So, going through It™ again and my mood’s really gloomy. Anyone got any good recommendations to go with my mood?
To specify, PC-only, and I’m mostly asking for atmosphere, though some mechanical goodness will not go unappreciated. Thinking of stuff like Observer, Silent Hill, Darkwood, Arx Fatalis, Fallout: NV, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, etc. Played most of these except Bloodborne, gathering the patience to deal with emulation.
Edit: oh, and if the story’ll shred my soul to pieces, all the better! Hit me with your best shot!
These are basically ancient, but if you want to feel like crap.
- The walking dead, from telltale
- spec ops the line
- this war of mine
- papers please
Have you played journey? It’s great in my opinion the music and visuals bringe up every time I play it the end he sequence has made me cry in a few occasions.
You might like ori
Hollow Knight (more so than Silksong tbh)
Night in the Woods (not the same vibe as the games you mentioned but absolutely a “had a bad day” vibe)
Darkwood.
For both rich atmosphere and unique game mechanics, you could do a lot worse than Return of the Obra Dinn.
If you’re unfamiliar, the presentation evokes early PC (or Mac, more specifically) black and white “1 bit” games, but real time 3d. This already is very distinctive, but the gameplay also sets it apart.
You are an insurance investigator with a magic pocket watch which allows you to travel back to the moment in time that someone expired, if you find their corpse. From these brief flashes (and by cross-referencing the ship manifest) you piece together what happened to all the crew and passengers on the ships ill-fated voyage, before it’s baffling reemergence years after the fact.
Peripeteia- Dark cyberpunk imsim. Obviously inspired by GitS and deus ex. I’d consider it pretty dark and pessimistic but lots of fun to play around in and explore the different ways you have to solve a problem.
STALKER, it’s story may not wreck you but the monolith will.
If you want to be kicked in the dick play the anomaly mod, pretty sure it’s free and doesn’t require the games.
I’m reluctant to suggest What Remains of Edith Finch.
It will shred you.
That’s what I was going to recommend too. And very short too. It’s just a rainy afternoon.
Good! Hope it does thin slices, thank you!
I’ve heard Spiritfarer is quite emotional.
It is. Its also maybe not the best game to play when you’re struggling. I played it when I lost a close family member and I became a wreck for weeks
It helped me process the loss, but it drew all of my emotions out in the process
Oh boy, this is a game that absolutely ripped my heart out. I’ve never been great at saying goodbye, I did everything I could before the first goodbye and then I quit. I loved the game, but it hits me in a strange soft spot.
Brothers is kinda similar to provide a recommendation.
Subnautica works for me on days like these. It’s atmosphere, the clever design of how to explore more of the story and the constant danger. I also really like the ending, but I won’t say more about that, cause spoilers.
Have you played Control? It was on sale recently on Steam
Just finished that one, I fucking loved it, but that story just sort of brick walls at the end in a way that made me want a sequel really bad. I want more SCP inspired games like Control, the setting and anomalous items alone make for a great game.
It doesn’t have much of a pre-defined story to it, but I would say Project Zomboid is pretty moody and has a lot of gameplay depth.
Limbo
Inside is great as well
Limbo and Inside, noted! Thank you both!
Dying Light
Hardspace Shipbreaker (Solid story, Hating on a Doloris Umbridge type character)
Dredge
Thank you! I’ve played quite a bit of Dying Light back when it came out, lots of fun in co-op!
As for Hardspace Shipbreaker and Dredge, the first I wanted to try for a while (big fan of Space Engineers), and the second looks like “life as a background character in a Lovecraftian story,” so awesome!
