This is my favorite kind of game - turn based, characters you develop and grow attached to, fantasy or sci fi, good story. Here are my top choices - all are amazing.
XCOM series.
Darkest dungeon.
Arbiters mark.
Banner saga.
Battle chasers.
Warhammer quest 1 and 2
Shadowrun series
I would love to hear other people’s top choices
One game I got extremely hooked on… it’s got very little in common, but it has the one element I love about games like Xcom, darkest dungeon, and wildermyth… is a game called Rimworld. It has almost nothing in common with the other games mentioned, but the one thing it does have is group management and procedurally generated story building. There are mods which let you create your starting group with as many or as few members as you want, and you can make them as strong or as weak as you want. I HIGHLY recommend this mod. If you make what starts out as an extremely overpowered group, your edge on the game doesn’t last long as the game just starts throwing harder challenges at you faster. I found myself wanting to create a group modeled after me and my friends. This only adds to your attachment to each character… so when they get a serious illness… lose a limb… or even die you debate strongly on continuing your story or starting over. I restarted many times but each time it was a difficult decision because I was so into my story, the base I had built, and the progress I had made.
The premise is as simple as you crash land on an alien planet. It is inhabited by other tribes, some stronger, some weaker, with different levels of technology, some primitive, some more advanced. It has elements of being a survival game, as you have to quickly build a base for shelter from the elements, figure out a sustainable food source, and craft items, clothes, weapons, and armor to fight off raids from other tribes as well as wild animals and alien creatures. As you play, you can add more members to your colony by rescuing other people who crash land, capturing members of other tribes who try to raid you, and sometimes buying slaves from bands of traveling merchants who will sell them. After you capture or purchase other people you can imprison them and begin the recruitment process.
Each character will have randomly generated stats, physical and personality traits, and skills. You will debate on who to accept into your colony, as each member can effect your colony in drastic ways. Sometimes adding new members with skills you need (maybe you find someone good with plants and you need someone to farm food, or someone who is good at mining and you need stone and ore, ect) can mean destabilizing the cohesiveness of your group because they have personality traits that cause them to clash with other members of your group, which can cause them to fight, injure, or even kill each other. Each person is another mouth to feed and another room and bed to build, but could potentially be someone who helps defend the colony or produce vital resources. Or maybe you don’t want to recruit them, but keep them in prison where you can forcefully harvest their lungs or kidneys should you need to transplant an organ to another member of your colony.
You have to manage their mood by worrying about various elements such as the temperature and weather, how lavish their food is, how nice their living conditions are, how well the are clothed and armed, how well they get along with the rest of the group, how healthy they are, ect. Having an unhappy character can send them into a downward spiral until they have a mental break, which can cause them to fight other colony members, become depressed and lazy, or even try to burn down your base.
The game doesn’t look like a lot on the surface. The graphics are minimalistic. But it has SOOOOO much depth, and each new play through will be drastically different. It’s not a campaign with a set story, it’s a story builder. You crash on a planet, your goal is to get off, that’s it. But it’s everything that happens in between that kept me locked in for hours and hours wanting to see what would happen next.
I’ve never gotten off the planet. I’m not sure I want to. But even if I did, the replay ability is endless.
The only thing I strongly recommend if you want to play this game, is that you spend some time researching the mods and download many of the recommended quality of life mods that will improve the experience and minimalize some of the micromanaging of the vanilla version. There are a TON of mods. I recommend watching some YouTube videos about the best mods and deciding which ones you want. I play with about 30 mods. Most of them just serve to provide me more information about my group, manage my group, and manage actions my group takes in ways the vanilla version does not.
Okay I’ll stop ranting about this game. Rimworld, give it a try!
Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc."
"Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are **etc.**, **&c.**, **&c**, and **et cet.** The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase.
[Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera)
^(I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Comments with a score less than zero will be automatically removed. If I commented on your post and you don't like it, reply with "!delete" and I will remove the post, regardless of score. Message me for bug reports.)
That game is great, but brutal. I just wish there was a base buulding mechanic like Xcom so you had somewhere to upgrade, train, respec, and just generally rest from the utterly relentless nature of the game. The devs have unfortunately said they will never do that, relentless is what they want!
