+1 for Caves of Qud!

It still feels relatively unknown, but my god is it an amazing game.

In no particular order for the rest (and off the top of my head):

Baldur's Gate 3: Okay, I think this may actually be a contender for the best game of all time. Not much more to say.

Cyberpunk 2077: I'm definitely in the minority here, but I loved the game from release day. I don't remember any major bugs and I had a great time playing it.

Dwarf Fortress: Obviously DF is much older than this decade, but I didn't start playing until the steam release- and boy did I sink a lot of hours into it.

Icarus: Haven't played this one in a while, but it scratched the survival crafter itch for my for quite a while. I really enjoyed it.

In no particular order, my top 5:

Alan Wake 2, I think, has a credible case for being the best game ever made. The gameplay is only "pretty good." But the story, the presentation, the writing, the visuals are all genuinely among the best in the industry; its narrative functions beautifully as a metafictional skewering of auteur theory, yet its characters are grounded, believable and human. It's full of audacious sequences and ideas that never feel out of place or overly cute; its structure is rhythmic and poetic, while retaining a sense of customizability and player agency. The graphics are more real than real, with a vivid and emotionally tone-perfect depiction of grimy city streets and the woods of the PNW, but the game still retains a strong sense of art direction that unified the disparate locales. It's a strange thing, to be playing a game, and constantly aware of the fact that you have maybe never played anything better before (or, for that matter, since).

Returnal might, by an incurious player, be confused for merely a sci fi roguelike with pitch-perfect core gameplay systems and a pretentious but unobtrusive tone-poem story. What shocked me about the game, however, was, on closer examination, how strongly the mechanics and gameplay reinforced the story's themes, to create an experience that only grew more existentially horrifying the longer I played. And the game is so fun that I still start a new save, sometimes, just to get my hands on more of the combat. I expect Housemarque's upcoming follow-up, Saros, to blow me away just as much.

1000xResist is a narrative game made by an experimental theatre troupe. With my own background in the performing arts, I was never not going to love it, but its sharply political sci fi story about intergenerational trauma, disease, politics and history was mature, empathetic, and at times deeply challenging to some of my most core beliefs. Its budget feels miniscule, but at the same time it never feels constrained, managing to completely exhaust the depths of its story, setting and characters and going to some very surprising places. Certain masterfully directed scenes in the game obliterate all pretense at subtext to present the full breadth of the game's ideas on a silver platter, but if the game lacks subtlety, it still never condescends to the player, and is never overly clever or precious.

Reverse: 1999, a live service visual novel game, can be thought of as a postmodernist short story collection about marginalization, community, and art history. Like all collections, there are some stories here that miss the mark. But in Reverse's best chapters, it oozes unsubtle, unselfconscious brilliance in the ways it engages with and challenges twentieth century literature; the way it fights within itself about separatism as a response to inequality; the way it embraces existentialism and yet snarls at absurdism. And yet, even with all these thematic depths, the game's surface level is arguably even more impressive, displaying exquisite art direction and character design, searing emotional honesty, and a smoothly implemented multilingual voice cast. That's when Reverse is at its best. And even when it's at its worst, it never stays there long.

Hollow Knight Silksong might be here because of recency bias, and because it's relatively recent, I don't have nearly as much to say about it. But as carefully and precisely designed as the game's punishing systems and world and combat are, what's stuck with me the most is its story, which is a Souls-style story done right: subtle, carried mostly by strong environmental design, but cohesive and sharp and thoughtful.

Balatro - Always great for burning an hour every now and then. All my friends who have touched it ended up with hundreds of hours in it. The first time you play the game is a surreal experience that hits like crack. I feel like this game has defined it's own genre by now, though most of its imitations have too much randomness to feel good to play. The only balatro-like game I've found to have the chance to surpass it was the Insider Trading demo.

Deadlock - While the game is still in alpha, there is so much potential. Valve's commitment to actively designing the game around it's community is really refreshing in an industry who's sole goal is to make your wallet as flat as possible. This honeymoon period will end eventually, but the game has already done a great job of combining the hero shooter fantasy of Overwatch with the more challenging macro of mobas. I doubt I'll ever actually be good at the game, but the journey playing it has been great so far.

Dispatch - Could just be recency bias, but I feel it's one of the best visual novels I've played since Stein's Gate. The actual gameplay is surprisingly good, satisfying my optimization itch without being tedious.

Hades / Hades II - Both are great games. I have a slight preference to the second one for the gameplay, but both do an amazing job combining a deep story with rougelike mechanics.

