Factorio. The factory must grow. Started on my Switch until I could no longer save games, then migrated to laptop. Because the Factory. Must. Grow.

Never in my life have I been so hooked on a game.

Cyberpunk. They fixed most of the issues the game had at launch. There's a dlc coming out soon too that will add a bunch of hours, and with it they are reworking loads of mechanics for free. Can't recommend it enough.

I've reeeaaaally gotten into the rogue-like/lite genre. Dead Cells, Hades, Slay the Spire, FTL, Vampire Survivors... Just endlessly fun and entertaining. Also for all you Vampires lovers, I just picked up a game called Halls of Torment during the Steam sale for cheap. Super fun "vampires-like"

Rimworld

Witcher 3 wild hunt. Game was released in 2015 and we are still getting regular patches 8 years later. Patch 4.03 was just released last May. Engaging storytelling, a vast open world along with 2 expansion pack, deep role-playing elements to create a memorable and immersive gaming experience.

Dwarf Fortress is beautiful.

Slay the spire. Probably have close to 1000 hours playing it and I'm still addicted.

Mindustry. People compare it to Factorio, but Mindustry (which also has an Android version) is open source.

FTL. Theme song triggers ptsd in my wife.

Binding of Isaac

Please don't make fun of me but I am a die-hard SimCity guy

Dwarf Fortress, been playing it off and on for many years now. I happily bought the steam version when it came out!

Cities Skylines for me. It's like building my own little world that I would want to live and work in

Rimworld.

It's kind of funny because I bounced off the game hard the first two times I played it. What really did it for me was the Ideology DLC, gave it a shot on a whim and the amount of structure it gave me for RPing colonies was exactly what I was missing.

Hundreds upon hundreds of hours in now, and it is the game I keep coming back to. Not to mention one of the biggest modding communities I have ever seen in a video game. The only video game subscriptions I maintain currently are to a few Rimworld modders whose work I really enjoy. When I am not playing it, I am working on ideas of themed mod packs to put into it.

Dyson Sphere Program is a close second, it's my favourite factory-builder. It is still in early access but is a VERY polished experience already. Amazing dev communication too.

The Outer Wilds. Best space exploration game with environmental storytelling I have ever played. And that ending...chef's kiss made me cry.

There's no game I don't eventually get tired of, but here are three that are fantastic and I can recommend playing for hours and hours:

• FTL
• Slay the Spire
• Darkest Dungeon

All indie titles, none of them new, still fantastic and well worth it if you haven't played any on this list. Also all challenging roguelikes, so be warned. =P

The most recent, Dave the diver!!

Minesweeper.

RimWorld.

Yes, I am a degenerate.

I haven't see Horizon Zero Dawn in the comments so far. This is probably the best (by graphics, game play, characters, story lines) game I've ever played. I really hope that Horizon Forbidden West is released for PC soon.

Age of Empires 2 in campaign mode

Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Kenshi. It's very unique and one of my favourite games. It also has an amazing modding community.

RimWorld, I can't stop playing it for at least 6 hours every time I launch it.

Also Factorio until I got stuck on making the fucking trains work

I got Slay the Spire recently from the steam summer sale since it’s so cheap. I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s such a time suck, and I normally don’t even like card games. I would 100% recommend it.

Kenshi

Cyberpunk2077 at the moment. Got more than 250 hours on it. Before that I played Dishonored a lot and that before the very first Deus Ex. The story was just incredible and IMHO still is one of the best in video game history.

Factorio

The Mass Effect trilogy.

Kerbal Space Program

Civilization for me... I don't mind the newer versions but I'm old enough that I've played it since Civ I and I do sort of feel like it's lost something as the graphics have improved and animations were introduced. Still, irrespective of the version, every game is a little different and eats hours like nothing else.

Subnautica and Planet Crafter.

The best "just one more thing!" games I've ever found. Huge chunks of time just disappear for me and the people that I've had play it. Very rewarding.

I'm flabbergasted we're getting no metroidvania love in here so I'll list my two favorites: Hollow Knight and Blasphemous. Both with sequels coming out this year which I'm so excited about!

Factorio, Satisfactory, and Minecraft. Generally sandbox games keep me interested the longest since you're just limited by your creativity there.

OpenTTD.

