What are you all playing right now?

[HappySkeptic]

I'm restarting Divinity: Original Sin 2. The gameplay is so slow, though.

[Goosebump]

Oh man, so much.

I play Space Hulk Deathwing: EE or WWZ: Aftermath when I've drank too much.
I fired up FFX HD remastered while I'm babysitting my sister's dog.
I dabble in a little Skull Girls 2, but pretty much suck at it.
I stared CP2077 a few weeks ago and have been playing between crashes.
I play Phasmophobia all the time with my brother and a couple friends on Steam.
I can't get away from Star Wars Battlefield 2 co-op. It is just to fun being a jedi or sith character.
I keep coming back to Green Hell, the future updates look amazing.
I got back into WH40k Dawn of War 2 for some co-op play which revitalized the game for me.
I recently finished Horizon Zero Dawn and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I don't suspect I will play either again but recommend them both.
And of course Crusader Kings 3, who isn't playing that game right now? It is so bananas there isn't really a way to lose that game since it's all crazy.

If anyone wants to play some time look me up on steam or origin or uplay or epic. I'm "RunningBot" on all those platforms.

[Angrboda]

Getting heavy into platformers, but I spent a ton of money on games during the Christmas sales.

[Fake Messiah]

[Angrboda]

Started a party in Solasta. I like it so far, but I wish there were some way to slow down how quickly it displays the dice rolls. Blink and you'll miss it.

[vulcanlogician]

I fired up FFX HD remastered while I'm babysitting my sister's dog.

What's your opinion on FFX generally? It's in the top 5 best FF games IMO.

(I'm curious if anyone has an opinion on this game.)

FFX had a great story. And a great (if not somewhat flawed) character class/ combat system. The worldbuilding was also excellent.

[Angrboda]

Of course. The day after the Steam sale ends, Dead Cells is $2.50 cheaper and the DLC I bought is marked down another 50 cents. *sigh* It never ends.

[Angrboda]

Whoah. Total War: Warhammer III will be included with XBOX Gamepass. Excellent!

[Angrboda]

I purchased several difficult platformer/Metroidvanias during Steam's winter sale. I've always avoided games that are described as hard or difficult in the past because I'm not very good at games, but I'm finding the intense challenge is half the fun. I'm working on Dead Cells right now, and have Cuphead, Celeste, and Hollow Knight waiting after that.

[emjay]

I purchased several difficult platformer/Metroidvanias during Steam's winter sale.  I've always avoided games that are described as hard or difficult in the past because I'm not very good at games, but I'm finding the intense challenge is half the fun.  I'm working on Dead Cells right now, and have Cuphead, Celeste, and Hollow Knight waiting after that.

Good luck and have fun with them... I envy your upcoming journey ; I used to play those sorts of games, Mario and Sonic etc, back in the day when I was young and dexterous, but now I'm middle aged and prone to RSI, I can't. So everything I play now has to be slow and/or cerebral, and not based on dexterity/physical skill. Not saying I don't love the new sorts of games I play nowadays, but they're very different from the sorts of games I played when I was young.

***

At the moment I'm playing another stint of Astroneer, since they've just released a major update. It's a great game with a uniquely lonely sort of atmosphere... of a lone Astronaut in a silent and still, but visually vibrant Space... but it doesn't have the greatest 'gameplay loop' to keep people interested long term... so despite how rich and interesting the game is on the way up - explore planets to gather resources (and meet other exploration goals which I won't spoil), to build machines, to process resources, to build more complex machines, to process resources, to build more complex circuits of interconnected machines, to, you guessed it, process resources - the most common complaint I ever see of it is that people are bored and have run out of things to do. Ie once you've built your perfect factories for processing and sorting resources, there's not much else to do beyond whatever goals you can create for yourself.

If you're creative in a certain way, there is added value in the sense that in Creative mode (ie no gameplay progression but infinite resources) and outside you can create all sorts of abstract circuits, that won't directly help with the game (such as calculators), but which are just design challenges in their own right, made possible largely due to the fairly recent 'automation update' which added all sorts of switches and sensors to the game as components. Personally I'm not very interested in that, but in the Astroneer community, there are plenty of people who are... in the forums regularly sharing their latest designs and projects.

Back to the gameplay loop though, what seems to be a common experience is end-gamers dip into the game every time there's a new update, hoping that it will solve this gameplay loop problem in some substantial way, but so far, not really. The last update added two new vehicles to the game, which required extensive fetch quests and resource processing to unlock and build, but though that was great for the exploration side of the game, ultimately it feeds back into the same gameplay loop, so didn't really solve the problem beyond a few extra weeks of play. The latest update might though... as it's the first time fauna has been added to the game (up to now it's just been Triffid-style flora)... pets which give character buffs, and which require feeding/caring for in some way... I don't know anything beyond that since I've just started the quest... but hopefully it will amount to more than just a few weeks of play, and provide a more sustainable long-term/regular gameplay loop. Here's hoping.