From a casual standpoint: Hidden Object games. There‘s not enough good ones (and lots of games tagged as them which really aren‘t) and I find them so immensly relaxing.

Examples: Hidden Folks, Hidden through Time, varying sorts of 100 hidden Cats

Basically „Where‘s Waldo“. Really just wish there were more of them.

I heard everyone reference factorio all over the place but never felt compelled to actually pick it up.

Found out it has multiplayer and had a blast with my brother.

Doki Doki Literature Club
I didn't know it was free to play, so I ended up spoiling myself on the plot before finally playing it.
Still got caught off guard.

RPGs.

I had my first encounters during the nineties (still the old 2D/2.5D ones), got confused and overwhelmed, so didn't consider them to be my thing.

Briefly trying out Gothic during the mid 00s, and instantly getting killed by some big wolf or bird without having the slightest idea what was going on or what I was supposed to do didn't help.

Fast forward 20 years to the early 2020s when I started gaming again after a 15 year pause, see everyone praising Elder Scrolls, grab Oblivion as it was on sale at GOG: Completely blown away and probably hooked for life.

Currently playing Morrowind, which will last me a while still, but I am excited to revisit tons of old and newer RPG games that turned out to be exactly my thing after gaining some experience and finally understanding how to play them.

Stellar Blade. Only just played it a few months ago.

I thought it was just a gooner slop imitation game but a friend recommended it and let me use his steam family share to play it. It's actually a legitimate action game that's pretty damn fun with a good story too. I'm actually excited for the sequel.

I slept on Helldivers 2 for too long, now I don't think I'll ever play it. It's become obvious that Arrowhead is either unable or unwilling to maintain a game that focuses on the player experience, instead making it subservient to the vision of what they think the game should be. It's a costly lesson that Digital Extremes learned years ago. I also can't trust Sony not to steal access to the game from me.

I guess I'm actively sleeping on Voices Of The Void. I've played a little of 0.9n and it's exactly the kind of horror I like, but I want to wait for at least the Steam early access release.

Baldurs Gate 3. Seemed expensive, complicated, and not my type of game at the time.

Oh, how wrong I was.

X4:Foundations. Never played any of the previous games. It seemed like it was overly complex with a terrible UI, and graphics-wise just kinda empty. The first person bits looked tacked on and downright goofy.

It is, they are, and it feels like it was made specifically for me. It's on the short list of best games I've ever played.

Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995).

I had it growing up as a kid, but could never beat the third level so I shelved it and forgot about it, until a few days ago when I decided to try it with The Force Engine which adds mouselook and some quality of life features.

As an adult, I finally was able to figure out that 3rd level, and appreciate the cool setup for the missions (in a way, it's kinda like Andor).

Was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed the combat and level design, had an absolute blast from start to finish, and now consider it one of my favorites.

Not recently but Sleeping Dog. Always looks to me as cheap gta clone but wow this is the hk police drama that the game industry lack. The driving is more arcade-y which is fun.

Bloodborne

For years I had it in my library, I would restart it every couple of months and give before the first boss. Then one day I decided “fuck it, I’ll do it”. After 2 miserable weeks I finally got to Vicar Amelia and got hooked like I had never been

Pacific Drive

It was hitting my suggested sections for almost two years, all my game searches, tags, and algorithms. I brushed it off as some wandery nothing indie game.

It came out in 2024, but then this year 2026 a few months ago, I finally decided to give it a ahot and it was NOTHING like I thought it was. Also, a lot more blatantly queer first and deeply queercoded, which is an extremely refreshing change.

I'd been playing games like snowrunner and expeditions, and waiting for the steam frame to come out to play a bunch of vr games, so a cozy horror survival driving game that feels kinda like gta meets raft meets forza or snowrunner or something was not in my expectations.

It's technically a roguelite extraction survival crafting story adventure rpg, kind of. Horror-lite, fantastic fresh soundtrack, based in an alternate timeline 1990s USA Washington State Olympic peninsula. It's done quite well and I don't want to finish it, though I'm close. It has some mods through Nexus mods, but most are primarily to make things easier balance-wise. No workshop support, doesn't run great on steam deck but does run okay if you turn the graphics down all the way. Has probably the best dualsense controller integration I've played in a game, though, I generally don't play many that have native support for dualsense features because they all look boring to me.

Anyway, if you like Washington State, driving, crafting, music, and you're gay, give it a try. It's only single player, though, and expect to put 40-60 hours in it. I've got about 90 so far without the expansion and am avoiding finishing it because I like it. Most of the bad reviews are from two camps: homophobes and people who this niche game doesn't quite fit. But if what I've described to you sounds attractive, seriously give it a try. It goes on sale for about ten bucks USD. You don't need any dlc, there are a few skin packs that give you infinite usage uniques, the soundtrack, and an actual expansion that seems like a totally separate gamemode that I plan on playing after I beat the story.

I do strongly suggest using a dualsense controller if you have one.

I just picked up titanfall and binding of isaac for peanuts in the last steam sale and I am having a ball!

Honestly Forza Horizon 3. I can probably list a heap of issues I have with this franchise, but they're good driving games and I arrived late to the party wishing I picked FH3 while it was still in its prime. That game has such a vibe.

Dark souls. I tried it a few times and dismissed. I returned to DS2 when DS3, at the request of a fanboi friend.

The accepting defeat, dusting myself off and surpassing all odds changing my mentality and patience with gaming forever.

Fuck me big bad boss, no fuck you

Ori and the Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps: I picked up the first game in a Humble Bundle years ago and decided to play it randomly. Instantly became obsessed and then got the sequel when I beat it.

Recently it was Balatro that I played for the first time 2 months ago.

Undertale/deltarune. I played a demo for one of them (I forget which) and I found it too handholdy with not enough happening. Of course the games get a lot more fun after the tutorial section, but for me at the time it just felt too dragged out, so I didn't properly play them until a few years later

Hmm… probably Vanquish because I don't typically enjoy shooters and I typically play with controllers, not KB+M. I always assumed the shooting would ruin it for me.

Turns out it's a shooter… but not really. It's more of an action game where resource management and positioning are more critical factors than aiming, which's mostly done in bullet time anyway.

I know people who are used to/are good at aiming probably enjoy it more, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as an action game and plan to go back eventually to get the 100%.

It also left me open to similar games like Evil West, if they exist.

God War 2018. I had never played any of the previous GOW and after my umpteenth replay of The Last of Us, I read several articles called “Games similar to TLoU”. GOW 2018 was one of them.

Holy hell I fell in love with it.