Rimworld.
It's kind of funny because I bounced off the game hard the first two times I played it. What really did it for me was the Ideology DLC, gave it a shot on a whim and the amount of structure it gave me for RPing colonies was exactly what I was missing.
Hundreds upon hundreds of hours in now, and it is the game I keep coming back to. Not to mention one of the biggest modding communities I have ever seen in a video game. The only video game subscriptions I maintain currently are to a few Rimworld modders whose work I really enjoy. When I am not playing it, I am working on ideas of themed mod packs to put into it.
Dyson Sphere Program is a close second, it's my favourite factory-builder. It is still in early access but is a VERY polished experience already. Amazing dev communication too.
Fallout: New Vegas
Cyberpunk2077 at the moment. Got more than 250 hours on it. Before that I played Dishonored a lot and that before the very first Deus Ex. The story was just incredible and IMHO still is one of the best in video game history.
Kerbal Space Program
There's no game I don't eventually get tired of, but here are three that are fantastic and I can recommend playing for hours and hours:
- FTL
- Slay the Spire
- Darkest Dungeon
All indie titles, none of them new, still fantastic and well worth it if you haven't played any on this list. Also all challenging roguelikes, so be warned. =P
STALKER - with mods this game looks amazing and it's so immersive. I had so many fun/terrifying hours on this
Bayonetta
Dwarf Fortress
Cyberpunk
Mass Effect
Morrowind
Inscryption
Portal 2
Kenshi
Looking at my steam:
Total: Factorio. Though I do think I need to put that one on hold after I'm finally done with my current save - which is not far out anymore. Also, this game has multiplayer so it may technically not count.
Recent: Derail Valley, a very down-to-basics train simulator, focusing on cargo rail in a fictional rendition of an area in the Balkans. They recently put out a major update, which makes all kinds of simulation features much more expansive.
The Mass Effect trilogy.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games 1 through 4.
A bit more than once a decade I play them on emulator and try to 100% them. Great fun. I also try to make sure to visit the locations in the real world if I'm on holiday nearby where they based a level.
It's kind of sad that the Venice Beach area hasn't existed since the 90s.
Edit: I did just realise this thread is about PC games, but I do play them on PC albeit through a PlayStation emulator. I do believe the games are available on PC.
For a hot month at a time, The Sims, then never again for the rest of the year
Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Might & Magic VIII
My friends make fun of me for it but...
Football Manager.
I know it's a spreadsheet simiulator but I can't stop.
Civilization for me... I don't mind the newer versions but I'm old enough that I've played it since Civ I and I do sort of feel like it's lost something as the graphics have improved and animations were introduced. Still, irrespective of the version, every game is a little different and eats hours like nothing else.
I'm flabbergasted we're getting no metroidvania love in here so I'll list my two favorites: Hollow Knight and Blasphemous. Both with sequels coming out this year which I'm so excited about!
For basically daily consumption, definitely Paradoy Grand Strategy games for me, EU4, Vic3, CK3, HoI4, one of those almost always manages to work out.
As a game that I can endlessly revisit with short pauses in between, Disco Elysium, never fails to resonate with me.
Since nobody has mentioned it, I'll throw in "X4: Foundations". The X series is janky in places but oh so satisfying if you can get past the jank. Build a military empire to take over the galaxy, or maybe a trading empire. Or maybe you want to become an industrialist and build huge stations to print money. You can be a pirate or a salvager or any combination of the above. And there are tons of interesting mods if you get sick of the vanilla game.
Love this game!
I am playing Skyrim. For the second time, now in Special Edition.
Vampire Survivors I just love that game, after that Tetris.
The Binding of Isaac. One of the GOATs for me.
Workers and resources. It's like cities skylines on steroids.
DemonDarkBloodEldenSoulsBorneRing.
Edit: Of those that are on PC, anyway. I got tired of waiting for even an announcement that a BB or Demon Souls port was on its way and got a PS5 just for those two things back in January.
Dying Light, absolutely fantastic pakour zombie smasher with one of the best cities in gaming. Bought it originally (on a disc) many years ago and played it so much the disc died and I was inconsolable until Epic gave away the ultimate edition and I was finally able to play The Following DLC.
