It used to exist, but not so much anymore. I miss heavily community based FPS multiplayer games. With custom servers and so on. I played Counter-Strike: Source last night, what a breath of fresh air!
Same, I played some Day Of Defeat: Source also a while back. I got onto a server, people were talking about random things and seemed to know each other, there was a sense of community, it felt like a local bar.
It’s 3am and I’m chilling and talking with strangers while surfing on CS:S. God, I miss this.
I miss that in newer games. It’s all matchmaking, all competitive and in many ways, modern games like this feels “no fun allowed”.
I really miss these days where games were more than just the game itself.
I also feel that newer games only focus on the competitive aspect.
Pretty much. It’s always competitive. Always on the grind. You can’t just play for fun, no. You have to be at your best every time, because now, there is this skill-based matchmaking algorithm watching your every move in game and so on.
I feel like I’m starting to get old when I say this, but every time I go back to play one of those old games, I get reinforced in this idea… so many games feel like jobs nowadays. It’s just like the real world, it’s all so competitive. No fun allowed. You can’t ever be goofing around, you have your rank to worry about… every shooter now keeps on getting updated, the meta keeps on changing, and you have to keep up with it constantly otherwise you’ll get left behind.
I can’t put it into words exactly, so excuse me if what I’m going to say sounds odd… But I feel like most of the modern entertainment available to me is really stressful and I can’t explain it. To be honest, it’s the first time I’m voicing this feeling, but I find it really distressing…
Cities: Skylines but ecosystem repair. Plant forests, regrade areas of mountains to mitigate landslide potential, reintroduce species and study their functional relationships with each other… Game progression comes in the form of additional research grants or new area assignments which present new challenges and unlock a new set of tools/procedures, but the successes from previous sites allow for migration of the reintroduced species into the new site.
Terra Nil is like 80% of this.
I’ve only watched gameplay of Terra Nil, but it seems like it’s just an environmentalism themed puzzle game. You could replace all the titles with colors, and all the buildings and what they do with arbitrary rules, and it seems like it wouldn’t look anything like an ecosystem sim. It would be like taking the game Lights Out, changing dark spots to “growth”, light spots to “wastelands” and saying the goal is to balance out the ecosystem.
I didn’t see the late game though, so maybe I didn’t see where it shines.
I was hoping this was the direction Dyson Sphere Program would go. I think it would be an interesting twist on the factory management genre if nature was working against you; not in a Factorio “aliens will attack you if they see your pollution” way, but a “you’re producing pollution, this is creating more in-climate weather that is damaging your factories and changing the landscape dynamically” sort of way. I think this was the natural next step given that the game is already about climbing the Kardashev scale, producing more energy so that you can construct the means to produce exponentially more energy. Seemed like the natural next step would be exploring the balancing act that has to happen to achieve that energy production without also creating systemic issues for yourself that make it infeasible.
Instead their latest patch adds aliens that attack you 😕.
Need for Speed: The Run, but good. Give me an uninterrupted race accoss the US (or any other continent), against 199 other drivers, with strategic decisions to make such as fuel stops, sleep breaks, multiple paths… Make it a rogue lite with unlockable vehicle classes, police chases, weather changes, racing through traffic… Bonus points for realistic physics and VR support.
Nfs the run was so disappointing. Even for a nfs game.
Some NFS game are straight up terrible (Undercover…), but at least the good ones with similar gameplay (NFSU2, Carbon) still exist. But The Run was worse than bad; it was disappointing. It could have been good, but wasn’t, and they never tried to make another one with a similar premise.
The only good part of the game is the bonus mission in Carbon Canyon, in all its HD glory.
Back in the day I playtested this game concept under an NDA, but since it expired I can talk about it.
An FPS game in an open map with buildings, has 12 players playing but when someone dies, they respawn right there but swap to the opposite team. The last person to get shot gets eliminated and then the teams split again. This goes on until 6 players are remaining, who are declared the winning team.
It was really fun to play, and I quite miss it.
Doesn’t that mean that the last man standing is the first to lose?
So if your team is loosing you try to get shot deliberately to not be the last?
You could mitigate that by coms only being proximity and no indication of how many players each team has. Thst would also make offensive playstyles preferable.
So, if I die first in every round, I win?
That does sound like a lot of fun.
Reminds me of zombie panic
Truly open-world Star Wars. Like a Breath of the Wild game except with multiple planets and all the Star Wars stuff.
We had something close to it with SW: Galaxies, but… RIP SW: Galaxies.
