Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 23rd

No oxygen included. Finally might make it to a point where I discover a new machine/furniture and have to restart again to plan my base around it.

Haven't touched RimWorld in a few years. Got addicted to it again this week. Hopefully soon it will pass.

One of the best games ever! Doing a vanilla Royalty run now, and looking forward to try Biotech later.
- I haven't bought any of the DLC yet. Every steam sale I'm like not yet haha.
I feel your pain. I'm back doing a solo mechanitor run.

Started a fresh play of Mindustry this week and forgot how much I enjoy it. I play primarily on PC now to save my hands, but the mobile apps are free if someone wants to try it out!

Great game! And very playable on mobile too. I also enjoyed Shapez a lot. Looking forward to the sequel.
- Shapez ruined me on Factorio. It feels like it took Factorio, removed all the weird distractions, and got down to the distilled essence of the genre. Everything else feels unsatisfying now. Send help!

I'm surprised nobody else is playing Remnant 2. It just came out and it's pretty damn fun.

They called the original "Dark Souls with guns" and it's definitely that sort of game in the sequel. But it's not as punishing as a typical souls-like since there's no death penalty. It's perfect for my preferences since I hate the "losing all your money when you die" thing in Elden Ring.

Apparently it's very fun in co-op but I have been playing solo so I can't speak to that.

At only $50, it's a pretty solid recommendation from me if "dark souls with guns" piques your curiosity even a little. AA title with no jank and I've only seen a single bug so far in my playing on XSX.

I was just watching a couple friends of mine stream Remnant 2 earlier and it does look pretty slick. It seems there is at least one puzzle that requires co-op to fully solve, and there may be more further in just so you and others are aware.

A bit behind the curve, but I just finished The Return of the Obra Dinn. Wonderful game, I took the time to 100% it and it was very rewarding.

If you are looking for another game with the same feel, try Case of the Golden Idol. I genuinely thought it was the same developer until I looked it up.

Nova Drift, like Asteroids but a roguelite. Been really into roguelites lately, recommendations welcome!

I'm sure you've played Hades if you're into roguelites but that is such an awesome game.

A lesser known and interesting recommendation is Against the Storm, which is a top down strategy game with roguelite mechanics
- Against the storm is on my wish list! Just waiting for a good discount.

I'm playing Dave the diver. It keeps me surprised, constantly adding new sections, while keeping the cor game loop fun. I suck at navigating though so I frequently get lost.

Yeah, Dave ate my entire weekend. Some issues, but great game overall.

Just started playing Grim Dawn again while waiting for Baldur's Gate 3.

Still playing Cassette Beasts

Cassette beasts is on my to play list starting soon!

I'm playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (DCSS for friends), trying to get the Orb of Zot unsuccessfully.

My best runs so far are with a Minotaur, although a Gnoll is good too, more or less. The farthest I've arrived so far is Dungeon:12, and Orcish Mines:2 were nasty the two times I achieved to get into it.

Went from like an hour in divinity original sin 2 to 55 and counting with a BG3 purchase this week.

Consider me hooked hard.

i am playing no man's sky these days. i have played 25 hours in last 3 days.

Minecraft, with my kids.. Got ourselves quite a neat little survival world going on at the moment.

I finally finished Persona 5 Royal the second time in a row, and moved on to...Persona 5 Strikers lol

Diablo 4 with my wife, and replaying GTA V. Both have been a lot of fun.

How's diablo 4 for a (I'm guessing) casual player? Was looking to pick it up but haven't heard that much positive about it.
- I thought the game was spectacularly bad, but I seem to be in the minority. Makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills! It's a very pretty game with super shallow mechanics and it's designed for maximum grind. I can handle grind in an ARPG since it's kinda their thing, but you gotta have some good mechanics to go with it or it's just an idle/incremental game with prettier graphics.

I've been playing Doom 2 and getting into Doom mods. I saw a video about the Ashes 2063 mod and decided to try it out. It's a post-apocalyptic mod inspired by series like Fallout, Stalker, and Metro. I've seen a lot of mixed reactions about it online, but I'm really enjoying it so far, especially the second episode. It's almost like a Bethesda-style Fallout game built in Doom with little side quests and hub areas to explore in between the shooting. I keep having to remind myself that it's a free Doom mod and not an indie throwback shooter built from the ground up.

Battlebit, Diablo IV, and Remnant II now that just came out.

Caves of lore; a pixel (up to 6) party turn based RPG created by a single very active developer. Has shades of Jeff Vogel in it for me. Great little game that not many have heard of.

