I’ll start - was super into Cult of the Lamb until Nightreign came out and as a Fromsoft addict I haven’t really played anything else since.

Nightreign had me, I’ve gone back to it for the everdark bosses, but I find the run before the bosses the most fun.

Went back to elden ring because of it, also picked up enshrouded and have been playing that with my coop group.

Balatro and slay the spire get a run a day

I’m playing through the first Death Stranding, which I’ve really been enjoying. The gameplay did not hook me initially, but it grew on me. I’m a sucker for a good narrative and so I progressed because I wanted to know what was happening.

I’ll want to play the second one afterwards, but I’m thinking that I’ll take a break in between. Maybe try Sword of the Sea? It looked pretty cool.

I’m on an everything Battletech-related kick, so Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is what I’m playing currently.

I am taking a break from working on my Skyrim mod list to try getting into Baldur’s Gate 3 for a third time.

My first attempt, I picked “tactician” difficulty, didn’t make optimal choices for character build and party composition, and then quit at the end of act 2 when the fights got too hard. Then I tried honour mode, minmaxed everything, was getting by okay but quit in the middle of act two because playing that way was boring.

So now I’m playing at the default difficulty level, just relaxing and having fun like a normal person.

Helldivers 2, have played at least a couple times a week since release with a group of friends but have been diving almost every night for the last few weeks as one of our other friends is on XBox and finally gets to join us!

Unfortunately he has only had time for one dive so far, but hopefully he has plenty of time tonight.

Recently finished mullet madjack, decided to replay quake 2

I’m couch surfing rn and only have my laptop, so I can really only play Stardew Valley. I’ve been slowly changing production entirely over to ancient fruit from hops.

I wish could play Satisfactory tho. :{

I picked that up on sale a while ago, but have only played a few quick missions. I haven’t played MW since the early 2000s, but did play and love Battletech 2019.

Does the MW5 campaign give you the info dump while you are already in the mech and moving towards the objective like the older ones?

I’ve been on a Luanti (formerly Minetest) kick past few days, mostly playing Mineclonia.

It has some small QoL upgrades over the original imo. Could benefit from controller support but scratches the itch well enough as a palate cleanser.

After this probably looking at Dungeons of Hinterberg in my backlog.

I thought you could switch difficulties out besides honor mode. I did a tactician run with me as wildmage. Shadowbae as cleric, astarion as assassin and laezel as fighter. Didn’t have too tough a time (don’t think I min maxed). Did do every side quest though and also looked up tips for some bosses.

This community is kind of in the shadow of all the other gaming communities, it doesn’t feel like it has a strong identity to separate it. There’s already plenty of weekly threads elsewhere to discuss what we’re playing and I already feel like I repeat myself between !gaming@beehaw.org and !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works. Do we need another one here? But sure.

I’ve been playing through the Ninja Gaiden series lately. Finished Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 on normal, playing on Xemu and Xenia Canary emulators respectively. Currently playing through Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge from the master collection, though I’m not sure I will finish it.

NG3RE should have the best combat in the series. The fundamentals are better than ever, Ryu is more fluid in his movements than ever and the combo strings are more flexible than ever. It just… I dunno. It doesn’t feel as good, satisfying or just fun. NGB had extremely precise, measured and deliberate combat, albeit slower than the later games. NG2 was an unbalanced mess, but it had a visceral pleasure when it clicked that is simply unparalleled. NG3RE changes the formula a lot, and not always for the better. Trying to play for Steel On Bone counters is what the game wants you to do, but it’s more reactive and less fun than previous games. And the animations aren’t as satisfying as the executions in NG2. NG3RE also has even worse bosses, which is a damn feat considering the series has some real stinkers.

And let’s not even get into the atrocious story, which manages to be maximally bad and lame but without ever crossing over into “so bad it’s good” territory. The Call of Duty or Ghost Recon-esque military special agent framing also ruins the vibe, and the boring and terrible level design makes me miss the wildly varied and interesting locations of NG2.

I really don’t know if I’ll finish it, all I want to do really is go back and play NGB and NG2 again. At least I found FiendBusa’s “Black” mod for it, that makes it a bit better.

I recently finished Dragon Age Inquisition, and then started Powerslave: Exhumed.

I never played any of the original versions so it’s a completely new experience for me. Enjoyable so far - it’s an interesting historical link between classic metroidvania and 90s FPS, like a proto-Metroid Prime in some ways.

I do wish they’d added a quick save button to this modern version, though.

Oooh I got started on that recently and then pulled away by other things, but I was enjoying it a great deal. The campaign is bit… ehhh. But that actual gameplay is a blast. I love the sense of scale (as long as you don’t think too hard about the actual numbers it gives you for the weights of things)

Far cry 6. It sucks. I love gta style open world with lots of vehicles and weapons. It’s great for that. The missions are all the same. Go here, fetch this. Kill this person. Go back to another person.

Edit: finally finished the game after 45 hours. What a terrible ending.

Mostly Elden Ring and Automobilista 2. I finally got Shadow of the Erdtree but had to take a bit to git gud git less bad again before diving into the Land of Shadow, not helped at all by the fact that the character I wanted to go in with was not at all well-suited to fight Mohg. Still, I’m enjoying it a great deal. The map design is phenomenal, I keep just stopping to look at the landscape for a bit

Automobilista is just the go-to for having a game with some other friends who also like racing sims at the moment. It’s not my favourite in terms of driving physics, but it’s good enough, the car classes being relatively balanced is nice for variety in races, and I’m honestly really enjoying trying out all the South American tracks that I’ve never heard of

Infra. You play as a structural analyst sent in to document damages on infrastructure that was being neglected due to a corrupt governor.

Technically a walking sim, but plenty of puzzles to solve and “mazes” to navigate. The game offers no minimap or objective list. No HUD whatsoever. It’s just you and one action button.

Each area is exquisitely detailed for being a 9-year-old game and visually holds up better than I expected. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to explore abandoned infrastructure, this one’s for you.

I main The Witcher 3 at the moment, with Skellige mostly done. It took me 4 separate attempts to finally make it that far. The game has a fantastic narrative and the quests backstories are really engaging, with great music to set the mood. Absolutely everything else, from combat, exploration, traversal to upgrades, economy and even UX, is sub-par and a massive chore. I’ve made it this far this time around only because of some mods.

If I’m in the mood for something lighter I’m playing Super Video Golf. Awesome arcade game emulating the nostalgic feeling of similar games from the 90s.

Railroader. Lots of heavily-modded Railroader.

Striving for Light. It’s the only real hybrid I have found between an arpg and a roguelite. A bite-sized PoE if you will.

Otherwise, in more or less the same genre, Magicraft (my GOTY 2024) and a tiny bit of Hellclock, tho it has yet to hook me because so far it’s boringly easy - I’m still very early in the game.