Try dragon age inquisition
Kingdom of amalur reckoning. It actually started development as an MMO and then was turned into a single player game. Its what you’re looking for. Check it out
Check out Valheim, it’s cheap and a ton of fun.
Have you tried Star Wars, The Old Republic?
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LOTRO is what you’re looking for…simple to play, group or solo. I have been soloing since beta.
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Beat me to it lol.
Guild Wars 2 is worth a shot. I have played quite a bit and never felt the need to group up.
Great customization. Excellent open world. The storyline is good too (fully voiced main story, even for the original content from years ago)
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Wanna try something creative and craft, build your own, explore, etc. Try Wurm Unlimited on Steam or Wurm Online by google it.
Its a great game, but not very many people can handle it, other than that, head over to Everquest II.
I play GW2 all the time. For people that aren’t familiar with it, it’s hard to compare it to what you know if you’ve only played WoW; there’s always other people around in GW2, and you’ll always be doing things with or helping out other people, but you aren’t really forced into groups or awkward social interactions to do any of it. It’s kind of the perfect formula for someone comfortable with posting on forums but not so much with dealing with guild or group chat constantly. The community is pretty friendly and helpful, too.
It can be overwhelming and a little tough to get into at first, but it’s worth sticking with even if it doesn’t feel right when you start out.
SWTOR is another good suggestion people had, since you can basically play it single player and just enjoy the stories without any pressure.
ESO can be really good and is another good suggestion, but I found that it doesn’t really support solo play as well as it gets credit for. There’s a lot of open world questing content, but at level cap that loses a lot of its appeal and you’re sort of stuck with the usual PvP/challenge dungeon alternatives. And it’s really hard to make sense of the story in any kind of order these days, too…fun, especially if you’re new to it, but kind of unapproachable.
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Hi! I’m actually a SWTOR Founder player. I love that game, but I have found that with my rapidly deteriorating health and reaction times, I’m just not capable of doing the flashpoints solo, even with the combat droid.
I’ve played FFXIV for just over a year, and have the same issue when it come to duties, which gate the MSQ. I just can’t do them with the NPC groups. Even as a level 90, with the “upgraded” gear set and some melds, I just can’t do it.
On several recommendations, I did try Guild Wars 2. I love the simple hotbar, and the action feels nice. But it’s not very intuitive. Though, that may just be me needing to join a guild or do more research. For example, I looted a “blue” piece, and it took me a few to realize I had to unpack it first and choose one of three offerings. There doesn’t seem to be any real questline. Just stuff to do as you explore.
Also, keep in mind that I am retired and don’t have money to drop on every suggestion.
I like guild wars 2. It’s a lot of solo content, with a lot of grind together content. If your a Mount collector or transmog collector, it’s a great game to get into. Lots of collections and achievements with lots of value to them. Also no sub is nice. Pay for what you want, expansions. It’s mega casual friendly as well as good hardcore content for the competitive.
Demons Souls
Dark Souls 1-3
Bloodborne
Sekiro
Elden Ring
I honestly wish I could play on a private WoW server. It would obviously only be fun for so long as with any game using cheat codes. Also not willing to risk ban on an account I’ve had since BC.
Would be fun to play WoW without limits for at least a while.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Great character customization, great open world content, is entirely solo friendly, not an amazing story tho but I think it’s a cute story personally
Stardew Valley: Not great character customization unless you use mods, great open world content, is entirely solo friendly, amazing story
The Sims 4: Great character customization, open world content is alright, is entirely solo friendly, and you can make your own amazing story
Those are the games I like playing that meet your criteria, I know you said you wanted to play something like Halo or Gears of War tho, sorry if I wasn’t much help on that front
I’d say you’re doing a fine job playing a game right now.
Id check out final fantasy 11
The game you’re looking for might just be Lord of the Rings Online.
Customizable characters. Check
Big open world. Double check. (Think of Azeroth and then double it in size. It took me 3 hours to ride a horse from the Shire to Mordor.) Plus very well done lore and so many stories and amazing environments.
Easy to solo. Check. Now, dungeons and so on you will need to over level but that is easy to do. The open world content is so massive it takes months to years to level the 130 levels just going at whatever pace you feel easiest.
Plus the community is primarily older gamers. Lots of retired folks. Even the main twitch streamers are all older like 45+ in age.
Lots of seasonal holiday events. Lots of player run music events pop up in towns like Bree with people just standing around dancing.
It has a lot of similar aspects to FFXIV and WoW but a bit older and not rushed feeling.
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I loved LotRo.
I mostly stuck to the PVMP (player vs monster player). Sadly, thats been super unbalanced for a while now.
It was still really fun though, especially when you get a big group of people and have actual wars. Trying to flank, sending scouts. Good times.
Game is very dated, but still holds a place in my heart.
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old school runescape may be a good bet. its more or less a singe player game but with some socialization thrown in if you want. Nothing is stopping you from completing basically everything solo. theres a couple of odd quests that require you to trade with a player but thats about it.
Hey Shreds—got a question for you. I don’t know if you’re familiar with (or even interested in) Hogwarts Legacy, but since you mentioned Stray as a favorite: I tried to play Stray, and it makes me severely motion sick after about 15 minutes. Since you seem to play all sorts of games, I wondered if you’d have any input as to whether Hogwarts Legacy would be similar enough (movement wise) to Stray that it would cause the same sort of issues for someone sensitive to games like that.
I don’t have issues in WoW generally, at least not the same kind of issues. Sometimes fps drops will cause eyestrain and headache, but not outright motion sickness with nausea, like Stray did. I don’t play many other games, only things like WoW, FFXIV, LotRO, RIFT, and I’m fine with those.
Any input would be helpful! 