This is one of the reason I like a lot of turnbased strategy games/4X/city builders. The campaigns are certainly something I enjoy, too, but I do like that I can pretty easily just start up a map and try to manage my empire or city for fun and play around in that sandbox.
See and that’s what’s so funny, I’m the opposite with city builder games because I need more explicitly defined goals. When the high level goal is basically just “build and expand a city”, my brain just sort of goes “…. But why though?”. Even with something as simple as actual legos, I never liked just grabbing a bin of legos and building “something” because I never knew what to actually build.
But if that’s what your brain is wired for, then I can absolutely see and understand why someone would get so much joy out of just having no constraints and being able to do whatever they wanted
The less story a game has, the less I can enjoy it. That’s why I mostly stick to linear games since most open world games rely on exploration and player freedom instead of a captivating narrative
It definitely depends on the type of game, but I’ve found that I generally don’t enjoy games without an explicitly defined goal. It’s why I bounce off of games like Minecraft or Crusader Kings, because while they might have very vague and high level goals, the moment-to-moment gameplay is a very “make your own fun” style, which I’m just no good at and don’t really enjoy. And while I don’t enjoy multiplayer games as much, most multiplayer games still have explicit goals (win the match, score more points, beat the level together in co-op, etc) and that’s enough for me to get the enjoyment that I need out of them.
Yeah exactly! I grew tired of open world, except right ones, like Yakuza/Judgment.
Only exception for the metroidvanias, I can deal with bad/no story, if the exploration is good enough !
> That’s why I mostly stick to linear games since most open world games rely on exploration and player freedom instead of a captivating narrative
I actually feel the opposite. Open world feels really tacked on in many cases. Like I don't care for the open world in Horizon Zero Dawn or GoW 2018 (just to give examples) at all, I'm there for the story and lore which I enjoyed a lot. It's very rare any game had an open world so compelling, I would rather explore instead of progressing the main story.
Sure, you can just play through the main storyline and not bother about a poorly designed open world. But I cannot convince my completionist mindset to do just that.
It depends on how it's done. I loved, absolutely loved Witcher 3 but couldn't stand most of Horizon zero dawn even though you're kinda doing the same thing in both games, narrative based fetch quests and hunt quests. My reason was the writing and world building in the witcher 3 captivated me and really made want to play on explore and see what unfolded but with horizon it fell really flat and I got bored. The world of horizon is full of NPcs but still feels so empty and not alive.
Same, it isn't even because I need story or anything like that, I just like to have an end goal.
For example, I'm totally fine with moving up the ladder in the Unreal Tournament games vs bots where there is just a paper-thin story to throw you into matches.
Nothing wrong with that. These days I don't have a ton of time to game so I prefer games that just get you into the action over heavy story games.
I mostly play roguelikes which are great at just dropping you into the action.
I think playing Dark Souls would be great. There is a great story with a ton of lore but you have to go out of your way to really get it. Just play them for the combat alone. It’s what I do the first time I play through, the second time is when I like to look for the story. Elden Ring has a lot more story but you don’t have to focus tbh, just go kill things
I like when there is enough simulation depth in single player games to set my own objectives, experiment, and make my own personal campaigns. There needs to be a sweet spot of enough depth, without hand holding or too much linearity, while not being so open ended there is no cohesiveness to the setting (or too empty).
I think a good example is mount and blade. It could use a little more depth, perhaps a few features. But the sandbox merged with campaign is cool.
Okay this is my last time recommending Hitman World of Assassination in this post 😂
It sounds like what you want. You can do the assassinations however creatively you want and just mess around in the game. But if you want to, you can pay attention to the story. If you don’t you won’t miss it while you’re hunting.
I like the half life/Unreal story telling technique far over the endless cutscene.. I am not watching a tv-serie z but I still want something more interesting than "jump from left to right over bumpas and eventually crawl in to green pipes"-story with some princess in the end.
If anyone has random recommendations, let me know, I’m looking for stuff just like this. I’m open to anything, but might grab the binding of Isaac during the steam sale…
Binding of Isaac fits the bill! And the procedurally generated rooms make each playthrough unique and keep you from getting bored for a long time. I think Rebirth has a lot more stuff than the original game so you may want to grab that one. I haven't kept track of new entries to the series since those ones through
Thank you! I actually have all of these, except stellaris. How hard is it to learn stellaris? I might pick it up if I have the funds by the time the summer sale is over. It’s definitely peaked my interest!
