After Work Gaming: What games do you enjoy mostly after a day of work?

Right now its stardew valley and mini motorways. Just chill games you can jump into at any time
- 1 for mini motorways. it’s such a good casual game you can pick up and pause whenever and a big improvement over mini metro in terms of options and strategy. I’ve been looking for a certain type of city builder game that scratched an itch I couldn’t quite place and this is doing it for me lately.
  
  I'd recommend Pocket City 2 for mobile. Probably the best casual city sim game I've ever played. It's like $5 maybe less and has no monetization stuff after that.
  And the game has like the ability to walk around, drive cars and do activities as your avatar inside the city. It's new so the dev is still adding stuff. But it's wild to spend an hour setting up a nice district than race through it with an F1 car for money later.
  10/10

Whatever I can hack and be a god. I have enough stress and challenge at work, I just want to come home and smite.

For me the biggest one is my current "filler MMORPG" of choice, which has been Final Fantasy XIV for the past few years.
The reason this works so well for me is:
By and large these games allow you to invest however much (hardcore raids) or little (dailies/weeklies) brain and attention into their gameplay as you desire, which is important after work when my brain is all mush from coding.
Light social interaction helps not completely feel like I've "shut down for the night" yet.
If I want to I can chat about daily things with my friends/guild.
It's the right combination of ultralight gameplay and light social interaction to allow me to come down from work mode. 😁

When I saw articles about Team Fortress 2 breaking concurrent player counts, I jumped back into that. I still suck, bad. But I have played it several nights after work just to have some mindless gameplay.

Diablo 4 and Zelda ToTK

I play God of War 2018 to chill out, the scenery is great and you can just vibe around.
Cannot find an artefact or realm tear in Midgard at the moment so the wandering is actually putting me off but I would highly recommend this game for a chill out session.
I haven't played the new one, maybe some day.
- If you like the fighting part I think that's what Muspelheim is there for, just arcade-like monster killing.
  
  Yeah that was fun, could not pass one of the trials and then I nailed it straight through to getting my ass kicked by the Valkyrie.

Satisfactory for me. I like setting a small goal for myself to build a whole factory piece by piece.
- I just can't. I can play it during weekends and hollidays but after a day's work my brain is too fried to design factories.
- I’ve spent the past few days building a thermal propulsion rocket factory. I’ve never built one like it before. It’s absolutely enormous so far, I lost track after it hit 40x50. Inside, it’s split up into rooms with one or two simple outputs each. The outputs are carried to other rooms on conveyors or in pipes on the second floor, completely hidden from view. Need to perfect the lighting and interior navigation, but I generally don’t care what the upstairs hallways look like.
  It’s intense. I’m like 500 hours in.

I don't even have a physically demanding job, and I'm always too tired to play games after work. But I've been on Persona 5 Royal lately.
- That’s one game I really wanted to finish but couldn’t for this very reason. After my brain is fried from programming all day, the last thing I want to do is a lot of reading.

Red Dead redemption 2 or Noita, depending on how much time I have to play.

I think doing something twice a week makes you a regular anything. Either way, my current games after work are Warframe and The Outer Wilds. Loving both.
- I loved Outer Wilds! Very great game!
  
  Just picked it up, excited to try the VR mod!

Single Player:
tetris effect connected
descenders
tony hawk pro skater 1 & 2 remaster
Multiplayer with close friends:
Risk of Rain 2
Rocket League
Golf with your friends
Halo (if they get their shit together and get their player count back up)
Fall Guys (if they get their shit together and unvault the maps)

Against The Storm, still in early access but very regular updates and fantastic team behind it.
Very fresh feeling take on rts/micromanagment game. Feels very unique in its game play loop.

Trackmania, Witcher 3, City Skylines. Man I wish I had more time.

Multiplayer:
-Planetside 2
-Runescape
-Minecraft
-Chess.com
-Roblox (don't judge me, I like lua)
Singleplayer:
-Fallout: New Vegas
-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series
-Skyrim
-Metro series
- We’ve acquired the facility!

Tears of the Kingdom kept me busy for a while.
Now I'm on Diablo 4 and Dave the Diver.
I hope to play Fallen Jedi next.
- TotK, D4 & Dave Dive are big for sure.
  Although I'm trying to get back into Predecessor for the sweet, sweaty combat

Wow.. did not expect that many responses! I have strolled through all of them. There are a lot of really nice suggestions of games. I have bookmarked some of them.
Love the Lemmy energy, except those 1-2 hardcore 'redditiers' commenting here in their usual way : ).
Thx to all of you!

