What game changed your life?

Games, books and movies don't change your life. At most it makes you think about something a little deeper. A little longer.

Life events change your life. A child. Death. Life. Love. Hate. War. Hope. Loss. Peace. Safety. Destruction. And money. Or lack of.

The most impactful game I played, which story I still really remember after 25 years? Homeworld. Hiigara. Our home.

Pack up boys, your experiences aren't worth anything and shouldn't be shared - Redredme is keeping the gates closed.

System Shock 2 - The only game to have truly scared me. This was one of the first games that I played when I switched to PC gaming since my HP Pavillion at the time couldn't play a lot of the newer games. The rest was history

Deus Ex - This game still informs much of my world view

Thief 1 and 2 - While SS2 scared me in absolute terms, Thief gave me a sense of dread and isolation coupled with amazing stealth mechanics

Skyrim - My gateway to RPGs

GTA 4 - SA was my introduction to the series and, while I enjoyed very much, 4 was just blew me away.

Planescape: Torment - The most beautifully crafted RPG ever

Fallout 2 - I'll be honest: I only played and beat the first two Fallouts just this year but, man, do I wish I played them sooner. FO2 in particular change my relationship with the series.

You should play Torment: Tides of Numinera too.

Undertale. That was the game that really changed my life. I never did complete the bad ending route because that game is my comfort game, and it made me want to be friends with the world. I was kind of a jerk in middle school and highschool, but Undertale, which I played in my Junior year made me feel so guilty about who I was being. I think it also saved me from going down the rightwing extremist pipeline because of how much it touched me. I thank Undertale for making my life better.

Deltarune also means so much to me.

Omori, not much to add, it was the first game to give me goosebumps, or only game so far, and truly feel sad

Disco Elysium

Half-Life 2. It brought me into PC gaming, as well as introducing me to Garry's Mod, a relatively simple sandbox tool for creativity, complete with a wide array of assets to use.

I also really appreciate its moody world design that doesn't often explain things directly to you.

I'm getting old so there have been a few.

Super Mario World (SNES) - my first video game and the reason I eventually wanted to learn about computers

Final Fantasy VIII - my parents accidentally bought this for me instead of VII that I asked for. It was not a good impact, it was during formative years of my life and I looked up to the broody/loner main character and tried to emulate him, but in real life that just made me act an asshole and be lonely

World of Warcraft - this was probably an addiction and took too much of my college life. Haven't played an MMO since I quit. Still reminisce about it.

SimCity 4 - forced me to think about systems, which I think indirectly shaped my career path

Kerbal Space Program - made orbital mechanics intuitive and made me interested in all things space

i remember wow was addiction to people in my HS, in the mid 2000s, im glad idnt play it. also it costs money so i never had interest. STARCRAFT/red alert CNC was pretty much got me more interested in space related topics(i did not pursue the field, because i wasnt really good with physics/high level math courses)

It was segmented so it wasn't really at the ending for battlefield one but the beginning that has fucked me up for a long time. The game opens to a black screen, utter silence, and a description prints out of how wide and brutal the first world world war was. The last text that appears on the screen was, "What you are about to experience is front line combat. You are not expected to survive."

What they were describing was that they didn't expect you to play one character and that you should be dying to respawn in a new section of the map with new features. This was the most accurate depiction of the war possible, even if it was just meant to describe the mechanics of the level. It went further! Every time you died they showed a real name of a real soldier that lost their life in the war and their birth and death date. Most of these ages are under the age of 24.

After the final death, it plays a cut scene where two soldiers are pointing rifles at each other and they both break down and chose not to kill each other....I believe all of this gameplay and the cut scene are being played off as a PTSD nightmare he's having while recovering in a hospital.....one of those 'stare at a blank wall and rethink how fucking good our lives are' moments. Also a deviation to the standard which is having a good guy-winner/bad guy-loser. They instead opted for the "we're all losing because of this" realization...I don't think we'll ever see anything like it again.

That's impressive. I know a lot of games struggle to find a good balance between gameplay and simulation. But to heap historical accuracy and storytelling on top of that, and have it be a worthwhile experience, is a feat.

Outer wilds hit that spot for me

Outer Wilds. Unfortunately I can't elaborate without spoiling it.

Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou and Planescape Torment. I think both helped me think about death and reincarnation - what would it even mean to have a “soul”? Would it mean some sort of unbroken consciousness, or are we bits and pieces of different segmented ideas and thoughts loosely connected together?

The answer is you're a meat robot! We're all just chemical gradients that learned to think.
A lot of people find this really existentially problematic but I think it's fascinating. It's even more fascinating that the meat doesn't like thinking about it's meathood, and developed bits of brain meat specifically to think about souls & gods instead of reality.
- Tong Nou offers some interesting explorations of the idea of dharma, which I don’t think it got in the same way before playing it. Even if we are ultimately electricity flowing through meat, we all end up with an idea of “purpose”? And the ultimate despair re: materialist atheism is that the answer to “why do some people just suffer and suffer and suffer?” is that things just suck.
  In Tong Nou, there is a dharma or purpose underlying each life. There are some lives you instantly die when selecting, or whose purpose is to die. There’s one where you sacrifice yourself and become a sacred torch. Suffering given meaning.
  Planescape has an afterlife, and your character is going to hell at the end of it. Forever. All of your actions only lead you closer and closer to maybe a moral redemption? But what’s really the point there? You’re going to suffer endlessly after all of this anyway.
  There’s also a really good series of Oblivion mods - Ruined Tails Tale, and The Tears of the Fiend - that have captured this in a personally inspiring way too. You find out that you are a demon who stole the soul of the body you inhabit, that you cursed them to an eternal afterlife of wandering and suffering. Your attempts to fix everything make things worse. But what do you from there? Try to live a life which makes up for it?

Braid.

The game itself is brilliant. The story and message within is heartfelt, heartbreaking, and un-apologetically autobiographical. Up until that point, I knew gaming was a good storytelling medium, but not for something this moving.

Theres one little paragraph from braid that really stuck with me.

The first one - Planescape: Torment.

The second one (accidentally): Baldur's Gate 3.

Accidentally, because I fell in love with the characters so much that I started watching the actors' streams on Twitch and learned that I probably have ADHD.

