Golden Sun.
The most memorable RPG I've ever played. The music and art style, beautiful. Especially considering it's a Gameboy Advance game.
In the same vein, Sea of Stars.
I guess you're looking to spend time with interesting characters.
Endearing party of playable characters:
Encountering interesting NPCs:
Parasocial weirdness:
I was going to suggest CrossCode, it has some great characters. And while the game is balls-hard on default settings it has many adjustable options to bring it in line with whatever your skill level may be.
Honestly, my issue with it is that it gets mired in real MMO tedium when it didn't need to simulate that. Stuff like running between NPC traders to trade your supplies up for good equipment and other stuff like having a gigantic pile of consumables.
And of course, I finish the final boss with all the best consumables still in my inventory. The game never pressed me to use them, so I always saved them for something more important. "Oh, that was the final boss. Guess I should have been eating more sandwiches."
The plot and worldbuilding are still really cool. Just don't get into MMOmaxxing.
Persona series, maybe. The entire franchise is all about making friends, deepening relationships, and working together to fight monsters.
I saw somebody here recommend Kenshi, so I'm going to recommend RimWorld as well. It's a colony building game, but it's kind of anxiety-inducing lol
Im just commenting to say every moment I have spent in rimworld has been an unfulfilling waste of my life. Ymmv
Dyson Sphere Project, even without the multiplayer mod you are "connected" to the rest of the player base with the Galaxy View.
Factorio, and Satisfactory scratch a similar itch, but on smaller scales. IIRC, both of those games have multiplayer built in.
Baldurs gate 3
And divinity original sin 2!
Stardew Valley
That, it's a grown up person's dream of a place to be. At least for lots of folks out there and me)
And overall it's a good game to play slowly for months.
You are never technically alone in Hellblade...
In all honesty, I think you'd love Casette Beasts, it's all about friendship.
in cyberpunk 2077 your characters sorta never alone after a certain point.
Perhaps RPG's with a party, like Mass Effect, Baldurs Gate 3, Fallout New Vegas (many companions with their own stories to find and tag along), Star Wars: knights of the old republic, dragon age.
Some shooters like the later Band of Brothers games, valkyria chronicles or the Mafia series you may enjoy as well.
In Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, there are multiple paths to choose to complete the game, and one option is to choose a fun companion come with you to help you throughout.
Perhaps RPG’s with a party
Going more old school, Chrono Trigger is another great one with awesome supporting party characters.
You'll definitely experience anxiety though.
Or maybe deep dread.
Bioshock Infinite - Elizabeth as a constant companion is a big theme in the game.
Beyond Good and Evil - A lot of great supporting cast like Pey'j.
Baldur's Gate 3 - Massive emphasis on the relationships you have with your companions.
Brutal Legend - A quasi-RTS where caring for your bandmates and roadies is the only way to win.
Disco Elysium - Kim Kitsuragi, enough said.
Firewatch - Story driven rooted in character relationships, about being alone but trying to stay connected.
Hi-Fi Rush - Great cast of characters who are heavily involved with story and often around or talking to you.
Just Cause 3 - Probably the best in the series, for threading the comedy/action needle and giving you characters that are really lovable.
Katamari Damacy - Feel the love of the King of All Cosmos!
Life is Strange - Rooted entirely around your relationships with close friends and classmates.
Mad Max - Your own personal Gollum!
Nier Automata - You'll always have your PODs.
Portal 2 - Wheatley will keep you good company.
Psychonauts / Psychonauts 2 - How can you be lonely when you're inside someone else's mind?
SkateBIRD - Make friends with birds!
Terraria - There's always some new villager to find.
Mad Max - Your own personal Gollum!
Fun fact: Chumbucket has a bit part in Furiosa.
That's a neat fun fact I didn't know, thanks! Looking it up now.
Firewatch - Story driven rooted in character relationships, about being alone but trying to stay connected.
My pick as well. It’s well written with a nice relationship at its center.
Katamari Damacy
Which typically culminates in rolling up everyone on Earth by the time you get to the final stage, no less. If that's not a group hug, I don't know what is.
Edit: I'm also going to second the Psychonauts recommendation, especially the second game. Despite the gameplay itself inevitably lending itself to the protagonist performing every little bit of work by himself, there are strong themes of teamwork all throughout the game's story and the excellence of its final sequence cannot be understated:
Ding dong.
Whale-O-Gram.
Psychonauts didn't come to mind but it's actually a really good suggestion.
I like a lot of singleplayer games, but I also play games that can be played multiplayer (open world survival crafting games).
Borderlands is pretty good imo. You can play alone, but you never really feel alone with all the characters constantly asking you to do stuff for them.
Someone else said Kenshi, which is strictly singleplayer but you can build up your party and have multiple squads running around, taking care of things. And there are generated conversations between them. And there's tons of mods that can change or add things to the game; personally I've added a couple new subraces to the vanilla ones, a couple new whole races of characters to play with, new building and weapon types and such.
