I’m looking for PC games that I can play while listening to podcasts- games that don’t have engaging cut scenes or important dialogue, games that honestly don’t require a lot of skill or thought.
I used to be really into things like Farm Frenzy, Rescue Team, hidden object games, that kind of thing. I got heavily into MMOs and stopped downloading casual games for a decade or so.
Now it almost feels like this sort of game isn’t made anymore? Were they completely nuked by the existence of Gacha games, P2W, and anything that earns the dev a constant income stream? I’m happy to pay for a game once, but I can’t be constantly buying booster packs.
I also don’t want to play on mobile or on a console, PC Master Race here, haha.
Seconding Guild Wars 2! One of my favourite things about it is how when it comes to levelling, it supports whatever you want to do. If you literally just want to run around killing things and participating in dynamic events, you get experience for that. If you want to forego combat and just run around exploring the world and seeing what you can find, you get experience for that. If you want less freedom and would prefer a more structured story, guess what, you get experience for that. If you don’t want combat or story, and instead would prefer to be a humble craftsman… yep, you get experience for that, too. (I accidentally leveled an alt to 80 just through crafting!)
The combat is a huge selling point for Guild Wars 2 in my opinion, as it spares you the dreaded ‘hotbar bloat’ of similar MMOs by keeping it simple. Every class/profession gets 5 main skills, 1 healing skill, 3 utility skills and an ‘ultimate’ skill. On top of that, a few of them may get a few extra buttons (e.g. for directing pets or swapping stances) but that’s about it. Additionally, a lot of the content can be completed with any gear and more or less any build; you don’t have to worry about minmaxing or being optimal if you don’t want to.
Lack of hotbar boat also makes it a great game for Steam Deck!