Hello, in the recent years I find myself willing to spend much less time and energy on games, but I do still enjoy them. Oftentimes I end up quitting a new game I tried out relatively early on, because I’m encountering some block, grind, non-optional boring side quest, empty open world, uninteresting clutter or details that I have to manage, or similar. Like, I just wanna play the actual game play, see how the story continues, and visit those areas that were designed with care. Not worry where on the map I can sell the glimbrunses I collected so I can buy a 37% stronger glarpidifice that I’ll need to beat the next glutrey after which I’m allowed to continue the main story.
Sorry if this turned into some kind of a rant, but I hope it’s understandable what I’m looking for and what I meant by fluff. Some games that have fulfilled this for me during the last years:
- Stray
- Skyrim (there’s a lot of fluff you can worry about in Skyrim, but the thing is you don’t have to worry about it, you can also just walk in any direction and see what situation you wind up in, at least for the first 10-20h of a playthrough, which IMO is enough time for a game anyway)
- Life is Strange
- Some Pokémon ROM hacks where the difficulty spikes were not too harsh
Looking forward to hear your suggestions :) Games where there is some fluff but you’re allowed to just ignore it are also fine, but not having any fluff is preferred. Bonus points for anything on the Xbox game pass.
Ya I’m a big single-player story-driven player. Other recommendations are red dead 2 (never played 1, I’d like to), lies of P, sekiro, elden ring, bloodborne, uncharted series, death stranding (I love this game but completely get why people bounce off it), alan wake 2 (also not for everyone), control, and I’ll always have a soft spot for halo 1-3+reach. Theres probably a bunch more i’m forgetting but I loved all of those games. I just love a really good story.
I would describe Red Dead Redemption II as having significant fluff, not just in how much time it wastes getting from A to B a lot of times but also in that whole island chapter, Act 4, I think.
Time spent riding during missions has never felt like fluff to me. As it’s usually filled up with dialogue and stuff. Plus the nature and views and stuff are relaxing.
For the in-between missions riding you can just get one of those cheat menu mods and use the teleport feature.
It’s the in between missions riding that I was referring to. The previous game was much more lenient about giving you opportunities to fast travel. Also, when I played the game, mods weren’t an option, and OP might be looking for Xbox games.
Oh, you’re right, I missed that part. Shit.
ya thats fair
Sekiro? I guess it’s less of a difficulty “spike” if it’s just a difficulty cliff from the jump.
these are my favourite games, thats why I put them in the second comment I realize they’re a little on the more difficult side. My bad I didn’t clarify.
That’s fair, I may have been traumatized by spending 3 hours trying to get through the first section in Sekiro before calling it 😅
One thing i’ll say about sekiro is that it demands you learn “the dance”. You need to play the game on its terms and learn the rhythms, essentially you just need to “git gud” but it is absolutely worth it once it clicks. Its an incredible game once you finally get a feel for it.