Edit: Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You're Here, or even any cozy game really.
The new Star Wars: Jedi games like Fallen Order and Survivor are great singleplayer games without making you feel alone. Mostly cause of BD-1.
I keep seeing aa lot of neat things about Kenshi, but when I tried it out I felt completely lost and lost interest before I really figured anything out.
I don't like when games baby you, but I do like a little hand-holding to get me started.
Maybe I'm just a big dum and turned off the tutorial/tips/skipped something I shouldn't have? Not sure but your comment definitely makes me want to give it another go when I have a couple of days free.
Go watch the General Sam Kenshi vids. The early ones before he knows what he's doing. That's what got me into the game in the first place.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. You will work together with an increasing team of friends and allies to survive ridiculous circumstances.
The story is incredible, but the character building is excellent. Great fast paces action RPG with party switching, so you'll always have 2 playing with you. The story really shows deep friendship development, especially if you ensure to do all side quests and talk to characters at various story points.
Kenshi.
The world is brutal, but its possible to pay for some company, buy some slaves, or maybe, juuuuust maybe, find a quirky friend.
Damn. First Kenshi recommendation I've seen in the wild.
+1 for Kenshi
Hahah, there are dozens of us, dozens!
But no seriously if you can get past the extremely weird ... basically early 00's style mmo control scheme... for what nowadays you'd expect to be third person ARPG controls.... Kenshi is an absolutely incredible game, and it's got a lively modding scene as well.
Titanfall 2: You have a titan as a companion for most of the game (there are segments where you're on your own though). And it's a fantastic single player campaign.
CrossCode. Friendship is kinda part of the story / concept in a way.
Give a try to conversational games like VA 11 hall-A and coffee talk
So I'm not sure what might make you not feel lonely or anxious. Things like how directly you control the characters with you could he factors I imagine, so I'm just going to list a bunch of things:
A shorter one, but Star Wars Republic Commando. You're a commando unit and work as one.
Dragon's Dogma, either Dark Arisen or the new sequel.
Mass Effect series.
I don't know if Earth Defence Force would be like that or not, at the end of the day your NPC allies could be hit or miss (literally, depending on the weapons you use).
Not sure how you feel about party-based RPGs, but there are tons of them.
I'm wondering if RTS games with campaigns would feel right as well. StarCraft's campaigns have a lot of people constantly talk to/around you.
The Lego games?
Stardew Valley?
Can't really think of indie games at the moment.
Games I haven't played so I don't know if they apply: Persona? Space Marine games?
Undertale gives you the option of being kind to nearly everyone you meet, and you can befriend several characters as well.
you can befriend the entire cast if you want
Dragon's Dogma is pretty good at making you both the center of the world and being surrounded by people that want you to succeed with how the pawns constantly talk, and even out in the middle of nowhere, you'll run into people just walking around between settlements so the world never feels empty, even in places it maybe should.
Echo
Have you tried Adastra? That story can make you feel pretty good... Until it ends...
The pawns were so dumb but weirdly endearing
DO NOT play shadow of the colossus... Not a big gamer but never felt so alone in a game...
You're absolutely correct. It's lonely in an achingly beautiful way.
Literally any JRPG
Mass Effect series.
You could try a Persona Game (or the new Metaphor) These games are build on your relationships with the other characters. They think of you, they contact you often on their own because they want to do something with you. You just have to like to read. Those things are half JRPG, half Visual Novel.
Midnight Suns is perfect for you. It’s part team tactical deck building combat, part superhero relationship simulator. You alternate between fighting evil as part of a squad of heroes (the DLC includes Deadpool) and spending time hanging out and talking with other heroes. And it’s just a phenomenal game all around.
Edit: OP, you okay?
"Binary Domain" is an option. You are almost all the time accompanied by 1-3 NPCs of your Team. The game also has a, more or less working, voice System to talk to your team through your microphone. That way you can give orders and have some small talk. The game is quite good, give it a try.
For squad mates that function better, Star Wars Republic Commando is a damn fine FPS.
True, but I think that the microphone communication that Binary Domain offers is a unique feature that OP will appreciate.
Cult of the lamb - build a cult?
Sky - a cutesy online exploration game that pppl team up in. I know it's not single-player - but it's kinda singlemulti?
Hogwarts Legacy if you enjoyed the old Harry Potter games.
RPGs come immediately to mind. Your partner in Disco Elysium is more competent than the main character for reasons that will be immediately obvious. Bethesda's RPGs are also open world, and while you'll start out alone in them, you get permanent companions pretty quick (especially if you know where to look). They also get more chatty in the world and more character development in the later games. Fallout 4 more so than Skyrim more so than Fallout 3, for example. Starfield makes you swap them out if you do the main story, which I don't know if you'll like or not.
For a dedicated shooter, I think Titanfall 2 has the most protective companion I've seen in the genre. Get this one on sale, since it has its robust multiplayer priced in, but it has an excellent--if a bit short--single-player campaign.
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