@hellojavalad Wildermyth looks very fun, and I'm excited by how highly you have ranked it! I'll certainly have to check it out.

As for me, I think Baldur's Gate 3 has been by far the biggest stand out for me in the 2020s. I'm not sure anything else is worth mentioning in the same sentence. It's just such an incredible game, and I've had so much fun with it. Every time I play, I'm blown away that a game like this exists. It's just so impressive in every single area.

The biggest disappointment for me was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It felt like it iterated on the wrong aspect of Breath of the Wild, which is one of my favorite games ever. I wanted the same mechanics and more dungeons rather than even more mechanics.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - I don't know if this one counts, considering it hit in 2018, but I didn't actually play it until 2020-2021 during mid pandemic. There's nothing else quite like it out there and the depth of historical research, as well as just feeling like a nobody in the game just...really gets my goat. Going from a peasant in the middle of the country to a fairly established nobleman just felt...good. It's a nice change from being the savior of the world or universe or whatever. It's a highly specific story in a highly specific place.

Skald: Against the Black Priory - It's not necessarily anything new and I've never played Ultima before, which it's basically based on, but the crunchy turn-based combat and the cosmic horror story, where no one really gets a good ending just really sticks with me. It's a game I think about frequently, not only because it has an excellent story and combat, but because it's a game that basically runs on a potato. A game I discovered during traveling in 2024 that reminded me that I don't need a powerful gaming computer in order to have extremely interesting and transcendent experiences with games.

Pentiment - Sort of similar to above, it's a game that's so well written that forces the player to make decisions based on incomplete information. You can kind of get close to the truth during the course of the game, but the true ramifications and breadth of the story will never be revealed to you until the very end of the game. You always feel shitty about having to make a decision of the game, because you know it's wrong and you know you're working with incomplete information and yet, just like in real life, you're obligated to choose. Just, absolutely excellent.

System Shock - Enhanced Edition - Again, kind of a cheat, but another game I played very early in the Pandemic (March 2020). I've been a PC gamer since about 1995 and I very vividly remember PC Gamer magazine championing System Shock as a Masterpiece. I never did end-up playing it or even System Shock 2 until 2020, when something compelled me to fire it up on my Not-A-Gaming Laptop early in the Pandemic. It was absolutely astonishing to play something so huge, released in 1994, with such a compelling antagonist (Shodan), who constantly teased you throughout the narrative. The hugeness of the space station, listening to various audio logs and having to follow a non-linear narrative and gameplay was just...amazing. Again, I played it 25-years after the fact, but realizing this released when I was only 10-years old, when I was deep in Doom was just, amazing. It's a game I think about going back to again in 2025, which I ended-up not doing, but probably will in 2026. What was especially amazing to me is that prior to this, I had played many Immersive Sims and quite a few Looking Glass/Ion Storm games between 2000 and 2025 and yet, System Shock really still hit home and stuck with me as an excellent game, even so many years later.

Not particular ranking and not at all comprehensive but here's a few off the top of my head that stood out as particularly fun or special:

Inscryption - It was short and the gameplay itself wasn't particularly challenging, but I really love the atmosphere and storytelling in this one. Does quite a bit in a relatively small space and remarkably few characters.

Helldivers 2 - One of the most fun co-op games I've played hands down. It's just so easy to hop in with friends and end up goofing around even when you're trying to play seriously due to how ridiculous things can get, and the over the top satire theme hasn't gotten old yet.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide - I was only really aware of 40k through some memes before I played this but this got me considerably more into the lore and books (not the tabletop though, that's too much for me). This is like the polar opposite of Helldivers, when you want to knuckle down and test the limits of your mechanical skill while under considerable duress, and maybe there's a tiny bit of teamwork sometimes.

Elden Ring - My first actual FromSoft game and damn was it worth the tough boss fights. Just a real work of art in so many aspects, the lore, the environments, the characters, what a complete package this is.

