The Quantum games (Heavy Rain, Beyond:Two Souls, Detroit:Become Human) are great for that. Also the Life Is Strange series. Abzu, Journey are "cinematic games" of their own. Maybe Firewatch? Outer Wilds?
this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Second this. My girlfriend has absolutely not interest in playing games but enjoyed going through Detroit with me and helping choose different options as the game progressed. We even went back to replay some of it to get to different endings which is something I barely ever do when playing games by myself.
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There's a whole channel that kinda answers this! Girlfriend Reviews started as a channel where the presenter reviewed what it was like to live with someone that played games - i.e. how good it was to watch someone else play. She's started playing some of the games herself lately, but the point still stands.
In a recent video Should Your Boyfriend Play Spider-Man 2? she says it's
the best game to watch someone else play this year
(at which point I paused to go find this post and see if anyone else had posted this channel already).
Yes, I just remembered this too!
I dunno but many said 'stray' was good, but it's defo also a walking sim in some ways
The Outer Wilds is my vote. The kind of game that can be made much better with a spectator helping keep track of things and figuring out puzzles with you
Seconded! Thirded, even! It's so fun to figure things out as a group and do discover things together.
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Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is a ton of fun to both play and watch. Speaking from experience. Finished it myself, then watched the wife complete it. Both were fun as hell
Was about to say BotW
My wife played Pokemon and Mario Kart before we dated. After dating for a bit she took a bit of interest in what I was playing and even started playing some games on her own.
My wife liked watching:
- Witcher 3
- Red Dead Redemption
- Assassin's Creed (pre-Origins style games)
- Portal
- Devil May Cry (besides DmC)
- Prototype
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- L.A. Noire
- Spiderman
She joined me or played some others on her own:
- Stardew Valley
- Rust (surprisingly)
- Conan Exiles
- Golf with Friends
- Animal Crossing
- Dinkum
- Core Keeper
- Terraria
- Truck Simulator
- Ori and the Blind Forest
- Assassin's Creed Black Flag (she liked to gather supplies and do small secondary quests, or just sail around)
The all-time winner was Breath of the Wild, she loved to watch and play it, and sometimes I watched her play it too. She solved problems in very different ways than I did and it was interesting. Example: my primary way to kill Guardians was to deflect blasts, while she just rode her horse at them and cut them apart. You can imagine how nuts Tears of the Kingdom has been lol.
I feel it might be worth mentioning she did not enjoy watching or playing:
- Monster Hunter
- Any flight/space sims (Ace Combat, Elite Dangerous, etc.)
- Factorio
- Minecraft
- Remnant
- Deep Rock Galactic
- Vermintide/Darktide
- most Metroidvanias
- Civilization
If I had to guess at what these share in common, its a lack of story and NPC interactions, or pacing that makes it less interesting to watch.
Thank you for this personal recommendation. Was interesting to read from first-hand experience!
Life is Strange (1 and Before the Storm), Witcher 3, Detroit: Become Human.
+1 for Detroit. If you want to stress her the hell out, have her play as the pretty girl android
Life is Strange is also amazing if she wants to try playing since almost nothing is timed and you can rewind most choices too
Though that one choice that cannot be rewinded I obviously fucked up in my first playthrough.
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Horizon Zero Dawn. It actually got my wife to put her Switch away and watch. That's saying something.
Stray is great for an audience
Anything story heavy would be good because then for her it's like watching a movie. Like spiderman, uncharted, god of war, telltale games etc., I would stray away from most RPGs though even though they are story driven but there's usually a lot of fluff gameplay where you're just grinding which wouldn't be very fun to watch.
This. Basically anything that you could watch "as a movie" on YouTube that doesn't have excessive filler in between
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Baldurs Gate 3.
Added bonus that she can help you decide on dialog options
To The Moon is worth playing even if the story has some sad points.
Point and click adventures or visual novels might also be a good fit to play together without it mattering much who has the controls.
Ooh. Been a while since I've heard of To the Moon. There's a sequel to that called Finding Paradise, which I also remember liking. Haven't followed them since, but their latest game Imposter Factory seems great too judging by the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam.
I am a very casual gamer, but my partner is much more invested and skilled when it comes to gaming. I ended up really enjoying watching him play Returnal, to the point that I'd be annoyed if he played without me. It was visually beautiful, the story was movie-like, and I was even helpful in watching where the monsters were so they didn't sneak up on him.
I hope he wants to replay it, because I'd love to watch it again. Highly recommend!
Play it takes two with her! :)
My girlfriend loves to watch me play games. She likes to do “comms” as she says, where she researches tough boss guides, cool weapon locations, etc while I play. It’s interactive for her, and she doesn’t have to learn how to play the game (she doesn’t enjoy most video games and finds them frustrating). One of her favourites was Elden Ring, but really any RPG is a ton of fun for her. My dad used to watch me play video games sometimes too when I was younger, and he liked the Fallout games specifically.
Play retro adventure games, or modern Telltale ones.
Outer wilds I think would be an excellent game to play for the first time with a partner and each try to work out how to progress together.
- The Stanley Parable
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Anything from D'Avekki Studios
- Anything Telltale
My wife enjoyed watching me play Alan Wake.
this is a great suggestion
I think the Telltale games would be good for this. Something relatively short, easy to follow and the storylines from the different games are fun and varied.
What remains of Edith finch.
final fantasies violence tends to be comic bookey (and not the adult hardcore type) and have great stories. final fantasy X is such a great story.
Subnautica maybe.
Ori and the Black Forest
Trine
"Baba is you" the game induces the "ah-a" moment when you just came up with a solition to the puzzle. The player has perfect knowledge about the state of the game but they don't know the solution. It could be played with two heads and one controller.
imo, the funniest part of the game is listening to the player(s) repeatedly stating things from the game like cavemen
"baba is you, rock is push, water is sink... what? ok ok, rock is float.. AARGH"
I like the low ominous sound when you accidentally erase yourself.
"Ah, but what if baba is key? Oh....oh no"
Any RPG with dialogue and choices. Bonus points for custom characters or male/female options.
Before my girlfriend got into games, I would often play a new game with her and ask her to design the create-a-character and ask for her input on dialogue choices. Sometimes we would take turns reading aloud in game text and documents.
She eventually bought herself a switch and blasted out 500 hours of animal crossing during the pandemic lockdown and now she is all in on games.
Disco Elysium
Have you asked her if there are any games she would be interested in watching? If there's a game I want to see the story of but am not interested in playing it myself, I ask my husband to play it. (BioShock, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, shooters or platformers in general). I usually help with puzzles or give input on dialogue options if I want to.
If you or your girlfriend aren't prone to motion sickness, I'd recommend the Portal games and Outer Wilds.
All games from Supergiant games are an automatic recommend from me, but if you're not into fast paced violent games which a spectator might not be able to keep up with, maybe skip Hades and go for their earlier titles.
Both Ori games may be a good choice too since she can enjoy the eye candy and story alongside.
Beyond: two souls would be worth a playthrough.
The Spider-Man games on PS5 have great storytelling.
Cyberpunk 2077
God of War and God or War Ragnarok
- I believe both of these have settings that can reduce the “bloodiness”
Destiny 2….. lmao j/k
Perhaps "Contrast"? It's a gloomy puzzler with a good soundtrack, I would imagine it's quite engaging to watch as well as play.
Slime Rancher? Or a puzzle game like The Gardens Between? You fight in Going Under, but I don't remember it being bloody.
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