Now I go and look at Dying Light 2 on Steam and wish my stupid country wasn't so damn expensive, even on sale at 50% off it still costs almost as much as a brand new AAA game in the states. Regional pricing my ass, we always get stung so hard for tech down here.
doom
Prey. I enjoyed it more than Dishonored, it holds a real special place in my heart.
Cassette Beasts, it's like Pokémon far more different than other pokeclones, and far higher quality imo. The beast designs are great, and there's a cool fuse mechanic you can use to fuse any two Beasts, with unique art (over 16,000 possible fusions). Also the shiny-equivalent is better done and actually useful.
Rollercoaster Tycoon / OpenRCT2
Transport Tycoon Deluxe / OpenTTD
While they do now have multiplayer modes thanks to their corresponding open source projects, I still think the spirit of these games is firmly in the single player pc game category. Best of all they're both free and available on any OS!
Fallout 2
Stellaris and Factorio
Minecraft
Definitely Civilization in general. There’s a lot of other games I like that are completely different, but year after year I come back to the Civilization series. And even though they peaked at Civ5, it’s still one of the few games I’ll preorder as soon as the next one is available.
Fallout 4 ☢️
My go to would be Skyrim, but i actually stopped playing about a year ago. My current one would be cyberpunk but i'm waiting for the dlc and playing diablo 4 atm.
Total War Warhammer games. I keep starting new campaigns to play all the races and subfactions.
The Sims 2. I’ve played a fair amount of all four Sims games including their mobile editions, and Sims 2 remains my favorite after a near (yeeesh) 20 years.
The modding community is still relatively robust, especially for a game that’s so old and out of the four, I feel like I can enjoy even the basic gameplay as a storyteller in Sims 2 more than in 3 or 4. In Sims 3, the focus was less on playing multiple families, so it had to be modded right out of the gate to get back to its foundation and I never liked the way the sims looked. Sims 4 “feels” a lot more like Sims 2, which a lot of people hated, but its expansion and content packs are a complete joke. It costs like $2K to have everything, and they’re still releasing packs. I know it’s just the state of gaming these days, but it just sucks the fun out of a lot of the game.
Half the fun these days, though, is just getting the game up and running on modern PCs. I installed a new hard drive a few months ago and it took the better part of a weekend to get the game fully installed and running. I do have Ultimate Collection, but the less time I have to spend in that stupid EA app, the better.
Rogue Legacy 2
If you enjoy platformers and roguelikes, you'll like this.
- Skyrim. Curse you, Todd!
- Dwarf Fortress (still on the old v0.47)
I've also recently began playing Spacebourne 2. It's janky and unpolished as fuck, but it's proving really interesting thus far. Considering it's done by a single dude, it's a miracle it even works.
Factorio and rimworld
Tetris.
Kenshi! Getting your ass beat by slavers again and again has never been so fun!
Hitman: World of Assassination
I’m gonna add Space Haven to the list. Still early access but I can’t stop. Been playing it on and off for the last year, 200 hours!
Crusader Kings, Europe universalis and imperator Rome. I know this is three games but it's the same general idea, as a history fan, this game scratches a very specific itch for me
There's also bannerlord/warband, amazing experience, sorta like ck3 on a micro level
I play far too much cities skylines
Most of them that I play since I'm not big on multiplayer. Lots of RPGs (Mass Effect Legendary), colony sims (Rimworld), city builders (Banished), and grand strategy games (Stellaris)
Recently, The Stanley Parable
Rimworld and factorio cause time to disappear
Minecraft I keep coming back to year after year.
FTL is pretty fun too
Secret of Monkey Island.
Every so often, I play it again ( thank you, @scummvm@corteximplant.com )
Even though I know every puzzle, it's still fun 2½ decades after I played it for the first time.
Stardew Valley!
Ring of Pain. It's a creepy dungeon crawler roguelite. I don't know why, I've seen everything the game has to offer and somehow I keep coming back to it.
Another vote for Vampire Survivors. It feels like a game that has given the developer so much joy to make.
I love to start a new round of Civ 6 or a create a new city in City Skylines, because i learned so much from my previous mistakes and this time i will create a perfect civ/city... only to make super stupid mistakes nonetheless and fail miserably. It's still great fun though.