STALKER - with mods this game looks amazing and it's so immersive. I had so many fun/terrifying hours on this

Bayonetta

Dwarf Fortress

Cyberpunk

Mass Effect

Morrowind

Inscryption

On my 3rd playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas

For a hot month at a time, The Sims, then never again for the rest of the year

I recently just played through the whole Bioshock series for the first time. Top tier games for sure, and still hold up very well.

For basically daily consumption, definitely Paradoy Grand Strategy games for me, EU4, Vic3, CK3, HoI4, one of those almost always manages to work out.

As a game that I can endlessly revisit with short pauses in between, Disco Elysium, never fails to resonate with me.

Looking at my steam:

Total: Factorio. Though I do think I need to put that one on hold after I'm finally done with my current save - which is not far out anymore. Also, this game has multiplayer so it may technically not count.

Recent: Derail Valley, a very down-to-basics train simulator, focusing on cargo rail in a fictional rendition of an area in the Balkans. They recently put out a major update, which makes all kinds of simulation features much more expansive.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games 1 through 4.

A bit more than once a decade I play them on emulator and try to 100% them. Great fun. I also try to make sure to visit the locations in the real world if I'm on holiday nearby where they based a level.

It's kind of sad that the Venice Beach area hasn't existed since the 90s.

Edit: I did just realise this thread is about PC games, but I do play them on PC albeit through a PlayStation emulator. I do believe the games are available on PC.

My friends make fun of me for it but...

Football Manager.

I know it's a spreadsheet simiulator but I can't stop.

Rollercoaster Tycoon / OpenRCT2

Transport Tycoon Deluxe / OpenTTD

While they do now have multiplayer modes thanks to their corresponding open source projects, I still think the spirit of these games is firmly in the single player pc game category. Best of all they're both free and available on any OS!

Cyberpunk 2077 story

Outer Wilds. You can really only play it once though but it’s amazing!

Surviving Mars. Every time I get back to it, I enjoy it.

Vampire Survivors I just love that game, after that Tetris.

Workers and resources. It's like cities skylines on steroids.

Portal 2

Since nobody has mentioned it, I'll throw in "X4: Foundations". The X series is janky in places but oh so satisfying if you can get past the jank. Build a military empire to take over the galaxy, or maybe a trading empire. Or maybe you want to become an industrialist and build huge stations to print money. You can be a pirate or a salvager or any combination of the above. And there are tons of interesting mods if you get sick of the vanilla game.

Love this game!

The Binding of Isaac. It is too addictive

I love the Fallout universe and crafting in games, so with the amazing mod community I've wasted (?) nearly 6,000 hours on Fallout 4.

I know it's arguably the weakest of Fallout 1-4 and New Vegas, but it became a refuge for me to escape from the real world into.

Deep Rock

Neverwinter Nights, I enjoy playing some of the campaigns and modules every so often, trying out different builds.

Warcraft 3, just for the original campaigns and also the stupid amount of custom campaigns made by the community.

The Binding of Isaac. One of the GOATs for me.

doom

Dying Light, absolutely fantastic pakour zombie smasher with one of the best cities in gaming. Bought it originally (on a disc) many years ago and played it so much the disc died and I was inconsolable until Epic gave away the ultimate edition and I was finally able to play The Following DLC.

Now I go and look at Dying Light 2 on Steam and wish my stupid country wasn't so damn expensive, even on sale at 50% off it still costs almost as much as a brand new AAA game in the states. Regional pricing my ass, we always get stung so hard for tech down here.

Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Might & Magic VIII

DragonDarkBloodEldenSoulsBorneRing.

Prey. I enjoyed it more than Dishonored, it holds a real special place in my heart.

Transport Fever 2. It's like Transport Tycoon (/Deluxe) from the 90s/OpenTTD but way more beautiful and 3D.

Medal Of Honor 2010 & Call Of Duty 2

Tunic

A cross between Legend of Zelda exploration and discovery with Souls-like combat. Very tight controls. Fantastic art and soundtrack.

Fallout 2

Modded Minecraft. So many good mod packs available.

Fallout 4 ☢️

Minecraft Rimworld Cities Skylines Satisfactory

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Sayonara Wild Hearts

Cassette Beasts, it's like Pokémon far more different than other pokeclones, and far higher quality imo. The beast designs are great, and there's a cool fuse mechanic you can use to fuse any two Beasts, with unique art (over 16,000 possible fusions). Also the shiny-equivalent is better done and actually useful.