RDR2 (PC)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice stayed with me for quite a while. It's a walking simulator with some mild puzzles and fun combat, but the real experience is something I've never seen before. They really made the best of the medium to tell their story. Also there is a short documentary you should watch after finishing the game.

Chrono Trigger

Deus Ex

World of Warcraft. I was really addicted to it for a few years but it really helped me get over a lot of the social anxiety issues that I had. I went from being really shy and barely interacting with other people in that game to being elected to take over a 60+ person guild by the time I was done with it. That confidence carried over into real life when I went back to school and began my career.

Since noone mentioned it, for me it is Inmost. A beautiful pixelart game that covers some heavy topics.

Desperados 3 did it for me. The game ends right where it promised, getting revenge and jumping to black as soon as the trigger's pulled. Knowing something like this will likely never be made again drove me into a light melancholy.

Some games give you "end credits", but if you safe and reload, it puts you in the next chapter...

unless its ocarina of time

I actually found Lemmings to be a game that changed my life. I played it just before I became a professional programmer. Solving Lemmings puzzles is not exactly like programming, but it does teach you that there is a solution and if you just keep persistently trying different shit, you will eventually solve the problem. Also, it actually helps to be high as a kite all the time.

I loved Lemmings on the Amiga. A similar but much less frenetic game is Loderunner.

Bioshock and Bioshock 2
half life 2, especially episode 2 but that's just a cliffhanger
fallout 3 just great ending event hough a bit nonsensical the build up made it feel importantf
every single From Software game but then you're just excited for new game plus

Borderlands pre sequel clap trap dlc ends ending titles

EverQuest. But it never ended, I just stopped playing (and paying).

I wonder how many of us will go through our whole lives being able to mentally trace the route between Freeport and Qeynos. Or the perfect knoll-grind route in Blackburrow.
- Or the Mistmoore trains.
- I can give a spontaneous lecture on the lore of EQ np and it's a distressingly pointless use of brainspace that could go to literally anything else as a better use. That said, I fucking love EQs unhinged post-imperial apocalypse setting with its catguys (who have cat animal buddies) on the moon fighting goth vampires with a fetish for leather while snakepeople chill in their pyramids surrounded by vacuum to keep away a sentient genocidal fart unleashed on them by the god of fear.

Signalis

The first one that comes to mind is Ocarina of Time. I was 10 when it came out. I didn't know video games could do that. Been a huge Zelda fan ever since.

Also metal gear solid 2. I was 13 when that game came out, my brother and I rented a ps2 without a memory card. We were obsessed instantly. We left the ps2 on all weekend so we could beat it. I replayed it recently and it still holds up. Kojima is on another level.

Same, I only played OoT and MM when I was kid. The itch to play other Zelda games was bothering me for the longest time. So luckily over the years, I bought some random used Nintendo consoles off friends, last year I bought bunch of used Zelda games and finished them and emulated some games that I couldn't get irl.
It was long 6 months but worth it.
Metal Gear was such an influential series in my young life that I managed to get into Metal Gear Solid 2.
I could never say which guard I am in the open internet, but it's my lasting claim to immortality.

"Madeline is gonna make us a pie with all the berries she collected"

Madeline is gonna jump off this mountain from embarassment after making a pie with two strawberries

clair obscur expedition 33 players after every cut scene

<<<spoiler>>> for me it was their depiction of grief. Every time Maelle writes in Gustav's journal. <<<>>>
Is the game really this good? Ive heard so much praise through comments like yours now that I'm probably going to have to just try it at this point. Winter sale, probably biting the bullet.
- The game was indeed that good. The combat is fun and she story is amazing.
They really figured out the pacing there. The times at the camp were so good not only for the characters to reflect but for the players as well.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (the first one). This one was my complete entrance to the RPG games and i was so soaked into the atmosphere and the characters. And well of course Witcher 3. For me the best game ever. Setting, characters, story, choises…

Kingdom Hearts II.

There was something about that summer, and the way this game (especially through Twilight Town) delved into the theme of an "everlasting summer" ..it was a magical year. And that year of my life still resonates with me till today.

Plus, I thought Sora and gang to be so wholesome.

Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 were some of the first games I ever beat as a kid. I remember getting through all the credits and immediately starting over lol. I still do a play through if them both every few years. I played the third one once, it's flashy but doesn't hold a candle to the first two.

Fallout 3

Both Psychonauts games had this exact same dopamine release. I spent all of my time playing both as they both came out right around the time of a close family member dying and the games were my outlet for those emotions at the time. Very special games to me.

Kingdom Hearts. The story is a little confusing at first but replaying them after getting it shows new things. The whole, “My friends are my power!” really resonates with me to this day. 358/2 Days is the best story, and I cry every time I hear Xion’s story. I named my dog Xion because I love the character and what she represents so much. Can’t wait till #4!

Most recent: Death Stranding 2

I love that wild shit, and the story is very touching.

The one before that: Xenoblade Chronicles 3

There's so much emotion in that game. Of all the games I have played in the last 37 years or so, I cried more in XC3 than I think I have in any other game. So good.

Cyberpunk 2077. Only game that touched me that deep so far (though not many games I have played)

I think about CP77 to this day. I sometimes even miss Johnny. He's with you the entire time and it's a really fascinating bond to experience as a player.
- Yeah. He is lying, confused and manipulative (at least in the beginning), but I do miss him
Agreed. Thought about it for a while and I think that's the one that made me think the most.
Yea same, it was quite the ride. The writing/dialogue quality is so good I was entirely into it

This question has two answers.

the game that practically changed your life in terms of how it affected you.. and the game that made you change the way you think.

For practicalitys sake, the game that had the most change and influence on my life was, ironically, Second Life. Just through the people I met and experiences I had over the course of the 15-16 years I played it.

I cant really tell you what one had the most profound impact psychologically, I was going to say the Sims or Fallout for the impact they had on like, how I see people vs how I see society. but Im gonna cop-out and go with Mass Effect 2 and 3. since The story is such an "epic" in that it tackles so many philisophical and existential questions, Mainly revolving around what living beings, and in some cases, individual heroes do in the face of death. the whole story is a broad tale of Machines vs Organics, but its done in a very doomsday/armagedon tone. stretched across a sci-fi galaxy instead of just talking about humanity.

Doom Eternal after completing the game and all the DLC. They put you through HELL (literally) and these levels are a BITCH at the end and the sigh of relief to see this arc of the story finally come to a close is so satisfying.

