BurningSheep

It's essentially GSC making a fantasy version of their Cossacks games. The twist here is that together with mass armies in a traditional RTS structure, there are also heroes. Playing with heroes and units in the campaign wasn't for me, but playing in skirmish mode with heroes turned off was exactly the right thing to do. The four factions are fairly well balanced with a good amount of interesting unit and upgrade choices, though it has to be said that two of them (the main campaign factions) are more diverse than the others. It has a decent look and some decent music as well.

I had to think of "Dark Reign 2" when I saw the title. Doesn't seem like a bad game at first, but the pathfinding of the units is awful. Throw in some mission and map design that really shows you just how bad and you have a recipe for disaster. The soundtrack needed some getting used to, but it's really good. Have a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcbMQCLYPyg&list=PLBdu840wOsp_8dsl0ad-IN3tI2pUsQjh9&index=2 "Maelstrom - The battle for earth begins" is a similar case. Pathfinding is also a problem, but units are also just awful at reliably engaging enemies, especially when it comes to melee. But the soundtrack is actually better than I at first gave it credit for. Also, it has some pretty good destructible environment. Lots of small details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7enUbtUXQg&list=PLxyPT8_piocq5osJbv-MzpiI93HByIYjP&index=12

Only the eight bottom ones (excepting Manifold Garden). Some of the others aren't even out yet. Armored Head is an arena FPS as said. Simple but effective graphics and a good roster of fun weapons. Gameplay is surprisingly satisfying. You defeat 30 waves of murderous robots and then you are done. Fibrillation HD. Same developer, but it's an atmospheric walking simulator with horror elements and some secrets. Some surreal environments. Kairo. Kind of similar in terms of environments, but much more colorful and the gameplay is focused on puzzling instead. Wonderful soundtrack. NaissanceE. Kind of a similar deal as with the two preceding games, but it's more focused on a light-dark-dynamic and platforming, some of which was somewhat difficult. Massive scale much of the time. Bokida - Heartfelt Reunion. Open world with distinct style. Mostly it's just shades of white and grey and black with some color thrown in. Cool movement mechanics that make travelling quite a lot of fun. There was a good amount of puzzling, but I'd say it's mostly an exploration game. Vivisector - Enemy within. Linear FPS by Action Forms which later made Cryostasis. Bad first impressions since nature in this game looks awful. It's an arena shooter at first, but becomes more linear with cooler environments and it also just becomes more fun because more weapons get unlocked. You are empty. Another ukrainian FPS. Good atmosphere, linear, straightforward. Reminded my of Half Life 2, though it has some strong soviet vibes to it. The last two games are hard to find anywhere though.

I'm trying to avoid duplication here, so I won't mention games which are already on the Game List. Or at the very least I will try to avoid it. All of the games mentioned here are available on steam or will be once they are out. - Ravenfield: Battlefield-esque single-player FPS which has been in development for a long time. - Trepang 2: FEAR-inspired single-player FPS. - RIPOUT: Coop-Horror-FPS - Devilated: FPS with RPG-elements, calls itself a "boomer shooter". - Spirits of Xanadu: Immersive Sim (currently on sale for pennies) - HROT: Retro-FPS set in post-soviet setting, Quake-inspired - Selaco: Story-FPS based on GZdoom - Exocide: Retro-FPS apparently somewhat inspired by The Darkness - Brutal Fate: Retro-FPS, I think the creator was involved in some Brutal Doom-mod or so. - Vomitoreum: Metroidvania-FPS, Horror-themed - Ultrakill: Retro-FPS, mentioned by another user, but not on list. - GTTOD: Get To The Orange Door: "neon synthwave virtualscape FPS" - Peripeteia: "first-and-third-person role-playing stealth game taking place in alt-history cyberpunk Poland. Inspired by immersive sims from Ion Storm and Looking Glass Studios" - Fortune's Run: "high-octane first-person shooter with stealth and RPG elements" - Brigand: Oaxaca: "highly difficult post-apocalyptic RPG/FPS set in Mexico" - Cruelty Squad: "An immersive power fantasy simulator with tactical stealth elements set in a sewage infused garbage world" - Golden Light: "Survival-Horror FPS" - Post Void: "hypnotic scramble of early first-person shooter design that values speed above all else", very cheap. - Ad Infernum: Horror adventure - Armored Head: Small arena wave-based FPS - Fibrillation HD: Same developer as previous game, journey through dark and strange environments, Horror-elements. - Kairo: Atmospheric first person-puzzle game, abstract colorful environments. - NaissanceE: journey through massive, brutalist environments, platforming elements, light-dark-dynamic. (is free at this point) - Manifold Garden: First-person-puzzler with abstract environments. - Bokida: Heartfelt Reunion: First person-open-world-puzzler with unique aesthetic, easy travelling and environmental "destruction". - (not on Steam, basically Abandonware) Vivsector - Enemy Within: Arena shooter that eventually turns into a more linear shooter. - (not on Steam, basically Abandonware) You are empty: Short FPS in the vein of Half Life 2, takes place in postapocalyptic soviet setting