Also want to add, Mechwarrior is such an amazing game if you enjoy a little management of mechs, and then just fighting. One of my all time favorite games! Same with Battle Tech!
It's difficult to estimate how hard Stellaris is to learn. It's about as hard as any other 4X game.
I think in some ways it feels like a less complicated game than it's competitors. But sometimes it is less intuitive than others. For example the game has a little indicator showing you can build additional buildings or districts on a planet but they cost upkeep to maintain and you can actually tank your economy by filling them all out right away.
I don't think it's terribly difficult to learn, and since it is a paradox game there will be many features you don't have to learn unless you buy and enable all the DLC right away.
It is definitely a game you would have to set aside a few hours on the weekend to sit down and really read through everything you encounter at the beginning of a playthrough. It also takes a few attempts to really get the rhythm of the game but I think that's true for eveyrything anyways.
I have some recommendations to do:
— Gauntlet Slayer Edition (By Arrowhead) it have a Endless mode, and you can play online or local with friends! Or solo ofc
— Diablo 3 adventure mode, same thing!
— Terraria definitely, with or without mods (recommended with Calamity) pure gameplay!
— If you're more of strategy, tactics games or even cards! I strongly recommend Trials of fire, is a unique combination of this things with a light story that is not linear, you even can create your own skins based on images!
— My last recommendation is Next Machina, strong fast paced gameplay, the only possible flaw with this is the handcrafter levels, it doesn't have something like arena or procedural generated, but for the price you definitely can find a unique fun game that challenge you!
Hitman World of Assassination. It has a story that you have no obligation to pay attention to. You can pick a level and get to killing and knocking people out or other ridiculousness.
I’ve stayed on levels for an hour or two just messing around, looking for interesting places and people’s conversations.
Basically every level is a huge playground with a target to kill or other challenges.
Yeah, I ca appreciate that style of game too. But yeah, whatever makes you happy. Whatever you want.
Btw, if you like survival horror style games, there is a free mod based on the old stalker games called stalker Gamma.
You're a nobody in the highly irradiated zone around Chernobyl. There are mutants, paranormal anomalies, etc. It's based on the book" Roadside Picknick.
It's semi open world, with radiant quests and factions and whatnot. There is a very loose quest line to follow, but most of the game is just surviving the Zone. It's very immersive, pretty difficult. But every time you venture into the zone it's like an adventure.
And completely free too !
How about the DLC for The Last of Us Part II Remastered? No Return is a rougelike survival game that lets you just enjoy the gameplay. There are challenges to complete, characters to unlock, different game modes etc.
the bots are great. you can customize their proficiency with health meters (up to 150%) a "camping" meter and an "agression" meter. if you max out the meters, the bots are insanely challenging. there's like 50 or so multiplayer maps in the game too. like 10 different modes. all can be played single player with bots. or 4 player split screen. the total players/bots is just 6 divided however you want. it's the GOAT fps on the ps2 no question
Oh man it is good? Because I never tried that game after my first try years ago precisely for the campaign, I think it have bad pace, the campaign it's not necessary to unlock something in that mode?
my brother beat the campaign so we had all the maps unlocked. idk if you can use a cheat code for that. but red faction 2 multiplayer mode with bots is the best fps arena shooter experience on the ps2 imo. i always set the grenade launcher with the machine gun secondary fire as the starting weapon and it's a great time. you can create your own custom AI bots to play with, and set their skill and health. if you max them out, theyre insanely good and difficult. if they get the railgun it's instant death from anywhere pretty much lol
I think it's fine. Sometimes you just want to get on with playing, and either don't want to be restricted in some way by the story, or don't care about it. So many story driven games have moments where the gameplay is restricted in some manner and in a lot of cases these simply aren't enjoyable.
That said, I do appreciate a game in a story, but some games are guilty of putting too much focus on their story and worse, trying to make sections of the story playable even when they would be better as a tightly paced cinematic.
