General Game Discussion for March 2026

[Zed Clampet]

Most followed games releasing on each day in March​

This was mostly provided by SteamDB, although I had to work on it a bit. I have no idea why SteamDB only uses "followed" instead of "wishlisted". I never "follow" games.

​

March 2026 Steam (Official) Events:​

Tower Defense Fest: March 9 - March 16

Steam Spring Sale 2026: March 19 - March 26

House & Home Fest: March 30 - April 6

 

[BeardyHat]

Had to change my avatar; given the forum changeover made avatars much bigger, I couldn't stand to look at my ugly mug.

Finished Half-Life 2 last night. Still a really great game, but with a more modern perspective I feel like it falls apart a bit at the end. There were several instances toward the end, when City 17 is in ruins, where I had no idea where to go and several spots ended-up devolving into endless fights against respawning enemies.

It also must have been much longer than I thought since I last played it, because I didn't remember a vast majority of stuff in the second half of the game. Numerous areas and platforming sections that were just complete blanks in my mind.

Anyway, time to move on to the Episodes, I think and hopefully get the motivation to play Alyx afterwards.

 

[Colif]

Servers well known for picking weekends to die. Best time when no one there to fix it.

Appears problem related to themes since its gone onto a different one. This is better than what used to be the default Xenforo theme

Forum was very pretty earlier, I wasn't sure it was me even after checking 3 different browsers. When others saw same thing I knew it wasn't me. As I couldn't do anything about it, I just waited. Someone would notice eventually.

 

[Zloth]

What?? But it isn't March ye... it IS March! Sheesh, time flies. That means Daylight Savings is kicking in next weekend.

I do like having the 'bread crumb' links at the very bottom of the page in this format!

 

[Zed Clampet]

I just downloaded it mostly because it was free. Now I have 4000 more achievements on the "did not achieve" list kept by Steam.

 

[Colif]

What?? But it isn't March ye... it IS March! Sheesh, time flies. That means Daylight Savings is kicking in next weekend.

April is when it ends here. I won't miss it. Managed to ignore most of it this year due to my foot.

I have no idea why SteamDB only uses "followed" instead of "wish listed". I never "follow" games.

Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense

a wish-list means they want to buy it and a follow means they want to hear more information.

Wouldn't it make more sense to know the ones who actually intend to buy? I can understand not combining both as there would be duplicates - same people in both groups - but it is just for before release... if the people are smart they wait until reviews before buying so its just an inaccurate gauge of possible interest.

• Players who’ve wish listed a game get an notification/email when the game is released, and every time it is discounted 20% or more. They only see game announcements in their news feeds after they purchase the game. (But they can obviously see game announcements by going to the Steam store page and reading them.)
• Players who followed a game see all pre and post-release announcements about that game in the Steam news section & elsewhere.

Deep dive: how Steam followers and wishlists relate

Let's find out what the survey says...

newsletter.gamediscover.co

 

[Zed Clampet]

Good news. CoPilot says the RAM crisis isn't real.

Took me a minute, but it finally believed me.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Out of that graphic in the OP, I'm thinking about the iracing arcade game coming out tomorrow, and I'm definitely getting Solasta 2

 

[Zed Clampet]

Okay, this is bizarre.

Yesterday I posted some screenshots of RE Requiem. This included this shot:

So today I started up the game and it gave me this as a loading screen:

If I had backed up a few feet, they would be identical.

 

[neogunhero]

Remember when getting DOOM to run on a calculator was impressive? Try 200,000 brain cells on a microchip:

View: https://youtu.be/yRV8fSw6HaE?si=AfgLbOUsPaqXjhXV

 

[Zed Clampet]

As Capcom said, it's impossible to be scared when playing as Leon.

Leon arrives:

"Cast all your care upon him...." -probably mangled Bible verse.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Okay, I'm definitely living in a simulation. Now, after the example I gave above, @Colif links me to an article and what do I see?

Apparently I'm being too generic.

 

[Johnway]

Well, i've pretty much finished Ghost recon wildlands. I'll probably play the last mission one last time to see the alternate ending, but otherwise beaten the story mode pretty much 100%. Comments on game on usual topic.

So... What next? Well, i still have one or 2 nextfest demos to play so there's that. i might also take the time out to finish my large piece of art i was doing for the last 3 months. Its been glacial progress and i feel i should be finished so we can go back to vital practice and studies once more.

 

[Zloth]

Apparently I'm being too generic.

The game is so short, it's hard not to duplicate!

 

[Zed Clampet]

The game is so short, it's hard not to duplicate!

Yeah, 10 hours really only gives you time to see 3 or 4 things.😀

"The average completion time for a story-driven AAA title from a major studio clocks in around 10-12 hours"

https://gamevoyages.com/how-long-is-an-average-game/

RE games are designed to be played multiple times. You unlock a lot of great stuff in later playthroughs. This game is actually quite a bit longer than most RE games. I finished 7 in 6 hours, for example.