Doom 2016 was an overall better game from an atmospheric perspective, and it had better direction overall, but Eternal was just fun and hard. If you can bare it on at least ultra-violence the sense of completion at the end of it all is quite gratifying.

Final Fantasy 7, the first two Fallout and Disco Elyisum, Shenmue to an extent, but the Yakuza / Like A Dragon franchise probably tops all of them. I had stopped paying attention to video games after the dreamcast (I considered Shenmue the apex of what I liked in video games and couldn't find something similar), discovered the Yakuza franchise through Judgment in early 2020 and I was hooked, it was everything I had ever dreamed of in a game. I bought a PS4 specifically to play them, bought 0 to 6 during covid lockdowns and pretty much blasted through the franchise in a year. Rekindled my interest in games and in Japanese stuff, made me take my ass back to martial arts and generally pay more attention to how I behave and look after bad breakups and depression. Disco Elysium came very close to the same impact, I might add.

It's honestly unbelievable how good of a game Yakuza 0 is. It's just not fair.
- All of them, really. 0 is the craziest, but all of them are just great. Even 3 which is widely considered the "worst" one is still a masterpiece, especially for its time.

Dance Dance Revolution 3rd mix. It sounds stupid, I know, but hear me out. I really sucked at this game at first. My friends use to play every weekends at the arcade, so I really wanted to get better. So I really trained hard and became the best player in our group. People gattered around the arcade when I was playing. I was good enough for tournaments.

Now when I face something difficult, I'm confident I can overcome it if I really want to. I wasn't like that before. Thanks Konami.

What are games that do this?

Literally this whole thread.

I've always played video games one way or another, so I consider them all to be life changing. In a general sense, because getting games in my country wasn't easy in the 80's and 90's, and most would bring them from the US, so I learned English through the games, which opened the possibility to hang out (online) with people from around the world.

But I think there's two games that marked me:

Vampire the Masquerade Redemption, because until then I hadn't played any story-driven true RPG. And after I finished it, I moved on to games like Fallout and Dragon Age, which led me to learn about modding, communities, etc.

The Last of Us, because until then no game (no matter how much I loved it) made me feel so intensely. I played it in several days, and each day I was emotionally exhausted. The ending left me speechless. I would wake up every day feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, for about a week or two.

Outer Wilds. A game that genuinely made me reflect on my place in the universe.

Just finished the DLC last night and got all the achievements. I started some new mods for it too because I don’t want it to be over.
I bought and learned to play guitar (poorly), just so I could play that song (poorly).
- I learned a little piano to play the
  <redacted>
  theme.
The DLC ending is one of the saddest I have seen in any game.
I truly think it’s the best game ever made.
A truly phenomenal game. I'm so curious what that team will do next.
Man I really wanted to like this game but I found the goddamn mazes on the sand planet too frustrating. Stumble around, get lost, the window closes, die, respawn and start completely over.
- Thank you. I found the time limit really frustrating as I like to take my time with things and could never really get anywhere because I kept dying before I could make any progress.
- Panic gets the best of most players. If you take time and patience to observe the patterns, you realize it is all very logical and well structured. Super predictable and the designers created clear paths that become obvious once you get it. Also, part of the message of the game is that you cannot and actually are not required to be everywhere or do everything. You can finish the game in a single loop right from start. But that's not what the game is about.
- The controls will not click with my head. 6 times I've picked up this game and tried for several hours a piece

Red Dead Redemption 2

I am an emotional person, and I regularly cry during movies, shows and books. But this is the first and only game to day, where I cried. I don't mean just teary-eyed, actually crying. And on more than one occasion.

It made me want to be a better person. Hopefully I am succeeding.

Cyberpunk 2077 is close second.

I didn't play Expedition 33 yet, but I saw the prologue and it was very emotional. There is a really good chance this game will be on my list too.

Yeah RDR2 is the one for me. I had a pretty on-the-nose experience though as I got diagnosed with TB just weeks before playing through Arthur's illness. When he started coughing 😬
RDR2 is the only game for which I ever took the day off work for launch day. Totally worth it. I bought eclairs, dropped the kids off at a parkour class, and just drank it all in. So good. Still haven't finished it, just on principle. I can say I still have more to play.
I couldn' finish Enderal, because I did not want to make one of the two shitty decisions in the end and cried about it. "Just a mod" had me in tears and sobbing twice.
- I had my eyes on Enderal for years, but I haven't played it yet. I don't know if I should now..... I probably will.

The Witcher 3! I never played 1 or 2. However 3 did a great job of story recap and finishing up said story. DLC was a must as well. All in all, I was engaged with the story.

And of course, RDR2.

In my mind still somewhere outside of Corvo Bianco finally resting.
I loved RDR but every time I try to play RDR2 I struggle to stay engaged for more than a couple hours. Then it's 6-12 months before I play it again. Still haven't finished a single play thru. Just can't put my finger on why.
- I'm a big fan of RDR2 (~470hrs from two full playthroughs), and would recommend it to anyone, even if they don't normally play games. However I can understand why it might not appeal to some people, for one reason or another.
  I suspect this might be because of a slow start to the story - frequently the game falls victim to its own 'cinematicism' and holds the player's hand too much (e.g. walking too far away from a mission area or trying things outside of the box runs the risk of failing the mission, unlike the creative approaches one may take in Rockstar's earlier adventures). I have stopped seeing RDR2 as a 'game', and instead treat it as a world to experience, kind of like a good book. I want to feel that world more than conventionally play in it, and this process greatly heightens my attachment to it as well as to Arthur, increasing immersion.
  That being said, I probably speak for many when I hope that you get to finish that journey someday and feel your place within it. It might take as long as it needs to, but it might just be worth it.
You should give Witcher 2 a go, it actually still holds up. The story is fantastic, and it gives you many twists and choices you can regret and think about a lot, just like how you love it from Witcher 3.

Not really computer games.

Camarilla. A LARP that I was part of for about ten years. I met hundreds of people. A few girlfriends. There were chapters all over the world with a couch to crash on and a group of nerds into the same shit I was. I drifted from my local group and they fell apart a few years later. I've recently reconnected with some remnants of that group and in the blink of an eye I've found twenty friends and have a busy social life.