I want to play a game like Fallout, with perhaps a light plot, but a much heavier settlement building mechanic.
Like, you found a settlement, and it’s filled with trash, debris, and burnt-out structures. As you scavenge and collect things, and attract people to your cause, the place slowly becomes cleaner and more structured. You can have settlers scavenge for themselves and fix up structures, farm for food, treat wounded, lead small armies against mutants and generally secure an area of a map, and really be able to treat the settlement as a home base.
Playing Fallout 4, I was bothered by how I could build out all these settlements, place structures and whatnot, help these people, and still no one had the sense to pick up a broom and sweep up the pile of trash in the street.
My friend. Look at the Sim Settlements mod for Fallout 4. It’s not EXACTLY what you want but damn if it isn’t really close.
Sounds a bit like State of Decay. Or maybe Surviving The Aftermath
I want a game that’s somewhere between Animal Crossing and Dwarf Fortress - something with the extensive world gen of DF, but with cute goofy animals, and maybe a little less grisly. So less sudden death by wildlife/zombies/collapsing ceilings, and more adorable wagon travel, trade and founding of settlements - which you then get to live in!
That sounds like a great idea. I’m picture something with the world and artwork of Root, but yeah, gameplay like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld.
So when you say “less sudden death”, would there still be death? Or would it have the potential as a kid-friendly intro to the simulation genre?
Omg yeah I had the style of Root in mind too!
I go back and forth on how much of the dwarf fortress vibes to let in. Probably it’d be a bit distressing to see your adorable villager friends just straight up die. On the other hand, it would be kind of interesting to experience them getting old and passing away, plus racking up memories, hangups, traumas and complicated social connections like the dwarves do.
Me and my SO had this idea (based on where we live lol) for a game that’s like Animal Crossing where it’s all cute and you build houses and a town for cute animal characters, except they’re all shitty crackheads so like you build a park and the next day there’s shit on the floor and all the streetlights are broken, you have to fish in the river to get old bikes and shopping carts out and so on.
I guess this game just doesn’t exist, but remember that tweet of the guy who had a dream about an open world pirate exploration game with Waluigi in it?
That game.
Now I’m just imagining AC Black Flag, but Waluigi just replaces Edward whole cloth, just does all the voicelines and everything, everybody else just pretends he’s a normal guy.
There is/was a fan made version of this in development! I don’t know the status of it currently, and I heard that development was rocky for a while… and they haven’t posted on the blog since 2020. But take a look anyway!
If you go role play as Waluigi in Sea of Thieves, that’s kinda the same thing.
Science-based dragon MMO
Eve Offline, with all other players being NPCs.
I have a mental hangup with the very real dread of when hosted multiplayer games die, that all the time and effort I have spent, and all the things I’ve built, will just suddenly disappear. It’s why I run a private G17 Mabinogi server on my pc, rather than playing online.
Saw this trailer the other day that might interest you, it’s an offline type mmo where all the other players are simulated. Erenshor Offline MMO Trailer
This what got me into the original .hack on PS2.
1: An open world exploration game that doesn’t have combat … like Breath of the Wild but without all the fighting and with lots of short stories and puzzles.
Basically I want to be able to go wandering off and uncover ancient ruins etc without having to fight for my life.
2: Snowrunner, but with a good narrative story mode and gearboxes that actually work.
There’s so much potential to have engaging stories in that game, which could be tied into improved game structure (namely restricting truck / tire choice to make some tasks challenging in an interesting way).
Give Outer Wilds a go.
This fits OP’s description perfectly. Great game. It’s on PS+ if you play on Playstation 4 or 5.
For your #1 point, have you heard of Palia? It got released last month and it is a chill have where you gather and build your house. Additionally you can explore ruins to uncover your origins.
Wobbly life is like that. It’s targeted more towards children, but my kids absolutely love it.
The WoW raiding experience, but without the MMO, and possibly the addition of rogue lite elements (each raid is a run with its own progression, but wiping would be allowed and embraced).
The format of DRG or Gunfire Reborn is pretty close, but 1) I prefer the high fantasy setting of warcraft to the gunplay, 2) I’m not interested in procedural levels, and 3) I want the focus to be on polished boss mechanics.
Dungeon Defenders is also close, but 1) you’re defending instead of delving, and 2) it is also focused on killing waves of trash mobs rather than boss mechanics.
Destiny bosses are sometimes well designed, but 1) don’t care for the gunplay, 2) classes hardly matter, 3) it’s a max of 6 people, and I think closer to 10 is the sweet spot.
