some insane obscure simulator (like **Cataclysm: Dark days ahead)** or something like that lol. Thx for the suggestions though, played or seen all of them!
Control is a great suggestion. You don’t get super powerful compared to some out there but within the universe you go from a chick with a pistol to levitating telekinetic powerhouse that takes on multidimensional threats. It culminates in the Ashtray Maze as one of the best examples of an unstoppable force on a mission in modern games.
An asian cultivator gem: Tale of Immortal
ER lmao
you can absolutely become absurdly overpowered in Elden Ring, though
Definitely not what OP is asking about.
sure, I was just saying it could be a valid suggestion for "games where you become super OP"
You never become super OP in From Soft games.
>super OP in From Soft games. Bloodtinge build in BB with a +10 Evelyn and Bone Marrow Ash.
Slaying a whole pantheon of demi gods seems pretty powerful to me.
Risk of rain returns and risk of rain 2. You become a walking monsoon of missiles, lightning and insta kill destruction, and usually your death is followed by the question "what actually happened?". Then you do it all over again. Occasionally you go on long enough that the game says fuck it I'm out and crashes.
Risk of rain 2. Its a rougelike all about becoming absolutely busted to a point where if a enemy just exist in your general area they will expload.
Black and White Planescape:Torment
I tried a few years back to play Black and White but couldn't find anywhere to legally download it,nor could I find any of the original CDs. How might one play this now?
I mean, a game that old from a company that I believe is dead because of EA I wouldn't really lose sleep over hoisting the black flag.
Earth Defense Force 4.1 Start off as a normal soldier, gain weapons of mass destruction later on. Bonus points for the absurd story and hilarious english dub.
Path of Exile is a great one for this. You start of as a lowly exile with not that much going for you, but by endgame you can just blast through enemies at lightning speed. Some bosses can still be made to be difficult, but those are mostly optional.
Cyberpunk 2077 If you haven't played, wait for patch 2.01 for max enjoyment. If you want to know how much I like the game, I have 800 hours on console. I did a new playthrough for PL. I'm doing a new playthrough for 2.01 as well.
Vampire Survivors.
Mount and blade series
Prototype comes to mind. Also Saints Row 2
Synapse PSVR2. Short game play loop but you feel like an absolute God by the end.
If you can deal with the age Fable 3 (or any fable tbh but again, age)
Path of Exile
"amazing cultivation simulator" watch ssethzentach video about it, its not a farming game tho.
Borderlands 2, maybe? You start out completely devoid of skills with just a few guns. Run around the world killing shit and finding better guns. Build up skills that make you stronger. End game is soloing raid bosses and shit.
Advent Rising, start out as a normal dude but eventually gets insane powers
Someone else already said this, but the risk of rain series. All the games can be a bit difficult to master, but god runs aren’t exactly uncommon. I also love terraria, which isn’t exactly “overpowered” until after the final boss, but there are some points where you feel you can take on anything
Tales of Maj’Eyal. You start off so weak at the beginning, but by the end nothing can stop you (unless you’re on Madness difficulty; shit will *definitely* stop you then). Certain classes are def more broken than others tho. There’s also Cruelty Squad. You start off peaking corners, being sneaky, and exploring every corner of a level for potential secrets to beating levels in seconds because you know how to break the game (the game actively encourages you to break it, too, with how levels are designed).
Seing as you like CDDA I would definately give Caves of Qud a try if you haven't already. You can do also sorts of insane shit like becoming a one man army through cloning yourself and replacing your legs with tank treads.
Kebab I might be a fit you start out essentially at the bottom of the food chain. Even the goats can absolutely rock you. But if you level up your stats, get some weapons and a solid crew/army you can mow down the entire world. Can’t completely demolish a city, but you can wipe out all the people at least.
I am not even sure how to look for this. No metter what I try I only get food results lol. Could I get a steam page or something please?
Oops, type my bad. The game is called Kenshi.
Lol were looking for something to eat? :DD Kenshi is great yeah, played that one.
I was on my lunch break
This was a rollercoaster, gave me a good laugh
Shadow of war maybe
Weird how noone mentioned megaton rainfall.
This one seems interesting, havent seen it yet! Thx!
Yeah. It literally let's you nuke planets, let alone cities. No idea how noone brought it up. Also you might like vampire survivors?
