Outer Wilds. I went to the hollow planet early and got very frustrated with the platforming and falling rocks.
I returned to it almost a year later and gave it a chance based on everyone’s praise. Very glad I did.
This is one that I have to come back to.
You should. Make sure you pick it up when you have time to really wrap your head around it. When I finally played through it, it was over a Christmas holiday. I don’t think it’s the sort of game that would lend itself well to being played in 1-2 hour chunks after work every night for a week when you’re feeling burned out. You gotta be able to sink your teeth into it
It’s like a big tangle of wool. As soon as you find the end and start pulling, it all starts to make sense.
Control.
The beginning of the game is really slow, hard to understand what’s happening, and you literally have only minimal throwing ability. The manual navigation with overlay fullscreen map also doesn’t do justice to the game. Combining with the fact that I wasn’t used to playing these types of games, this was an easy pass for me after like 1 hour of the game.
But boy it’s awesome as you actually get more abilities and understand more of the story. Currently it’s one of the games I usually come back to.
I didn’t realize it was in the Alan Wake universe. I still need to play Control.
Yeah there’s only a couple subtle hints in the regular game and I think more in the dlc. I’m guessing they’ll lean into it more with control 2 now that AW2 is out as well.
Interesting, I had a similar experience at the start and couldn’t work out why everyone was praising it so much. Maybe I’ll give it another go
Please do. Control was such a hidden gem. I picked it up in a humble bundle and it absolutely blew me away.
Subnautica. I didn’t really get it at first. Swam around the life pod a bit; didn’t see the point.
Was travelling some time (months?) Later and stuck at an airport with my laptop and a Power outlet but super patchy wifi. So I fired it up again and really, really got into it. Kept playing on the plane and all through that trip. By the time I got back, I had a Cyclops and a Prawn suit and was about to find the lost river.
I also came to say Subnautica. I got it for free prom PlayStation, messed around a little bit, didn’t have any clue where to go, and stopped playing.
Years later I started a new game and it clicked with me. I bought the sequel before I rolled credits so I’d be able to go right into it.
Love that game. Love, love, love it.
I played Celeste, thought it was kinda easy and the hotel level kinda lame which is where I dropped it. A few years later I broke my leg, being a pc gamer before the steamdeck my switch was the only portable console I had and celeste the only unfinished game i had for it. I played the entire game in a week of 12 hour sessions while high as a mother fucking kite. It was amazingly good fun.
Morrowind. I’d played it when it came out but didn’t get very far. Tried it again after watching an 8 hour video about it. Focused on speed in my build so I didn’t feel like running at a snail’s pace. Finding the dead people that failed to become Nerevar, giving some guy a book of poetry without a quest telling me to, getting used to the layout of Vivec, actually enjoying the fast travel system, and lots more all added up to such a great experience.
Morrowind was the most immersive game I ever played. Something about it made it so I could just get really into it and focus on nothing else for hours. Not even the other elder scroll games were that way for me. I’d give anything to be able to re-live those days. I don’t think it’s even possible anymore with how much other shit I have going on in my life as an adult.
Favorite game of all time.
I feel that. It is still the game I have logged the most time with, which considering I’ve got about 1,300 hours in Elite Dangerous is kinda scary. Between the original Xbox, PC, and Xbox One BC, I’ve got about 1,800 hours in it. Thoroughly enjoyed breaking every aspect of Morrowind.
CMDR o7
PatricianTV is one of the best long form video game essay writers out there. Really understands the topic they are talking about. Would recommend watching all his content if you like the format.
Oh yeah, I definitely have experience his other videos. Used to fall asleep to the oblivion one but then kept getting woken up by the 🎵 horse cock🎶 part.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Death Stranding. As a Metal Gear fanatic, the disappointment I felt on my first attempt at playing it was immense. Only got a few hours in before writing off as just not for me. Tried again in a different frame of mind, different time in my life, and it clicked. One of my fav games of all time.
I just played it through for the first time. What an experience it was! I’ve never played a game like it before. It’s a story that will stick with me for years.
Had to try really hard to get into it but when it clicked, it clicked. Really enjoyed it but can’t seem myself ever playing again
Yeah I know what you mean. I think I feel the same way about replaying it. I want to keep the memory of my journey intact.
Dark souls
Same. Spent 3 hours on Gundyr in ds3 just to watch my non gamer wife beat him second try. Hated the game then came back to it with a friend who had finished it and voila, my new never ending addiction.
