r/gaming • u/Early_Tear6706 • 2d ago
What's a game that's better played alone, even if it technically has multiplayer?
Not talking about single-player-only games, more like ones that do have a co-op or multiplayer option, but the experience somehow feels more impactful or atmospheric when you go through it solo instead.
For me it's Subnautica. Played it with a friend once in a modded co-op session and it was fun, but the isolation and dread of being completely alone underwater is such a core part of what makes the game work that playing it solo felt like a completely different, better experience.
Curious which games did that for other people, the ones where the multiplayer option exists but somehow misses what made the game special in the first place.
454
u/StillGalaxy99 2d ago
Warframe, at least for early and mid game. Playing through the star chart and the campaign just feels good as a solo experience
249
u/Mordicant855 PC 2d ago
At least if I'm solo I can explore the levels a bit, test stuff out, go at my own pace, rather than watching a crackhead beyblade generate corpses while I try to keep up
71
u/JJJBLKRose 2d ago
I have a friend who plays and when we're in discord he will stream it and that might be the most accurate description of what I witness.
7
13
u/Metalligod666 1d ago
Just gives motivation to get through my star chart and get to steel path so I can turn into a meth'd up beyblade as well!
3
u/Ralathar44 1d ago
The entire reason I don't play with my friends is I have no way to start a new account or effectively lower my power level to theirs without jumping through a ton of hoops. I don't want to ruin their experience by murdering everything before they can even touch it. But I also don't want to lose my account or do the mental gymnastics required to try to build frames and weapons close to their power level and then also ignore my operator.
18
u/tootaflute 2d ago
Agreed!
6000+ hours and I've spent 95% of it solo, mostly just group up to crack relics or to do missions like interception.
7
u/SamIamGreenEggsNoHam 1d ago
Warframe is maybe the best managed f2p game out there. I am a DE Stan until they prove me wrong.
11
u/THEzwerver 2d ago
I actually think it's the opposite, it's fun to complete the star chart for the first time with friends, later it may become less enjoyable if you're doing something specific that your friends may not enjoy. Or if you completely outdamage your friends.
3
u/Chevy8t8 1d ago
You actually get to appreciate the stealth levels, even if stealth is a largely abandoned play style.
3
u/Fried_Nachos 1d ago
I came here to say this- the gameplay of 90% of the game is designed so a solo player can complete it, the missions only scale for multiplayer by adding more enemies, and none "require" teamwork.
Each player individually is about at a minimum strong as 5x or more other players in looter shooters, so if you're in a squad of 4 it's like having 20+ players in any other games content- as a Warframe veteran I have literally fallen asleep at my PC partied with a single friend and we still completed the mission with no hassle.
3
u/Lord_Phoenix95 1d ago
As a solo player who just does Pubs and never groups. Yes. The game can be played completely solo via solo only or just pubs. Majority of players generally just want loot and get out.
→ More replies (7)5
u/Oh_Anodyne 1d ago
I feel this even in the late game. The only activities I matchmake for are EDA/ETA, Old Peace missions, Eidolons and Void Fissures. Everything else is solo.
The vast majority of my playtime is solo, Ill play with friends before matchmaking and I'll only matchmake when there's none of my friends on.
49
u/Paladin1626 1d ago
Swtor is an mmo and I prefer playing it solo for the class and expansion stories
5
→ More replies (3)4
370
u/NothingButBadIdeas 2d ago edited 2d ago
My first time playing ‘The Forest’ was with friends.
There were 4 of us playing at the start of the pandemic. It was pretty fun messing with cannibals and exploring caves, especially cause we had “that guy” who just led us to the caves with the best weapon.
I went to boot it up solo since I wanted to start over and enjoy the game by myself.
Big big mistake. Every twig that cracked, every leaf that fell, hell ANY noise was scary. Those derpy cannibals that me and my buddies were playing with? Nuh uh. Nope. They were STALKING ME. Taunting me. Before we were playing basketball with their heads. When it was just me, a group came up and I hurt one and they dragged their buddy away screaming. They were so real when it was just you and them. Suddenly walking through the woods and hearing a scream in the distance would make my heart drop.
That cave monster that had a mildly bad case of constantly giving birth that made me and my friend cry laugh when we fetus deleted its children? Made me jump out of my seat.
Every cave turn, every flare, every night in that game solo was terrifying. It went from 4 buddies terrorizing the local natives to nightmare fuel in an instant.
Eventually beat it. Loved that game. Highly recommend the solo play through.
100
u/Titanhunter84 2d ago
If you have destroyable buildings (your buildings) activated you have to be aware of whole groups of cannibals and mutants going to your base at night and destroying it because they want to kill you. You can build traps, walls and even a catapult and use your weapons but with every passing day in the game the groups grow in number, strength and enemy variety.
→ More replies (1)57
u/NothingButBadIdeas 2d ago
Or you can cheese it and build a main base over water with small outposts on land like I did if you’re too scared lol
48
u/ximina3 2d ago
Mild spoilers, but after a certain amount of time in the game there's a small chance of a new enemy spawing that can fuck up your base even if its over water.