City of Heroes: Homecoming. It's CoH/CoV on a private server. It has easy access to a double XP buff at the cost of no influence earned passively (enhancement/salvage still drops tho). It's been a great time. My nostalgia is loving it.

I really wish we could spin up private servers in an official capacity. But I'd love to go back and relive some CoH.
Oh man, haven't played CoH in ages. I was really sad when they shut it down but I had stopped playing by then anyways. I might have to check it out just for nostalgia sake.

Return to Monkey Island, Vampire Survivors and Northgard.

Plus, my boss bought an arcade cabinet for the office, so I've been playing lots of different arcade games, mostly Golden Axe, Bubble Bobble and Street Fighter II

Siralim Ultimate on the deck while my daughter is awake, Fortresscraft Evolved on the pc when she's asleep.

@chloyster right now Pikmin 4!! It's a lot of fun

Sweet!!! I agree I've been absolutely adoring it. I think it's probably my favorite one

Minetest, mostly on the capture the flag server

It's a huge bummer that CTF game modes are largely gone these days.

I have started playing Pharaoh a new dawn and have really been enyojing it. Damn it brings back memoires.

Exoprimal is currently my main game.

This game keeps peeling back but and more as I play. Really cool how they tied the story and the mode evolutions together so well.

Stellaris, picked it up again for the first time since 2019 with some new DLC from the last sale. Spent a solid 40 or so hours on it again, but I think I am good for some time now. Maybe in another four years once more.

I had taken a break from Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin and picked it back again. Genuinly amazing game, some nice character action style combat that flows greatly, intricate rice farming that makes you struggle but reap satisfying rewards, unexpected character development that feels organic and well earned in its joy.

I also got my first Infinite rank in Marvel Snap, but that's hardly a "week" playing and more like a constant habit I've been doing since October or so.

I've been revisiting Kenshi again so I can form my own colony, grow it, stave off bandits, cannibalize through bandits' properties, assign my bug-man on stealth missions (steal blueprints off the Great Library), go on another stealth mission that will make the Tech Hunters salivate, while I plot my future in destabilizing the great cult and the nation of slavery using one bug-man.

X4 foundations with the boron dlc. I start and stop this one a lot. I've played hundreds of hours in this game and still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.

Picked up a long-running Paradox mega campaign with two friends again. We're most of the way through EU4 now, having started in 769 in CK2

Started and completed 'Viewfinder' over the last few days. It's a little puzzle game where you have to play around with a camera and toy with angles to solve puzzles. Little Portal, little Witness, and a lot of fun.

Still Final Fantasy 14. I'm done with Heavensward, except some optional trials, which I'll do before starting the next expansion.

I thought most of the post-patch story was either trash or extremely tedious. The conclusion to the Dragonsong War was generally alright, just everything leading up to it was a chore. The Warriors of Darkness story felt like complete filler and a waste of time. After that is the stuff that leads into the next expansion, so I'll have to see how that plays out.

Imma be honest, I'm really close to just starting to skip most of the story, it's such a drag sometimes.

Stick with the story through the end of Shadowbringers there is a good payoff.
- I doubt it, but as long as I enjoy most of my time with the game, I'll keep playing.
I feel the same way. I’m currently working through heavensword and it just feels like there’s so much filler.

Half the time I feel like missions were just put into the expansion to pad out the game time because most of the epic stuff doesn’t happen until later.

I find myself skipping a lot of the dialog and just watching a recap on YouTube later.

Just finished Final Fantasy XVI and feel vaguely disappointed and unsatisfied. The story kinda fell apart in the last third.

2 weeks until Baldur's Gate 3, no idea what I'll do until then.

Phoenix Wright trilogy

Still playing Ridge Racer 2 and Pangya.

The former seems to be quite a bit easier than I remember it being, but not to a point where it would affect my fun (I'm also realitively early into the game).
Pangya is really growing on me as well. Just finished episode 1 with the first character and got about half-way with char #2. I really like it and I'm surprised I didn't know about this game for so long.

Lastly, I replaced Minecraft with The Sims 2. I was planning to install it just to see how it works through WINE and suddenly realized I've been building for like 6 hours. Boy those games are scary...

Partner is playing Horizon: Zero Dawn and I'm helping with inventory management and tutorial quests.

I'll steup the morrowind total conversion "starwind" which seems like a really good star wars game set in the old republic era.