Same here, played a bit of DS2, but never really got into it. Started on DS3, but got tired of that pretty quick as well. But when Elden Ring came out, I got really hooked on the games. I finished Elden Ring, then I played through DS 1, 2 and 3. And then a few more playthroughs of Elden Ring with different builds. I’ve started a bit on Sekiro, but jumped over to Lies of P when it came out. The plan is to play the new Lords of the Fallen, when I’m finished with Lies of P. It’s really satisfying to beat a boss after a few hours of learning the patterns.
Overwatch.
Oroginally I dismissed it as just being a TF2 clone, and being a very loyal TF2 player at the time I didn’t want to play it as I consodered it a blatant ripoff. However, I started going to a LAN party group at work in 2017 and Overwatch was the only FPS they played so I got it. It still does feel similar to TF2 but the variety of characters got me hooked and it became my most played game for many years until OW2 came out and ruined everything. Getting back into it now though and they’ve toned down some of the bad decisions of OW2 since launch. Now I’m dating a girl who plays Overwatch as well and we’ve been playing constantly so I’m back into it completely now.
Cyberpunk 2077
Got it on console first, and it was … rough. Got it as a gift on PC and finally got to experience the glorious story and wonderful characters.
Rimworld. Did the standard start (industrial with 3 pawns) on cass. Died of hunger. Uninstalled the game.
Next week I was bored at my intership and redownloaded it and gave it another shot. Now I have close to 4k hours in Rimworld.
Same thing happened with Crusader Kings, funnily enough.
Edit: oh, that happened with M&B: Warband and Kenshi as well.
Kinshi is such a deep game. I get how it’s hard to get into but damn once it clicks it’s crazy how far down the rabbit hole that game goes.
Minecraft. I tried it as a teenager and didn’t really “get it”. Much later in life I found some friends and none of us really played the game that much so we decided to try it together and got hooked.
As someone who has played Minecraft fairly consistently for the past 12 years or so, I want to ask, what is different about either yourself or the game that made you enjoy it now when you didn’t before?
what do you do in the game exactly? 12 years is a long time
Not all that time was spent in the same world, but over three different creative worlds and three survival ones, online with friends. I like designing and building, both aesthetic creations and also functional ones. The game to me is all about imagination and so from that perspective it’s just a sandbox that never runs out of content.
Whenever I play minecraft now. Either it’s fully modded Minecraft with automation and stuff.
Or it’s vanilla with a ton of client side mods and automating stuff through vanilla farms.
I can’t help being a factorio dude.
Terraria. At first I compared it to Minecraft before I started to like it on it’s own. Thanks to pre-Fandom wiki I broke through not getting it’s gameplay at all to enjoying it.
Same for me. But then a friend played like an hour together with me, showed me the ropes and I haven’t stopped playing since. Not all the time, but like one playthrough a month or so.
This one for me. The controls were hard to get used to and I died a whole lot and lost my stuff the first dozen nights. But once it clicked it got better and better, and holy cow the game has a lot going on inside of it.
Diablo III. First time I played it was at the urging of my friend, who told me unironically, “don’t worry about the plot, the plot doesn’t matter.” Unsurprisingly my experience wasn’t particularly engaging and I lost interest, not seeing much reason to play it over any number of other games that didn’t have an always-online requirement.
Flash forward several years later. My then-girlfriend (now spouse) asked me if I’d ever played a Diablo game, and I related my experience. After she was done sputtering and emitting various noises of extreme outrage she insisted that I set things up so we could play through Diablo 1, 2, and then 3 together. I went in to D1 expecting to be similarly disappointed and instead found an incredibly dark, atmospheric, and compelling story. Oh and we did get The Butcher so I also shat myself. After that I was way hyped for 2, and by the time we hit 3 I was far more interested in playing. Loved the hell out of it, found myself not only enjoying the game but completing through the last stages of a season journey to score extra stash space and all that. Not out of obligation either, I was legitimately enjoying the grind.
Stardew Valley. I don’t know why I didn’t get it the first time. Maybe it was the art style? Now it becomes my daily routine…
That game was the total opposite for me. Played it at launch and sunk in like 40h in a week. Absolutely loved it. Put it aside for a while and I have never been able to spend more than 30m on it since…
Slay the Spire.
Gave up because I couldn’t beat jaw worm or act 1 boss. Then I had an absolutely OP deadbranch +corruption deck. Been hooked ever since.
You fool, Jaw Worm is the act 1 boss!