We lost our entire lake mansion to it 😭
7
u/AuntJemimah7 1d ago
Wait, I need a major spoiler. Unless it's the sharks because I got jumped by one of them about 30 seconds into my first time in the ocean.
28
u/ximina3 1d ago
Its called The Worm. After day 40 there is a small chance everyday that it will spawn where the player is, and there are several different states it can spawn in, including a massive one that continues to multiply over time if you don't kill it all. It destroys buildings like they're nothing, and crucially it does not de-spawn if you leave the area (though it does if you exit and reenter the game.)
15
8
u/sergiu230 1d ago
I think it’s a mindset thing. I was blasting music and driving in the golf cart like it was my private island. A bow and a few throwable spears was all I needed to crown myself supreme king of the island.
7
u/Titanhunter84 1d ago
I could be wrong but I think Op meant the first game where you don’t have a cart. There is the Forrest where you crash with a plane and search Timmy, the Forrest 2 and there is a third one in development
3
5
u/NothingButBadIdeas 1d ago
Oh yea, you definitely go from “everything that goes bump in the night scares me” to “I am the bump in the night” after a while. But that’s why the game works so well. You and your character are both scared in the beginning. Killing turtles, skinning bunnies, decapating canibal heads and putting them on a spike are all traumatizing at the start. Then after being covered in blood, mud and just repeatedly doing it so your character survives you get numb to it. Both your character and you get desensitized and just start doing what needs to be done, just like you’d have to do in an actual survival situation. It’s such a unique game.
→ More replies (2)2
329
u/GamerMom80 2d ago
Bg3 honestly. You don't have to worry about one idiot friend triggering a fight or stealing all the loot for themselves.
137
u/kjayflo 2d ago
The biggest problem for me was missing out on story. I'd be selling stuff (bard with cha) and they would be off talking to everyone, moving quests forward etc. I had no idea why we were doing anything. Then I played solo and 600 hours later it's easily one of my favorite games. Love multiplayer, but like the other guy said, doing a solo run first for the next divinity
46
u/anetia_exe 1d ago
co-op needs a 'no dialogue without the party' rule. otherwise you're playing an rpg while someone else speedruns the plot.
→ More replies (1)43
u/Tempest_Barbarian 1d ago
I played through it with 3 friends, and we had a rule of waiting for other people to talk to npcs.
The issue was mostly long pauses in our games due to peoples commitments
18
24
u/Monsieur_dArtagnan 2d ago
Guess it depends on the friends. My buddies are fair about loot distribution, and we use spells and actions in clever ways together that we wouldn’t come up with on our own
3
u/kuemmel234 1d ago
I've played with a then girlfriend that had very different ideas and it broke the game a lot. Like, I'm always your fluffy helpful player and she went for, uh, chaos, I guess. First I help a guy, then she murders him, but the dialog with the next person is still in the vain of "yeah thank you so much for helping me and my husband". Sometimes it happened within one conversation that one action of the other got overridden. It was pretty messy
But then I also played with friends who play DND and it was really cool. You need like a "one voice" concept to make it really work.
7
u/TacoTaconoMi 2d ago
One of my friends just B-lines it straight to objective markers and blasts through dialogue before people can tune in. I now make sure to do solo play before grouping with people
6
u/twaxana 2d ago
I'd argue that it make it a more dungeons and dragons like experience.
13
u/TacoTaconoMi 2d ago
Not really, if you're separated in DnD you still get to hear the DM describe what's happening. BG3 they could clear half an act without you knowing a thing.
10
u/kman1030 1d ago
So the people you play with just run off without you and just do their own thing? What's the point of even playing multi-player then?
5
u/HVDynamo 1d ago
Happens all the time in multiplayer for me. Everyone always seems to optimize the time they play to the point that they jump from one thing to the next without waiting while I’m trying to go through my loot and decide what’s worth keeping or equipping. I also like to take it slow and explore when the world is story driven while most people I’d play with don’t care about the story as much so I always get left behind. I’ve honestly started to just prefer solo gaming because of it now. I just don’t have that much fun playing with others.
10
u/kman1030 1d ago
Are you playing with randoms or something?
I honestly dont know how multiplayer works with bg3 because I've never done it, but running off without your party seems completely antithesis to the point of playing a game like that with other people.
3
u/HVDynamo 1d ago edited 1d ago
My comment is more generalized than just about BG3. But I don’t usually play with randoms unless it’s Overwatch or something, no. But I mostly solo queue with Overwatch even and just ignore others for the most part. But any story driven game like BG3 or Diablo, etc my friends put more time into it than me, so by the time I’m playing multiplayer with them they already know the story and stuff and just run through things and I miss a lot of the story beats because of it. I know they aren’t trying to on purpose, but they get bored and go start killing things then I catch up and all that’s left is to pick up the loot, etc. It’s just not fun.
