Anon loves The Lord of the Rings

Baldur's Gate 3

A lot of folks are listing their favorite games but this is the one that truly fits.
Unusually long development time by a studio known for DnD-simmiliar RPG games getting the next installation for the series that defined the genre.
Cast voice actors for several years, ones that are still playing their characters on a variety of platforms.
Just chock filled references to DnD lore, cute in-jokes, and faithful updates on old characters.
Everyone involved clearly loved it!
- It got people not previously interested in DND to actually enjoy DND.
- Also, as a literal interpretation, it occurs over 3 arcs.
- Unusually long development time
  No joke, I installed the open-beta/pre-release years ago, played for a bit, and uninstalled it. When the actual release dropped, I had the most intense déjà vu about it all because I forgot that had even happened. I had to go back to my Steam library to puzzle it all back together.
- The real question is what is Larian’s equivalent to Peter Jackson’s “Meet the Feebles”?
- Part of the reason development took so long was due to them using early release for the right reasons. They listened to the player base and changed the game based on feedback from the fans

As far as labors of love go, Stardew Valley is probably the most current example. People paid for this thing years ago, but Concerned Ape keeps adding new features anyway. The retro graphics give this thing a timeless quality out of the box, so it already looks "dated" - this hasn't stopped the robust player community around it. We'll probably see this game stay relevant for a long time.

And that's before you start talking about modding the game.
The amount of mods for this game is insane. From simple QoL stuff through to full expansions.
No replay of the game ever has to be the same.
- Do people ever do total conversion modifications anymore? Are there any Stardew Valley mods that turn it into something totally different?

Dwarf Fortress.

Half-life.

Yeah this is it for me. Half Life was such a technical marvel and a step change in story telling through gaming.

☼Dwarf Fortress☼

!!FUN!!
Had to scroll too far for this. It's the best equivalent of this for me.
Deep Rock Galactic
ROCK AND STONE! oT
- FOR KARL!
- WE'RE RICH!

Baldurs Gate 3.

Terraria

Java modded Minecraft.

Thaumcraft, my love 😍

Morrowind

One Shot
Outer Wilds
Portal

outer wilds my beloved <3 <3 >.<
Outer wilds is just ridiculously good. Somehow the DLC matches the OG story's level of insanely good. Best game I've ever played, or probably ever will.

Chrono trigger

The announcer at gay bingo knows someone that named their kid Chrono. :(
- I need to know what gay bingo is.
- That's sad. The characters name is Crono.

Outer Wilds

Inscryption

Expedition 33

Expedition 33
Woah. Would you really put Expedition 33 in the same class as the other two? This is the highest indirect praise I've seen of the game.
- absolutely!
  it's of course a very different game from the other two but brilliant nonetheless
  i dislike turn based combat, i dislike jrpg, but Expedition 33? i adore. the world building, the story, the voice acting- are absolutely incredible. It's one of those lightnings in a bottle that suddenly appear out of seemingly nowhere
- Yes. The story is gut-wrenching, the world is rich and engaging, the gameplay is interesting. If I had one complaint it’s that the rare platforming segments don’t quite work… but being a masterpiece isn’t about perfection, it’s about impact, and Clair Obscur hits like a hydrogen bomb.
- Really? I've seen Clair Obscura praised as a masterpiece.
- I would too. It’s just really well crafted world building , story, and side content. There’s so much to do and all of it feels fun.
man i tried so many times and couldn't get into outer wilds. it's so fucking boring to get started that when things start getting even remotely interesting I'm already checked out. the game's all "here's a bunch of threads, which one do you want to pull" and I'm like "I don't care"
- Outer Wilds is best started on rainy evenings around late summer, it took me a couple of tries to get into it as well, i bounced off at least 2 times. but the 3rd time it grabbed me and now it's my all time favourite game.
  basically, don't stress it :) it's a brilliant game and honestly after you finish it one day you'll long for the time when it was still ahead of you as you can only play it once for the first time

Half-Life/Half-Life 2
The original Fallout
The original Doom
Brutal Doom (the campaign)
Star Control 2 (The Ur'Quan Masters fan-made modernized version)
The Neverhood
Subnautica (not Below Zer0)
Duke Nukem 3D
Total Annihilation
Megaman (the first one)
Megaman X (the first one)
Team Fortress 2
Portal 2

This is by no means an all inclusive list. These are just games that I personally played that fit the criteria.

