Possibly an unusual one, but Dear Esther is essentially a coastal walk if you turn the sound off.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
10 points (100.0% liked)
Video Game Suggestions
497 readers
47 users here now
A place to find suggestions for video games! For example, you might create a post looking for recommendations for a game to play with a friend, or a game that is easy to play if you just broke your dominant hand. Or you might post a list of games that let you use a whip as a weapon. A lot of rules for conduct here are pretty obvious (don't be a jerk, stay on-topic) so I'll bold the weird ones.
Rules
- Please stay on-topic: post requests for games that match some criteria you specify, lists of games with a certain element, or something otherwise relevant to helping people find games that match certain criteria.
- If you're looking to find the name of a particular game or video game series you forgot, you should go to !TipOfMyJoystick@retrolemmy.com. This community is for fielding suggestions for games, not for finding one specific video game.
- If you're making a post that is suggesting games, it should be a list of games. This is partially to help prevent the community from being overrun by people just suggesting their favorite game, and devs suggesting you play their latest game. This is about posts, not comments. It's okay to comment on a post asking for gaming suggestions with just one game.
- Don’t be a jerk. This covers bigotry and discrimination, which includes but is not limited to homophobia, racism, sexism, etc.
- Please don’t directly link to pirated content.
- When advertising something you have worked on, please use common sense for what is spammy. Self-promotion isn't totally banned: if someone asked for an RPG where you can play a lich, and the game you worked on is an RPG where you can play a lich, you can definitely answer with your RPG. I reserve the right to change this rule to be more specific about what exactly counts as spammy and what does not, but I feel I’ll know it when I see it and trust most posters to operate in good faith.
- Please indicate spoilers when necessary. The following format works on both Lemmy and Kbin, but if you are using an app it may not. See this comment for which apps handle spoilers. Note that spoilers in post bodies will just show the text in the preview if you link the post in, say, Discord, instead of spoiling it.
Spoilers for SomeGame
Something that happened at the end of the game!
Something else that happened at the end of the game!
will appear as
Spoilers for SomeGame
Something that happened at the end of the game!
Something else that happened at the end of the game!
Not Rules
Magazine/community icon is the Apple video game emoji and green checkmark emoji for now. Suggestions for a replacement are very welcome.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I'm violently allergic to The Chinese Room and don't really like walking simulators, so that would be torture to me.
Only VR games really gave me that feeling. It was really a near complete teleport to elsewhere... and with a relatively quiet game, it could make for a nice vacation.
I have a VR set that I mainly usually only use for free museum tours (I especially recommend the Roald Amundsen House and the Japanese National Museum VR project), so if you have recommendations here, that would be great too!
Unfortunately I used the Oculus CV1, which Meta has kind of locked out (I suddenly needed an account that I couldn't activate back then), and which doesn't run in Linux. So until the new Steam gadget comes out, I'm out of the VR scene :(
Yeah, I never would have bought a set myself due to all the crap Meta pulls off, but it was a Christmas present. I haven't even dared to sideload yet because they keep such a tight control on what you do with it. I hope there will be some kind of way to crack it in the future.
It was promising when it was Oculus. When they got bought by Meta, it went downhill real quick (unsurprisingly). So I'm waiting on Valve, hoping they'll manage to keep prices vaguely affordable...
Well, it's still usable with Meta, but it is a pain in the ass since everything has to be piped through steam or gog anyway if you avoid the Meta store.
I'm fine with a connected headset. I'm not fine with having to connect to Meta to use a device that used to work just fine, and which no longer works, because Meta has decided, for some reason, that it wouldn't let me connect and enable it. That's just artificial walled garden bullshit and they can fuck right off. So anyway, it's been in storage for years now.
Unpacking.
This is a vacation game if you can't afford to go anywhere on vacation but were forced to use your vacation days. (the game is a cozy pixel art game where you are just organizing stuff and decorating rooms)
That's a bit of the wrong direction. I'm looking for games that feel like vacation, not for games that you can play on vacation. The problem with those tends to be that they are only fun when you have a lot of time on your hands.
A Short Hike is literally a game about a bird kid on vacation in the mountains. It's cute and short fun.
Thanks, I already played it, though.