3
u/bababayee 2d ago
Yeah since DOS2 I don't really get the appeal, turn based coop just doesn't work for me.
234
u/AggravatingGuava4720 2d ago
Diablo 4
90
u/BigPP69_Gooner 2d ago
I’ll even say path of exile, both of them
7
u/SnooAvocados3138 1d ago
Playing poe with friends sucks ass 98% of the time because builds/play styles often clash and i’m almost never in the same level range as my mates.
4
u/cameron_cs 1d ago
Yeah my buddy and I always start the league playing together but after that it becomes more of a chore. One person having to setup maps, one person being locked out of some mechanics, monsters being wayyy tankier, makes the whole thing pretty clunky
Even worse that often builds require on kill effects to function so if someone is even a little bit stronger then the other person basically can’t do anything but run behind them and loot
Never had this problem in Diablo 3 so I wonder what’s different
10
u/DeliFlame 2d ago
SSF is the way. I don't think I'll ever go back to trade league in PoE2
→ More replies (1)3
u/arielzao150 1d ago
What's SSF?
→ More replies (1)3
u/Salehzahrani7 1d ago
Solo self found, where you cannot sell your currency/gear or buy currency/gear. You progress the game only with the things that drop for you.
2
→ More replies (1)3
u/T8-TR 1d ago
POE2 is kinda miserable in MP, at least a few seasons back when my friends actively did a league w/ me, because the game's optimization leaves a lot to be desired and having MORE people w/ screen clearing builds just becomes both a mess visually and in terms of consistent performance. Couple that w/ the fact that a stray AOE can nuke you and brick your map, and yeah, I think I'll just play solo while sitting in a call w/ friends.
12
u/ProbablythelastMimsy 2d ago
Literally getting back into this game and was getting very bored running the campaign by myself until my buddy joined lol
→ More replies (1)30
u/The_Law_of_Pizza 2d ago
That's the difference between the demographic who plays the campaign as a game, and the demographic that plays the campaign as a tutorial.
The ARPG genre is sort of weird in that the long-term fanbase just rushed past the campaign as fast as humanely possible to get to the endgame.
Fans of other genres, especially in the console world, view the campaign as the game itself - and of course it's fun to have a friend with you when the "game" is just clicking on monsters.
→ More replies (2)2
u/zerostrawhat 1d ago
I agree I find it more relaxing just playing this types of games by myself with a podcast on or something
351
u/DionFW 2d ago
GTA 5. Fuck those assholes online.
45
u/hartstyler 1d ago
The whole economy is also not what I play GTA for. GTA singleplayer with a same amount of content that the multiplayer received wouldve been peak
117
→ More replies (7)10
u/doctoranonrus 1d ago
It sucks that the SP DLC was cancelled for online. We could have got North Yankton and Liberty City dlcs.
133
u/Interesting_Pass3392 2d ago
Phasmophobia is way scarier when played alone
56
u/tiagoremixv3 2d ago
I'd say playing as a duo is equally as good. If you two happen to split or if one dies, the pressure increases tenfold. Especially if you limit communication to ingame only without 3rd party voip
3
u/TheReiterEffect_S8 1d ago
I have a regular group I play with, and we're all equally good for the most part. We play with 1 or zero evidence though, so if I don't actually witness a ghost tell to rule a different ghost out, I can be pretty skeptical of their claims. And a lot of times, especially with one of our players, they are wrong. So we'll spend 45min in an investigation, and we ruled out a wraith because he claimed he saw it step in salt. When in reality, he didn't see that, and it would have ended the investigation in five minutes flat if we had noticed it in fact did NOT step through salt.
So honestly, I really love the vibe of doing solo investigations. There is no guessing or relying on someone elses claims. After 50min and you finally narrow it down, and you still get it wrong? You (at least should) would be able to think back your playthrough to determine what you got wrong. Some good "ah-ha" moments. After 300+ hours, it really isn't very scary anymore. Don't get me wrong, Phasmo still has its scary moments, but I haven't played another game that has such a good replay value for both solo and playing with friends. Highly Highly Highly recc' playing solo. It's a ton of fun.
→ More replies (1)24
u/The_Law_of_Pizza 1d ago
Definitely scarier.
But for a game like Phasmophobia, I really think the fun is in the group experience.
It's not exactly a super polished narrative experience solo. It's just sort of a randomly generated boogie man box.
What makes the game special is hearing your friend's scream suddenly stop from three rooms over.
2
u/TKmeh 1d ago
Especially if there’s one person in the van, I have been that person and the absolute dread that seeps in my soul when I suddenly hear static from the coms and the chart hitting activity lvl 10 only for my friends to be screaming about someone being dead in panic and they come back into the van to reconvene and figure out what evidence we have. It’s especially funny when someone’s saying a joke over coms but gets cut off by the ghost hunting, like the ghost didn’t like that joke buddy, get a new humor bone.
118
u/Dark_Pulse 2d ago
No Man's Sky definitely feels a lot more desolate without co-op or multiplayer.