You could have said the orange box and saved yourself a couple bullets.
If only I could play subnautica for the first time again. Such an incredible atmosphere. Another one of my favorites is Hollow Knight.

Terraria, amazing game that is still supported to this day, best 5€ I've spend on a game.

Half life and half life 2

The best PC game OAT: Disco Elysium

Which you should totally pirate, according to the devs themselves.
- I'm not sure but I think I heardthat they reconciled somehow?
It's currently 90% off on steam btw
- as others said: pirate it or buy like the cheapest key off of https://gg.deals/
  The studio had an internal hostile takeover, kicked out most of the people who actually made the game and basically all of the lead ones and just kept the IP
  So the money goes to them

Minecraft

Minecraft before the Microsoft acquisition.
- I don't really know Minecraft before the acquisition. Is it really that much different?
- Microsoft has continued improving the Java Minecraft. I can't see a reason to complain.

I'd argue there isn't one. Not on the scale of LotR. It cannot be overstated how unlikely it was that it happened the way it did.

World of Warcraft was a LOTR moment for me, thousands of hours of different content in a fantastic world. The extensions killed it ofc.
The Witcher universe is nearly an identical type of Norse style fantasy, with elves, dwarves, and giants, and 3 is a long epic quest across 3 huge regions. One of my first thoughts when I first played was that it feels like LOTR meets Game of Thrones.

Doom. The game that solidified a gaming genre and has become a benchmark for computers. 'Can you play doom on it?'

A benchmark for computers? When it's been played on calculators and printers?
- Yes, those calculators and printers have now been benchmarked.

A videogame that was made with complete love and devotion to the medium, made with talent and sincerity, and is a pinnacle of everything it stands, something that will stand the test of time...

And nobody mentioned Stardew Valley? I spent too long looking for it and didn't find a single mention of it. Absolute mastery of its genre, an incredible amount of dedication spent by the developer listening to the fans, and I can't imagine it not still holding up 10 years from now, or even 20 years from now.

Baldur's Gate 3 is great, I love it, but there were so many performance issues with the game even with top tier hardware, and the game was borderline unplayable for others due to these issues. I have a little bias since my save didn't sync across devices with the steam cloud and I have to start all over. Love the game, but I just can't believe Stardew Valley isn't even mentioned.

Terraria I feel would be closer as stardew valley is a one man job. Terraria grew as a vision that hasn't really strayed beyond, but every update instead chisels the stone more. It is a game that took castlevania/mario inspirations and honed it into a perfect conception of 2d sidescrollers but with a liberty. (Akin to stardew being the first real open farming sim)
Redigit did amazing on the original SMBX fangame. Basically took the concept, and removed constraints. You can see the differences in development ethos as new people came on and really created a diverse game. It is so groundbreaking in their conformity that most can only compare to Minecraft, something essentially extradimensional to terraria.
Imagine being so baller you get compared to a game that puts you in control of shaping the world around you. When terraria is a game that predominantly shapes you around the world. Eventually even adding lore to these shapes it forms out of you.
Are you the summoner? The fisher? The knight? The archer? The farmer?
You will be all at some point in your journey of improvement. You will don every hat and for it you will be able to reflect back on your next life and proceed with new knowledge. The Belmont's curse is never over, and this is our only solace.
I kinda feel like Stardew is incomplete, I want to know more about the world, the lore. I also wish that I could have more time in a day to complete what I set out to do.
- Not every game needs an endless depth of lore that only those without jobs or have other things that fill up their days can dive into. Stardew Valley is a farming simulator, it doesn't need hundreds or thousands of years of history for you to study up on, and thank the dieties it doesn't. It meets the prompt provided in the original post.
  Not bagging on people who enjoy deep lore in games, you do you, but I only get about 1-3 hours a week to play so that shit is not for me anymore. I need a game I can very easily pick up, get some shit done, and be okay putting it back down again before not too much time is up.
- You might be interested to know that concernedape's new game haunted chocolatier will be set in the same world.

