I second this, greatest rendition of a fantasy story ever told in a video game IMO. Everything just comes together so well and creates a wonderfully integrated world.
Same. Need to go back and finish Monster Hunter World, then the expansion pack. Going through Fallout New Vegas one more time to finish Lonesome Road, which is the one piece of content I didn't finish back when it first came out.
The best freedom was realizing the armor wasn't doing that much to help me and it was just more fun to figure out the silliest outfit to kill bosses in.
Well Sleeping Dog definitely ranks up there, since after playing GTA games in American cities all the time getting to play in Hong Kong was refreshing. Getting to see vendors to buy pork buns from, driving on the left side of the road, and the melee combat was fun compared to always just shooting my way out of things.
It's a very uncreative answer, but Elden Ring is the biggest thing in my mind right now. A friend and I just finished a Seamless Co-op playthrough, I've got a couple different builds I'm also playing. I've hit a couple hundred hours. I just love the exploration, the setting, the art design, the way items contribute to build ideas, the boss design, the feeling of growth against adversity.
The method of story delivery is also something that appeals to me. It's carefully crafted, rich in lore and meaning, but it doesn't care if you see it. It's prompting you to pay attention and explore, you don't just play between cut-scenes.
God of War 2018. Picked it up on PC recently after trying it a couple times on PS4 a few years ago, but really got sucked in. Probably me being far more comfortable on KB+M. Absolutely incredible game, can't wait for Ragnarök to come to PC as well.
Sky: Children of the Light and Let It Die are the two main ones rn
I love the Elder Scrolls games too but I play those in first person mainly
Edit: sorry, just saw that I'm in PCGaming. Let It Die is on PS4, and SCOTL is on PS4, Switch, and mobile. They're both still great games though, and both free on their respective platforms!
If you're looking for a military shooter with a good story in the veins of Black Hawk Down, I emphatically recommend Spec Ops: The Line. It got a lot of flak back when it was first released for being another brown-colored military shooter, and admittedly the gameplay is a serviceable cover-based shooter at best - but man, the story and the writing carries the game pretty well and keeps it a bit more fresh to this day. The main character is voiced by Nolan North and he does some of, if not, his best work in this game and truly sells his character imo. The game is great at telling a good military story and making you feel like a hero, it's probably in my top 10 games of all time ever since I played it almost a decade ago.
Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost Recon Wildlands immediately come to mind. Plus with Ghost Recon Wildlands has an awesome First Person Mod on PC so you switch between them which is nice.
+1 for Horizon. Related to third person perspective, Horizon Forbidden West has the best dialogue acting I've ever seen in a video game. The voices and animation are both so, so smooth and natural. A lot of games have poor quality dialogue animation, with mouth movements that don't quite match the audio, not enough body language, poor facial expression, etc.
On that note and another solid one for this thread, Mass Effect is another of my all time favourite games that is third person and also does dialogue animations pretty well, especially for its time.
I play No Man's Sky regularly in between other games. I love shooters like Outlanders, The Division 2, and Sniper Elite. I still play GTA online with a buddy of mine from time to time.
But my current obsession is Warframe. I don't know what took me so long to play that game. I wish I'd started earlier.