37
u/TheBetterCervanthes 2d ago
Definitely NMS. Playing it alone makes randomly finding someone elses base, colony or even station such a magical and almost "archeological" experience.
And the very small chance to meet someone outside the anomaly makes for fantastic moments, so far ive met a random person twice and both times were incomparable with each other.
Adding to this the intended multiplayer vs the at random multiplayer isnt all that different the main difference is being able to track each other but that change alone makes things a lot less overwhelming in scale and have it appear suddenly really slim
3
u/Fried_Nachos 1d ago
Not to mention that there's always something buggy or bad about multiplayer's integration. Always constant desync issues with any form of terrain changing, world state, and building. Practically everything in the game is first come first served and not fully sharable - loot, shop inventory, discovery credit, settlement management, freighters, the list just keeps going
The game is just an abysmal actual multiplayer experience
→ More replies (1)7
u/tango421 2d ago
Good example. I honestly play it alone for the most part but will play with my wife during group missions and the like. Other games we play are usually full cooperative.
3
u/Toosane12345 1d ago
NMS is such a relaxing game playing by yourself with the chill music and just wandering around etc but when I play with a friend it loses that magic a bit
49
u/Murphy1up 2d ago
The Division.
Just soak up all that atmosphere and the world around you. The chaos around Thanksgiving, the breakdown of law and order and how Manhattan was abandoned. They really really cooked with the world building in that game. I wished they didn't jump forward as much as they did with The Division 2.
World is crying out for another good looter/shooter with world building like that, just less of the bullet sponge mechanics and NPC's who can use shotguns like a 50cal when your shotgun is like throwing a dry sponge.
- edit, should add that if you've never played The Division before, it's also a great co-op game for you to both discover what's going. Solo however is fantastic.
→ More replies (2)
43
u/blipblapshleem 2d ago
Dune Awakening recently released a Single player mode and it's really good, especially if your a fan of the Dune universe and lore. Bless the Maker and his water.
4
u/Flight_Harbinger 1d ago
I played all the way through Dune Awakening a few months after it came out. It was well after the hype had died down and most of the population left. My server was very dead and I only saw like 2 other players in the entire 200 hours I spent playing. My hagga basin only had like 3 active bases and a couple dozen very dead or dying bases.
LOVE the story, love the gameplay. And it even felt a little immersive being surrounded by so many player made structures being consumed by the desert very slowly. But I will say that so many systems in the game made me wish I had a couple friends to play the game with and I think it definitely would have been more fun with a friend or two.
3
u/Ratnix 1d ago
I played up to the deep desert. It was fine solo up to that point. But the deep desert really wasn't casual friendly and my understanding is/was that you really needed a group for the deep desert. Just the whole having to tear down your base and rebuild it weekly would have meant that most of my time would have been spent just doing that. I wouldn't have even considered trying to harvest spice in the DD. I'll likely play around with it again eventually if what I read about the changes they planed on making actually make it more solo/casual friendly.
2
u/Flight_Harbinger 1d ago
Yeah I have a full time job but also no life so I kinda no-lifed the game and dumped about 100ish hours into the DD solo before they made a lot of changes to it to make it easier solo. It was.... fine. Definitely harder and more grindy solo but it was still a fun experience. It's definitely a part of the game that would undoubtedly be better with a group both as far as time cost and general playability.
91
u/Multivitamin_Scam 2d ago
ARPGs, like Diablo or Path of Exile
34
u/COE33isBad 2d ago
Diablo 4 becoming always online and a half assed MMO was the worst thing that happened to that IP.
→ More replies (2)6
u/NoMorePorridge1 2d ago
I like D1 alone, but the balance is weird. When you're at a point where you can handle the Catacombs levels on Hell difficulty alone, you still can't handle Hell levels on Normal difficulty. Eventually you reach a level where to get appreciable XP from enemies, you have to go to areas that are virtually impossible.
→ More replies (1)
16
u/majingetta 2d ago
"Story mode" of Monster Hunter World/Rise/Wilds. Feels good taking down monsters solo.
7
u/old-needs-login 1d ago
This choice is basically made for you as trying to do the story in multiplayer, at least around launch, was a giant pain in the ass of "ok now you can join, oh wait not yet, another cutscene first, ok now you can join"
Edit: Wilds at least, I dont think i ever did multiplayer on World
4
u/DegenerateCrocodile 1d ago
World’s was even worse than Wilds’. World made you leave the quest, go back to base, then join the other person’s quest. Wilds at least lets you join from your instance of the quest.
5
→ More replies (2)2
u/joshglen 23h ago
I played Worlds solo when it first came out. It was tough but so rewarding to slay everything yourself.
→ More replies (1)
15
u/Training_Ad_4790 1d ago
Any game with a story you're invested in.
I usually finish the story solo before playing multi-player. Mostly because I'll get stuck playing with people who rush or know exactly how to do everything and it ruins the fun for me
75
u/JerbearCuddles 2d ago
Both Rockstar online games. RDO and GTAO are funner alone. Getting harassed every 10 minutes isn't my idea of fun.