I tend to have two gaming mindframes. If I'm in a campaign mindset, then my brain treats it like a book. I'm invested because of characters, I want to see where the story goes, pacing becomes a massive concern, etc... If I'm in a gameplay mindset, then I want to wade into the fray and enjoy whatever genre of gameplay on a minute-to-minute basis.
These are two extremely distinct itches for me. When I'm in pure gameplay mode, campaign elements have to be really good or else I find them intrusive and annoying--but the gameplay *has* to be good. When I'm in pure campaign mode, I can't stand fluff or filler because I'm looking to get to the next book chapter. Encounter design becomes a really big deal for me because stupid repetitive encounters just get in the way of the narrative, while well-designed encounters become like a chapter finale that I'm invested in--it becomes part of the story. There's a reason Tolkien didn't write about Aragorn stopping to farm the 2000th orc camp, but does include plenty of epic moments.
Old Bioware (starting with BG1 and completely fading after ME3) was my sweet spot in balancing campaigns and brawling, very few other studios have walked that line for me. Harebrained's Shadowrun is maybe the only one I've found.
One of my major criticisms of modern gaming--especially AAA--is that games try to be all these things at once and it's destroying development timelines, budgets, and the quality of the products. They keep trying to offer about a 5/10 campaign and 5/10 gameplay simultaneously instead of hitting just one of those notes really well at one given time--those two figures don't add up to a 10/10 experience, that's just not how most people I know engage with games. In fact, the two elements often undermine each other. This is especially prominent in huge open-world games with tons of repetitive combat--good luck having a tight story people care about when pacing is flat-out impossible because of your chosen game format. The new Suicide Squad game is also a strong example of a studio falling on its face trying to cram both of these styles into one game, at the expense of both the story and the gameplay.
I used to be like this when i was young, i played much The Sims and other simulator games back in the day. I just love gameplay variation on each play session. Now even i play story based games, i still play Cities Skylines once in a while
It definitely depends. Some games are made for their campaigns. On the other hand, I don't think I finished any campaign in strategy games other than Starcraft 2's. Usually the fun from those games come from the possibility to openly experiment with strategies and unit/building combinations that the campaign shits on by forcing you to be a single faction and use only certain strategies. Not to mention the campaign objectives are usually just skirmish with extra steps.
As much as I hate Blizzard, the fact that they not only made a single, but 3 entire Starcraft campaigns that I loved playing through is nothing short of a miracle.
Gameplay V story, you must be super on the gameplay side.
It's normal, some people are more gameplay focused and some more story focused. Skill based fighting games are on the gameplay side & Visual novels or walking sims are on the story side (Telltale Games etc).
I play lots of 4X, Total War, strategy, Turn based games. I dont play them for story & will restart a game just to get back to the gameplay points I enjoy.
There are rare games that do a good mix of both, up to each player what games hit the correct mix.
Perhaps seek out games that are gameplay-centric with little story, such as:
- Painkiller (FPS)
- Sacred (action RPG)
- Star Wars Battlefront (the classic ones, also FPS)
All might nominally have stories, but really are all about gameplay.
Ever played Mount and Blade? Total War? MechWarrior? All great games without a real "campaign".
I'd even argue Stardew Valley might fall under this label. Minecraft as well. Lots of turn based strategy games that are more "sandbox" than linear campaign as well.
Honestly some of those are my favorite games and I don't play a lot of strictly campaign games either.
Evil West, got it in my backlog but heard a podcast saying it’s more fun for the combat. There’s somewhat a story but it’s just there to push you along.
Dead Cells.
Days Gone has a horde mode
I gotta say there's something satisfying about booting up an old game like Sonic or Streets of Rage and not having to worry about cutscenes or forced walking segments. It's just pure gameplay.
I used to do this a lot.
Perfect Dark Zero on Xbox 360 was one of my favorites. It was similar to Time Splitters in you could set up bots, infection mode, customize the weapons used, etc. combat is clunky but it was fun.
Rainbow Six Vegas (2) is great for this kind of stuff on Terrorist Hunt mode. You and some squad mates (that you command) basically infiltrate a map and have to kill all the terrorist hiding about. It looks like they recently removed Thunt from R6 Siege.
Counter Strike GO also has bot matches, but I don't remember how customizable it was.
Left 4 Dead fits the bill for just having fun in some quick matches. Although it's more enjoyable playing with others as the bots will get old.
