What type of game are you looking for?
Just yesterday I played through GRIS, which was an absolutely amazing experience (though short). An interactive artwork of a journey through grief. Definitely recommend it as a short in-between game. The same developers released Neva last year, which was also very well reviewed.
Before that I played Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, which is a Soulslike Metroidvania with a PoE style skill tree. Really liked that one, the story was so-so but it has really good gameplay and super fun character customization. Good exploration, lots of secrets and i enjoyed the world as well. Looks pretty, too.
Blue Prince from earlier this year is a phenomenal game if you like escape room type puzzles. It’s an incredibly clever idea - a puzzle roguelite - and I had a great time with it. Gorgeous OST too. Definitely worth checking out, though be warned - taking hundreds of screenshots and 60+ pages of physical notes is almost required.
Earlier this year I played Skald: Against the Black Priory and I have a great amount of fondness for that game. A faux-retro RPG that pays tribute to late 80s style CRPGs it hit just right with me and ended up being my favourite RPG in a while. It’s fairly limited in scope, instead focusing on doing a few things well, and I think it really works out well for it. Beautiful music, great pixel art, great story. Also has some nice CRT emulation filters in the settings!
Which speaking of, right now I’m playing Blasphemous, which is another title with CRT emulation filters. It’s basically 2D Dark Souls but with more platforming. I have mixed feelings about the gameplay (I hate platformers) but the world building, story and lore are all immaculate and super cool.
Lastly, even though it’s in that not-quite-indie AA space you should play Claire Obscur: Expedition 33. Yes, it is actually that good, and much like when Elden Ring or BG3 released it’s kind of “required reading” to understand the zeitgeist.
But all of this is just my recent experiences off the top of my head, the list really does go on and on and on.
9bananas@feddit.org 10 hours ago
since you mentioned enjoying hopping into a game for a bit in the sea of thieves section, maybe try some rogoulikes/-lites?
try out hades: fun, fast paced, neat story, satisfying gameplay loop, variety, and I’m pretty sure it’s on sale! ;)
MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I tried the demo and couldn’t really get into Hades unfortunately. Though it probably had my lack of interest in Greek Mythology working against it. Maybe i’ll try picking it up again though, that was years ago and i’ve found my tastes have changed
9bananas@feddit.org 5 hours ago
ah, that’s a bit of a shame!
totally get it though: it’s not for everyone…