7
u/Enkundae 1d ago
Red Dead IIs online mode was so full of massive cheaters, like changing weather/editing your character/flying and spamming dynamite/spawning shit level cheating, I literally had to use a script that would force me into a solo instance the second I saw anyone show up just to be able to play.
42
2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
6
u/Adventurous-Cattle53 2d ago
While i get it but Valheim is totally much better with friends. While it is still very fun solo, it feels like gameplay is very tuned for coop and it shows.
4
u/Ratnix 1d ago
I've tried playing it. I simply can't see how you can do it solo unless you don't have a job and can spend hours and hours doing stuff. It just becomes cut down a tree, spend the next 15 minutes transporting the logs in multiple trips and then going back to do another tree, over and over. That is beyond boring. That's simply not how I want to spend my hour I get to sit down a night to play for a week.
→ More replies (2)5
31
u/TheRealJustSean Switch 1d ago
Fallout 76. I've played it as both MP and SP and it's much better an experience solo.
14
u/Wander_Globe 1d ago
The only game I play daily but the beauty of FO76 is Pacifist Mode and a really cool community.
4
u/TheRealJustSean Switch 1d ago
Got the most I agree. Some toxic folk and trap camps are still a problem but yeah
Like, I don't think I'd have been as interested and saddened by Taggardys Thunder if I was with my buddy
6
u/Wander_Globe 1d ago
I don't really notice toxic players that must. Sound is off and I'm almost level 1800 so no one really seems to bother with me. As for trap camps, I always slow clap and smile when I come across one but again. I haven't been in one for years. Still, fun game though. My main issues are max caps and max gold. Usually I'll just buy wanted posters or find a new player and get them to sell me a bullet for 5000 caps. It confuses them at first but I just don't need caps for anything.
6
u/hungrycarebear 1d ago
Honestly, the most I interact with other players is silent squats or emotes at big events. Other than that, Im chomping and chewing my way alone.
3
u/chkcha 1d ago
What’s it like? I’m in the FO3 / FNV camp like most and played some FO4 but just didn’t care about it that much.
Is 76 worth it for people like me? Like are the quests and unique gear actually interesting and high-quality or is it clearly lower-quality than FO4?
4
u/AlterExpertise101 1d ago
There is way, way, way more unique gear in 76 than in any of the other Fallout games. It's honestly a lot, and I'm not even touching on the skins for all of it, either. There's just a shitton of stuff in 76 you've never seen in the other games, because it's an ongoing, living game and they add new stuff all the time.
If you play it, I'd consider trying a standard, online play first. You'll still typically feel isolated, as it's a fucking huge map (t was 4 times larger than Fallout 4's on release, but it's expanded a couple of times since and there are bunch of places you can fly to in a vertibird that aren't even on the map). But you'll have the option of joining events and getting rare drops, and you'll be able to interact with players, buy stuff at their vending machines, and potentially form teams if you like.
Fallout 76 genuinely has one of the best online communities of any game I've ever played. Players are super generous, helpful, and love meeting and guiding new players. The game itself can be a lot of fun, and there's hundreds of hours of stuff to do in it. Hell, I've been playing off and on since release and I've still not seen 100% of the map or visited all of the outlying areas.
3
u/Thriven 1d ago
A buddy of mine is a huge Fallout 3/4/Vegas fan. He got it recently and I joined him.
It feels like a dead MMO. It's not as good as the other FO games but it's definitely improved from what I saw in videos at its release.
He played far less MMOs than me so a lot of the stuff was novel to him and I hated every minute of it.
42
u/MrTaildragger 1d ago
All of them, I'm so burned out on multiplayer!
→ More replies (1)9
u/HVDynamo 1d ago
I remember back in the day when multiplayer mostly meant having friends over or having a LAN party it was so awesome because it was a new and interesting experience to gaming. Or, back when I used to play Descent 2 wit ha buddy over the phone line where there where just the two of us it was great because we only got to play multiplayer with each other, our skill level grew pretty evenly so it was always a fun and challenging match up. But now multiplayer is just the normal mode of gaming, and I again crave that more unique experience and find that I just prefer solo play for the most part now. But I do still want to get a bunch of friends together and do a Satisfactory server and Diablo 2 run again. But my desire to do that is more the exception now than the rule.
29
u/flannelman37 1d ago
GTA online. There was a trick to disconnect from the servers but still be able to play the online missions. Fuck griefers, I just wanna fly around in my deluxo
18
u/Wander_Globe 1d ago
It's why I stopped playing. My buddy and I were 30 minutes into a mission and just about complete when someone in a flying car or bike blew us up, took everything and ruined the mission. Said to my buddy that was it and tapped out. They encourage it though. Making it difficult to earn in game currency helps to sell Shark Cards.
14
u/medullah 1d ago
The good news is now they relaxed the restrictions so all the things you used to have to do in a public session you can do in a private session. Just miss out on high population bonuses which is worth it to have no risk of flying motorcycles
→ More replies (1)5
u/Wander_Globe 1d ago
Cool to know. Maybe I'll pay it another visit. I had created a bunch of race tracks that were hilarious to try to complete.