JiuJitsu. I don't see it as an art. I don't see it as a way to beat someone up. I see it as IRL PvP. I got into it from the early Joe Rogan podcasts where he had obscure interesting guests rather than the coco bananas direction he's been on for the last 10+ years.

World of Warcraft 2. A pirated copy got me a job at my local collectible card store. They had a computer in the store but weren't IT nerdy kids like I was. I'd downloaded it from a pirate BBS, YES BBS, that a friend at school ran. I like that Steam sees developers getting paid but man was DOS piracy next level easy, you were more likely to need the "decoder" that came with the game to act as the license.

Camarilla
Was it a Vampire the Masquerade LARP?
- yep

SOMA

I'm in the minority on this one but I found that game very overrated. There was nothing new or tantalizing gameplay or concept wise here. I'd dare say it was boring.
Man that game was 10 levels of fucked and creepy all wrapped in existential crisis and the definition of who is 'you'? Still fucked up on that game, but damn was it good.
As someone who loves watching but not playing horror games, I am still waiting for someone to play this for me to watch. I bought the game ages ago!
- In case you didn't know, SOMA has a safe mode in which enemies don't attack you.
  A friend of mine who gets scared at everything finished it for the story in that mode.
  Excellent game.

Cyberpunk 2077.

It's one thing to read a cyberpunk novel or watch a cyberpunk movie and "get" the moral of the story, which is usually "misuse of technology is bad".

But it's another thing to actually spend time in that world; to feel the effects of corporate corruption on your community, to experience the addiction to mind- and body-altering technologies, to watch loved ones - who you've spent hours looking directly in the eye and having conversations with - have their lives taken from them unfairly so that the richest person in the world can get 0.0001% richer.

I'd always been wary of techno-corpo bullshit. But that game instilled an all-new level of hatred in me; a hatred toward billionaires and megacorporations, toward oligarchs and aristocrats, toward those with the resources to change things for the better but too apathetic to stick their necks out.

Johnny Silverhand was right.

it's not apathy though. their greed is directly and indirectly responsible for this. fixing things would mean they would be poorer.
it's even more angering.
Honestly, I don't think it hit me the same way, and I wish it did. I already went into it agreeing with everything you said from our real world. It's still a great game and I enjoyed it, but it didn't change my view on anything because it's just a heightened version of our real world. If you were paying attention to our world then CP2077 mostly wouldn't change your opinion. Hell, if anything it's a nicer view of our future than I have based on our current path. There's almost more social mobility in that game than there is in real life America currently.
That is to say, Johnny not only was right, but is right.
The first time I played through it, it didn’t really sink in. When I got to the ending where ::: spoiler Spoiler You you give up Songbird in exchange for your cure and you find that they are able to heal you only by removing your cybernetics :::
I booted the game back up the next day, but just couldn’t bring myself to continue with my character. It felt like I finally got them out of that world. I didn’t pick it back up again for another month and started with a fresh character because of how hard it sunk in.
That shit is straight Art. Top 3 personally.
- And the other 2?
That's exactly why I think the game has value despite being a mediocre experience as a game. Adam Something did a video recently on how terrible it is, and while he's not strictly wrong, he missed a deeper point. Yes, the traffic modeling is terrible. It's terrible in many of the same ways that real traffic is terrible. That doesn't make for a good game, but it does make a different point.
Also, if you want to ride motorcycles, that game is worth a play for traveling around on one. Not because the physics of the game motorcycles are good--they're shit--but because it can teach you how to learn to avoid target fixation. Car pulls out in front of you and your eyes will naturally focus on the car. Then you will just as naturally hit the car. If you learn to dart your eyes to the side, you will tend to miss it. Very valuable skill for actual riding. They accidentally made a target fixation trainer.
Yeah, I first finished with the ending where >!I'm gliding to somewhere beautiful with the woman I love. !<
Right after that, I did the one where >!I sign myself off to the corpo, so my physical body is about to be destroyed, and I just walk there as a cow to a butcher. !<
That hit hard. Especially listening to the same messages from different people: "haven't heard of you, I hope you are in a good place!" I was depressed for a couple days since, until I did a third ending where >!I give a kid my guitar. !<
This is what I call "choices matter"! Many endings, which have their own missions that lead to some actual changes and bend the narrative, not just several pre-made cutscenes.
- What I especially love about the endings is that there isn't any "good" ending in the game. Some are worse than others, but there's never a net positive for V. No matter what, there is a human cost to victory. Night City would never allow some lowly merc to have a happy ending. Arguably, the "third option" can be seen as the "best" ending, as it costs the fewest amount of lives. But holy shit, the voicemails you get in that ending are heartbreaking.
  Also, I think this is just an Mbin issue, but the spoiler tags don't work if there's a space before the closing tag.

Civ 1 was what got me into gaming, and influenced a lifetime passion of history and studying, as well as strategy/4x/gsg gaming.

Recently beat Portal (first one), for the first time. Please play if you haven't!!!

Portal 1 and 2 are both phenomenal. But my feeling at the end was less "Wow that changed my life" and more like "damn it's over, I wish there was another game like that out there"
- If you check steam, there's 2 or 3 portal games outside the legit 2 that are super fun. One valve even approved as canon IIRC. One of them you go back and forth in time with a third portal type. One of them is even multiplayer.
- tbh it's better this way.
  Why?
  Because nobody could ruin the story on the 3rd attempt.
  BUT asssuming they could make the 3rd installment a prefect fit to round it up: Gimme

Osu!, but not in the good direction... the game might have deleted what little confidence I have left in myself and gave me crippling perfectionism issues. Also permanently changed my music taste. May or may not have set me up on a hyper-competitive career path as well so there is that. Upside is... I'm fun at the club and the arcade maybe??

Spec Ops: The Line. Probably kinda dated now but there were multiple moments in that game where I had to cool down after some heavy shit happens.

Do you feel like a hero yet?
I really want to play this game. I haven't found a copy of it anywhere. I can't believe it was pulled down online due to licensing 🙄
- Really? I would think the lagoon of buccaneers would have it.

Getting the good ending in The Witcher 3. So much relief.

dark souls 1. wife passed in that year and i just rolled through it completely distracting myself from reality and it helped a ton.

Mass effect trilogy.