I played AC: Odyssey during the COVID lockdown and pretended it was a holiday in Greece.
I tried that with Origins during the pandemic, too. But somehow the AC-style of games feel much too detached to me. The game seems to tell you that it's a game at ever chance it gets.
What comes to mind:
- A Short Hike
- Eastshade
- The Sims (depending how you play)
- Dave the Diver
Here is a nice list: https://thecozygamingnook.com/cozy-travel-games-that-feel-like-a-vacation/
Thanks, but I'm not really looking for cozy games per se, they tend to bore me a bit.
I haven't fired it up in a few years but No Man's Sky was beautiful even on hellscape planets.
Haven't played it for years, too. It had this constant sense of futility for me, since there's no goal and you still constantly need to build things you'll never see again.
Probably not one you're looking for, but Super Mario Sunshine is perhaps the game that's most on-theme here.
Long stretches of Saints Row (any of them) meet this criteria - it's easy to just cruise in cool cars, hang out in expensive locations, and go clothes shopping - for long stretches of these game.
Yes, that's the feeling I'm mainly looking for. I already played a lot of 3 and 4 though and can't get 2 to run.
Hitman has massive open levels set in scenic European cities, lavish resorts, beach villas, old manors, and a bunch more. It's a social stealth game where you try to blend in as you explore the levels and get close to your targets, so it would be pretty easy to roleplay as a vacationer if that's what you wanted.
Good suggestion. I'm stopped somewhere in Contracts when playing the series some years ago. I should give it another try.
Final Fantasy XV. No joke, that game feels like a big road trip with some beautiful towns in it and lots of side activities like fishing.
Yeah, that's a solid suggestion, exactly the right vibes. Already played it, though.
Perhaps the obvious answer, but Animal Crossing?
Demon Tides and The Dungeons of Hinterburg
Demon Tides is a 3d platformer in a tropical set of islands and you use abilities to get what you need on the islands or swim in between them. Think of it as Mario mixed with Legend of Zelda Wind Waker. Great music in this game and it has a very warm/cozy feeling, especially since your character's friends are just kinda riding around on a boat and you can run into them literally anywhere
Dungeons of Hinterburg has you vacationing in a small Austrian town where a number of magical dungeons have sprung up basically overnight. The dungeons were turned into a tourist attraction, and you spend the days diving into the dungeons and the evenings you spend with the other tourists and the locals through Persona style social links. This one is literally about the character's vacation
Seconding Dungeons of Hinterberg. I got it a year ago from Humble Choice and was surprised how good it was.
Have you looked at the walking simulators on steam.?
Things like FireWatch?
this one should not be as hilarious as it is to watch people try to play.
Spoiler
this is the opposite of a vacation btw
Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2, plus Chao Resort Island if you enjoy the Chao Gardens from the other two (it's a free fanmade project that's almost exactly like the GBA Chao Garden, but with much more functionality and mechanics)
I just finished it for the first time in probably 20 years, but Blinx 2 as it takes place across a few different biomes/locales, with the very first taking place in a tropical island setting much like a lot of Sonic games (the character Blinx was apparently created by Sonic's creator too). It's very fun and you can customize your own Time Sweeper and Tom Tom members, equipped with their own teams and weapons/gear. I mostly mention this as I feel like more people need to know about and play this game, but it is incredibly fun (I'd love for there to be a Blinx 3 somewhere down the line). There's also co-op and multiplayer, which the first game didn't have.
Rollin' Rascal isn't really out yet, but there's a demo on steam that's been getting fairly regular updates for the last year or so, but it's super fun imo. It's basically a 3D Sonic knock-off but everything just works so smoothly and there's plenty of techniques to learn to get through stages faster. There's even multiplayer on the demo so you can race other people online and customize your own "Rascal."
Dishonored 2 maybe?
The broken sword series has a lot of tourist vibes. It's part of the story visiting monuments and countries and unraveling crimes and mysteries. Great games if you're into point and click adventures. It always feels cozy when I replay them.
Seems like I have the first one in my library, so I'll try it out. Thanks!
Far Cry 1,3,4,6 are pretty fun. They are bad games though. Imagine a bad but still fun vacation