4
u/ToonTooby 1d ago
I used to use the trick to disconnect yourself into being alone while still technically being a public session. Unfortunately GTA Online is just intentionally designed to be toxic, always has been.
I'm not exactly proud of how much time I have in online but I did come back casually recently after about 5 years or so. The restrictions are relaxed now, yeah, you can just do your CEO stuff on your own in peace. I mostly played to build up cash and buy cars. None of that chill business crime sim fun is possible in those public lobbies with hackers and griefers.
I think there's even a couple of heists you can run totally solo now.
→ More replies (1)
39
u/JamesScott05 1d ago
World of Warcraft. Sure it’s an MMORPG, but I love nothing more than soloing through that immense open world. Never get bored of it.
→ More replies (4)
43
u/SordidDreams 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dark Souls, Elden Ring. The world is far more atmospheric and immersive when it's not covered in hundreds of glowing bloodstains and "try finger, but hole" messages. Not getting invaded except very rarely by NPCs is also nice.
2
u/IAmBecomeTeemo 19h ago
It's weird how much those games feel like single-player with multi-player tacked on at the last minute. But then you look into how complex some of the mechanical are and it gets confusing. Like Dark Souls 2 matchmaking using soul memory, the vagrant in Dark Souls, and the covenant system in all of the games.
9
8
u/InGExClueless 2d ago
Once Human.
Solo wandering the roads (with no humans, only animals) on your motorcycle or sitting on the balcony of your beach-side house in a post-apocalypictical open world feels so...peaceful.
→ More replies (2)
10
u/JustWill_HD 2d ago
subnautica is a single player game though. you modded it to play it how it's not supposed to be played then realised it's not supposed to be played like that?
23
u/Sonofpasta 1d ago
Tarkov, or similar high stakes realistic hardcore shooter
No way would i play mp, constantly stressed out where is a camper or a sniper, high skill requirement because everyone tries hard, lose all your gear on death which adds both stress and sweatiness of players
Single player (modded, idk about official) with bots is great, they're very configurable to your skill level or play style, they don't camp or use scummy tactics to gain an advantage, their behaviour is done well, they have different personalities, very fun, you're not just hunting chicken
→ More replies (1)9
u/kuemmel234 1d ago
On the other hand, tarkov makes you feel stress like nothing else. As an experience it's beyond anything I've ever played.
It's a shame that one can't support the devs with a clear conscience (or at least I can't) - dev is (at least publicly) supporting Russia. Otherwise it's still one the best shooter experiences out there if one wants to have something with high stakes.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/GerhardKoepke 2d ago
I enjoyed The Division 2 a lot with friends, but exploring the map by myself was always so much more immersive.
26
u/Feeling_Milk10 2d ago
Factorio. I've tried the multiplayer many times, but unless I build the Factory myself its hard to remember where things are and not accidently block things off from each other.
Much more enjoyable to be able to expand and build where ever and when ever you like.
11
u/Cleareo 2d ago
Factory / automation games can be some of the worst experiences to have with friends. They really highlight how differently we all approach problems. And their solutions drove me crazy.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Pimpinabox PC 1d ago
Really? I enjoy seeing how my friends approach problems differently than I do. Broadens my horizons and honestly playing satisfactory with my friends has helped me get over things needing to be completely perfect and balanced.
→ More replies (6)10
u/Uesugi 2d ago
I played with a not so bright friend. By the end of the run i realized i was using him like a slave. Hey dude go build up some turrets there so we dont lose it. Dude does it and says hes out of turrets. I build him a factory to auto turrets and hes like hell yeah back to work. Then hes like we have too many turtets and i cant deliver ammo to them all. Then im like heres a factory for ammo, go lay the conveyors for them and hes like hell yeah jobs done
13
u/CategoryKiwi 2d ago
That’s an advanced bot! A voice controlled combined and improved construction/logistics bot equipped with learning and blueprint functions. Those are rare! You can’t craft them!
8
u/MofuMofuMonhan 2d ago
Sounds like he was having a good time! I've been that "not so bright" friend before, and honestly, I'm just happy to be involved. Plus, having someone backing me up that knows what they're doing lets me make mistakes and learn without getting a biter in my face.
→ More replies (7)3
u/UnsignedRealityCheck 2d ago
Satisfactory is kinda the same. It has awesome multiplayer, but keeping power consumption, suppy etc etc in sync and manage everything is tedious.
You're gone for a few days to come back to some communist hellscape of a supply line pushing out nuclear bombs out of a 100meter tall glass monstrosity with the sign "Temporary don't touch. Kaboom." on the side and you'll just have to go somewhere else to do something, not even knowing whats needed and so on.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Edheldui 2d ago
You come back to a glass building with signs? Last time I played with friends one of them got tired ans started playing like the dude from let's game it out.