MGS

OG ff7

Days Gone

TLOU

The ME trilogy was amazing, and I still get chills listening to Faunts M4 pt 2.

Kerbal Space Program changed how I understand space flight.

Factorio changed how I approach programming

Modding original Doom and GTA vice city taught me 2d and 3d graphics as well as hacking and programming.

KSP definitely. I was literally doing astrophysics at uni when I started playing. It got me a much better sense for orbital mechanics and trajectories than any class ever did.
KSP really is top tier Edutainment. I finally understood, why we don't shoot all garbage into the sun 😅. Turns out, rocket science really is some rocket science
I'm afraid to play Factorio. I can't afford to sacrifice the amount of productivity that I suspect I would lose.
- You won't lose productivity, you will merely divert it into the factory, who will use its full efficiency for growth
- It is one of the most addictive games I've played, and yet, I have learned more from it than almost any other.
  Programming has been a core part of my career for about 20 years, and I can't think of any other time I've had such leaps forward as I did in the first few months playing factory.
  It really is a great visual representation of large scale systems management.
  That said, it can be one hell of a time suck.

How it affected me: Mr Wobbly Hides His Helmet. Many, many hours of enjoyment. But it also got me into trouble on a few occasions.

The game that changed the way I think: Go. I even got my first great job because I beat someone at Go, so he thought that meant I was smart. He was the hiring manager for a project that required international travel and which gave me high visibility within the company. But what it really meant was just that he wasn't a particularly strong Go player. I'm still an OK player, though one of my sons now plays at master level (which, he says, means that not all 12-year-old Koreans can beat him).

It wasn't the story of the game that was life-changing, but I met people on PSO that encouraged me to pursue a different career. Without them, I don't think I'd be the person I am today.

Penis Smoke Omicron?
- Phantasy Star Online.

Enderal and its not even close. It shows a world that is in a deep decline and an apocalypse that is all but inevitable but manages to still feel hopeful in a way. Throughout the game there is this theme of how even if everything might fade at some point your interpersonal actions are still meaningful. The Rhalata sidequest alone easily outmatches most games that where published by "real" game studios and the main story just seals the deal.

RDR2

YES.
Arthur Morgan was an incredible character. RDR2's story is a masterpiece.
Hell I still choke up when I listen to the song Unshaken, even though that wasn't quite at the point of the ending, they still got me emotional after that whole big part of the story.
- I still have friends who haven’t beaten that game, and I feel like they’ve missed out on one of the most interesting characters developed in gaming recently. I’ve only ever been able to do the “good Arthur” playthrough though, so if most people played like how they play GTA, they might never get to know Arthur’s REDEMPTION.
  So damn good.

Night In The Woods. If you haven't played it, I'd recommend it. The characters are so well written, and some of the things they touch on hit me on a very, very personal level. And the music complements it all perfectly. It manages to have silly moments and serious moments with the same characters that all manage to fit and mesh together so well, and their relationships and lives all feel real and evolving throughout the story.

Damn, I didn't think this one would be on here, but that's my choice too. Super relatable story if you live in a small town.
Watched JackSepticEye a lonnng time ago play this game. It’s a really well done story! I should see if it’s on the Steam Sale since I have my own gaming rig now.
- Absolutely get it! It’s such a joy to explore through on your own. It’s available on every platform too.
The dreams/nightmares could use a "skip" button, as other than the very first, they serve no purpose whatsoever.
Other than that, my headcanon is that Mae gets back together with Bea over Gregg, the latter has his boyfriend and Bea really needs a friend.

Life is Strange - at multiple parts in fairness, but the ending in particular.

I chose the Bay ending and I still can't listen to Spanish Sahara without feeling like I've been booted in the balls. Masterful.

I chose to save Chloe because fuck that corrupt ass town.
I chose the bay ending also. I remember sitting there watching the final cutscene feeling utterly defeated. I didn’t beat the game, it beat me.
- Same... Just totally crushed me. Also chose bay when I first played this game last year. Now life's sad again, so I'm replaying this gem, this time I'll take a look on bae ending.
  Well, this game is apparently becoming my "comfort game" for replaying when I wanna escape from stress, a more recent addition to Dragon Age Origins and Persona 3

I’m still playing it: sons of forest.

How it changed my life: I have a much deeper appreciation to go into nature and feel more confident

Also having that deeper understanding to put together an earth quake survival kit.like you never know if you have to bail and you just gotta be ready to evacuate and survive.

Other games: Titan fall 2. I bawled at the end. I’m just now playing it through again. And I’m not one to replay a game but I would with that one given the bond. Never thought I’d cry at a game but that one …that one was special for me.

That's fantastic. It's a survival game ? I remember loving to roam the ashlands in Morrowind and that might have contributed to my tendency to walk everywhere. But nature itself, I'm not sure. I remember fondly the lush hills of Cyrodiil, the enchanted woods of Albion (Fable), but I don't think any of these really turned me on nature as much as having an edible, strapping on my trekking shoes and getting lost in the forest around my home
- Yup it’s a survival game but it has a peaceful option in it so you can just set it to roam and build to your heart’s content.
  Elden ring as well has some similar breathtaking moments. not that any of that can be replicated in our earth nature but it is a game that I think of when I think of a beautiful game to play for just sitting there and beholding artist effort and content.

Magic: The Gathering - Arena, but in a different sense. I have played it a decent amount ever since I moved away from the city and have been unable to play with people over the table. I learned that it wasn't really the game itself which made me interested in Magic, but the interactions with people.

I have since quit the game and haven't really paid attention to its direction since.

Just some of them: Hollow Knight, Undertale, Ori and the Blind Forest, BioShock, Dead Space, Max Payne, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.

Bioshock, for sure. To this day, I use "Would you kindly?" as a passive aggressive request to douchebags.
Bioshock Infinite has helped me blow off steam recently. Shooting Christian nationalist cops is kinda cathartic.
+1 for Hollow Knight. Beautiful game that was more fun to explore than any other I've played.
Both Ori Games me just bawling crying with a box of tissues.

Bastion made me feel like that. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days.

Hell yeah Bastion. All Supergiant games really.
Oh yeah, that was a really interesting choice. You had to actually sacrifice something tangible to you as a player to get the "good ending" i really had to think over that one for a while

The Last of Us

It was 2013 and Zombie hype was peak. All my roommates gathered around the TV to watch me play a level each night. We would discuss what happened and our theories in between each play session. When those credits rolled we kept talking about it for weeks. Unforgettable.