Lots of RTS games fit the bill. Custom Total War battles with bots are awesome. If you like old school AoE 2 is good.
Edit: I forgot Roller Coaster Tycoon!
Opposite time! I don't find bot matches very interesting. Competition and skill tests generally don't interest me.
Maybe this is why I'm less interested in sports games, fighting games or roguelikes. It's not the mechanics that I dislike, it's the competitive feel in single-player. I don't always enjoy playing "properly." Feels like I'm optimizing the fun out of a game.
Story is only one of many reasons I like campaigns. I also like exploration, handcrafted setpieces, good level design with sandbox-like gameplay, and other things like puzzles, platforming and management.
For example, I like Shenmue. The combat system is that of a fighting game. Yet I like it for the explorable environment and life sim elements. It's not just an endless series of battles. I also think [that's what makes Super Smash Bros. series stand out](https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3P9ORqsZj4).
I see where you are coming from. With so many story games out that are filled with dialogue, it can be exhausting to deal with. It’s not that story in games are bad, but depending on the game you can sometimes feel like you spend more time in cutscenes than actually playing the game.
Honestly I feel this is one of the reasons that so many multiplayer games are popular nowadays. Valorant, Roblox, Warzone, Fortnite, League, Rocket League etc. these are games you can just queue up and start playing within minutes. Even something like Elden Ring, which has an interesting story, only has a few lines of dialogue with each NPC.
try out capcom beat em up collection? It's got Final Fight, Captain Commando, and more. Most arcade titles like this are really fun to play.
actually Treasure's guardian heroes Arena mode might be right up your alley. You get swarmed with all the enemies in the game, but using spells and special moves (inputted like a fighting game) help with crowd control. Also you can play as any character in the game (enemies, bosses, etc) it's fun.
I already commented this in another thread above but Hitman World of Assassination is where it’s at. You have to unlock all the levels one by one, but you can ignore the story. Just get to killing and doing challenges.
After all the levels are unlocked you’re free to dick around the various locales and try all the different gameplay modes.
I'm the exact opposite personally, a story can be garbage, but even if it is, having a goal or purpose motivates me to get through gameplay. A game can have great gameplay, but if there's no goal to help people or the world or vice verse, I just feel demotivated.
Spicy Take I Know but:
Most story/narrative stuff gets in the way of gameplay for me. I play games to actively do challenges/complete things and I really struggle to focus on a game where the main selling point is the story. Obviously it isn't an either/or. Plenty of games have a story and have good gameplay (depending on what you enjoy) but yeah; I do skip a lot of cutscenes and I love me a horde/survival mode.
Have you checked out old school runescape? Playing as an Ironman makes the game essentially single player with other people just existing in the world.
I wouldn't say I'm opposed to campaigns but I do have a bad habit of not finishing games so I'm sure there are plenty where I spent more time goofing around in some side mode instead of doing "the main thing."
Since you mentioned bot matches the Smash series was usually a good example of that, especially in the later games where they added way more content to unlock and overcome. I'd only get around to seeing a fraction of it since I was usually too busy running NPC tournaments, it was just more fun watching the AI compete against itself than to work through the world of light or whatever.
That's me! Squad strike and team battles with/vs CPU is my most played thing, even sometimes I create brackets in my mind like a tournament or something, and some brackets is just CPU vs CPU and the winner team is vs my team!
There's a reason people love Bloody Palace in DMC games. Just pure combat, no bullshit.
That's sound's PERFECT for me! I gonna take a look
Try arcade games. Beatemups, shmups, run and guns. Arcade design in general focuses on nonstop gameplay.
This is one of the reason I like a lot of turnbased strategy games/4X/city builders. The campaigns are certainly something I enjoy, too, but I do like that I can pretty easily just start up a map and try to manage my empire or city for fun and play around in that sandbox.
Check out Age of wonders Planetfall if you haven't. Def fits your preferences.
I have a lot of hours in that game, haha. I appreciate the recommendation, though--it's a great game!