I used to play Europa Universalis 4 or Cities: Skylines for this purpose.

Cities Skylines. Not stressful and still interesting.

My jam is an indie game called Warsim! It's got a delightful arena battle minigame that you can bet on, complete with audience interference, a spike pit, and goblin streakers. After that, you can have a pint of various drinks in one of dozens of unique taverns, and round out the evening by presiding over the royal court and issuing decrees, proclamations, and dropping unruly petitioners through my personal trapdoor.
- It's been a few months since I played it, and I remember I really enjoyed it at the time but ended up feeling a bit limited in what I could do: after the truly magical first few hours, everything seemed to devolve into a game all about numbers and lacking actual depth. Has there been interesting updates since?
  
  Oh, most definitely! They added a ton of random encounters, throne room encounters, and a crap-ton of other content. It's got waaay more stuff, including QoL stuff like the ability to invade more than once. Highly recommend another look!

Every day after work I play Beat Saber. Usually for about half an hour--as a warmup--then I'll play again after dinner for 45 minutes to an hour or so. I've been doing this for a little over a year now and I'm still completely addicted to this game, LOL!
As much as I hate Meta Beat Saber on a Quest 2 is fantastic (if you get it modded). One of the mods (BeatLeader) uploads every successful replay (where you beat the map or your previous best score) and you can watch them on the web! It's the coolest thing! Here's an entertaining example of me playing a silly Hatsune Miku song with the Faster Song modifier enabled:
https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7668607
Or if you prefer a more recognizable song, here's Shut Up and Dance:
https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=8047177
Since I started playing this game I've lost 15 pounds and gained a ton of stamina (and some muscle tone). Way more in shape than I used to be. Many days I'll burn 1200-1500 calories playing!
- The benefits of this game regarding fitness are undeniable but there is no way to burn that much in two hours playing it. You're more realistically looking at 500 extra calories. 800 if you're going crazy hard.
  
  Well, the 1200 calorie days are usually two hours. Normally I get 425-450 calories burned in 30 minutes which is about 15 calories/minute. Doing the math, 90 minutes of that is about 1350 calories so 1200 makes sense.
  My heart rate is definitely pumping hard when I'm playing and I have to wipe the sweat off the floor after every session. I don't take breaks between maps at all, really except to hydrate.
  Just look at my BeatLeader profile:
  https://www.beatleader.xyz/u/76561198133136058
  I didn't even play that much last night but I burned ~800 calories (if my memory is accurate, haha). It was 16 maps total and if you look at the maps I played and my usual intensity I think you'll understand. Here's an example of a a typical play of mine:
  https://replay.beatleader.xyz/?scoreId=7925192
  I'm 45 and blind in one eye and I never pause.

Boring meetings and/or uninspiring rote programming: Tekken 7.
Tired: Age of Wonders 4
Chill with the missus: Tears of the Kingdom / Oxenfree 2
- Nice, that you added your particular condition before naming the games.

Lately ive been bouncing between my usual dailies on final fantasy 14 or a few round of battlebit remastered. Battle bit has been really great at capturing that battlefield feel

I've mostly been wanting to play Rocket League, but I've been super stressed and for whatever reason playing against real people stresses me more. I think it's because I can't just pause the game whenever I feel like it.
So I've been mostly playing against ML bots with RLBotGui. As a gold/plat level player, it's actually a great way to practice.
I've also been playing through all of the Adventures of Lolo games(1-3 US and Japan, GB Lolo, eggerland series, plus all of the many rom hacks) on my Anbernic handheld. It's my favorite puzzle game of all time.
- I was just playing Lolo 3 and I'm so surprised to see it pop up here! I've never played it before and went directly to the 3rd installment - is that a bad idea?
  I'm also playing on an anbernic (rg351v). I wish I could play "baba is you" on it, it would be perfect.
  
  You can play them in any order, but I'd recommend playing the English games before the Japanese market games because the Japan games have more difficult levels.

Honestly, right now it’s Overwatch 2. Probably Stockholm syndrome at this point, but the game can still be fun to just jump into for 30 minutes for me.

Always was, always will be, Sid Meyer and his Civillisations.
- On turn 658 you realise it's 3AM and you have work in 4 hours
  
  And you still will play just 1 more turn

MCC and Risk of Rain 2 are my co too games lately. Both have a ton of things to do and are easy to put down when it's time to pass out.

Monster Hunter, I needed the fast paced action and thrill of the hunt to contrast with my slower work days..