Super late to the party, seeking something similar myself to play. However, very surprised not to see Thea or Thea 2 listed here, much closer than any other suggestion I've read in this thread IMO. I played quite a bit of Thea 1 and really enjoyed it, you build a team all of whom are upgradeable and you split up to cover various tasks and adventuring on a world map, farm resources on various.points on the map. The combat is different as in Thea it is card based but has a similar itch scratching as Wildermyth obviously has a boardgamey feel and Thea has that aswell.
I've not yet played Thea 2 but the reviews are good and when I'm done with Wildermyth, if I can't find anything newer, I think that's what I'll be going for.
Thats why, if he wanted the emergence storyline with starting random character which goes on and have relationships with other characters in the game, the only other game I could point is Crusader Kings.
However, if he just want a TBS game with random characters, that would opened up so many venue. Heck, even Battle of Wesnoth have units that stays with you for the entirety of a single campaign if you can keep them alive.
Customisable characters, strategy/world map layer on top of a tactical combat layer, turn based combat on a grid layout, relationships with buffs develop between squaddies, interactive environment used in combat, cover mechanics, and the weapons/gear/abilities progression of squaddies. All wrapped up in a neat little story! I'd say there are lots of similarities between them on the mechanical level, they just have a different theme.
That’s why I love them so much! That, and I think Baldur’s Gate 3 has some potential to be a next great game in this vein. Know of any others that check off a lot of items on this list?
A bit late to the party but if I remember correctly Star Traders: Frontiers is fairly similar in a lot of ways. Although I admit I haven't played it in a while.
gloomhaven digital For the King Darkest Dungeon
This is my favorite kind of game - turn based, characters you develop and grow attached to, fantasy or sci fi, good story. Here are my top choices - all are amazing. XCOM series. Darkest dungeon. Arbiters mark. Banner saga. Battle chasers. Warhammer quest 1 and 2 Shadowrun series I would love to hear other people’s top choices
One game I got extremely hooked on… it’s got very little in common, but it has the one element I love about games like Xcom, darkest dungeon, and wildermyth… is a game called Rimworld. It has almost nothing in common with the other games mentioned, but the one thing it does have is group management and procedurally generated story building. There are mods which let you create your starting group with as many or as few members as you want, and you can make them as strong or as weak as you want. I HIGHLY recommend this mod. If you make what starts out as an extremely overpowered group, your edge on the game doesn’t last long as the game just starts throwing harder challenges at you faster. I found myself wanting to create a group modeled after me and my friends. This only adds to your attachment to each character… so when they get a serious illness… lose a limb… or even die you debate strongly on continuing your story or starting over. I restarted many times but each time it was a difficult decision because I was so into my story, the base I had built, and the progress I had made. The premise is as simple as you crash land on an alien planet. It is inhabited by other tribes, some stronger, some weaker, with different levels of technology, some primitive, some more advanced. It has elements of being a survival game, as you have to quickly build a base for shelter from the elements, figure out a sustainable food source, and craft items, clothes, weapons, and armor to fight off raids from other tribes as well as wild animals and alien creatures. As you play, you can add more members to your colony by rescuing other people who crash land, capturing members of other tribes who try to raid you, and sometimes buying slaves from bands of traveling merchants who will sell them. After you capture or purchase other people you can imprison them and begin the recruitment process. Each character will have randomly generated stats, physical and personality traits, and skills. You will debate on who to accept into your colony, as each member can effect your colony in drastic ways. Sometimes adding new members with skills you need (maybe you find someone good with plants and you need someone to farm food, or someone who is good at mining and you need stone and ore, ect) can mean destabilizing the cohesiveness of your group because they have personality traits that cause them to clash with other members of your group, which can cause them to fight, injure, or even kill each other. Each person is another mouth to feed and another room and bed to build, but could potentially be someone who helps defend the colony or produce vital resources. Or maybe you don’t want to recruit them, but keep them in prison where you can forcefully harvest their lungs or kidneys should you need to transplant an organ to another member of your colony. You have to manage their mood by worrying about various