Deus Ex

Welp, time to reinstall!

The Secret of Monkey Island

Look behind you!
- How appropriate. You fight like a cow

Ocarina of Time

Ocarina of Time. I'm biased because of nostalgia, but I genuinely think it's the best game ever created. It took everything that was great about the SNES classic A Link To the Past, brought it into 3D as an early N64 game, and improved literally everything. The atmosphere, the gameplay, the story, the time mechanic, the music... It's not perfect, in fact these days it's trivial to break many things in it with glitches, but I think it's absolutely the best.

Age of Empires 2, despite being Microsoft owned, is easily one of the best strategy games of all time and has very clearly stood the test of time. It's over 25 years old and people kept playing it a lot even before the HD remakes. I remember reading that the folks that made the 1st game often had to choose between "actual history or hollywood history" for some details, often going for hollywood because it made for a more fun experience.

I suspect Factorio might stand the test of time as well, and it's clearly something made by someone who really understands the medium. I haven't begun my factory yet.

The factory must grow.
Factorio is crack, the space age expansion also is great.

Without a doubt the Witcher games, and Baldur's Gate 3. Probably Dragon Age too, but I haven't played those.

Just a side note I wouldn't necessarily put Witcher 1 on the same pedestal as witcher 2 and 3. You could enjoy it, thematically and story wise it's spot on Witcher, but it's pretty klunky mechanically speaking and really shows its age. 2 and 3 are Fantastic in every way though. I hear they're potentially remaking 1 and I'm all for it if it's in a style similar to 2 or 3.
- I am very much looking forward to that remake.
- Nah, Witcher 2's combat was an improvement, but still bad enough I know multiple people who gave up due to seemingly impossible fights.

Factorio

Super Metroid

I'll see that and raise a Metroid Prime

There are too many to mention.

MechWarrior 2
Dragon Age: Origins
Daggerfall
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Baldur’s Gate 3
The Longest Journey
Dark Souls
Civilization 2 & 4
Alpha Centauri
The Outer Wilds
Fallout 1 & 2
Alien: Isolation
Super Mario Bros. 3
Death Stranding
Doom (1993)
Phasmophobia
Psychonauts
X-Com: UFO Defense
The Witcher 1 & 3
Disco Elysium

I like your taste. These are some bangers lol.
If you haven't, you should play Armored Core 6. It's a FROM game, and it feels like one, in all the best ways.
But it's also a mech game, and it feels like one, in all the best ways! Every button assaults your enemy, every motion feels fluid, fast, effortless - or huge, heavy, clunky - your mech is your mech, and many thoughtful builds can become OP. The customization is bananas. And yet - some fights will remain challenging.
With all sincerity, easy 10/10 game for me, I proceeded from NG -> NG+ -> NG++ directly, which is a first for me and I'm an oldish dude. AND I felt thoroughly rewarded by the end of NG++. It's a literal perfect game, just unreasonably fun and well-crafted.
- I’m going to have to try that game. I played a bunch of the original but I think nothing in between.
Half Life?
The first xcom game is still the best one. More units equals more fun
Death stranding is awesome
Not Witcher 2?
- Definitely not 2. Not for lacking of passion, though. They just didn’t pull it off.
Thanks for mentioning Alien: Isolation! It’s my favorite game. After many years, I’m finally attempting a silent Nightmare low% run! I’m almost done with M16. Cheers!

Prumbably the Morrowind game

omg yes i love skyrim games
- Me too they are like mindcraft so exciting

FALLOUT NEW VEGAS! (Side note) Oh boy, a new list of games to play as I scroll through these comments.

Came here to say this, that game is a masterpiece. By far one of my favorite games.

Terraria! That game is great and aged like fine wine

Came to say Terraria.
Played it in 2017.
Then tried to play it in 2022 and was blown away with what was added.