My go to would be Skyrim, but i actually stopped playing about a year ago. My current one would be cyberpunk but i'm waiting for the dlc and playing diablo 4 atm.

Definitely Civilization in general. There’s a lot of other games I like that are completely different, but year after year I come back to the Civilization series. And even though they peaked at Civ5, it’s still one of the few games I’ll preorder as soon as the next one is available.

Stellaris and Factorio

Factorio, Rimworld, Terraria. In no particular order, they're all perfect at what they do.

BPM: Bullets Per Minite

Doom meets dungeon crawler meets Crypt of the Necrodancer.

I am playing Skyrim. For the second time, now in Special Edition.

Minecraft

Subnautica, I just keep going back to it it's like my comfort game.

I’m gonna add Space Haven to the list. Still early access but I can’t stop. Been playing it on and off for the last year, 200 hours!

Hitman: World of Assassination

I love to start a new round of Civ 6 or a create a new city in City Skylines, because i learned so much from my previous mistakes and this time i will create a perfect civ/city... only to make super stupid mistakes nonetheless and fail miserably. It's still great fun though.

Tetris.

Ultima and Wing Commander, I know I'm showing my age but I guess it's the nostalgia. I still go back and play through them.

Total War Warhammer games. I keep starting new campaigns to play all the races and subfactions.

The Sims 2. I’ve played a fair amount of all four Sims games including their mobile editions, and Sims 2 remains my favorite after a near (yeeesh) 20 years.

The modding community is still relatively robust, especially for a game that’s so old and out of the four, I feel like I can enjoy even the basic gameplay as a storyteller in Sims 2 more than in 3 or 4. In Sims 3, the focus was less on playing multiple families, so it had to be modded right out of the gate to get back to its foundation and I never liked the way the sims looked. Sims 4 “feels” a lot more like Sims 2, which a lot of people hated, but its expansion and content packs are a complete joke. It costs like $2K to have everything, and they’re still releasing packs. I know it’s just the state of gaming these days, but it just sucks the fun out of a lot of the game.

Half the fun these days, though, is just getting the game up and running on modern PCs. I installed a new hard drive a few months ago and it took the better part of a weekend to get the game fully installed and running. I do have Ultimate Collection, but the less time I have to spend in that stupid EA app, the better.

Oxygen not included

Kenshi! Getting your ass beat by slavers again and again has never been so fun!

Rogue Legacy 2

If you enjoy platformers and roguelikes, you'll like this.

• Skyrim. Curse you, Todd!
• Dwarf Fortress (still on the old v0.47)

I've also recently began playing Spacebourne 2. It's janky and unpolished as fuck, but it's proving really interesting thus far. Considering it's done by a single dude, it's a miracle it even works.

Skyrim. I've probably topped 1000hours over different platforms since release

Heroes of might and magic 3. What a gem! With the HD mod and Horn of the Abyss fanmade expansion (with a new town YARRR!), it's never dull.

I can't wait for the next update of HotA with a second town.

Risk of rain 2, shit's addictive when you start getting decent at it

It's not really a single single player game, more a set of specific genres: "Ubisoft open world", "Immersive sim" (especially Arkanes), "Bethesda RPG" (Even 76 which ye cna play pretty much solo), "Walking Sim" (a genre I fell in love with this past year)

Rimworld and factorio cause time to disappear

Minecraft I keep coming back to year after year.

FTL is pretty fun too

Secret of Monkey Island.

Every so often, I play it again ( thank you, @scummvm@corteximplant.com )

Even though I know every puzzle, it's still fun 2½ decades after I played it for the first time.

Most of them that I play since I'm not big on multiplayer. Lots of RPGs (Mass Effect Legendary), colony sims (Rimworld), city builders (Banished), and grand strategy games (Stellaris)

Ring of Pain. It's a creepy dungeon crawler roguelite. I don't know why, I've seen everything the game has to offer and somehow I keep coming back to it.

Stardew Valley!

Recently, The Stanley Parable

Red Dead Redemption 2 for so many reasons.

Fromsoftware games and Monster Hunter games

Oblivion

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Factorio and rimworld

Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft. I don't play the latter online at all.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance

I'll still install Duke Nukem 3D every couple of years to replay or to play the custom maps that were so easy to make.

OpenTTD is also great to mindlessly play while listening to podcasts.