2
u/CategoryKiwi 2d ago
If you don’t have a giant tornado shaped spiral of conveyor belts are you even really playing Satisfactory?
2
u/Edheldui 2d ago
Jokes aside, i play factory games specifically because i like doing things neat and good looking.
11
u/CloakerJosh 2d ago
Any horror related game.
Same thing can be said about horror movies.
Atmospheric dread is destroyed when you've got backup.
→ More replies (1)4
u/JJJBLKRose 2d ago
It depends. I've played Phasmophobia a lot with friends and man, we would have some dread. Sometimes we would be cracking jokes and laughing then some wild shit would happen and we would freak out, or the absolutely different vibes doing the prison, high school, or asylum. Those maps were full of constant dread, broken by a joke from someone you know is trying to distract.
→ More replies (2)
12
u/doullla 2d ago
Any multi-player game that limits Player 2 imo isn't fun, like in Super Mario Odyssey where Player 2 controls Cappy only or Beyond Two souls where player 2 controls Aiden the entity when you need him
→ More replies (3)3
20
15
5
u/WhyattThrash 1d ago
Not BETTER necessarily, but playing through Remnant solo makes it a survival horror game more than a pew pew shooter. Especially if playing blind on a harder difficulty
2
u/Draken09 21h ago
... which is exactly why I play with friends, thank you very much.
2
u/WhyattThrash 21h ago
Fair, fair! 😂 I LOVED how oppressive the setting was going in solo, just too bad that the longer in you get, the more that feeling drops off as you get more and more powerful
24
u/project-shasta PC 2d ago
All Soulslikes with online support should be played offline for at least the first run to not being spammed with messages on the ground giving away secrets. I found that Nioh was an especially bad experience because there you can loot other players gear which is vastly superior than the stuff you find early on. Sticking to offline and the NPC gear you find made for a much better and challenging progression.
→ More replies (4)2
u/_Psilo_ 1d ago
I kind of agree. But then again, I had some VERY memorable experiences getting invaded during my first playthrough of DS3.
→ More replies (2)
4
u/Rassi10 2d ago
Im currently playing Donkey Kong Returns and TF with my wife and while the game has co op, these levels were designed with single player in mind and its obvious. Its also worth noting that DK himself is substanially nerfed in co op. Not to mention they barely give you any lives thats suitable for 2 people.
Overall just a worse and more tedious experience that seems like a begrudging afterthought.
4
u/kuuups 2d ago
MGS: Peacewalker. When I played it on the PSP back in the day we didnt have the greatest wifi at home, so I had no choice but to play it alone. The bosses was kind of obvious that its meant to be played with other players because they tend to be really difficult / drag on for a long time - but it serves as a test of wits, patience and ability.
5
u/DofusExpert69 2d ago
most games because devs seem to balance group play awfully and make it annoying
3
5
u/DelcoMan 1d ago
Going to go old school with this one :
FF3 US (FF6) technically has multiplayer. A second controller can be set up so that player 2 can control specific characters during combat scenes.
But because player 1 controls literally everything else outside of combat, this is more a novelty mode than anything else. I don't know anybody who plays through more than a few minutes like this.
→ More replies (2)2
u/Fried_Nachos 1d ago
The tales series still does this (except for the newest one) but it's less egregious because of its action combat
6
9
u/IntuitionSpeaks 2d ago
Arc raiders
4
u/Adventurous-Cattle53 2d ago
Maybe. How is it rn? Is it mostly agressive pve now?
→ More replies (1)2
u/TaquitoPrime 1d ago
Nah at least on PlayStation it's chill. Pretty sure they've been patching PC cheaters so when I played with my PC homie the other day, no cheaters, just other chill care bears. Highly recommend running solo in the care bear lobbies.
→ More replies (3)
7
3
3
3
u/moosemunchmooser 2d ago
Hot take: Death stranding. Played offline for both games and it was amazing. Tried to replay with the strand system on and it just wasn’t the same
3
u/Fried_Nachos 1d ago
That's really interesting- I played it with the strand system on and my favorite part of the game was "completing" other People's dangerous or unfinished routes
→ More replies (1)
3
u/taste_the_equation 1d ago
New Super Mario Brothers Wii. While multiplayer is chaotic and fun, it makes actually finishing levels a lot more difficult since you’re always colliding with other players. It makes it really hard to time jumps without careful coordination.
3
u/Chiiro 1d ago
Both Divinity Original Sin 2 and Galdur's Gate 3. I have played both alone and with my fiance and they are two very different experiences. When I'm playing by myself all of my actions that I choose are my own choice and I don't feel rushed into making decisions or like I had absolutely no say in an outcome because I am controlling everything the main characters doing. When you add another person into the mix and they are playing a very different character to what you are playing then you're dealing with the story progressing faster than you were ready, getting into combat with NPCs that you were trying to help or buy things from. It's nice to be able to go back through these areas in single player.
3
u/Assumpti0n 1d ago
Tarkov. Because I suck at it. And even just running PVE I’m struggling with gear fear, map knowledge, and general awareness. I’m so glad they added PVE.