Hades

Every Supergiant game TBH
- I need to replay Bastion. One of my all-time favorites, for sure.

Enderal 🥰

Good one! My favorite single player RPG for sure

Undertale

Doki Doki Literature Club

Terraria

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

This is what can be done when the actual developers and artists are given a chance without executive meddling and forced monetization.

Morrowind

Hell yeah

Neither of these are popular enough to be on the scale of LoTR, but in terms of atmosphere and detail:

Hollow Knight - my absolute favorite thing about it is each NPC has its own voiced language recorded, babbling in the background as you read the dialogue.

Subnautica (the first one) - shitting myself with each new experience is something I'll always cherish. Highly recommend just playing without looking into the gameplay or plot. Has elements of exploring, resource gathering, base building, psychological horror (not graphic, just tense scenarios), sneaking.

Mass Effect. I know some will disagree, the third game has a lot of glaring issues, and EA really fucked up the ending, but as far as a fully fleshed out story and universe with a multitude of unique and independently structured species, characters, and cultures I think it’s one of the best. The writing and possible story outcomes and decisions that vastly and permanently affect the story from the first to the third game are insane.

We don't talk about Andromeda anymore... (And such a fucking lost chance at continuing the franchise) I agree. At the time of release, it sucked all your choices where concentrated to three at most. Actually it still sucks. Buy the whole experience from 1 to 3.... It takes space in my mind you know. Its the peak of escapism for me. 3 should have been a lesson to learn from going forward with the franchise... But EA mauled all of it... The worst part is, with such strong connection to the world, lore and characters you can't just make a "spiritual successor". The same formula wouldn't work without preexisting lore.
- I agree, it’s all or nothing with Mass Effect, you have to play all three games, especially with the third one because that game is trash if you haven’t imported a save from the previous games, it simply does not stand on it’s own like 2 does. Andromeda had a lot of amazing gameplay mechanics that I felt were a big upgrade from the Shepard saga, but every other aspect of that game was just so awful that I can’t even think of it as canon to the original series. They could have done some cool shit with it, but instead we just got a castrated rip off version of the original trilogy story, but with less species and absolutely no consequences for your decisions, and crew interactions were utter bullshit, everything lead to the exact same thing. Fuck EA. The online co-op stuff was pretty dope, though.

I feel like the labor of love part being something like Factorio, Satisfactory, NMS is fitting. Also grand scale, holds up well, graphics aren't the main point

NMS looks pretty good though.
Or maybe i am just a bit dated with my expectations.
- It does, so maybe it's not the best example. But the labor of love part for sure

Morrowind ?

The Persona series comes to mind. But probably more than anything Witcher 3, Skyrim, Disco Elysium, Stardew Valley, No Man’s Sky, Nier Replicant/Automata, Metal Gear Solid 3, there’s actually quite a few imo.

Edit: oh and dwarf fortress!

No Man's Sky
Isn't this the one that crashed and burned on launch, but the devs owned their mistakes and put a ton of work into patching and upgrading? What a fuckin redemption arc for it to end up on this list unironically.
- Yeah absolutely, I don't have it but apparently its a great game nowadays
- Yes! The devs are still putting out updates that are entirely free! Like recently they've added new types of buildings and NPC ran stuff for your settlements, overhauled the planet Gen, added new planet types, overhauled the rendering engine, completely redid the ocean biomes so now there's animals and plants and biomes all under water.
  Hello Games may have launched a really bad game, but they have cemented themselves as my favorite game company because they just straight up admitted they messed up, and then have been grinding away at making the game better and better and better for the last 9 years (which side note, holy crap it's been 9 years. Ugh I'm feeling old now)
  They are coming out with a new game that I am very very excited for too.
Skyrim is pretty bad compared to LotR, but pretty good compared to video games.
Witcher 3 may be the better pick from what I've heard, but I've barely played it.
The obvious choice, after reading other comments, is Baldur's Gate 3.
- Gosh you’re totally right about BG3… how did I blank on that!
  I’m still gonna argue Skyrim being so good because it was obvious to me how much passion went into from those that worked on it. I’ll readily admit my bias though, given I came from hundreds of hours of morrowind and oblivion before it.
Add Hades in this list, too. Incredible game with so much love poured into it.
When the Bond-esque theme music kicked in on MGS3, after gameplay that amounted to like an hour-long cold open...wow. I've only played the game once all the way through, and that has stuck with me all this time.

