What are the best games for solo gamers? Well, you’re about to find out. In this post, we explore the games that slightly more intellectual gamers love to play, and what makes them such special titles.
Don’t worry: we’ll be going through a mix of old and new in this post. By the end of it, you’ll have a clear roadmap for the games you need to play and what you need to download.
So, here goes:
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3 is perhaps the best game ever made by CD Projekt Red, and one of the best of all time, right up there with other showstopping RPGs from the last decade, like Skyrim.
What makes The Witcher 3 so special is the fact that every choice matters in its open-world environment. What you do always affects what happens later on in the game, so you need to be careful what you decide.
You can’t do what most people do in games and just make random decisions. If you get your choices wrong, karma will come back to bite you.
However, the Witcher isn’t just a realistic high fantasy simulator. It’s also a solo gamer’s delight. For example, while the main game is involved, you can also play sub-games, like Gwent, which keep you hooked for hours. Here, you collect items, improve your play style, and take on some of the biggest challenges in the game to improve your rewards. It’s quite spectacular when you get it right.
Elden Ring
Maybe the only RPG in history to top The Witcher 3 is Elden Ring. From the makers of the Dark Souls series, this game is fantasy and storytelling at its best, allowing you to become immersed for hours in a rich world, full of stunning graphics and detailed landscapes. There’s almost nothing like it anywhere else, even within the Souls games themselves.
The nice thing about this game, though, is that it is a bit more accessible than its predecessors. While it is still challenging, it has more pacing about it. It’s clear FromSoftware wanted the game to be more about progression and exploration than about reaction times and outwitting complex boss mechanics.
If you’re feeling fed up with playing alone in this game, you can still summon AI spirits to come and help you fight. These are friends of sorts.
Tunic
If you like Zelda, then you’ll probably be a big fan of Tunic. This game is about solving puzzles and deciphering alien languages in order to progress. The graphics might seem a bit simple, but don’t let that fool you. The more you experience the exploration side of the game, the more it rewards you and fills you with bliss.
Solitaire
If it’s classics you’re after, then it’s well worth exploring modern solitaire. These days, you don’t need to download anything. You just go on websites that offer the game for free, no sign-up or payments required.
Solitaire is one of those games where you feel like you’re really working out your brain. It’s challenging, but in a good way, and you can change the difficulty by adjusting the parameters.
Don’t worry if you don’t win every game. It’s actually mathematically impossible with a standard deck of cards, and really depends on the hand you receive. However, when you do win, it can be a thrilling experience, so all that hard work is often worth it.
Subnautica
What about Subnautica? This is another game that’s a lot of fun when you play solo.
Essentially, it’s a survival game that pits your wits against foes in the ocean. You have to find food, but also avoid predators that seem to be able to come out of nowhere.
To enhance your chances of survival, you need to build bases and cook alien fish. You also need to learn more about the strange planet you’re on so you understand where you are and what you’re doing.
Hades
Hades is another option that’s popular among solo players. It’s a top-down roguelike action thriller with a lot of crisp combat to enjoy. There’s also plenty of storytelling and Greece-based lore to explore. Essentially, you’re caught up in a family drama, and you need to battle your way through various ruins to restore order.
Celeste
You could also explore Celestee. This pixel-art platformer offers a steep difficulty curve while also telling a story about anxiety and how it affects people.
What’s nice about this game is the assist mode. This setting lets you change the difficulty level if you want to progress through the story and don’t want to keep fighting the same battles over and over. It means that you can dip in and out on the weekend so you don’t feel like you’re giving up your life for a game.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
If you love playing detective RPG games without combat, then Disco Elysium is a good option. The goal here is to become more like a digital version of Sherlock Holmes. You have to psyche out suspects while revealing the inner workings of your own fragmented mind. It’s the sort of game that goes deep and requires you to think carefully at every stage about what you want to do next.
Slay The Spire
Finally, you might want to check out Slay The Spire, a game that employers across the world loathe for how it has destroyed productivity. This roguelike is special for its deck-building feature. You play as one of four characters and try to climb a spire while battling along the way. All the encounters are randomized, so there’s always something new to do, and if your character dies, you have to start from the beginning, which ups the difficulty. Even so, it is the sort of game that has attracted millions of people, many of them stuck in offices across the globe.
So there you have it: the best games for solo gamers out there. Which will you be playing when you get the chance?