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
I'll still install Duke Nukem 3D every couple of years to replay or to play the custom maps that were so easy to make.
OpenTTD is also great to mindlessly play while listening to podcasts.
Monster Hunter (I rarely play multiplayer), MGSV and Xcom 2
Technically not a single player game but Elden Ring.
Europa Universalis IV
Grand Theft Auto IV. I've always felt it has the most emersive storyline and setting out of them all. Once you get past the janky driving controls it was a hell of a lot of fun.
Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft. I don't play the latter online at all.
Quake (1996). Still playing it more than 25 years later :)
It's 240 comments and no reference to Touhou?????
I play Taisei Project (FOSS bullet-hell shooter) and 3D Pinball: Space Cadet because it was #1 game in the list on Discover app.
Subnautica and Enscryption :)
Two Point Hospital
Vampire Survivors, The Binding of Isaac and Civilization 6, absolutely
I know it's not 100% single player, but it's how I play it anyway, D2 and all of its mods.
Oblivion
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
It's 240 comments and no reference to Touhou?????
I play Taisei Project (FOSS bullet-hell shooter) and 3D Pinball: Space Cadet because it was #1 game in the list on Discover app.
Fromsoftware games and Monster Hunter games
Stellaris Cyberpunk No man's sky (idk if it counts as single player per se)
Tyrian, but I'll just go to the main menu, enter the secret code and play the hidden turrets game for hours.
Ruiner. F'kin banger soundtrack.
I tend to get bored of games fairly quickly. I'll hop from game to game to game, over and over again, never (rarely) beating a game before moving on to the next. Sometimes I come back to these games I've abandoned and start over, only to repeat the cycle. There's only one game that I keep going back to again and again. The Sims. I do wish there were other competing life sim games that offered a similar amount of content and mod support, but alas, there's nothing out there quite like it yet.
In the category of "bullet-heaven" / vampire survivors I have been putting a lot of time into Bio-Prototype. It has a really amazing upgrade/combination system for your weapons. And it also only costs like $4
Spelunky (HD/2) is my goto chill game. Put Spotify on and just start going for the hard end. It's a 2D, roguelike platformer about exploring a series of caves, and shouldn't be as addicting as it is.
I have no idea why, but I cant get enough of it. 200 hours in HD, 250 in 2, and I also had it on X360 a while back that didnt track time.
Nethack
You can play single player or
$ telnet nethack.alt.orgto play online
dcss
Killer7 Bloodborne Darkest Dungeon
War for the overworld. I have thousands and thousands of hours logged.
Eufloria Classic
Almost perfect "simple" rts. Nothing terribly complicated about how it works. Really the only thing that keeps me from saying it is perfect is the lack of ability to set rally points for units or select multiple planets to move all the seedlings(units) all at once.
Some of mine have already been said, so I'll bring up Barotrauma as one of mine! Give me some mods for extra content and I'll be able to play for many many hours.
Same with Doom, actually.
Empire Earth 2. Old but good.
Starsiege Tribes versus bots. Wish it's ported to Android touch and motion sensors. http://playspoon.com/wiki/index.php?title=Spoonbot https://www.TribesUniverse.com or Outwars https://www.mobygames.com/game/3686/outwars/
Red Dead Redemption 2 for so many reasons.
Solitaire
Geometry Dash or osu!
Right now? Battlebit remastered
Nioh 2
Civilization 4: Fall from heaven: Ashes of Erebus. It can be played multiplayer of course, but I almost exclusively play single-player. The lore is fun, the event system can be interesting, the combinations of awesome Civs+Leaders+Religions+Magic really up the replayability. The end game with hundreds of units amongst a large number of factions with hell terrain encroaching makes for a very dynamic endgame.
X4 and Farm Manager 2021 (I'm super fun at parties)
Yeah it’s Farm Sim. Something wildly calming about just tractoring around, watching the sunset, feeding the sheep, etc.
Zombies vs Plants.
Fireball wizard
Rock and roll racing
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Outer Wilds, played it once loved it so much I still get tons of enjoyment by watching others do full play throughs
Railroads! Like Railroad Tycoon but more casual.
