Postal.

Party Hard.

Hotline Miami.

Doom Eternal

Kinda but you can do whatever you want

marketing

Cyberpunk is in a pretty good place now, you can play as a female if that matters to her and there's tons of violence, but only to people.

The Just Cause series is essentially a chaos simulator in an open world with no animals that I can remember, or at the very least animals are completely optional.

Dishonored 1 and 2 you can play both stealth but also become a murder machine, especially in 2

Overwatch does this as well. When you start your session it matches you up against inferior teams but the more you win, the harder it gets because it puts you up against better teams until you lose. So for example me and my team won 6 straight today which has to be the most we won in one sitting, if we had kept running I’m certain we would have hit a hard MMR wall. Usually we win 2 or 3 and then get shitted on

Weirdly with a 5 stack there’s less variance though because with less than that it will literally give you worse randoms to balance the teams if you and your party have been playing well and the reverse if you’ve been losing. Plus the best two or three players can consciously communicate and pick up slack from the weaker players/mitigate weaknesses (vs having the skill and hero pick of the randoms fluctuate/change)

It’s honestly scary how well designed it is to keep you chasing those dopamine highs after the inevitable lulls

who is "they"?

what same games?

Wow i need to try this

then it's not even a controversial opinion or let alone a "gaming hill to die on", you're literally not the intended user but acknowledge that it is a good service for it's intended purpose.

Also

When they added console mod support to Skyrim and fallout 4, I found myself testing mods all of the time. So yeah, I think that might be bad

It's natural to want to freshen up an experience you've already experienced that you enjoyed. Mods can do wonders with that, and that is wonderful. So no, it's not bad at all, play the game how you feel like you'll enjoy it the most

Oh yeah, that might be a really good idea

Resident evil series.

Not a violent game but Teardown is one of the best stress relievers I’ve come across

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. I’ve just restarted gta v story with a ton of mods. The entire world looks and interacts differently and I’m playing with a wheel and pedals. Feels like a different game than in 2013 when I played it.

I feel there's access to so many games now that I play through once and move on to the next. I only return to a few well loved favourites and am happy with the "vanilla" experience they give. I'd only use a mod for a game that added an unofficial licence to a game for a franchise I liked but didn't have its own game. When I think of mods like Thomas in Skyrim I don't really get it, to me it spoils the game.

Good to know, thank you

You could try Martha is Dead as well but I’d advise reading up on it first. Lots of triggers and some pretty messed up stuff in it.

I just replayed 1 and 2 and there are no animals - unless you count Minotaurs harpies etc but no real animals (I am also an animal lover so I get it!)

Try games that aren’t from companies if you want love, then.

Consolitis tax.

This is an interesting hypothesis. I also think that it appeals to the players desire for game authenticity and originality perhaps translating into a more immersive experience. I think Riot did a good job with K/DA

It's literally a braindead curated experience now. They don't openly acknowledge it, but you can see the obvious hit registration variance. They cater the experience to maximize player retention. If you continue to play while getting shit on, they'll feed you some bones once in a while, but mostly make you fodder for those who can't aim for shit and will quit easy when they lose. It goes back quite a few years.

I remember back in black ops 1 or 2 I'd go on a streak for days when I come back, then all of a sudden I start getting dunked on, even in scenarios where the situation is solidly in my favor. After a few days of that, I'd quit, try again a few days or weeks later. Low and behold, huge high-performance streak that fizzled out after a few days. That's when I started to suspect.

I had thought the same thing about World of Tanks, especially since they were already into the real money ammo crap. It makes too much sense business-wise to not turn it into a controlled odds casino game.

In some ways it seems as though the metaverse has been more successful out of vr than in vr. These artists are interesting to the younger generation and they can play in groups and interact in person, something that is harder with a headset on. I've seen my kids play Roblox with all their friends on tablets in the same room giggling and talking to each other.

Essentially what I'm hypothesizing is that these artists are using games to form a digital hangout and they're going to the platforms with the most people. It doesn't necessarily effect the way the game plays but does make people visit the game more often. As long as the game updates often and can keep people coming back it can keep the game relevant much longer than it normally would.