Alrighty, so... I binge play a whole lot and then I dabble around for a long while until I find a new binge to play. Currently playing Tom Clancy's Breakpoint, which I would not really put up for a favorite, though it scratches that open world itch. I really got into Wildlands when that came out (in '17, so before the timeframe stated), but I basically only play Steam games these days and that's where I have BP. I could buy Wildlands again but the DLC (that I already own on Ubisoft, as well as its really crappy DLC, etc - nah, plus all the achievements ding instantly which is saddening because that's why I bought FC3 on Steam but... back to main topic!)
Back to 2020 (ignoring @datavoid haha), I played a lot of odd games and last touched a few others... but these seem to be the "hits", as in, ones I binged and enjoyed, but still haven't gone back to:

• Kerbal Space Program
• 80 Days (great game, I didn't binge on it, but I believe it started during the COVID-y days and I often pop back in)
• Prison Architect (solid game I was playing a lot in '19-20 while traveling for work on my SP3 laptop. Restarted it a few times, but always lost my pages and bits like that)
• Mini Metro (and way lesser, Mini Motorways)
• Koi Farm - played the HECK outta this because it was free on Linux, bred all sorts of chonkers, and put some $$ on Steam for the real thing. Job Talle is awesome and the game was sooo chill and helped a lot through '20! Haven't touched it since '22 tho.
• Mindustry. OMG was (is?) free on F-Droid for mobile. Like Koi Farm, I tossed the $$ at Steam for all the hours. Still, like Koi Farm, haven't touched in a couple years.
• Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
• Sunless Seas (I also apparently bought Sunless Skies in 2020 but never played it)
• Mount & Blade: Warband (Classic.)
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Valheim. Problem is, I don't play with others, so running across maps with ore is just a PITA... and kinda killed the game for me. I did start teleporting with console commands, but that also sorta ruined it (as I originally got it, thinking it was a building sim with some fun fighting options)
• Just Cause 2 (got in '13, didn't touch until last year, but 100% achievements and it was so much fun! went back to it after I got JC3 for a huge discount, which was kinda fun but all the DLC crap to keep it alive kinda sucks)
• Death Stranding - Got the original for free but didn't get into it until last year. And it was that good that I bought the DC (which I haven't finished and am waiting to get back into)
• Mass Effect (Legendary Edition). I still have 2 missed achievements, but with all the hours put in, I don't know if I wanna go for them.
• Payday 2 - got for free in '17, but never bothered with it. But this year I've now put over 500 hours into it. Was great for that grindy mode (didn't play with others much), and only finally dropped it a couple months ago.
• Medieval Dynasty. It scratched the open world building sorta vibe recently.

So, okay those are all "favorites" I enjoyed in the last few years, but the tops I still am going to state (though I haven't really been playing them much) are going to be:

• The Long Dark
• Papers, Please
• Euro Truck Sim 2
• Dishonored

Not necc. games that are new in 2020s, but new to me and have had rereleases and major updates this decade.

X4 Foundations, if you're into galactic economic swindling and management in a fully enclosed galaxy sized open universe where you can be and do anything, and pilot any number of ships.

Cyberpunk 2077 for a hard cyberpunk experience with hundreds of hours of gameplay. Closest I will ever come to playing in the year 2077, from my all-time favorite show Continuum (2012). Just so happened they take place in the same year.

Observer - by far the greatest hard scifi cyberdelic dectective game and experience I've ever had. If you haven"t played this but love Blade Runner and/or Deus Ex, please play this. Even featured Rutger Hauer in his final role (RIP) as the main character!

Ghost of Tsushima, one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. Haven't played the sequel, very excited to do so.

No particular order, but I've easily spent the most time on:

• Baldur's Gate 3 - Just wrapped up my second campaign (Dark Urge this time, intentionally avoiding murder). This inspired me to pick up Divinity: Original Sin 2 this week, since I need a fresh RPG.

• Final Fantasy XIV - Been playing and staying current since Stormblood. Easily the best MMORPG on the market, with a story that stand on its own even without the multiplayer aspect.

• Genshin Impact - One of my usual go-tos. It's like a Zelda game that's not boring, with a story that's kept my interest years now.

• Fortnite - Kind of a TF2 vibe, widely available on different platforms. Good for something that requires less engagement.

• Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor - Lightsaber enemies. I was having so much fun I bought a neopixel lightsaber for Halloween.

• Ghost of Tsushima - Katana enemies. Also, this is one of the most polished and "PS5 first" games. Everything about it has an incredible level of polish, and it takes advantage of PS5 features most games would ignore (using gestures on the touchpad as an extra d-pad, extensive use of haptics, motion control, etc), and everything just sees smooth and put together. Have not bought a katana so far.

• Final Fantasy XVI - Good story, impressive visuals, same leadership as XIV.

So far, I've really enjoyed:

Returnal, Valheim, Blue Prince, E33, Last Epoch, Raft, Star Wars Jedi (Fallen Order was last decade, but I enjoyed Survivor).

there is no FPS game with an open world that lets you approach things in any way you want.