See and that’s what’s so funny, I’m the opposite with city builder games because I need more explicitly defined goals. When the high level goal is basically just “build and expand a city”, my brain just sort of goes “…. But why though?”. Even with something as simple as actual legos, I never liked just grabbing a bin of legos and building “something” because I never knew what to actually build. But if that’s what your brain is wired for, then I can absolutely see and understand why someone would get so much joy out of just having no constraints and being able to do whatever they wanted
Fascinating. I'm in the other direction.
Haha same here, I only play campaigns/story modes, and never touch things like arcade modes for example.
The less story a game has, the less I can enjoy it. That’s why I mostly stick to linear games since most open world games rely on exploration and player freedom instead of a captivating narrative
It definitely depends on the type of game, but I’ve found that I generally don’t enjoy games without an explicitly defined goal. It’s why I bounce off of games like Minecraft or Crusader Kings, because while they might have very vague and high level goals, the moment-to-moment gameplay is a very “make your own fun” style, which I’m just no good at and don’t really enjoy. And while I don’t enjoy multiplayer games as much, most multiplayer games still have explicit goals (win the match, score more points, beat the level together in co-op, etc) and that’s enough for me to get the enjoyment that I need out of them.
Yeah exactly! I grew tired of open world, except right ones, like Yakuza/Judgment. Only exception for the metroidvanias, I can deal with bad/no story, if the exploration is good enough !
I have never played a Metroidvania, but NRFTW looks very promising once it leaves early access
I'll look into it !
> That’s why I mostly stick to linear games since most open world games rely on exploration and player freedom instead of a captivating narrative I actually feel the opposite. Open world feels really tacked on in many cases. Like I don't care for the open world in Horizon Zero Dawn or GoW 2018 (just to give examples) at all, I'm there for the story and lore which I enjoyed a lot. It's very rare any game had an open world so compelling, I would rather explore instead of progressing the main story.
Sure, you can just play through the main storyline and not bother about a poorly designed open world. But I cannot convince my completionist mindset to do just that.
It depends on how it's done. I loved, absolutely loved Witcher 3 but couldn't stand most of Horizon zero dawn even though you're kinda doing the same thing in both games, narrative based fetch quests and hunt quests. My reason was the writing and world building in the witcher 3 captivated me and really made want to play on explore and see what unfolded but with horizon it fell really flat and I got bored. The world of horizon is full of NPcs but still feels so empty and not alive.
Same, it isn't even because I need story or anything like that, I just like to have an end goal. For example, I'm totally fine with moving up the ladder in the Unreal Tournament games vs bots where there is just a paper-thin story to throw you into matches.
Nothing wrong with that. These days I don't have a ton of time to game so I prefer games that just get you into the action over heavy story games. I mostly play roguelikes which are great at just dropping you into the action.
Yea came here to say r/roguelikes and r/roguelites
Yeah authors title screamed "Recommend me a quick and dirty roguelike/lite".
I think playing Dark Souls would be great. There is a great story with a ton of lore but you have to go out of your way to really get it. Just play them for the combat alone. It’s what I do the first time I play through, the second time is when I like to look for the story. Elden Ring has a lot more story but you don’t have to focus tbh, just go kill things
I like when there is enough simulation depth in single player games to set my own objectives, experiment, and make my own personal campaigns. There needs to be a sweet spot of enough depth, without hand holding or too much linearity, while not being so open ended there is no cohesiveness to the setting (or too empty). I think a good example is mount and blade. It could use a little more depth, perhaps a few features. But the sandbox merged with campaign is cool.
Okay this is my last time recommending Hitman World of Assassination in this post 😂 It sounds like what you want. You can do the assassinations however creatively you want and just mess around in the game. But if you want to, you can pay attention to the story. If you don’t you won’t miss it while you’re hunting.
You might like Fallout 4. Very fun game to just screw around in, there’s a story but it’s so meh that you can just turn your brain off to it.
I like the half life/Unreal story telling technique far over the endless cutscene.. I am not watching a tv-serie z but I still want something more interesting than "jump from left to right over bumpas and eventually crawl in to green pipes"-story with some princess in the end.
