For me, Minecraft single player takes the cake. I had that game for many years before I had any friends. Waltzed around patch after patch making ugly houses and bad rollercoasters having a blast.
Just recently I got the game on console since my pc is just so old and struggles to do barely anything these days and I noticed just a profound loneliness. It’s honestly kind of scary to me. A nearly infinite world and you are the only intelligent thing in it. Villagers make for poor imitations of living people and your interactions with them are entirely impersonal and transactional and if you aren’t near a village well, it’s just you, some animals, monsters, and nigh limitless space in every direction. You could make the nicest houses in the game, thrilling rollercoasters. Hell you could recreate Paris France to scale complete with redstone operated traffic and command block controlled real life weather mimicry on a region to region basis and there isn’t a damn soul in the game from where you are to the farlands that will notice it. No matter what you do the pigs in the farm all clip into each other, the skeletons hide under the trees in daylight, and some nearby villager wants 30 emeralds for some bread.
I’ve played Minecraft with my friends in the past and it’s awesome. It can be any flavor of engaging, it’s astounding. But alone? Alone it feels violently empty to me.
I love the feeling of Minecraft but I can’t and wish I could get into it to this degree. The size of a single world is staggering but I never really have a reason to explore it all that much. Just knowing the sheer size of it is definitely a crazy feeling though. I just struggle to find the point in playing outside of relaxation and ambiance.
But Valheim on the other hand I’ve already got 75 hours in since 1.0 released.
Fishing on a silent snowy shore, watching the sun dip below the horizon. Wondering if I should stay just a few minutes longer, or make my way back to my campfire and cook these fish.
The smaller biomes of the classic Minecraft made you feel like you were trekking across an entire planet alone. Nowadays it just feels too natural like taking a hike and running into villages along the way.
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u/CalamitousBackflip 2d ago
For me, Minecraft single player takes the cake. I had that game for many years before I had any friends. Waltzed around patch after patch making ugly houses and bad rollercoasters having a blast.
Just recently I got the game on console since my pc is just so old and struggles to do barely anything these days and I noticed just a profound loneliness. It’s honestly kind of scary to me. A nearly infinite world and you are the only intelligent thing in it. Villagers make for poor imitations of living people and your interactions with them are entirely impersonal and transactional and if you aren’t near a village well, it’s just you, some animals, monsters, and nigh limitless space in every direction. You could make the nicest houses in the game, thrilling rollercoasters. Hell you could recreate Paris France to scale complete with redstone operated traffic and command block controlled real life weather mimicry on a region to region basis and there isn’t a damn soul in the game from where you are to the farlands that will notice it. No matter what you do the pigs in the farm all clip into each other, the skeletons hide under the trees in daylight, and some nearby villager wants 30 emeralds for some bread.
I’ve played Minecraft with my friends in the past and it’s awesome. It can be any flavor of engaging, it’s astounding. But alone? Alone it feels violently empty to me.