this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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I'd say Arkane's Prey hits that for me. The feeling of isolation, not only on the station, but by virtue of being in space, and the story itself. The mechanics of the mimic enemies can create emergent jump scares, but I'd definitely say it's not a horror game.
I'd also say Death Stranding, at times. While the human NPCs are very wholesome, the atmosphere and experience of delivering the packages out through the timefallen wasteland and that isolation lends itself well to introspection and the BTs are pretty creepy and axiety-inducing until you're used to them and can fight them.
I loved Dishonored 1 and the second was also quite good. I know Redfall was a disappointment but I’ve never played it, so every experience I’ve had with Arkane has been positive so far. I’ve been meaning to play Prey because of this, and I think I bought it over the previous steam sale. I’ll consider downloading it soon to try it out.
I picked up Death Stranding as one of the free games over the Christmas free games thing with Epic, so I don’t have an excuse to not try that one.
Incidentally I just started Prey about an hour ago after sitting on it in my backlog for a couple years. It's very good so far, seems to have a good spread of systems with decent depth and the graphics are still 2023-approved.
I've been playing a lot of DOOM so the combat feels a bit Lite™, but I felt that way about Dishonored too—blows land like wing chun and not like a rock crusher.
It's got BioShock's turrets, F.E.A.R.'s slow-mo and Dishonored's stealthy parkour, and so far it all comes together nicely.
It feels very much like an Arkane title, too. Maybe a bit too much going on at once, but boy do they know how to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Slightly off topic but how do you like the newer Doom games? Assuming that’s what you’re referring to. I still go back and play Doom 1 & 2 quite frequently, but I never got into 2016 or Eternal. My coworker’s favourite game is Eternal and he raves about it all the time. I played a few minutes of 2016 and it seemed alright but I didn’t play enough to get a good idea.
I love them both. I feel like they both need to be played on harder difficulties because they're built for a pushy playstyle, especially Eternal which requires melee finishers for ammo drops even more than the '16 game already did.
'16 has more of a straightforward plot. The story is fine. The main NPC looks and sounds like James Spader's Ultron, which thrills me. I love the Mars station design and wish the Hell levels were a bit more creative. Other than some mysterious hints at a connection between Doomguy and all the Hell stuff, '16 doesn't bother much with lore.
Eternal takes everything good about '16 and gives it an espresso, some laughing gas, and a whole bunch of lore that might have been written by Tenacious D. It's deeply silly, very hard and has some of the best game design I've ever seen. I don't think one is better than the other; 2016 is more nostalgic, but Eternal is more ambitious. The only catch about Eternal's ambition is that you really have to be on board, because there aren't optional play styles — you play Eternal the way the devs tell you it's supposed to be played.
I might just have to give them another shot then. Eternal sounds like my type of game anyway, so I might go for that one first. Thanks for the explanation!