Have you played the original Dishonored? If not, I highly recommend it. It encourages completing the levels with stealth and in some it's required, but most levels can be completed in multiple ways.

I'll have to try out Far Cry 6, but it sounds like Dishonored might be something you'd like as well.

I'll do something different and give the 3 best and worst games I've played that have released in the last five years.

Best:

1. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. I have been waiting a long time for this game to come out, and now that it's been released, I can say the wait was absolutely worth it. I just wish there was more content and Steam Workshop support though. Not sure if I'm looking forward to Hyperfunk though, which seems to be going all-in on the movement plus mods released.

2. Donkey Kong Bananza. This is the reason to buy a Switch 2 and due to the sheer amount of destruction in the game's environments, I can easily see why this game wasn't possible on the OG Switch hardware. The Super Mario Odyssey devs knocked it out of the park with this one.

3. OMORI. Many people never expected this game to come out so having it suddenly shadowdrop on Christmas Day 2020 was a shock to everyone. It does an even better job than Undertale at paying homage to Earthbound, despite its dark themes.

Worst:

1. Umamusume: Pretty Derby. This is just mobile gacha slop. Portraying race horses as anime girls and having them do j-pop concerts after every few races gets very grating after a while.

2. Mario Kart World. Maybe I was just spoiled rotten by the sheer amount of DLC content released for Mario Kart 8 and how polished online was there, but Mario's pivot into open world kart racing did not go well. The intermission tracks (which Nintendo had been forcing upon the playerbase through updates which prevent Random from picking a standard 3-lap course) suck, there's nothing to do in the open world they added, and I think the open world aspect hurts the potential for adding DLC.

3. FOREWARNED. I dunno why I loathe this one. It could be that a (former) friend who cut me off last year in spectacular fashion bought it for us, or it could be that it's a really jank 4 player co-op
   survival horror game which doesn't even remotely explain its mechanics.

Tunic was really interesting. I won't give any spoilers because it is very much best experienced blind, but it played with established video game tropes in a very meta way.

Chicory was amazing. I really love how sweet the story was, the depth to it, and how the characters are written. The music was great too.

Moonlighter was a fun roguelite about running a shop, and the revelation of where the dungeons come from was cool. I listen to the OST from this one a lot.

Slime Rancher was just plain cute, but the sequel had a more dramatic story, and a final area that was reminiscent of Stalker without being scary.

And of course there's Harvestella. An incredibly enjoyable game, in a turn off your brain sort of way. The art and music are beautiful, the plot is fun, and there are some nice twists, but you shouldn't think too hard about some of it. The farm isn't big enough, and I wish it was easier to dodge attacks, but I had a lot of fun.

• Outer Wilds. My absolute favorite game of the 2020s. That last run once everything finally clicks, and you know what to do... Love that game.
• Elden Ring. Never finished it (got frustrated at the Godskin duo), but I loved exploring it world.
• Deep Rock Galactic, which is the game that I probably played the most since 2020. It's on sale, you should really play it. It's fun even in solo or with mute randoms, which is 98% of my playtime.
• R.E.P.O.. Funniest multiplayer game I've played in a long time, but you need 3+ friends to unlock its potential.
• Last Epoch. I put it in this list only because of its truly excellent skill building and crafting mechanics. A shame this game is so janky and performs so bad on the Steam Deck, because there's something special under it.
• Diablo IV. Kill monsters, loot gear, get more powerful. Enjoyable like you'd enjoy fast food or a Michael Bay movie.

I wrote a list out and then deleted the draft since it ended on a bit of a downer note with me reflecting on how my hobbies have changed after becoming a Dad and that I questioned how much I still enjoy gaming. After a night's sleep, and giving it a bit of thought, I definitely do still enjoy gaming, and I'm sure that I'll come back to it in the future. I'm at a point in my life that I've accepted for a while now where gaming isn't a priority for me and while I could fit it in if I really wanted to, I'm okay with where I'm at now.