Quake (1996). Still playing it more than 25 years later :)

Subnautica and Enscryption :)

Monster Hunter (I rarely play multiplayer), MGSV and Xcom 2

Another vote for Vampire Survivors. It feels like a game that has given the developer so much joy to make.

Europa Universalis IV

I know it's not 100% single player, but it's how I play it anyway, D2 and all of its mods.

Vampire Survivors, The Binding of Isaac and Civilization 6, absolutely

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

It's 240 comments and no reference to Touhou?????

I play Taisei Project (FOSS bullet-hell shooter) and 3D Pinball: Space Cadet because it was #1 game in the list on Discover app.

In the category of "bullet-heaven" / vampire survivors I have been putting a lot of time into Bio-Prototype. It has a really amazing upgrade/combination system for your weapons. And it also only costs like $4

Tyrian, but I'll just go to the main menu, enter the secret code and play the hidden turrets game for hours.

Empire Earth 2. Old but good.

Two Point Hospital

Solitaire

Spelunky (HD/2) is my goto chill game. Put Spotify on and just start going for the hard end. It's a 2D, roguelike platformer about exploring a series of caves, and shouldn't be as addicting as it is.

I have no idea why, but I cant get enough of it. 200 hours in HD, 250 in 2, and I also had it on X360 a while back that didnt track time.

Outer Wilds, played it once loved it so much I still get tons of enjoyment by watching others do full play throughs

I play far too much cities skylines

Nethack

You can play single player or

$ telnet nethack.alt.org

to play online

Space Engineers with my 1.5k hrs of played.

I'm sad I'm the only one here that's going to say Xcom2 War of the Chosen

Eufloria Classic

Almost perfect "simple" rts. Nothing terribly complicated about how it works. Really the only thing that keeps me from saying it is perfect is the lack of ability to set rally points for units or select multiple planets to move all the seedlings(units) all at once.

Vampire Survivors on the steam deck.

Crusader Kings, Europe universalis and imperator Rome. I know this is three games but it's the same general idea, as a history fan, this game scratches a very specific itch for me

There's also bannerlord/warband, amazing experience, sorta like ck3 on a micro level

Some of mine have already been said, so I'll bring up Barotrauma as one of mine! Give me some mods for extra content and I'll be able to play for many many hours.

Same with Doom, actually.

Stellaris Cyberpunk No man's sky (idk if it counts as single player per se)

Caves of Qud

Minesweeper. I can always guess the first one right, but after than it gets way harder.

Technically not a single player game but Elden Ring.

I tend to get bored of games fairly quickly. I'll hop from game to game to game, over and over again, never (rarely) beating a game before moving on to the next. Sometimes I come back to these games I've abandoned and start over, only to repeat the cycle. There's only one game that I keep going back to again and again. The Sims. I do wish there were other competing life sim games that offered a similar amount of content and mod support, but alas, there's nothing out there quite like it yet.

War for the overworld. I have thousands and thousands of hours logged.

Starsiege Tribes versus bots. Wish it's ported to Android touch and motion sensors. http://playspoon.com/wiki/index.php?title=Spoonbot https://www.TribesUniverse.com or Outwars https://www.mobygames.com/game/3686/outwars/

Rock and roll racing

Vampire survivors

Civilization 6, this game is a time sink

Railroads! Like Railroad Tycoon but more casual.

Ultrakill

Zombies vs Plants.

X4 and Farm Manager 2021 (I'm super fun at parties)

Mass Effect LE.

Yeah it’s Farm Sim. Something wildly calming about just tractoring around, watching the sunset, feeding the sheep, etc.

BlockOut aka 3D Tetris

Nioh 2

It's 240 comments and no reference to Touhou?????

I play Taisei Project (FOSS bullet-hell shooter) and 3D Pinball: Space Cadet because it was #1 game in the list on Discover app.

Titanfall 2's campaign. I don't replay a lot of games, but I've played through that one a good few times.

Ruiner. F'kin banger soundtrack.

Fallout: New Vegas

Civilization 4: Fall from heaven: Ashes of Erebus. It can be played multiplayer of course, but I almost exclusively play single-player. The lore is fun, the event system can be interesting, the combinations of awesome Civs+Leaders+Religions+Magic really up the replayability. The end game with hundreds of units amongst a large number of factions with hell terrain encroaching makes for a very dynamic endgame.