Unless a friend of mine buys baldurs gate 3. In zhat case it'll be baldurs gate 3. I hope it lives up to divinity original sin 2.

pikmin 4! so excited to finally have my hands on a new pikmin game. the game is very streamlined and a lot of the minor annoyances of the older games have been eliminated by one design choice or another, and it is just really easy to sit down and play.

would recommend for new players and fans of the series.

Without any major spoilers how would you say it compares to pikmin 1/2? Pikmin 3 was okay but imo 2 was the best, and 1 suffers a lot from poor quality of life. Ive played every game so far around release and Im tempted to get 4 on my next paycheck. Is it more like the caves and exploration of 2 or the slightly more linear gameplay of 3?
- its different from the other ones, mostly in terms of ui and game feel, but it plays the most like 3. the caves are great so far (if a little short, but there is still plenty more for me to do), overall its just been lots of fun but i do wish it was a little harder. The big areas are super cool, and the design improvements allow you to just go diving into any caves or dandori battles you find in your travels without having to worry about where are my pikmin, do i have everyone, do i have the right types, etc.
  
  would definitely recommend it to any pikmin fans

I've been hitting the Switch Online emus pretty hard lately. Namely Gameboy/Link's Awakening. Then I was looking through old games I haven't played in forever and got hooked on Super Monkey Ball banana blitz! And Minecraft is always in the rotation too

I'm currently hooked on Exoprimal, my wife and I are also about to start playing Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga.

Just now getting to the Lego Batman series.

ESO, picked it up because it was free and I have some friends who play it. The difficulty spike from literally anywhere else in the world and the imperial city is nuts, kind of wish every zone was this tough. I could do without the PvP though, I got floored pretty much any time another player showed up. Worth it for those extra skill points though.

Sorta weened off of Dave the Diver but started it back up again. What's great is that they keep introducing new mechanics that (no pun intended) hook me in again. I previously spent a ton of time (pre-Klaus fight) in the fishing + sushi bar loop, but now that I've continued the story, more interesting things are being introduced. Also, Klaus was a weird spike in difficulty—you go from the easy Giant Squid fight into the Klaus fight thinking it's gonna be similar and BAM! you get a spike in difficulty.

Also planning on trying to get into Planet Coaster if I have time. It's been in my Steam library FOR YEARS but I haven't mustered up the energy to learn it. I tried once but was turned off by the fact that you can't make large plaza areas, only single pathways. But I found a YouTube tutorial that seems to have a workaround for this. LASTLY, I might boot up Civ 6, but I'm afraid of re-learning it's mechanics again.

Battlebit Remastered and MWII when my friends have been online

I really want to keep playing Satisfactory, we had just automated computers and aluminum, so I’d really like to build a huge train system and push into the endgame.

I managed to get myself back into Snowrunner this weekend following the Season 10 release. Honestly it's my favorite expansion so far for two simple reasons: the second map has a garage, and all the warehouses (so far) have unlimited quantities of materials, instead of the limited set that has been the norm through most of Years 1, 2, and 3 (so far).

Otherwise, just grinding away on the OSRS group ironman as usual!

Road 96! Also revisiting Hyperlight Drifter

Man I was really hoping that was a lost sequel to Interstate ‘76/‘82.

Lately, it's been MechWarrior Online. It scratches the "Blow up stompy robots" itch.

Counting down the days until Armored Core 6...
If you want to blow up Dinosaurs in big stompy robots, then Exoprimal might scratch a similar itch.

The blaster Master zero series is my new flavor. It's nostalgic and innovative all at once.

Xenonauts 2

Released into early access last week, and picked it up yesterday. Very happy with it so far. Fun and polished.

Final fantasy 16 (on second playthrough in final fantasy mode) and a bit of just cause 3 (just cuz)

Still playing a lot of Hunt: Showdown after 1k+ hours. Fantastic game.

Also just started Jagged Alliance 3. Loved JA 1 & 2, when I was younger. JA3 finally looks to be a good successor. I am still in the first few tutorial sectors and the game is already pretty harsh. A good start.

Street fighter 6 and valorant. Watching some puzzle games like viewfinder makes me want to go back and finish the talos principle, which I plan to do. Also need to finally play the third amnesia game so I can play the bunker.

Picked up Snow Runner year one. I'm having a blast with it. It's giving me something to work on that I can take my time with.

Breathedge.

It has a quirky sense of humor that I enjoy, but even if you don’t I think it does a great job exemplifying the solo space base-building, survival, and mystery genres.

Two Point Hospital on the PS5. Finding some of the levels harder on console than on PC for some reason, maybe I am expanding too quickly

The Finals season 3

And lots and lots of Redout 2.

Forbidden West on weekends