Gauntlet from a few years back was probably the closest, but still far from the mark. It could have used more mechanic heavy bosses, more meaningful gear, and a larger party size.
Two player retro JRPG (a la Chrono Trigger, etc) where each player can play independently in the same world, but the story lines intersect and must work together in many parts of the story. Would work great if the story filled in gaps when you replayed as the other player.
Would both people always have to be playing at the same time? Or would it be possible for one person to play and progress while the other person isn’t playing?
I think the idea of an open world RPG with more than one player, not necessarily competitive or coop, but each with their own quests and motives, is interesting. I’m often hanging out in discord with friends, and we’re all just chatting while playing different games. We might as well be playing in the same world, and occasionally influence each other.
You’d have to somehow make it clear to the players that the goal is not to party up and just walk around doing everyone’s quests together, though. Ooo what if it was the world of the last airbender, and each person started as a different bender in a different part of the world? And maybe one person is secretly the avatar, but they don’t know until they’ve progressed. Ok, I’ll stop intruding on your idea lol.
Would both people always have to be playing at the same time? Or would it be possible for one person to play and progress while the other person isn’t playing?
I think you could go either way. If you want to be able to play without the other person also playing, you’d need a server or someone/something hosting the “game” where you connect in. If you were really clever as a programmer, you may be able to sync actions after both people are online without having a server, but that would be a challenge.
The other option is something like couch multiplayer, where you’re both playing on the same device. If one person isn’t there to move around, then no biggie.
I think the idea of an open world RPG with more than one player, not necessarily competitive or coop, but each with their own quests and motives, is interesting. I’m often hanging out in discord with friends, and we’re all just chatting while playing different games. We might as well be playing in the same world, and occasionally influence each other.
Me too! One thing I’m looking at trying out soon is the multiplayer mod to Elden Ring. It’s enables a mechanic that’s very similar to this goal, but not entirely.
In an open world where just a few people are playing their own game, together, you could have very fun friend interactions like trading and helping with quests or missions.
You’d have to somehow make it clear to the players that the goal is not to party up and just walk around doing everyone’s quests together, though. Ooo what if it was the world of the last airbender, and each person started as a different bender in a different part of the world? And maybe one person is secretly the avatar, but they don’t know until they’ve progressed. Ok, I’ll stop intruding on your idea lol.
Right – I imagine when you both start the game you both get a very different intro, and are clearly starting in different parts of the world. I don’t know much Airbender lore, but that sounds like a great theme for a game like this.
One feature I’d like to see is the two players’ stories intertwine in such a way that you absolutely do have to help/meet to beat the game. Like, one player is arrested in jail and the other has to help them break out, because the one in jail is the one that can get the one not in jail access to the dungeon/castle/area that he wants to go to. Ultimately, I think it’d be important to kill the final boss/end the game together.
I’d love to play a fighting game, with 0 executional difficulty. I’m not talking a simplified fighting game, no. I love the fighting game culture, and discussion and analysis of fighting game tech is super interesting. But before I get to have any fun I have to grind and memeorize for hours the structures and matchups. I can’t just pick up guilty gear, do a quick match and have fun.
I want a full fat, meaty fighting game where its turn based. Every frame, or at least every frame where I could have an input, I can look at the scene and make a choice. 0 hidden information, 0 mystery on why I got bodied. The depth of a real fighting game, but now its all understanding of the mechanics and not practicing dragon punches.
If this game existed I’d be so jazzed. I would like for it to have CPU matches as well, maybe not as fleshed out as a full story mode but something I can casually play with even when the community inevitabily dies.
Your Only Move is Hustle is pretty much exactly what you described.
I was going to suggest Toribash, but that looks way cooler. Toribash is pretty ancient at this point and has a pretty tough learning curve.
This looks incredible. It doesn’t look like it has a VS CPU option though? I’ll definitely look at this for sure. How insane that I’ve imagined this concept for a game, and bam it actually exists.
Imagine if Rockstar did a superhero game.
With their satire style on it. Like The Boys style.
Open world, some destructive environment, a deep character creator.That’s basically Saints Row 4.
Everything being in a simulation killed it for me, though.
The visually glitching-out NPCs ruined the fun of being a completely unhinged maniac with/without superpowers. Which is kinda what the games are about.
And the constant black skybox became depressing fast.
SR3 does it better, imo. It constantly rides the edge of “How much is movie set? And how much is not?”
