My qualifications: super impressive cutting edge graphics, as photo-realistic as it gets, open huge world. Must have extensive single player campaign.
I typically play shooters, but that’s not necessarily a requirement. It just has to be FUN, which I have an open mind about.
I have played all of the Far Cry’s except 4 and enjoyed them, so 5 is looking interesting. I just wish it didn’t take place in the U.S. I like more exotic terrain.
ETA: I just realized this is probably more suited for The Game Room, so feel free to move there.
It’s a pretty big open world game, set (mostly) underwater in alien coral reefs and other even weirder environments. It is breathtakingly beautiful, without doubt the prettiest game I have ever played. It has a clear storyline with good pacing, although it’s open world so you get to choose how closely to follow the story.
It’s decidedly not a shooter, though: for all practical purposes, you’re not going to win in a fight against the alien fauna.
Sniper Elite 4. Two years old this month, but still looks great IMO. Not fully open-world, but very large level maps and a good variety of European WWII settings and scenarios. For definitions of “fun” that include a lot of stealth and stalking. You can certainly run through it guns blazing, but that’s not really how it’s intended to be played.
For pure destructive mayhem, Just Cause 4. There’s a story but lord knows what it is, or cares. Run around and blow up literally anything and everything. Repetitive, but extremely satisfying!
Division 2 will be out in under a month and has an impressively rendered world to explore in the post-plague ravaged ruins of Washington DC. The level 1-30 “campaign” section of the game is really designed around a single player experience and they’re supposedly going to have more plot/story based “end game” content to go along with the usual group raids and stuff. Or you can get the original Division for cheap these days and experience a pretty unique gaming environment in wintery New York. Still looks amazing.
Metro Exodus is apparently the new “But can it run Crysis?” standard when you jack up all the bells & whistles. I’ve been playing it and it feels like the child of Metro and Stalker so, if you like those games, you should find it fun. It’s not “open world” but more like a collection of large outdoor zones you can explore for each stage of the game.
Far Cry 5 is… more Far Cry. Beautiful world and fun to explore. If you’ve played 3 (or 4, or Primal) then you already know what to expect out of the game play. Despite not being an exotic foreign locale, I found their Montana compelling to cruise around in.
My current shooter-equivalent is War Thunder, a massive online military vehicle combat simulator, featuring tanks, planes and (recently added) ships from various nations, dating from just-before-WWII to mid Cold War (and promising even more recent vehicles in future updates). It is largely player vs. player, but has single-player scenarios and campaigns. There are thee levels of realism in the gameplay, insanely customization controls, and numerous options for video detail, including cinematic level of visual detail if your graphics card can handle it.
It’s not an RPG, although you can train up your crews over time – it’s just a battle game. But if you like shooters or pvp games, it’s a little different than crouching with a sniper rifle…you could be lying in ambush hulldown in your tank destroyer, or screaming down onto the tail of that Messerschmidt that’s been tormenting you.
Thanks all, keep 'em coming, I’ll look at reviews of all.
I played the (Original) Division demo (8 hour time limit), and I didn’t like the bullet sponginess of the enemies. Hopefully they address that in the Division 2. I’m also getting a little tired of dystopian future games (I spent a LOT of time in Fallout 3’s DC).
I played Metro Last Night a couple times and could never finish it. More Dystopian fatigue, plus I found the constant need for gas masks quite tiring. Wonder if Exodus will be the same? Time for YouTube.
I watched a Far Cry 5 review last night, I avoided it at release because a David Koresh-type main antagonist didn’t appeal to me (plus my PC was garbage at the time), but the review changed my mind.
The game I REALLY want to play on PC is Red Dead Redemption II, but who knows when that will come out on PC.
Not a shooter but looks like a lot of fun and is beautiful (to me, anyway) and has the most openest world ever (although not like you mean probably) AND for sure covers the most exotic territory you can find in a game-- is Universe Sandlot 2.
Not sure when you tried it, but they’ve made the bad guys much less spongey since the game was new. That said, it’s a looter-shooter at heart and not a boom-headshot FPS.
Exodus still uses gas masks but not as often as in previous games (Russia outside of Moscow isn’t as heavily irradiated). But if you’re uninterested in post-apocalyptic stuff then it’s a nonstarter.
Agreed with control-z that Ghost Recon: Wildlands is gorgeous to look at. I had fun playing it as well.
Hmmm. The gameplay looks a bit like the Far Cry 5 video I watched, maybe even cooler.
Hey, do you still have this installed and patched to the newest version? The gameplay looked fun, but the water in the video I watched looked reeeeally bad. Like 2011 bad.
I’m currently playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on PS4, so while I can’t comment on how the graphics look on PC, they are pretty impressive on PS4. And it definitely is a huge open world with an extensive single player campaign.
Actually, honestly I’m still on Just Cause 3, which, IMO, is the better game in almost every respect, graphics included, but it doesn’t fall within your two-year window. Otherwise, it’s essentially the same game.
Good to know, I might check it out. I read it was criticized for being less optimized than 4 performance-wise, but maybe the crappy water was part of the optimization
I’ve been on Far Cry 5 for about four odd days and I’m not feeling it. I was a fan of 3 and 4, great games I might consider replaying through.
But 5? Well, I know being able to silently take an output was a delicate thing in previous times, but its pretty much impossible in 5 (I did it mostly in 3 and 4, only stopped in 3 in the end because I needed no more skills).
They seem to see the dead body in the middle of the bushes from 50 feet away and run over. So all hell breaks loose and then the enemy dodges like crazy and your bullets never seem to go anywhere near them. They are scarily accurate and you’re far easier to kill than them and you’re down, but you have two helpers who help you up. They often kill others or get wounded so most of the time you might as well blare into an output shooting at everything, all the stealth is pointless and the bots kill the others. Of course, you could not take the helpers, but then you just die all the time.
The setting in itself is atmospheric and cool, but there are 25 minute cut scenes and bits where I’ve just walked off and had a bath and came back and well, some crap I don’t care about has happened. Often I’ve just switched off middle of missions going on far too long and went off to eat food which I would be 30 minutes late for if I cared about the game. I don’t mind missions which take time, but these are the weird druggie missions of number 4 taken to a lot longer in the cut scene department.
Does it have to be out in the last two years? I’ve loved the sneakathons Dishonoured, 1 + 2, and Death of the outsider. Hitman was very good too for your assassination stuff, theres a second one now. The styx series was good for dungeon/goblin based sneaking and robbing and killing. Straight shooters Doom and Wolfenstein 2 were excellent, but the former is probably outside the 2 years, and the latter was not as good as Old Blood and New Order.
Ok I know I suggested this in another thread and it’s a bit over 2 years old but I just now discovered this game and I’m just in love with it. Final Fantasy XV. It’s actually quite open world, considering the genre. It’s beautiful and realistic in its graphics. It’s got tons to do outside of the main plot, side quests, fishing, collecting, and of course…chocobos. I’m sorry but I love them so much. I run everywhere just for the excuse of using them. I easily put 50 hours into my first play through and I’m going through again. There’s even a new DLC coming out next month that I’m so excited for