Elden ring

I'd go with Elden Ring too.
It's not everyones cup of tea, but the sense of wonder you feel as you explore the complex and intricate world is truly awe-inspiring. It's hard to believe how much high-quality content they were able to put into it, how well it works together, and how much discussion it has spawned.
I'm pretty sure it will forever stand as one of the greatest games of all time, for very good reasons.

A genuinely heart warming story that deals with strong themes of love and friendship in a way that made a genuine impact?

Undertale.

Positively nuclear take, but 100% valid
Agree such a great game made me cry

Undertale and Deltarune.

Dwarf Fortress.

Ultima 1-7 and 8 partially.

The first Halo trilogy takes the cake for me

YESS

Mass Effect. Even though it has its flaws, it was just an epic story, built up perfectly over three games. The ending is disappointing for some, but I really liked it. I was really excited for the sequels when the first one came out.

Witcher 3 is pretty good

World of Warcraft, at least for the first 3 expansions. I think the people that made it back then were utterly devoted to the story and gameplay, as were the players. I'll remember playing that until I die, so many memories.

Downvote away.

3.3.5a for life

The stanley parable

Battletoads

Ah damn I don't have it. Is there some place where I could buy it? I've heard some pawn shops in Las Vegas might have it. I can call if necessary

planescape torment

BG I,II

Fallout I,II

No icewind Dale 1&2 mentioned‽ o.0
Blasphemy!!!
- Solidly built games, but they lack the player-characters at the center.
  They're great games, pinnacles of the form, but I don't think they hit the same as Planescape: Torment.
- All very good games but mind that BG I was released in 1998, IWD two years later. I see some people playing BG I for the first time and then saying stuff like "it is quite dull compared to BGII" but when BG I was first released, I think it was the first isometric computer rpg (in a fantasy setting) ever of that scale (taking into consideration not just the story and the world for which there were probably precedents but also graphics, music, voice acting, npc interactions etc etc). There was fallout I that came out in 1997 (what a golden age for computer games!) but again that is a different context.
  I remember the first time I played it as a kid (coming from table top rpgs), I might have peed a little from excitement seeing how detailed the game was. IWD I was more like a small scale repeat of BG I in a different context. So can't really call that genre defining. If anything I would put Divine Divinity before IWD I (it was also released in 2002) but had a higher level of physical interactivity with the world than BG I.
  Similar story with BG II and IWD II. BG II took style of BG I and built an even grander RPG with more detail in NPC interactions and the world. I don't think one can even compare IWD II to BG II despite it being a very good game. I am not even sure there has been an isometric game of that scale in a fantasy setting for the like following 10-20 years after BG II.

There’s a recent one, Expedition 33.

Tight gaming for those who come after

Outer Wilds is this game.

satisfactory

Clair obscur

Has he not heard of Ocarina of Time?

I always felt like Breath of the Wild was Lord of the rings animated by studio Ghibli the videogame.

I feel like BotW has some fundamental design problems with lots of repetitive content, an unsatisfying weapon-breaking system, and of course it lacks dungeons. The dialogue has a lot of words but very little to say. Don't get me wrong, the open world is breathtaking, but a lot was sacrificed on that altar.
I beat breath of the wild solely because I was holding out hope that it somehow got good at some point.
The dungeons and boss fights were enjoyable. But there were only 4 of those and the rest of the game was sorely underwhelming.
Tears of the kingdom is the first Zelda game I didn't care to finish in 30 years. I've even beat Zelda 2.
I only played it for maybe 4 hours. Does it have an epic story? I don’t recall one.
Give me a reason to get a Switch 2 and replay it!
- The reason for me to play Breath of the Wild was my nostalgia for Ocarina of Time. It's just impossible to explain to people what wondrous fantasy it was when it came out in the 90's. An open-world game, 3D, on console, with a joystick, with glorious music? I know you zoomers can read and understand those words, but you genuinely can't understand the feeling.
  The world didn't have the internet, or games, really. TV had like a few channels. You wouldn't be able to ever choose what you wanted to watch unless you had a video, and those weren't too plentiful. If you ever liked a TV-show, then the timeslot of that TV-show made you go watch it at a certain time, or at the least go through telling your mom how to program the VCR for it and hope it gets recorded. Games were mostly just 2D.
  And then you load into OOT menu on N64 a year later, and start the story with the FPV camera flying around. It was amazing.