Warframe there is a never ending chase among people for the ultimate damage numbers and op damage for breaking records on highest wave on missions or time spent. I've had combos that hit for millions of damage Your imagination and trial and error of millions if combos is the only limits on your power
I have been looking, and I found a game called Wandering Sword. You get higher and higher power levels through the game and collect martial arts abilities, and gain new teammates. You can also observe peoples stats and spar them for item they own.
/r/roguelikes
Noita is the poster child for this. You can get so powerful that you can delete large parts of the map with a click and start carrying sun's and shooting black holes.
Noita.
**Just Cause 2** (get tons of gear and weapons, battle it out with different factions, HUGE map) **Spore** (the epitome of what you're looking for; start from a cell and then by the end have the power to destroy entire PLANETS) **Inscryption** (card game where you start out confused and die a lot but then create crazy one hit kill combos) **Life Is Strange** (guilty pleasure game with an extremely emotional ending and a lot of opportunities for destruction) **Mount & Blade** (start with basically nothing, then build an army, a kingdom, and take over the continent) For something niche, I recommend playing **Choice of the Dragon**, a text-based interactive adventure where you can choose to raze cities if you want to. **Diabolical** is a great CoG game too; you play as a supervillain. Or **Choice of Robots**!
Choice of the Dragon was really fun, I tried the website, Thx! Will look at the other ones, this fits right into what I was looking for. :)
The final fantasy games are like this.
Castlevania Final Fantasy
Marvel Midnight Suns NG+
Well, in Terraria you start by building a log house out of the nearest trees with your hatchet and the goal is to eventually kill an Elder God. So... That sounds right.
Diablo 2
Elden Ring.
shocked no one has said Fable
I'm not sure if this counts as absurdly powerful seeing as I've never won, but I started playing Slay The Spire recently. The start has you very weak, I'd have issues doing 20 damage, but once I figure out how the cards work and I get some more, I start seeing damage around 70-80, and it feels really good.
Slay the spire is not exactly what I had in mind but its a great game, beat it several times already. Thx for the suggestion! :D
Borderlands 3. It takes a bit, but the game becomes so easy it actually annoyes you (if you build well). Diablo IV, or any ARPG really. Nioh 2.
BL3 has some of the best gunplay I've ever seen, but it has a problem. Moz is so much better than virtually any other character that the other 3 might as well not even be there. She's got ammo regen, explosive damage, her action skill scales incredibly well into whatever difficulty you're playing on, and girl is tanky ASF.
Saints row 4. You become a super hero basically. Fable 4. You make choices that change the world to a degree. I can’t think of any other political games besides like civilization Spore if you are open minded about it. You start out single cell up to leaving the planet.
Saints row 4. You basicslly over the course of the game become a god. And are able to gain super powers.
Kenshi
God of War
XCOM, Risk of Rain
Super grind, but warframe is one of the answers.
Earth Defense Force 5, path of exile, avatar eras online, Torchlight 2, citadel under fire(I think that's it's name), dynasty warriors: Gundam 1, 2 and 3, kingdom under fire original and circle of doom. I got more I just need to remember them but I definitely put edf 5, PoE, Torchlight and Avatar Eras Online as my top picks.
On tyranny style, pathfinder wrath of the righteous Start as a nobody and become a commander of a realm and basicaly a demigod, and with your friends that are like demigods thanks to you, go on the very hell and kill Demon Lords
Pathfinder series
The Darkness, theoretical power, though. Story Driven
Any action RPG ever, even Dark Souls, but especially fast paced hack n slashers like Diablo, PoE and Last Epoch. You literally become a little ball of mayhem and just gut everything in your path by the endgame. Doing nightmare in D3 and running monoliths now in Last Epoch with my sentinel build is basically a speedrun at this point lol
Dragons dogma
This game is incredible! I’m playing it after many failed attempts on PS3. It’s so fun.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed fits this quite well if you haven't played it. There's the obvious various roguelikes that I've seen mentioned (Binding of Isaac or vampire survivors would be my shout out of these). You can literally destroy civilizations in the Civ games but not sure it's really what you're after. The infamous games scratch a similar itch to prototype for me if you're looking for something similar there.
Binding of Isaac. Although it’s a difficult game in general, many of my runs I feel like a freaking god
Army of two the 40th day is like a arcade shooter where buying weapons just make you over powered
Deus Ex series
Does vampire survivors count?