Some games I could think of for the 2020s:

• Slay the Spire: This game has been consistently my most played game during the last several of years, in that I'll play a few runs here and there on my phone randomly. Perfect format for me as a dad where I can drop it at any time to do something else.
  Rating: 10/10 - the sequel is the only game I actually plan to buy in 2026
• Slay - Created by Sean O'Connor: A small strategy game, this solo dev has been porting to different platforms for the last 30 years. I picked it up for Android ~7 years ago and really enjoy it for what it is. Great game for parents since you can pick up and put down whenever I'm slowly playing through all the maps on Master difficulty. I emailed Sean and asked him if he would add a small leaderboard for the maps so you can compare your fastest clears, and I think that would keep me going for a bit more.
  Rating: 8/10 - Worth it on a sale
• Factorio: This game is crack. I haven't been able to play Space Age yet, but if I had more time for gaming, I'd put a few thousand hours in to this one. I had a friend where we would play 1-2 hours a week every week for a couple of years. We were working through Bobs + Angels before I became a dad and stopped being able to play regularly.
  Rating: 10/10 - worth every penny
• Creeper World: I bought 1 and 3 on a sale and enjoy the slower paced RTS where you fight "creep" and not an actual opponent. I was plying through the first game to beat all the maps before I moved to the third game, but if my data didn't cloud save I'll be going to number 3 when I do get back to it.
  Rating: 7/10 - The first game isn't amazing, but it's fun and worth the small amount charged for it on sale.
• Custom Robo: This is a Gamecube that I would borrow from my friend growing up. The gameplay consists of different arena battles with an "overworld" plot that I enjoy. I started playing through it in college again but lost my save data. Got it going on my phone last year and have beaten 1/2 of the main story. I play it incredibly infrequently and slowly and usually use the touch screen controls on my phone so I mainly use cheesy builds since the touch screen controls aren't the best for an actiony arena battler. I saw there are fan translations of the original games on N64 so I'd like to try those one day.
  Rating: 9/10 - this includes nostalgia, also you may enjoy the game more if you talk to every NPC avaiable between missions or segments of the game. The side stories/dialogue can be entertaining
• Old School Runescape: I "play" this by hopping on a few different F2P accounts and do some flipping on the GE, mainly high volume item flips so I can slowly acquire more GP. I plan to eventually buy a bond and actually play some of the members content. My goal is to have 100M across my accounts so I can buy a bond and not feel like I'm in a rat race to get more GP to buy more bonds. I do slowly poke at raising more accounts to the minimum requirements to do the high volume trades without GE restrcitions. I played F2P as a kid and have only played maybe 5-6 months of members content throughout my life, so there's a ton I'd like to try and do. I could buy membership, but I'd rather spent the money on my family at this point.
  Rating: not giving a proper one, hard to rate this game since I've played it since I was a kid. Give it a try since there is always F2P to get a taste
• Logitistcal game series - A series of games made by a solo dev where you deliver goods to towns and build up supply chains. The gameplay is deceptively simple, and is a bit of logistics puzzle type game. There are a bunch of different versions of the game called "modules" essentially their own map/puzzle usually adding a regional tweak to the gameplay or just a different challenge. I've poked away at the few different modules I have for years. I plan to eventually get Logistical 3: Earth which is his magnum opus of the series and years of development. The game is huge and includes two modes, the traditional puzzley type mode and a "zen mode" where the game becomes almost a puzzle idle game.
  Rating: 10/10 - if it clicks for you it is easy to lose hundreds of hours across the game series. I've recommend the games before, and you can try a few of the free modules he's released to see if the gameplay works for you.

There are tons of games I want to play, and hopefully I will, but we'll see how things look. We still plan on having more kids, so I'm guessing me taking the time to play games more regularly is going to start back up in my late 30s or early 40s.

Late response, but:

Caves of Qud +1 +1: This game blew away my expectations and really sucked me in in a way that i didn't expect given the graphics. I'm having another kid this year and excited to spend some time playing Qud on steam deck while holding the baby.

POE2: This game is amazing and every content release feels great. I don't play a ton of live service games anymore, but this one is great.

Factorio: Space Age - not sure if this counts, since factorio came out before 2020, but Space Age is basically a new game/massive expansion and rework. Factorio is my #1 best game of all time.

Elden Ring - I'm a huge soulslike fan, grew up on elder scrolls and other RPGs. This game blew me away.

Balatro - Sucked me in, excellent take on roguelike genre.

Satisfactory - the other best factory game, really fun.

Arc Raiders - Another live service game, but done really well and it seems like the dev team cares about the community and knows how to make an approachable extraction shooter.

Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley - This game is awesome. Cute and fun for everyone, played it with my 4 yo.

Outer Wilds - Going into this game blind was extremely enjoyable, probably something I'll revisit in a year or two when I've really forgotten the details.