(All of this with reference to Enhanced Edition): It has great environments and atmosphere. The gore is well done as well and it's difficult. The AI of your buddies isn't great, but definitely serviceable, especially with some helpful commands from the player. They also tend to be much better with melee weapons. It has some balancing issues and some things aren't entirely obvious. Dedicated melee can be powerful, but isn't really for beginners. Otherwise Hellfire and Flamer are fairly easy to use and quite powerful. Though area-of-effect-stuff can be very dangerous to your own team when playing with Friendly Fire on in Multiplayer. Tl;dr: It's basically a horde shooter with Doom 3-aesthetics.

I have posted there occasionally. Perhaps I'll put together a small list soon and post it there.

Well, not everyone will like what they get equally. As said though, it's not like I started liking it immediately.

Ok, good to know, thanks for the quick answer!

Hello everyone, quick question: Where are we supposed to put suggestions for the list? Things that might have gotten overlooked, are forgotten, not out yet or simply obscure. Do we have a thread for that? Mostly asking since I recently stumbled across a bunch of new FPS' and immersive sims and wouldn't mind giving them some exposure.

I played it for maybe 20 hours or so recently and I mostly enjoyed it. Really unique with great art, weird music and characters. I'd say I still prefer Pathologic by the same developer, because it seemed more well-rounded and functional as a game. I didn't try to finish it in the end, because there was no chance I would actually have been successful. I did run into boss fights more often than apparently should be the case and these I really disliked. There were some indications that something about the story progression was bugged, but I haven't been able to find any info on it.

Petroglyph are an ok developer. That seems to perfectly describe my feelings about their games. "Universe at War" probably has the best factions and ideas, but unit supply is so limited that not a lot of approaches actually work (just 10 hours with Skirmish mode though). I found "Grey Goo"'s unit design a bit boring and was kind of weirded out how much they focused on having a cinematic story. It works, but never really felt inspired in any way. It's also surprisingly bland visually. Not just in regards to unit design and looks, but also as far as the landscape is concerned. Still rather high hardware requirements. "Forged Battalion"'s faction building system basically just encourages the player to unlock everything and then use the "best stuff" so to speak. Otherwise it was fun for some hours to try around with specific builds, but imho the trade-off isn't great. After all, there is no faction system, so everything feels very generic. On the other hand there are not enough faction building options to really be able to hone in on a particular idea.

"TehSnakerer" has done a review of it in case anyone's interested.

The art was certainly great, but the writing kind of mediocre unfortunately.

It took me a few hours to really get into it, but then I did quite enjoy it. It may be open world, but it's only about 10 hours long as far as I remember and the mix of exploration and combat supported by good atmosphere did work very well for me. The combat is a bit on the simple side so that gets a bit repetitive, but as said, it's not very long. Similar to the first game by the same developer, it feels a bit like Stalker. With Sir it was mostly the atmosphere and sometimes the sound, with this one it's the exploration and weird phenomena as well as the AI squads running around, battling it out. Would certainly recommend it.

It's some kind of experiment/small project by the same person that later made "35mm". I don't think Ross would be missing anything by not trying it.