I recently finished The Last of Us 2. My girlfriend sometimes watches me play my games. And while I thought that TLoU would be a great game to follow, it was hard for her to watch (due to the violence). I wonder if there is a game that would be easy or even interesting for her to watch while I play, without it having to be something strictly “family friendly” , that also has fun gaming mechanics and isn’t just a walking simulator. Looking forward to any ideas! :)
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?
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.
I liked Firewatch a lot, but it basically is a walking simulator
It had me intrigued at first but it didn’t really lead anywhere. Overrated game with pretty dated graphics imho
I played it back when it first released and loved the graphics, I think it’s still generally agreed to be a beautiful game to my knowledge.
The only bit I was underwealmed by was the ending, but they’d also write something with grounded intrigue, which is a difficult thing to pull off without having a cynical ending of “of you thought this was gonna be exciting? This is real buddy”, which wasn’t really what firewatch was evoking.
Adding on:
LA Noire is pretty good, it’s slow enough that you can talk through the different options, or just be silly while having a laugh
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
Outer Wilds, not to be confused with The Outer Worlds!
Great suggestion. Me and my partner “play” a lot of games together where one of us controls but both get to have input and make decisions, and this is a fantastic example.
Holy crap I didn’t even realize Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds were two different games. I keep hearing how good Outer Wilds was, so was excited when it was on the Humble Bundle Choice games a few months ago. Turns out it was The Outer Worlds. Dammit.
So many people make the same mistake, you are definitely not alone. VERY different games though.
Seconded! Thirded, even! It’s so fun to figure things out as a group and do discover things together.
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
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.
Life is Strange True Colors was good too, IMO.
Tried it and didn’t much like it, but everyone’s got different tastes.
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!
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
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
My Dad really liked the Uncharted series. It’d be great for OP if his girlfriend doesn’t mind some violence. TLoU is a bit high on the graphic stuff
I think how they portray the violence in uncharted games is very different to how bleak it’s shown in TLOU though. The tone is overall very cheery and Indiana Jones-esque.
Definitely! It wasn’t clear if the goal was closer to “no violence” or “less graphic violence” though
Horizon Zero Dawn. It actually got my wife to put her Switch away and watch. That’s saying something.
Baldurs Gate 3.
Added bonus that she can help you decide on dialog options
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 retro adventure games, or modern Telltale ones.
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.
Imposter Factory is, indeed, amazing.
I shall try it out then!