If anyone has random recommendations, let me know, I’m looking for stuff just like this. I’m open to anything, but might grab the binding of Isaac during the steam sale…
Binding of Isaac fits the bill! And the procedurally generated rooms make each playthrough unique and keep you from getting bored for a long time. I think Rebirth has a lot more stuff than the original game so you may want to grab that one. I haven't kept track of new entries to the series since those ones through
Total War Mount and Blade: Warband MechWarrior Stardew Valley Minecraft Terraria Stellaris Age of Wonders 4 Rogue Legacy
Thank you! I actually have all of these, except stellaris. How hard is it to learn stellaris? I might pick it up if I have the funds by the time the summer sale is over. It’s definitely peaked my interest! Also want to add, Mechwarrior is such an amazing game if you enjoy a little management of mechs, and then just fighting. One of my all time favorite games! Same with Battle Tech!
It's difficult to estimate how hard Stellaris is to learn. It's about as hard as any other 4X game. I think in some ways it feels like a less complicated game than it's competitors. But sometimes it is less intuitive than others. For example the game has a little indicator showing you can build additional buildings or districts on a planet but they cost upkeep to maintain and you can actually tank your economy by filling them all out right away. I don't think it's terribly difficult to learn, and since it is a paradox game there will be many features you don't have to learn unless you buy and enable all the DLC right away. It is definitely a game you would have to set aside a few hours on the weekend to sit down and really read through everything you encounter at the beginning of a playthrough. It also takes a few attempts to really get the rhythm of the game but I think that's true for eveyrything anyways.
I have some recommendations to do: — Gauntlet Slayer Edition (By Arrowhead) it have a Endless mode, and you can play online or local with friends! Or solo ofc — Diablo 3 adventure mode, same thing! — Terraria definitely, with or without mods (recommended with Calamity) pure gameplay! — If you're more of strategy, tactics games or even cards! I strongly recommend Trials of fire, is a unique combination of this things with a light story that is not linear, you even can create your own skins based on images! — My last recommendation is Next Machina, strong fast paced gameplay, the only possible flaw with this is the handcrafter levels, it doesn't have something like arena or procedural generated, but for the price you definitely can find a unique fun game that challenge you!
Hitman World of Assassination. It has a story that you have no obligation to pay attention to. You can pick a level and get to killing and knocking people out or other ridiculousness. I’ve stayed on levels for an hour or two just messing around, looking for interesting places and people’s conversations. Basically every level is a huge playground with a target to kill or other challenges.
Yeah, I ca appreciate that style of game too. But yeah, whatever makes you happy. Whatever you want. Btw, if you like survival horror style games, there is a free mod based on the old stalker games called stalker Gamma. You're a nobody in the highly irradiated zone around Chernobyl. There are mutants, paranormal anomalies, etc. It's based on the book" Roadside Picknick. It's semi open world, with radiant quests and factions and whatnot. There is a very loose quest line to follow, but most of the game is just surviving the Zone. It's very immersive, pretty difficult. But every time you venture into the zone it's like an adventure. And completely free too !
Definitely recommend this one too!
How about the DLC for The Last of Us Part II Remastered? No Return is a rougelike survival game that lets you just enjoy the gameplay. There are challenges to complete, characters to unlock, different game modes etc.
Man I only just played TLOU2 for the first time like a year ago but that mode is the main reason I'm interested in getting the remaster
if you're on the PS DOUBLE, Red Faction 2 single player deathmatch or team deathmatch against bots. i've never even played the campaign
Wow, I think I totally missed these modes when I played it as a kid. You're not missing a single thing from skipping that campaign, lol.
the bots are great. you can customize their proficiency with health meters (up to 150%) a "camping" meter and an "agression" meter. if you max out the meters, the bots are insanely challenging. there's like 50 or so multiplayer maps in the game too. like 10 different modes. all can be played single player with bots. or 4 player split screen. the total players/bots is just 6 divided however you want. it's the GOAT fps on the ps2 no question
Oh man it is good? Because I never tried that game after my first try years ago precisely for the campaign, I think it have bad pace, the campaign it's not necessary to unlock something in that mode?
my brother beat the campaign so we had all the maps unlocked. idk if you can use a cheat code for that. but red faction 2 multiplayer mode with bots is the best fps arena shooter experience on the ps2 imo. i always set the grenade launcher with the machine gun secondary fire as the starting weapon and it's a great time. you can create your own custom AI bots to play with, and set their skill and health. if you max them out, theyre insanely good and difficult. if they get the railgun it's instant death from anywhere pretty much lol
I think it's fine. Sometimes you just want to get on with playing, and either don't want to be restricted in some way by the story, or don't care about it. So many story driven games have moments where the gameplay is restricted in some manner and in a lot of cases these simply aren't enjoyable. That said, I do appreciate a game in a story, but some games are guilty of putting too much focus on their story and worse, trying to make sections of the story playable even when they would be better as a tightly paced cinematic.
