4 – Into The Breach
The roguelike nature of Into the Breach, paired with its quick rounds of Mechs vs Veks “chess, lends itself perfectly to an infinite replayable game. Pick your team of three mechs (you cannot change the team, they’re always the same 3 mechs for each team), and then into an 8 by 8 square map, fight what are essentially thrift-store kaijus, learn how to use your mechs’ abilities, and pull off insane combos. What makes Into The Breach such a standout title is that mechs don’t focus solely on dealing damage, but above all else, controlling the environment and the positioning of you, the cities you’re trying to protect, and your enemies. Half of the time, you’ll be flinging enemies to line them all up for a perfect shot, yeeting them into the ocean or out of the map, shoving them against one another, and doing desperate rushes to move them out of the way to prevent that cheeky Teemu Godzilla from ending your run by taking down one of your cities.
3 – Slay The Spire 2
Another position that saw a last-minute change was this one. Initially, I had Balatro in here, but I realized that I had recommended it plenty of times before, so to shake things up, I added the most recent deck-building darling: Slay the Spire 2. Things haven’t changed much, so there’s not a whole lot to be said. Slay the Spire 2 only added more of everything: more cards, more combos, more enemies, bosses, and encounters. The game now has proper attack animations, but out of that, the game remains the same: start a run with your chosen character, battle your way through numerous encounters, build a deck, fight a boss at the end of each level, and repeat until you’re either successful or have to fail and start again.
2 – RimWorld
RimWorld is what happens when you take Dwarf Fortress, modernize it, and add a couple of very special, and less than stellar traits to your crew, give it even more shadenfreude, and the stage is set for some memorable stories to start taking place. Establishing a running settlement is all fine and dandy when the people you’re working with are hard-working, don’t question orders, and are predictable. Now, let’s replace those traits with a crew of lazy misfits, overeat your stocks, and be slow learners, and you have a true challenge to overcome. In RimWorld, everything is randomized, the world, as well as the people you’ll have to command, and things will go back, and it’s fun to be there for it. In all honesty, out of all the games on this list, if you picked up RimWorld and fell in love with it, you probably won’t need a new game for a couple of years.
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