I only play single player games, but couldn't care less about achievements. It is all about exploration, story, game mechanics and modding for me.
People treat achievements as if they are a status symbol. I mean sure, if you don't know what else to do in a game, they can give you some goal, but IMO the game itself should encourage you to reach the goal, not some external badge. The experience doing the task should be the reward in of itself.
Don't care about achievements play games till like 70% then drop them. If it stops being fun I'm done, finishing a game is never a requirement don't have time for that
Please recommend me your favourite story games. This is me and I'm in need of a good 'book.' :)
Edit: I'm going to tell you all to play Night in the Woods. Now, it is set in my home region and felt like a game made for me, but I think it has messages anyone could relate to.
I almost never buy multiplayer-focused games anymore. Of course not all gamers are shitty, but enough are to matter. Having left those games behind I can see how they were taking more joy from my life than they added. If friends want to do private co-op that's cool, but it's also rarer now that we're all older.
As far as sales go, I love playing a year or two behind new releases. Patched games at a discount ftw and timing doesn't matter in single-player games.
i have like 370 hours of factorio, and i've only really played it over the period of about. 4-5 months, though i've owned it for a year or two now.
Factorio is just one of those games. For anybody that likes open world sandbox games and technical stuff, you already own factorio, yell at me in the replies.
My absolutely most favorite single player and gaming experiences in general are:
Outer Wilds
Tunic
Their replayability is 0 but man do these experiences stay with you. I still think about outer wilds daily and i finished it last year.
Also a word of caution:
Both these games function with knowledge-based progression, so almost everything you look up about these games can be considered a spoiler and will lessen your experience with them!
I typically buy all the "best game of the year" games at steep discounts. Some of them really embrace a "live" game service and require hundreds of hours a season, which isn't my thing.
But my most played game last year was Vampire Survivors, A single player game that looks like it came from the SNES era.
They never took it from me! Animal Well and Dread Delusion are phenomenal experiences just from the last couple of months. Indies are always generating good games, even when AAA is just following trends.
I'm happy with a 17" laptop, though I'm having to use a usb keyboard. Also playing a game from 2015, Rebel Galaxy. Nothing really stands out, but it's interesting enough for my tastes.
Don't forget the needless implementation of always-online single player games. Even for single/multiplayer games like PoE or anything Diablo, there's literally no technical need to have a connection. It's just fancy DRM for Blizzard and an excuse to milk you more microtransactions for PoE.
And before anyone regurgitates Blizzard's BS about anti-cheat, it's very possible to keep multiplayer characters on the server and single player on your computer and never have them interact or permit single player loot to be sold on their marketplace. Not to mention their regular online check for D2R. Blizzard has ALWAYS used aggressively hostile DRM. If they could virus bomb thieves' computers then they absolutely would.
My favorite games are Euro Truck Simulator and Elite Dangerous (where I fly a space truck).
Just letting the scenery pass by, enjoying a couple surprises on the way, practicing my docking skills, decorating my cockpit and listening to some old school country or reggae is relaxing as hell after work.
Just avoid AAA slop from big publishers, problem solved.
Quite ironic you're using an AI generated image for it considering the same AAA publishers are considering using it. I really hope you don't think "DEI" and "wokeness" are responsible for these AAA publishers pushing multiplayer-first games on us.