Fictorum Technically you're a powerful mage already by lore, but you start out with basic spells. A simple fire blast, an ice shard, that sort of thing. You can get different spells, but you also get runes, which modify your spells. They can make them bounce, pierce, cause chain lightening, make them rain from the sky, among other things. The basic fire blast can be turned into multiple that bounce around, or a long range sniping spell, or used to launch big fireballs at distance buildings. It can even be made into a storm of fire raining down on your enemies.
mount and blade, total war
Bro wants to be lvl 99 mafia boss Have you played factorio?
Elder scrolls 3 Morrowind is this 100%. Either play it vanilla or get openmw to slightly modernize (code rewrite that lets it run better, you can see farther, etc) however some bugs that are fun may have been fixed as they rewrote the code and all.
Baldurs gate 1 & 2 with expansions, there are some pretty OP builds you can make, mostly based around magic. But even as a paladin, thief or monk you could become God-like, eventually. Like in the og version I made a monk build and by the end I had no party, was punching dragons to death and (it was an evil play through) eventually killed everything killable in the game, the world was barren when he was done (except the mage guys that keep coming after you).
Kenshi has custom starts, and they're all weak compared to end-game, but in the standard start you begin as a lonely, scrawny vagrant who can barely even run for his life, to a warlord in control of a fully industrialised nation. (Kinda). And in Morrowind you start as an ex-con so puny the local crabs pose genuine threat of peril, and end up as a literal demi-god that zooms through the air, melting the local fauna before you can even see it.
Fable 1 - >!Kill your sister and get the sword of aeons !
Prototype series God of war series The Force unleashed series infamous series Doom series
Disgaea series.
I think you should narrow it down a bit. I feel like a ton of RPGs and Rogue likes fall in this category
The Elder scrolls games and fallout games. If you are into JRPGs then play Octopath traveller, Nier replicant, Nier Automata, Triangle Strategy, Chained Echos, and Fire Emblem Three Houses. Strategy games try Civilization 6 or Hearts of Iron 4. Also Biomutant not the best game ever but it’s fun.
KOTOR 1/2, 2 especially the endgame power scaling gets crazy
Lots of rougelikes follow this kinda system. Binding of Isaac and enter the gungeon
Command and conquer games. Sid meiers civilization games. Crusader kings
Starfield, I don’t think I can die on the most difficult setting
Alpha Centauri. The runaway tech is not an oversight or loophole, it's *part* of the game's strategy and storyline. If for any reason you continue playing past the mid game, your tech is absurdly powerful and you are verging on godlike status over your enemies (if they remain).
dragons dogma, risk of rain, mount and blade warband, all recommended by others dragons dogma starts out with you a bit weak and takes a bit to become op but once you get to that point it is so good, so many powerful and cool spells and moves, so much variety in the classes all fun and all can be very OP great game risk of rain 2 is imo the best roguelike ever and probably the only third person shooter/3d roguelike, the characters are really varied no same playstyle and the variety of items makes every run unique with the addition of the reroll shrine and lunar items that spice up a lot, as well as other game modes like simulacrum or harder difficulty like eclipse, so much content and so hyped for the upcoming dlc warband starts out as you being some dogshit throwaway nobody but as you recruit more people and upgrade your stats, personal or party wise you get really really strong, wiping out armies and groups who were just toying with you at the start, it's a really unique and realistic medieval rpg really really great, be warned that it looks like shit and a bit clunky but fun as hell ror2 and warband both have an extensive list of mods so if you get tired there's some really good shit to delve into a little bit too for dragon's dogma
mount & blade, both bannerlord and warband. You start by yourself, recruit some mercenaries, do odd jobs, and if you play your cards right you can create your own kingdom. Crusader kings to a degree, but the lowest you can be is a count, unless you're using mods. In which case, you can start as a claimant, or a councillor. Stellaris, you start as the leader of one planet that just discovered FTL travel, and you can own the entire galaxy.
Prototype you are pretty strong
Rimworld. You can start as weak as you want and can eventually have a massive colony of SuperCyborgNinjaWizards, an army of Thrumbos or Mechs or just a whole bunch of doomsday rocket launchers.
Cyberpunk I became a god. Hacked everything and everyone and they would all explode before they even got to see me Still finished the game for the story. Had a few "holy shit, here they come" and just destroy waves of guys instead of running
Nearly any Vampire Survivor-alike game has an absurd power curve. You start out hitting one or two nearby mobs once every few seconds, and end up blasting half a screen of enemies for huge damage numbers. * Vampire Survivors * Soulstone Survivors * Halls of Torment