Final fantasy 6 Chrono trigger Capcom vs SNK2 Soul Calibur 2 Super Mario Bros 3

These games all stand tall as giants of excellence decades after their release. Teams have already decent renowned executing at the peak of their genre with true craftsmanship and deep care into their design from mechanics to aesthetics to music to gameplay.

Regarding SMB3, I would recommend the remastered SNES version, part of Super Mario All-Stars.

Books are where it's at! Lord of the Rings all the way!

Dark souls 1

red dead redemption 2 is missing from a lot of these

Im...not sure we played the same Red Dead Redemption 2.
- I agree with them, that game is a masterpiece. Didn't you love it?
Game was truly a masterpiece
I did not understand the hype for this game at all. I liked the first one better to be honest.

Deus Ex, if you ignore that it really is ugly as sin. Sounds amazing! Plays beautifully! But yeesh, Unreal Engine 1 humans.

Most immersive sims are arguably in the same boat. The people involved had enormous ideas. As commercial products, they were woefully underappreciated, until years later. And quite frankly they do look like shit compared to much simpler contemporaries. Some NoClip documentary about Looking Glass could show a major artist had muscular dystrophy that makes his shoulders work wrong, and I'd be like, oh, that explains things.

Cold Waters if you're hankering for some hot sub on sub action.

Transport Tycoon would still be a fun game even today.

OpenTTD is!

RimWorld

Yes, this, 1000x this.
God the only thing it needs is multi threading (I acknowledge it's an incredibly difficult thing to implement). But probably the oldest game I still regularly play. I've put ~~at least 8000~~ almost 6000 hours into it since I first bought on 2016.
New DLC was just announced last month too.
Ninja edit: Just double checked and apparently I'm just short of 6000 hours into the game. Still, incredibly good.

Anyone know if there's a videogame trilogy of the same calibre?

Edit: Thanks guys!

Baldur's Gate.
Mass Effect.
Diablo 1, Diablo 2, Path of Exile
I'm willing to give it the first 3 Halo games as well as Mass Effect.

Completely different genre but the Stabley Parable checks all of these.

100 years in the future and it will be just as perfect.

Planescape: Torment does it for me.

More lines of dialogue than all of Shakespear's works? Sign me up for that kinda RPG, lol.

Though these days some good voice actors can do a lot, looking at BG3 here, at least the voice casting.

Future Cop: LAPD for the ps1!

Oh that was fun! I got the demo with a graphics card back in the day. Would never have heard of it otherwise.
- My sister and I used to play this when we were kids in co-op and competitive mode and it was a blast! Probably one of our first videogames and it was kind of "Our game." I just recently found out it was made by the same guys that made jungle strike and desert strike back in the nineties and I've been itching to play it again.
This game has so much nostalgia for me. It was the go to game because it had split screen.

It's not a trilogy, but I gotta preach the good word of Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. If you enjoy 2D metroidvania style games it's top notch.

The game just drips in atmosphere. The environments are beautifully drawn and designed, characters and enemies are animated well and the music just wraps everything up in a nice bow. It's a melancholy game and it literally made me cry at points and I'm not the type to tear up often when playing games.

The game can be challenging at times, but I wouldn't say significantly so. I would say Hollow Knight is more challenging than this game especially with some of the end game content that that game has.

The game is worth full price, but it goes on sale pretty regularly and probably is right now with the summer sale on Steam.

There's also a sequel out now called Ender Magnolia. I haven't played it yet but I will eventually.