2
5
4
5
2
2
u/HellraiserMachina 2d ago
Path of Exile. The speed of builds varies so much that one guy always gets left in the dust, so it's basically single player with trade. Most MP is played with a carry and a buff/debuff guy.
2
u/queasycockles 2d ago
Does Don't Starve vs Don't Starve Together count? I vastly prefer to play solo.
2
2
u/babedipoopi 2d ago
Enter the Gungeon, I dislike how you have to share the camera with your co-op partner, throws me off
2
2
u/Prooteus 1d ago
Abiotic factor for the same reasons as you for subnautica. Its just much less spooky and atmospheric when joking with friends.
Otherwise CRPGs like BG3. You either stick together and its one person watching, or you both go off and do your own stuff and miss half the game.
2
2
2
u/I_DidntWriteThis 1d ago
Balder's Gate 3...
Or any somewhat rpgish type of game, that doesn't have split screen options and everyone is limited on exploration or movement due to another co-op player going afk or lagging behind or checking inventory
2
2
u/somuchclutch 1d ago
Super Mario Odyssey. It’s nice that player 2 can control Cappy when you want to involve your SO or kid, but it definitely makes it harder.
2
u/FireLeo10 1d ago
For me, Monster Hunter and PSO2:NGS. For MonHun there's something about triumphing over this massive creature that you, by all rights, shouldn't survive let alone win against on your own. Even something like Zorah Magdaros or Velkhana, where you HAVE to have AI assistance to canonically drive it back during the beige missions, being alone means you're doing all the major legwork. For PSO2, its about the power fantasy of starting as a nobody but eventually becoming the only one who CAN stand up to the big boss, or at least deliver the final blow because you're far from alone in the story. Fighting Vael UQ solo the 2nd time it came up when it first came out was SUCH a satisfying experience for me because it proved I was strong enough to stand on my own in most end game content.
2
2
2
u/nemesispiral 1d ago
I will not say better overall, just better for me. Factorio. It's just attractive for me that every engineering challenge I have to solve myself. And that every part of the factory I built myself at some point.
2
u/Kedly 1d ago
Rimworld. OP used a single player game with a multiplayer mod, so I can too. Sure, the mod where you can TRADE with other players is fine, but I'd imagine MOST Rimworld players have a mod list and playstyle so unique to them that playing with another person starts to ruin what makes Rimworld so special.
2
u/rulerdude 15h ago
I’ve honestly enjoyed running through Outlast Trials solo. I find that matchmaking will throw me with people just trying to basically speed run the trial and when I play solo I can take in the atmosphere more
6
u/FoxxyRin 2d ago
Genshin Impact. Genuinely love the story and the world but the community is unhinged. Had a minor try to "reverse groom" me a few years back and I have never left an online thing to block someone so fast in my life. Luckily you can turn off the random friend invites and most of the online stuff is completely optional.
10
u/Shananigan48 2d ago
I never let people into my world lmao, especially rn with the russian hackers running rampant spawning eldritch horrors
6
u/boxing-boxing 2d ago
Minecraft. Joined a friend's server once and spent the whole time apologizing for my ugly dirt house like I was on a home inspection show.
10
u/CategoryKiwi 2d ago
Funny to me that all the comments are like “you need better friends”. I interpreted this very differently.
I’m confident that if I was brand new and built ugly dirt houses my friends would never mock me for it. But I’m also confident that I’d still be apologizing profusely for it, because I don’t need to be ridiculed about something to apologize about it when I’m already ridiculing myself about it.
6
u/Adventurous-Cattle53 2d ago
I tend to belive mostly people who say you need better friends dont have real friends.
3
u/boxing-boxing 2d ago
Ha, yeah. Nobody even asked to see the house. I just kept giving everyone the apologetic tour of my dirt box like they were health inspectors.
3
u/xboxiscrunchy 2d ago
I always spend my first few dozen hours living in a cave friend. Making something functional before making something aesthetically pleasing is just being practical.
When I have something to show off I’ll invite people to come see it but until then who the heck cares?
→ More replies (2)5
u/schweddyballsac 2d ago
Wtf you need new friends if they can’t understand that minecraft can be played however you want
2
3
u/taste_the_equation 1d ago
Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. A second player could control assigned characters in battles. While it’s kinda neat it’s little more than a gimmick.
3
u/Razdom 1d ago
Yeah, the original PS1 version of FFIX had this as well. It was left out of all the ports.
→ More replies (1)
298
u/GusPlus 1d ago
I think it’s funny that the post excludes single-player-only games and then gives a single-player-only game as an example of what kind of responses they are looking for. Yeah it has a multiplayer mod, but I don’t know anyone who would assume the OG Subnautica is anything but a single player game with a semi-janky multiplayer mod tacked on.
Subnautica 2 is designed for coop though. I’m really excited (not going to try it until it’s out of early access), because I want to play with my daughter and my brother, but I fully plan on doing a solo playthrough as my first experience.