call_me_xale , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Roughly in order, I think:

• StarCraft: Brood War
• Subnautica
• FTL: Faster than Light
• Spec Ops: The Line
• Risk of Rain Returns
• Portal
• Dead Cells
• Hades
• Team Fortress 2
• Borderlands 2
• Satisfactory

Honorable mention:

• Unreal Tournament 2004
• The first two Golden Sun games
• SOMA
• Diablo II
• Diablo III
• TLoZ: Link’s Awakening

Looking over this, it seems like I’m drawn to games that have either unusually good writing, very long skill curves, or (e.g., #1) both.

UT2004 sneaks in for being the absolute best LAN-party game ever (fight me). I think Link’s Awakening is mostly just nostalgia though. 😋

Edit: bumped UT2004 down to “honorable mention” because I somehow forgot the billion hours I’ve sunk into Satisfactory. Still very curious to see where that game goes story-wise after the 1.0 launch, though.