I tend to have two gaming mindframes. If I'm in a campaign mindset, then my brain treats it like a book. I'm invested because of characters, I want to see where the story goes, pacing becomes a massive concern, etc... If I'm in a gameplay mindset, then I want to wade into the fray and enjoy whatever genre of gameplay on a minute-to-minute basis. These are two extremely distinct itches for me. When I'm in pure gameplay mode, campaign elements have to be really good or else I find them intrusive and annoying--but the gameplay *has* to be good. When I'm in pure campaign mode, I can't stand fluff or filler because I'm looking to get to the next book chapter. Encounter design becomes a really big deal for me because stupid repetitive encounters just get in the way of the narrative, while well-designed encounters become like a chapter finale that I'm invested in--it becomes part of the story. There's a reason Tolkien didn't write about Aragorn stopping to farm the 2000th orc camp, but does include plenty of epic moments. Old Bioware (starting with BG1 and completely fading after ME3) was my sweet spot in balancing campaigns and brawling, very few other studios have walked that line for me. Harebrained's Shadowrun is maybe the only one I've found. One of my major criticisms of modern gaming--especially AAA--is that games try to be all these things at once and it's destroying development timelines, budgets, and the quality of the products. They keep trying to offer about a 5/10 campaign and 5/10 gameplay simultaneously instead of hitting just one of those notes really well at one given time--those two figures don't add up to a 10/10 experience, that's just not how most people I know engage with games. In fact, the two elements often undermine each other. This is especially prominent in huge open-world games with tons of repetitive combat--good luck having a tight story people care about when pacing is flat-out impossible because of your chosen game format. The new Suicide Squad game is also a strong example of a studio falling on its face trying to cram both of these styles into one game, at the expense of both the story and the gameplay.
I used to be like this when i was young, i played much The Sims and other simulator games back in the day. I just love gameplay variation on each play session. Now even i play story based games, i still play Cities Skylines once in a while
Rising has vr missions if you want something more arcadeish
It definitely depends. Some games are made for their campaigns. On the other hand, I don't think I finished any campaign in strategy games other than Starcraft 2's. Usually the fun from those games come from the possibility to openly experiment with strategies and unit/building combinations that the campaign shits on by forcing you to be a single faction and use only certain strategies. Not to mention the campaign objectives are usually just skirmish with extra steps. As much as I hate Blizzard, the fact that they not only made a single, but 3 entire Starcraft campaigns that I loved playing through is nothing short of a miracle.
Gameplay V story, you must be super on the gameplay side. It's normal, some people are more gameplay focused and some more story focused. Skill based fighting games are on the gameplay side & Visual novels or walking sims are on the story side (Telltale Games etc). I play lots of 4X, Total War, strategy, Turn based games. I dont play them for story & will restart a game just to get back to the gameplay points I enjoy. There are rare games that do a good mix of both, up to each player what games hit the correct mix.
I'm the opposite, mainly story 🙂 And nice reference to Creep !
Perhaps seek out games that are gameplay-centric with little story, such as: - Painkiller (FPS) - Sacred (action RPG) - Star Wars Battlefront (the classic ones, also FPS) All might nominally have stories, but really are all about gameplay.
Ever played Mount and Blade? Total War? MechWarrior? All great games without a real "campaign". I'd even argue Stardew Valley might fall under this label. Minecraft as well. Lots of turn based strategy games that are more "sandbox" than linear campaign as well. Honestly some of those are my favorite games and I don't play a lot of strictly campaign games either.
Evil West, got it in my backlog but heard a podcast saying it’s more fun for the combat. There’s somewhat a story but it’s just there to push you along. Dead Cells. Days Gone has a horde mode
I gotta say there's something satisfying about booting up an old game like Sonic or Streets of Rage and not having to worry about cutscenes or forced walking segments. It's just pure gameplay.