Zork. Everything else is wrong.

Braid and Ocarina of Time are the two that come to my mind...

Ocarina of time is the one I've read in this comment section that best aligns with the feeling imo. Braid is great too but I imagine less popular.
- Fair. Braid is, in some ways, the video game i consider most worthy of the status of 'art' so I couldn't not say it, although it's certainly not like LotR in that respect. OoT OTOH, feels like it fully fits

Bloodborne

Cdda

Ohh that is a good suggestion. Its also FOSS, people should go and play it.
Recently tried out the extraction mod which was a very different play through.

Wonder if he's played the PS2 LotR games, they were good

I mean, they were definitely enjoyable. But I’m unsure if they meet the qualities of OPs post lol
https://youtu.be/i0_4vfIAjvo

No Man's Sky. Fight me.

Made with love, but definitely has its flaws, so don't know about forever.
- I can't think of a single piece of art that doesn't have flaws.
Talk about a game with an amazing redemption ark. I played it on release, realized how shallow it was and put it down after maybe 5 or 6 hours. Fast forward a year or so and I heard it had significant updates. I was amazed when I picked it back up.
I play it again every year or so and am always impressed that they keep adding things to this game. Such a rare occurrence that a game that flopped so hard could really turn it around.
It's not a 10/10, but to call it anything but a labor of love would be unfair to the developers at Hello Games, including Sean Murray. That man received a ton of shit on the release of the game but didn't take his money and run. Last I checked he's still there and that says something to the character of that group in my eyes.
- And they are, somehow, still providing regular updates to this day. Looks like their most recent major update was just a few weeks ago.

I would have to go with the Panzer Dragoon trilogy on the Sega Saturn.

While the first title was, at its basics, a fairly simple on rails shooter it was more than the sum of its parts.

It had incredible art direction, a sweeping musical score, innovative world building and rock solid gameplay.

The second title built up on the first installment in every way to solidify it as one of the best titles of that generation.

Then came Panzer Dragoon Saga which evolved the series into a full blown JRPG that is still so unique and unlike anything else out there.

Team Andromeda's passion, dedication and innovation ensured each game was a new benchmark for Segas black box.

What I wouldn't do for a new installment by the original team.

XCOM

XCOM: UFO Defense (1994)
It's by far the best version of XCOM. I mean. The graphics are as great, but it has all of the same features as the modern version (not joking), and I think the strategy is by far better. You can also have your own base that you have to defend.
- Blocked because of severe challenges in videogame taste. XCOM:Enemy Within is peak xcom.

Surprised no-one pitched Elite:Dangerous. Certainly a labour of love to begin with, incredibly talented sound design, first space sim to VR, truly devoted to the original material... Still going pretty strong (had a few weak years) with updates (only 2 DLC-ish major updates of which were paid) a decade later...

The Yakuza series I guess? Granted I've only played zero, kiwami and kiwami 2, but it all seems to be completely sincere in its craziness. It doesn't appear to pretend to be anything more than it is.

Expedition 33

EverQuest.

It's weird that Deus Ex isn't in this thread yet. Such a well made game with quite a few prophetic moments.

The original, not human revolution...
- Yeah ofc

Suikoden

A lot of good suggestions but my first thought was Final Fantasy X.

The Stick of Truth, obviously.

Semi-jokes aside, I am a bit sad that not a single person mentioned the first four Silent Hill games. The sheer influence that series had on video games as a whole, especially in the horror genre cannot be overstated. But I guess it is tricky with games because everyone has different tastes and interests. It is rare that games unite people the way lord of the rings did. Gaming is at once so broad and so niche.

Minecraft. Star Fox 64. Pokemon Stadium.

Drova

Wolfenstein 3D

Imma go with SNES Mario kart. People still play it. Will continue to play it. It was genre defining. It's not changing ever static. Simply to start but complex to finish.

The ArmA series by Bohemia Interactive.

Try Yakuza

Lost Odyssey. I haven't played Clair Obscur yet, so I one know how it compares, but for me Lost Odyssey is the pinnacle of turn based RPGs.