For a few years I played a lot of skyrim. I've done many builds and challenges to make the game harder without going to high in difficulty but I burned myself out and can't get myself to play it long term.

Love some "turn your brain off" kinda games. BOTW AND TOTK (altho that one is a bit more involved) are perfect for this. Also love an after work session of some Warriors (not nba) game.

Counterstrike: counterintuitive but dealing with the toxicity and probably getting massacred by smurfing players (or cheaters) still is a good outlet for the day's stress.

Currently: Kenshi. Soon: Baldurs Gate 3!
- S O O N

I’ve really enjoyed going through the campaign of red dead redemption 2.
- I have it and just go roaming around watching stuff

I just downloaded Deaths Door on gamepass as I'm about to go away for a few weeks and didn't want to start anything story heavy. It's pretty straightforward and the art style is great. It's basically Tunic without needing to think about anything.

Lately it's been Persona 4 Golden on the Vita and Zelda ToTK.
Zelda because you can change your play style easily, sometimes I just want to build stuff, other times I want to explore the map, fight monsters, or do side quests. Sometimes I'll sit there and spend a bunch of time preparing meals for a future play sessions.
Persona 4 I keep coming back to for the story and overall experience - music, voice acting, and even just navigating menus is so stylistic and top notch. I started my playthrough in 2019 though and am barely picking it back up.
On days I have more energy I've been playing Freedom Planet 2 for some action platforming as well.

I usually play Terraria as it's one of my favorite games. I've beaten the game on three platforms. Going to play it again on a harder difficulty next time.
I find it fun since it's not a shooter so no intense rage moments that make you want to quit the game.

For me, it feels great to do a few laps in a racing sim like Assetto Corsa Competizione after a long day. Even something more arcade-y like Forza feels good to me.
If I don't feel like like driving at the end of my day though I'd probably hop on Monster Hunter or a story-based single player game.

I’ve recently gotten back into the OG Guild Wars and forgot how much of a chill MMO it was when it comes to grinding and questing. The quests (at least, so far) are a bit more varied than the “get 20 of this loot” and “kill 50 creatures” borefests that most MMOs have (the game still has them, but not as much as later MMOs), but also not super stressful. It also helps that it’s pretty easy to get geared for end-game stuff, so the actual end-game grind is for fashion and cosmetics.

Dota.

System shock 2 is brilliant. Runs on a toaster too, and on GOG it's DRM free so slap that bad boy on any laptop you have.
Mostly I play No Man's Sky right now, but I occasionally go back to elite dangerous and/or Mass Effect.

Hollow knight was my favorite

I generally just play whatever game I'm working through at the time. I recently replayed GTA:SA, and now am trying a new character in D:OS2 to get me by until BG3 releases from EA.

Usually play some Doom 1 or 2, a level or an episode, or Minecraft if I have more time, but I'm in a boring replay/comfort phase because work is kicking my ass atm

Right now I'm hard addicted to Remnant 2. Been playing it pretty much every day after work this week. Phenomenal game.
- Same, been having a blast with engineer so far

Steam Decking fallout 3 atm, with D4 occasionally spaced in. Next is n ew Vegas and fo4.

Transport Fever 2 has consumed my free time. It's like a time machine, I open the game and I'm launched 4 hours into the future

Satisfactory or RDR2. Depends on the how the work day went.

Started playin monster train. It scratches the itch of finishing something in 1-2 hours and while they're very similar I feel like it's a bit more forgiving than "slay the spire".

Forza Horizon 5, have been playing racing games for a lot of years and the Forza games are easy to pick up for a few races. You can also just cruise around the open world map.

Hotline Miami
Ahh so I see you enjoy some "brainless" (I mean some parts can be brainless, especially if you know the stage pretty well) slaughter after work.

Deep Rock Galactic is a good choice for me after a long day at work, it's a PvE co-op game. Even at the highest difficulty you can have a smooth time with a good team, and otherwise you can turn down the hazard level a notch or two - it's fun and not too mentally taxing to mow down bugs en masse.
Bonus, drinking a beer in game while having a beer in real life is peak immersion.

Destiny. But I'm waiting so hard for Starfield.
- Same I hope it will be good. I've been wanting a good space game but I can't get into no man's sky.

Nhl offline. No idea why. I win almost every game. Sometimes it's a close one. But it's not easy on superstar. I just enjoy finding the angles. Good podcast game. But I am down on myself for ignoring the massive backlog.
Finally though, I snapped out of it and tried Hades for the second time and this time it stuck. Chasing those Heat skulls now.

The same games I would enjoy on my day off.