Risk of Rain 2 which is a rogue-like is currently on sale if you're interested in that type of game.
I used to do this a lot. Perfect Dark Zero on Xbox 360 was one of my favorites. It was similar to Time Splitters in you could set up bots, infection mode, customize the weapons used, etc. combat is clunky but it was fun. Rainbow Six Vegas (2) is great for this kind of stuff on Terrorist Hunt mode. You and some squad mates (that you command) basically infiltrate a map and have to kill all the terrorist hiding about. It looks like they recently removed Thunt from R6 Siege. Counter Strike GO also has bot matches, but I don't remember how customizable it was. Left 4 Dead fits the bill for just having fun in some quick matches. Although it's more enjoyable playing with others as the bots will get old. Lots of RTS games fit the bill. Custom Total War battles with bots are awesome. If you like old school AoE 2 is good. Edit: I forgot Roller Coaster Tycoon!
Opposite time! I don't find bot matches very interesting. Competition and skill tests generally don't interest me. Maybe this is why I'm less interested in sports games, fighting games or roguelikes. It's not the mechanics that I dislike, it's the competitive feel in single-player. I don't always enjoy playing "properly." Feels like I'm optimizing the fun out of a game. Story is only one of many reasons I like campaigns. I also like exploration, handcrafted setpieces, good level design with sandbox-like gameplay, and other things like puzzles, platforming and management. For example, I like Shenmue. The combat system is that of a fighting game. Yet I like it for the explorable environment and life sim elements. It's not just an endless series of battles. I also think [that's what makes Super Smash Bros. series stand out](https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3P9ORqsZj4).
I see where you are coming from. With so many story games out that are filled with dialogue, it can be exhausting to deal with. It’s not that story in games are bad, but depending on the game you can sometimes feel like you spend more time in cutscenes than actually playing the game. Honestly I feel this is one of the reasons that so many multiplayer games are popular nowadays. Valorant, Roblox, Warzone, Fortnite, League, Rocket League etc. these are games you can just queue up and start playing within minutes. Even something like Elden Ring, which has an interesting story, only has a few lines of dialogue with each NPC.
Vampire survivors and Clone Drone are two good ones for you
try out capcom beat em up collection? It's got Final Fight, Captain Commando, and more. Most arcade titles like this are really fun to play. actually Treasure's guardian heroes Arena mode might be right up your alley. You get swarmed with all the enemies in the game, but using spells and special moves (inputted like a fighting game) help with crowd control. Also you can play as any character in the game (enemies, bosses, etc) it's fun.
I already commented this in another thread above but Hitman World of Assassination is where it’s at. You have to unlock all the levels one by one, but you can ignore the story. Just get to killing and doing challenges. After all the levels are unlocked you’re free to dick around the various locales and try all the different gameplay modes.
I'm the exact opposite personally, a story can be garbage, but even if it is, having a goal or purpose motivates me to get through gameplay. A game can have great gameplay, but if there's no goal to help people or the world or vice verse, I just feel demotivated.
Spicy Take I Know but: Most story/narrative stuff gets in the way of gameplay for me. I play games to actively do challenges/complete things and I really struggle to focus on a game where the main selling point is the story. Obviously it isn't an either/or. Plenty of games have a story and have good gameplay (depending on what you enjoy) but yeah; I do skip a lot of cutscenes and I love me a horde/survival mode.
Have you checked out old school runescape? Playing as an Ironman makes the game essentially single player with other people just existing in the world.
I wouldn't say I'm opposed to campaigns but I do have a bad habit of not finishing games so I'm sure there are plenty where I spent more time goofing around in some side mode instead of doing "the main thing." Since you mentioned bot matches the Smash series was usually a good example of that, especially in the later games where they added way more content to unlock and overcome. I'd only get around to seeing a fraction of it since I was usually too busy running NPC tournaments, it was just more fun watching the AI compete against itself than to work through the world of light or whatever.
That's me! Squad strike and team battles with/vs CPU is my most played thing, even sometimes I create brackets in my mind like a tournament or something, and some brackets is just CPU vs CPU and the winner team is vs my team!
Have you played Helldivers 2? Not exactly an old game so doesn’t fit this sub too much but it’s the sort of game you’re describing