Nethack, nothing comes close

Skyrim

Too far below

Final Fantasy XI. It's been online for over 20 years and still has a devoted player base. The game's scale is so epic that many people still haven't beaten the expansions.

When it came out it was so far beyond what we had seen in an MMO before - The only competitors were UO and Everquest, but the graphics, music, complexity, and storyline were miles beyond those games.

It's a game with unimaginable depth of play that takes years to master - not like the hand-holdy easy games we get nowadays. Truly a gem the likes of which we will never see again.

Nah, this or WoW will probably go down in history but I don’t think any game focused on intentionally dragging out gameplay to keep subscribers hooked will ever go down as marvelous examples of gameplay.
- You clearly have not played FFXI.
Dammit. I may have to reinstall.
- Hop on HorizonXI! It's a very populated classic server.

Puzzle Pirates, frankly. Made by people who knew what they were doing, were extremely talented, independent, although eventually tried to hook onto Sega as publisher, almost killed the game and then re-purchased the game from Sega to continue as "re-indie" devs. Still going to this day with a stable player base of a few hundred. The game itself is very clearly hand-crafted and every one of the (few) developers left their mark on it. Feels completed and polished.

Zelda OoT, Majora's mask, BotW, TotK

Not a videogame, but I'd argue it could very well be the case for Pathfinder, D&D, WH, or any other tabletop system in which you really get invested.

The first half of the description, combined with the unmentioned ambition of LotR, made me think of Star Citizen. But we'll have to wait another 5-10 years to find out if they manage to deliver on that ambition, and stand the test of time.

I waited years for star citizen until Ibrealized you can pick up Elite Dangerous for like $15 on sale and its basically what star citizen is trying to be
- I mean perhaps the biggest thing going for ED is that it actually works. I've got a pile of complaints about the game but Star Citizen is hopelessly busted while ED generally works quite well.

MarioCart :)

Wolfenstein 3D Doom Duke Nukem 3D Portal Katamari

I think immortal gates of pyre is shaping up to be one!

Kevin Smith on the Trilogy.

Tom Cardy with the musical version.
- Entertaining.

Hey buddy, you might want to go back and reread the green text.

No one mentions Red dead redemption. This world doesn't have any change.

Cities: Skylines

I have to ask, what spontaneously caused the internet to love the lord of the rings movies? For decades after they were made, only occasional jokes about unhinged 20 hour directors cut binges. Now? Frequent jokes about 20 hour directors cut binges, and endless sincere compliments. They’re good movies, to be sure, but the shift always seemed inorganic to me.

I have been watching LOTR at least once a year when i was younger.
There used to be a LOTR marathon for the easter weekend on one private TV channel in Germany for at least a decade.
Spin off video games like the battle for middle earth have been hugely popular among my friends
The movies are ranked 6, 9 and 12 place in the imdb top list. No other triology comes close.
It will be hard to find a media IP that is as generations defining as LOTR.
At the end of the day it is also one of the last "great stories" an arc of the epic battle between good and evil that is executed well and not just a self referential pile of dung like all the superhero IPs.
the generation of kids that went to watch it has grown up into adult nerds, and we just needed some time to go out there and gather more data to realise that those films are very well made and a staple in the genre
Inorganic? You think the CIA is MKUltraing everyone into liking Academy Award-winning films? I think the only culture shift that could potentially happen is that the films are old enough now that the fans feel the need to remind everyone how good they are. In the first decade after release, we kinda assumed that everyone was already aware.
- No, marketing firms. Have you not noticed them?
This could just be the specific pockets of interest you frequent or whatever the algorithms deem worthy (after all, memes have more engagement).
I have always seen memes and compliments over the past two decades or so. Of course, the memes were more widespread, while the compliments remained where discussions took place.
Inorganic?? I mean, I don't quite get Star Wars, but I don't start doubting people's devotion to the franchise. LOTR is huuuge and genre-defining. I'd still sit there and watch for 16 hours straight if anyone asked me to.
They were always frequent and endless in the places I've lurked since the early days. It could have increased here with the influx of ex-redditors.