I'll add The Last of Us Part 2. That was a story about how far you're willing to go for vengeance. About the only time you see that is in westerns!
That’s such a special memory!
- Thanks, buttnugget. XD

Hacknet, Disco Elysium, Life Is Strange

I don't know what it was, but Life Is Strange singlehandedly changed my trajectory in life. So many things opened up inside me I didn't know about myself and my attitude towards others shifted. I took real stock of myself and my future and what I wanted out of life, and what that might cost me.
- The part where you use your powers to save that one character, and the repercussions of that action, shook me.

Clair obscur had me feeling like this at the end of every Act.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Huh, that one's been on my back burner. I'll have to load it up.
- Definitely worth it. Pretty short but is well written. Go in as blInd as you can.

Homeworld. The end credits were so beautiful. It still gives me frisson thinking about it.

That song is an emotional cheat code though.
Dude. I played it when I was just getting into the emotional aspects of being a teenager, and mission 3 just hits you in the face. The desperation to rescue the six containers was real.
- No one's left, everything's gone, Kharak is burning
  Sad choral adagio for strings
Came here to say the same.

Chess* enhanced my cognitive skills and consequently improved my confidence.

*lichess.org

One that should get way more attention: Little King's Story. It presents as a cutsie Pikmin-like, but is actually a dark, metaphorical tale about abuse and trauma.

Most recently, the final choice in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gutted me.

Expedition 33 is my answer for sure. That game consumed me.
- I mustbe weird, because I see people talking so good about expedition 33, but my experience with it was so terrible, that I had to force myself to finish it, but only because I feel uneasy if I don't do things until the end.

The pacifist route on Undertale is refreshingly wholesome and you just don't get that with many videos games.

Also, I loved Hi-fi Rush's music-based combat and fun characters.

I loved the world-building in Transistor. It felt like a more fleshed-out and artistic Tron setting.

Dominion

I loved and competed in various trading card games throughout high school however once married with kids I could no longer afford the hobby. Dominion caused a surge in the deckbuilding genre and ultimately led to my first published game design. Now board games and tabletop RPGs are a favorite for spending time with family and friends.

Death Stranding. Ok not sure if that actually really changed my life, but it left me in a bit of a mixed emotional state.

See the thing is that I became a dad not that long ago and during the pregnancy and maybe a year or so after the birth of my kid I had this somewhat irrational fear of finding my kid just dead at some point in the crib or something like that. I fought past that fear eventually and the kid is now three and as healthy as one can be.

Then was it 2024 or something when the Director's Cut was released on Xbox. I never had a PlayStation (not for any other reason other than I just never happened to get one) so I was exicted to finally start playing this game I've heard so much about. I bought the game and played whenever I had time (if you have kids, you know how it can be) and loved the game, especially for the atmosphere and the sort of weird lore that was exciting to uncover for me.

Boy oh boy, don't play the second one. It'll tear your heart out, throw it in a blender and force feed it back to you through a straw! The game is absolutely amazing but the emotions that 2 brought to the table were stronger than anything I've ever played.
Even though it was such a rollercoaster, I watched a friend beat it, and we cried together too. I'd give up a lot to play it again for the first time. Just, be prepared. If you dare!
- Honestly I would expect nothing less given the first game. It's very likely I will play it eventually if it ever makes its way to the Xbox or if I happen to find myself owning a PlayStation, which means it'll probably take a while. Regardless, thanks for the heads up!

Braid.

I won't ruin it, but -- it is not the usual ending.

My mouth was open in awe for like 10 minutes. Granted I was a teenager at the time and easily impressed

The vanishing of Ethan Carter.

I was thinking about the ending for days. I wish someone else could experience it for the first time so I can finally talk about it with someone. This game is so good, audio, graphics and story wise, it's a shame it's not widely known.

The game STILL looks good considering its age and budget.

Halo 3 to cap off the original trilogy

Life is Strange 1 - There are just a lot about life that I wished I could change. Lots of regrets. I think about the idea of butterfly effect a lot. I know a lot of movies also show this, but they often portray in a very "high stakes" scenario which its hard to feel relatable to, since its so far detached from realism. Meanwhile, in LiS, the portrays a scenario that's more localized, it "hits home" stronger, especially that part where...

Life is Strange: True Colors

Some people might relate less, but for me I can relate to the Alex a lot, the emotional aspects of life. I wasn't an orphan, but I feel practically like I'm one. I wasn't originally supposed to be born, I kinda feel like this life, this "timeline", is an anomoly. Everyone in my family hates me, kinda like how

Mass Effect.

3’s ending didn’t quite stick the landing, on launch, but was fixed a few months down the line with the Extended Cut DLC.

1 and 2 were amazing. 1 especially had a great ending.

ME3 not quite sticking the landing is an understatement. I mostly remember the awful unskippable dream sequences, Shepard suddenly becoming utterly incompetent whenever that mall-ninja cerberus assassin pops up in a cinematic, and to top it of the nonsensical red-green-blue ending. I tried to replaying it last year but couldn't get any further than the second mission because I just got annoyed.
- I think the Dream Sequences were a little too long, but were a good way of showing Shep’s survivor guilt.
  Especially if you lose any crewmates in the Suicide Mission.
  I will agree that the whole Star-child, Crucible, Kai Leng stuff was all pretty poorly expanded upon and should have been better.

Spiritfarer was one for me. Idk what it was about it, because the character development for the spirits you're carrying was pretty meh, and the twist at the end was ruined by the achievements early in the game, but that shit had me almost in tears when each person was dropped off at the gate.

ahhh Planescape Torment...