I just rolled credits on Hollow Knight, which has allowed me to start playing Silksong, and although I’m only about 10 hours in, this is almost certainly going to be a GOAT for me. HK was great, and it’s a crime it took me so long to get around to playing it, and I like SS more in almost every aspect, especially the world feeling noticeably more alive, and the Wish system creating a feeling of closer connection with the NPCs of Pharloom. The movement in this game is also fantastic, which is always a big factor for me (as someone who mostly likes to play platformers).

I’ve also been playing Rematch, which has been scratching my competitive game itch, especially the hole left in my life since I got out of practice at Rocket League and struggled to get back into it. I really enjoy that Rematch is not too mechanically demanding (in contrast with RL), but still has a very high skill ceiling in terms of positioning, passing and decision making.

I should also mention Thank Goodness Your Here, which was the most amusing couple of hours I’ve spent with a game so far in this decade. I really love games that deliver a great experience in just a short period of time - it feels generous to not ask too much of the player, in terms of time investment, but to deliver a deeply entertaining and memorable experience nonetheless.

Finally I will also mention Mario Kart World, which I have not spent as much time playing as I would have liked, especially due to the unreasonable (in my opinion) effort it takes to avoid frequently playing the (very boring) “intermission” type tracks. However I have spent countless hours listening to the soundtrack, which is absolutely terrific.

BG3 is, of course, obligatory.

Wanderstop stands out as a once in a decade special game

Spiritfarer similarly is a very iconic and poignant game

I would say FFVII Remake, but I think for a decade-level comparison it would need to stand as a complete unit, and we're only mid-way through so far.

Honorable Mention: Dave the Diver

A few from this decade that left good impressions:

• Shapez: think Factorio but boiled down to its essence. I feel like it's more respectful of my time.
• A Hand With Many Fingers: a first-person "journalistic research simulator" spent in an archive where you are tasked with unraveling a conspiracy. I was skeptical of the concept but ended up loving it.
• The Battle of Polytopia: streamlined, simple 4X game with PBEM-style cross-platform multiplayer. Great for playing a few minutes at a time.
• Ultrakill: challenging and addictive movement shooter that rewards close range combat by making the blood of your enemies replenish your health.
• Sailwind: a relaxing sailing sim wrapped in a trade/upgrade/maintenance game loop. It's committed to not having any features like automaps or HUD tools for navigation. Instead, you have to navigate using sight, chronometer, stars and compass.
• Animal Well: weird, animal-themed, puzzle-focused metroidvania. Very atmospheric and relaxing.
• Echo Point Nova: very fast-paced, open world movement shooter. The movement mechanics are extremely satisfying.
• Desecrators: Descent- and Forsaken-like with procedurally generated levels and an upgrade system. The combat in this is so very frantic and well-designed, and it's kind of hard to go back to playing "normal" first person shooters after it.

Most of the games I've played in the 2020s didn't come out in the 2020s, but so far my favorites of the ones that did have been:

Cyberpunk 2077 - I enjoyed it for a while on release, but didn't finish. Then once phantom liberty came out I did a full playthrough. Really solid game in just about every way. Nothing I can say that hasn't already been said.

STALKER 2 (and other stuff from the franchise, esp gamma) - The release of STALKER 2 was my introduction to the series, the story, and it's source material. I connect with all of it on a few levels..

Disco Elysium - played this during a particularly tough time in my life, during covid shutdowns, taking care of my infant son, working full time (albeit from home), all while his mom/my wife decided she didn't want to parent or do much of anything in our lives and really started drifting away. Shitty times. Great game.

Kingdom Come Deliverance - This game absolutely changed what I thought a role playing game could be. It's simultaneously high fidelity and extremely mechanically complex. It took me days to get through the tutorial. I trained swordplay for hours and never mastered it. Same with archery, although I did develop a bit of skill there eventually. I haven't played the sequel yet, but I'm looking to buy it for myself... Maybe today .

I never go for the latest and greatest, but this post made me realize that I only have 4 games from the 2020s in my Steam account.

1. I haven't played The Outer Wilds yet;

2. Tetris Effect is fantastic for basically teaching you Tetris and training to get into a flow state to crush it;

3. Ori and the Will o' the Wisps was really good, although I prefer the first one due to its greater emphasis on platforming rather than the somewhat incongruent combat of the second;

4. and Nine Sols is arguably top 3 metroidvanias ever.

Not bad, I think.

Just a heads up - halfway through the 2020s was a year ago 🙂