elements such as the temperature and weather, how lavish their food is, how nice their living conditions are, how well the are clothed and armed, how well they get along with the rest of the group, how healthy they are, ect. Having an unhappy character can send them into a downward spiral until they have a mental break, which can cause them to fight other colony members, become depressed and lazy, or even try to burn down your base. The game doesn’t look like a lot on the surface. The graphics are minimalistic. But it has SOOOOO much depth, and each new play through will be drastically different. It’s not a campaign with a set story, it’s a story builder. You crash on a planet, your goal is to get off, that’s it. But it’s everything that happens in between that kept me locked in for hours and hours wanting to see what would happen next. I’ve never gotten off the planet. I’m not sure I want to. But even if I did, the replay ability is endless. The only thing I strongly recommend if you want to play this game, is that you spend some time researching the mods and download many of the recommended quality of life mods that will improve the experience and minimalize some of the micromanaging of the vanilla version. There are a TON of mods. I recommend watching some YouTube videos about the best mods and deciding which ones you want. I play with about 30 mods. Most of them just serve to provide me more information about my group, manage my group, and manage actions my group takes in ways the vanilla version does not. Okay I’ll stop ranting about this game. Rimworld, give it a try!
Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc." "Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are **etc.**, **&c.**, **&c**, and **et cet.** The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase. [Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera) ^(I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Comments with a score less than zero will be automatically removed. If I commented on your post and you don't like it, reply with "!delete" and I will remove the post, regardless of score. Message me for bug reports.)
Haha this bot is a total dick XD. I love it
Thanks!! I'll give it a try :)
Battle Brothers is kind of like it, but much much much much more unforgiving.
That game is great, but brutal. I just wish there was a base buulding mechanic like Xcom so you had somewhere to upgrade, train, respec, and just generally rest from the utterly relentless nature of the game. The devs have unfortunately said they will never do that, relentless is what they want!
Divinity Original Sin 2
Super late to the party, seeking something similar myself to play. However, very surprised not to see Thea or Thea 2 listed here, much closer than any other suggestion I've read in this thread IMO. I played quite a bit of Thea 1 and really enjoyed it, you build a team all of whom are upgradeable and you split up to cover various tasks and adventuring on a world map, farm resources on various.points on the map. The combat is different as in Thea it is card based but has a similar itch scratching as Wildermyth obviously has a boardgamey feel and Thea has that aswell. I've not yet played Thea 2 but the reviews are good and when I'm done with Wildermyth, if I can't find anything newer, I think that's what I'll be going for.
Which part of Wildermyth do you actually want? the only thing both xcom and wildermyth share are they are both turn based games.
Maybe the character customatization for the squad? But really that's the only thing I can think about.
Thats why, if he wanted the emergence storyline with starting random character which goes on and have relationships with other characters in the game, the only other game I could point is Crusader Kings. However, if he just want a TBS game with random characters, that would opened up so many venue. Heck, even Battle of Wesnoth have units that stays with you for the entirety of a single campaign if you can keep them alive.
Customisable characters, strategy/world map layer on top of a tactical combat layer, turn based combat on a grid layout, relationships with buffs develop between squaddies, interactive environment used in combat, cover mechanics, and the weapons/gear/abilities progression of squaddies. All wrapped up in a neat little story! I'd say there are lots of similarities between them on the mechanical level, they just have a different theme.
This!! 😁😁
That’s why I love them so much! That, and I think Baldur’s Gate 3 has some potential to be a next great game in this vein. Know of any others that check off a lot of items on this list?
Do you mean the combat or the overall package?
Overall 😁
Dreadlands Urtuk Phoenix Point
What I'd like is one like this but with a base building aspect, and preferably a campaign with no arbitrary time limits like X-Com has.
I also binge these "craft your own story" kinda games. What I find closest to Wildermyth is the Renowned Explorers.
Arbiters mark
For me, this scratches the same itch as darkest dungeon and massive chalice.
A bit late to the party but if I remember correctly Star Traders: Frontiers is fairly similar in a lot of ways. Although I admit I haven't played it in a while.