KOTOR

Obligatory HK-47 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XXvVVCr_6P8

Nothing has ever hit me harder than Disco Elysium, and I don't think anything else ever will. Everything from its themes of failure and depression and addiction and clinging to the past to its surprising message of hope in the face of unrelenting nihilism resonated with me on a molecular level. And the Final Dream is just the single most impactful, emotional and heart-rending moment I've had in any game ever. The culmination of the entire game distilled into one scene, and even the whole pathos of that one scene concentrated into three closing words:

You are a violent and irrepressible miracle.
This game made me realize that I too am part of the homo-sexual underground

You're saying a piece of art (song, book, movie, game, poem, painting, ...) never left a lasting impression on you?
Every single thing we do changes our lives, including posting throwaway comments on the internet. Games just tend to do it in ways people actually remember.
It's the same thing as saying a good book can ruin your day when it's over. Just because someone has an emotional attachment to a really good story, whether game, movie, or book, doesn't mean they have a boring life.
- Well yeah it's one thing to have your day ruined, but changing who you are as a person? Come on.
Booo. Terrible take.
For pure entertainment or passive turn-brain-off type games I'm inclined to agree with you. Mario Party isn't exactly changing lives out here.
Games that tell a story though, they can be extremely impactful just like any form of story. Through stories I myself have changed my world views, taken new perspectives in life. Star Trek The Next Generation's season 6 episode Tapestry changed my outlook on risk taking especially in my professional life, my username reference to the Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask got me to overcome my extreme fear and anxiety of being rejected by friends. Was I much younger when I experienced those stories, sure, but they still changed the course of my life.
My day job is working on satellites, I'm a hobbyist carpenter, been teaching myself to play piano, frequently go camping/hiking into Colorado's mountains, work on a project car, and sure this evening I've been playing Factorio but I've been doing so while sipping wine that I made myself.
You could call me many things, but I don't think boring fits.
I'm surprised you're downvoted like this, but I had a similar thought. I understand the meme, that it is about the feeling when you finished a game with a story that made you involved. But calling it a "lifechanger" feels like exaggeration.
I have played a game that touched me deeply, leaving me emotionally out of my socket for about a week. But I wouldn't say it "changed my life". I can feel the echo of that experience when I remember, but that's all.
- And what's wrong with exaggeration? People say mind-blowing all the time when they learn something new. Do you get confused each time?
I understand that it sounds kind of hyperbolic, but I’ve played a few games that changed my life, and I consider myself to have normal emotional depth. I’ve played some games that simply affected me on a core level in ways I hadn’t felt since childhood.

Halo 1 legendary mode co-op fuck yes

Nier: Automata, like the final ending. I've 100% this game three times and each time I end tearing up, thinking about a world where would could all come together and help eachother, then I look at the news and that dream is immediately shattered.

Fez.

I made everyone play the intro/tutorial. Most of them thought they broke it.

Definitely in my top 10 of all time. Amazing game that did many things I'd never seen a game try before.
I was one of those. ..
I'll get back to it one day...

Minecraft lol

I studied cs because of it, hell I even wrote about minecraft in one of my admission essays. Something bionicles to minecraft to stem pipeline as I would call it

I also really like PGR. It's a gacha game but I met a really nice community from it

If we're talking about great story driven games, signalis and nier are always my top favorites.

So many elitists have dismissed Minecraft over the years as a 'little kids game' - missing out on a truly great game. The end poem made me tear up. Music is fantastic, I bought all of C418's music off Bandcamp.
- For me, minecraft kinda shaped my childhood in a sense. I played so much of beta 1.5, and watched so many minecraft YouTubers back then. My favorites introduced me to monstercat, an edm music label which pretty much formed my music taste, and also introduced me to pc gaming (i downloaded steam because my favorite minecraft youtuber also played skyrim)
  So yea minecraft is still my no 1 game. Especially considering I still occasionally have a month long session with a modpack.

Im not much of a gamer. Im gonna have to say Minecraft. Not really a story but did feel like major achievement. Ah the good ol' days

Mother 3

EverQuest. It has been 26 years with no real breakd now. I fucking love that game.

I have tried to get into it, I simply can't. It's such a grind fest and World of Warcraft is superior in every way.
everquest has an ending??
- No. I was responding to the question in the title.

eeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEENTER THE GUNGEON....

That soundtrack still lives in my music library and gets played regularly. Same with the game itself.

While I never saw the credit rolls (because the game doesn't have it), Dwarf Fortress definitely changed something in my head.

From my initial attempts where I couldn't even figure how to make my dorfs get food or dig, to reaching a point where most of my forts would be retired due to low FPS and, to this day, only failed attempts at taming an evil biome for more than 2 years, the game showed that procgen, by itself, is not an excuse for shitty looking worlds or terrains. Hell, the procgen can even generate interesting stories and situations, though no longer absurdly awesome ones like the story of Cacame Awemedinade. Quote:

Cacame, at the ripe old age of 12, he became a Guard. Two years later, an elven attack from the Field of Kindling's city of Fish of Magic injured him in the lower body and killed his wife Nemo Ruyavaiyici (who was then eaten by Amoya Themarifa, the elf who killed her). Maddened with grief, Cacame set off to the nearest front as soon as he healed enough to fight.
\
\ During his first combat he took up his fallen commander's legendary warhammer[name?] and slew many elves with it, being noted as the battle's fiercest and deadliest warrior; for his deeds, the dwarves' second-in-command acknowledged that Cacame would best put the warhammer to use and should keep it.
\
\ Two years after that, in 99, the Battle of Both Kings was fought. In this battle Cacame struck down King Nithe of Field of Kindling (who was finished off by another dwarf called Sibrek Handpages, though); however the other king slain was the dwarven king himself. The dwarves decided that Cacame, by now dubbed "The Immortal Onslaught", should take over as their king.
\
\ Once made King, Cacame left in a brief quest to resurrect his wife. He returned riding a zombie wyvern, but without achieving his goal. In 111, at the age of 28, he moved his capital to the Gamildodók (Trustclasps) Fortress.

I read boatmurdered back in the day, got hooked an learned to play the game. The game occupied my mind more than school for a couple of weeks.

I’m not a gamer and I know I’m missing something when I see this comment section!

Games are an incredible story telling medium. So many things work in games better than they can in any other medium like diverging storylines and personalized content. Role playing games are an entirely different beast.
- I understand, but there is something about physically having to play the controls that distracts me from the plot, and I find it overall boring. Side quests just overwhelm my brain and I either immediately do them or completely forget about them. I play a handful of “not very control heavy, no plot” games, such as Factorio and Minecraft and I enjoy the creativity. I played with my partner (aka they played and I gave some pointers) Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds and Zelda. It doesn’t resonate with me. :( I know I’m missing out

Silent Hill 2. And not even just the first time.

And not even just the original game, the remake also had me like this.

Wouldn't say changed my life but the ending of Liberty City in Cyberpunk and Stray, both great story writing

Binding of Isaac.

Played it as I was coming into adult life. This was my first roguelite. It sounds dumb....but it really stuck with me as a life lesson:

You can try your best and make sacrifices, and still end up unlucky with poor rewards. You get the opportunities you get, but even in this seeming randomness, you make choices to make the most of them. Training and skill makes up for some of the poor opportunities. Life is a roguelite.

Now I've got BoI on my Retroid Pocket 5 now. Still playing it.

I don't know that it "changed my life," but DAMN Yakuza 0's ending hit hard.

The remake of the second game adds some quality kicks to the balls if you play the Majima missions.
- Definitely a must-play for any fan of 0! Even though Majima never got his happy ending, it still brings some satisfying closure.

Can't say any one game was life changing for me. They are more a collection of experiences that I reflect upon. Hundreds of games, that have refined me my thoughts and feelings over the decades.

In recent memory God of War got me pretty good. The struggles that Kratos would go through attempting to communicate with his son reminded me all too well of my dad's relationship to me. I'm fortunate enough that I don't have the same issue with my children, and that game definitely had me doing some self reflection.

Blue Prince’s « ending » had me like that.

Then people say when you get to 46 you barely just beat the tutorial.

...the color...blue.
Didn't expect a fun puzzle game to hit so hard.
Reaching Room 46 the first time is the first of like three or four natural jumping-off points, I'd say. You can totally stop playing there if you're satisfied, but if you want to keep digging you can go so much deeper.

Spiritfarer, though it's more crying than drinking. It took playing the game alongside my best friend to get me to finish it, because I cried at the first spirit and couldn't continue on my own.

It didn't help that my grandma died right as I started playing the game with my friend, and I was beating myself up for missing that last phone call.

The Talos Principle 1 and 2

I'm in my last section of the C building and I'm hating it so much right now. Who the hell thought up these puzzles?
- No shame in looking up solutions on YouTube. Some of their puzzles can be brutal. I hated anything timing based. They dropped those in the second game thankfully.
  There is great satisfaction to coming back to a puzzle and finally figuring it out yourself though.
So it's good shit?
- Absolutely if you like solving puzzles while pondering some philosophical concepts and the future of mankind

World of warcraft. Simply for the escapism. But also because I've made friends with whom I still talk to 20 years later. At this point they're my oldest friends since life happened to some of the others.

OG Resident Evil 4 left a hell of an impression on me as a kid. That and OG God of War, I was hooked for life.

Dark Souls: Remastered After waiting years to try I really can git gud

There's a number of the games that notably effected me after completion. Star Fox (SNES), Halo: Combat Evolved, Morrowind, KOTOR 1&2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Dead Space, Hotline Miami, Undertale.

I'm probably forgetting some.

Sky: Children of The Light

There's something about the ending that makes it perfect

Hi there little moth 😄
- I’ve been playing for a little over a year, so I’m not a moth anymore!

The first two that come to mind whenever this discussion comes up are Dragon Age: Origins and Bioshock.

If it were possible to erase memories, I'd erase my memories of these games and play them for the first time again.

DA:O is peak CRPG. I love that game so much. I should do another solo nightmare playthrough, with a different class this time...

NieR Gestalt
NieR Automata Ending E
Silent Hill 2 (the original, not the remake)
Doki Doki Literature Club!
A Girl Who Chants Love At the Bound of this World: YU-NO (the original, not the remake)

I dont know about changing my life, but they certainly had incredibly impactful/emotional endings IMO.

lol when the mirror finally drops in Path of Exile

I don't have many hours in PoE compared to many others but back in the days I did find a mirror. Probably still have it on my PoE account.
- i’m so jealous
What’s the mirror?
- it’s basically such a rare item that that people with tens of thousands of hours of game time rarely see one drop organically. (they can be farmed in different ways though, that’s how I usually get mine) like lottery chances basically

Salt and Sanctuary

Persona 3 and Omori, both about death and depression and grief and they're just so bittersweet

Lunacid, probably. Or MGS3. Or any of the Nier games

Minecraft got me into programming when I was like 14. I'd probably have gotten into it regardless but it was the trigger for what has been a 14 year journey so far so I'd definitely say it changed my life

Completing the Chains of Promathia expansion of Final Fantasy XI back when that was pretty uncommon among the playerbase (like 2005 or 2006)

Atari Warlords. After seeing it in the local convenience store, I raced home on my bike to describe what I'd seen to my incredulous mother. She took me back and let me play twice. The obsession took root right at that moment.

Then later, Section Z in the arcades - It was the game that made me ponder how games were actually made. I imagined a person sitting with a microphone patched into the back of the arcade cabinet: "Ok I want a little red guy with a gun and he runs sideways..."

Nameless_song.mp3

Tom & Jerry: In the war of Whiskers. I like breaking stuff

Credits of the last game I played: "Oh what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as it before..."

A Plague Tale: Requiem.
I wouldn't say it changed my life, but I couldn't get myself to play another game for some time after both Plague Tale games back-to-back.

That game had me completely enraptured until we go to people controlling the rats, and using them as ocean waves crashing through the village.
It went so far off the fuckin rails. I just couldn't. I had to just walk away.
- I think that's what happened to me also... I remember rats and then I kinda lost interest

Mine is Cosmic Fantasy 2, for the TurboGrafx-16 CD System, was a game that I was given when I was not even a teenager yet, and I beat that without any guides, without any walkthroughs, without any support, and nobody helped me.

I believe it was the first game that I beat on my own.

I tried replaying it for nostalgia's sake, and the interface is so clunky and bad.

It uses a static card system for the enemies, nobody moves, the pacing is very slow, battles are frequent and pretty grueling, but I still remember the music, and I remember that it was the first game I ever played that had full motion video in it, even though it was anime full motion video, and the story was actually fantastic.

I honestly wish they would reboot this game or remake this game. There's like an entire Cosmic Fantasy series of role-playing games that were huge, like in the 90s, I guess, early 2000s, something, and they just freaking disappeared. And in English translation, we only got Cosmic Fantasy 2.

There's a lot of good story to mine, and the best part is it's a crossover where, like, some worlds have magic and some worlds have technology and people go back and forth between them and there's all sorts of different interesting creatures and stories that each world is experiencing.