This is basically the exact length that people consider to be correct for a survival horror game. Alien Isolation was brilliant, but nearly everyone criticized it for being too long, 14 to 18 hours. If a survival horror game is good, you should be nearing your breaking point right as you finish.

 

[Pifanjr]

My friends and I continued our Barotrauma game. Apparently last time hadn't gone very well, as we started with almost no medicine left, which caused us to have to restart several times due to a combination of an early spineling attack (which can shoot spines straight through your hull) and us then sinking to the abyss where we got demolished by an abyss worm.

Eventually we figured out how to get past that and managed to get to the next outpost, where we switched out tier 3 scout sub for a tier 3 attack sub. We had to sell a bunch of our stuff to be able to afford it, but it's good we did because after we travelled to the next stop the outpost had been destroyed/taken over and there wasn't another outpost selling tier 3 attack subs nearby. And this new sub works a lot better than the old one. Together with the fact that one of my friends can now craft exoskeletons we've gotten a lot better at surviving.

---

I haven't been playing much because I'm coming down with a cold, but my wife asked me to help level up our kid's WoW character. I still don't like the game, but it's not too bad just mindlessly checking off quests since I don't have the energy for anything more involved anyway at the moment.

Im diggin this new layout tbh, i know they said theyre goin back but.

I miss my dark theme and the "Unread threads in watched forums" page.

 

[Zed Clampet]

My friends and I continued our Barotrauma game. Apparently last time hadn't gone very well, as we started with almost no medicine left, which caused us to have to restart several times due to a combination of an early spineling attack (which can shoot spines straight through your hull) and us then sinking to the abyss where we got demolished by an abyss worm.

Eventually we figured out how to get past that and managed to get to the next outpost, where we switched out tier 3 scout sub for a tier 3 attack sub. We had to sell a bunch of our stuff to be able to afford it, but it's good we did because after we travelled to the next stop the outpost had been destroyed/taken over and there wasn't another outpost selling tier 3 attack subs nearby. And this new sub works a lot better than the old one. Together with the fact that one of my friends can now craft exoskeletons we've gotten a lot better at surviving.

---

I haven't been playing much because I'm coming down with a cold, but my wife asked me to help level up our kid's WoW character. I still don't like the game, but it's not too bad just mindlessly checking off quests since I don't have the energy for anything more involved anyway at the moment.



I miss my dark theme and the "Unread threads in watched forums" page.

I'm really enjoying your Barotrauma reports. I'm definitely planning to buy it at some point.

***

I bought Tennis Elbow 4. It has overwhelmingly positive review scores. When I launched the game, though, and looked at the keyboard controls, my immediate thought was that I should refund it. There are something like 8 different types of shots in the game, and they all have bizarre keypresses. For instance, one shot, maybe the high lob, requires you to press cntrl+alt+up. Every shot was like that. There's no chance I could play that way.

But what I ended up doing was making macros for all the shots and assign them to buttons on my MMO mouse. Much, much better. Since the game has PvP, I did notify the dev that I was doing this and that I wouldn't play PvP, but he told me it was fine and that I could still play PvP if I decided to.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm really enjoying your Barotrauma reports. I'm definitely planning to buy it at some point.

I will say that, in my opinion, Barotrauma is much better when played with other players. Bots are fine for doing rote tasks, but they're not very smart and need to be micro-managed. It works as long as things are going well, but once the chaos starts you'll miss out on actual people making informed decisions and, perhaps more importantly, hearing them freak out about all of the stuff going wrong.

Also, it's much more fun to dose an actual player with hallucinogenics "accidentally".

 

[Zed Clampet]

I will say that, in my opinion, Barotrauma is much better when played with other players. Bots are fine for doing rote tasks, but they're not very smart and need to be micro-managed. It works as long as things are going well, but once the chaos starts you'll miss out on actual people making informed decisions and, perhaps more importantly, hearing them freak out about all of the stuff going wrong.

Also, it's much more fun to dose an actual player with hallucinogenics "accidentally".

As for "fun", I've yet to find anything in life that I don't enjoy more with Guido or Elly May around, but the warning about the general viability of solo is appreciated. I'm running out of time with Guido. As soon as he finds a girlfriend (people from that generation don't really seem all that interested in dating, to be honest), my gaming time will probably be gone for good. I've been trying to find a new co-op partner with very little luck so far. Which is to say that if I want to play Barotrauma co-op, I probably need to do it this summer.

I'm going to try holding my wife at gun-point and see if I can get her interested in any games

 

[dxchase]

As for "fun", I've yet to find anything in life that I don't enjoy more with Guido or Elly May around, but the warning about the general viability of solo is appreciated. I'm running out of time with Guido. As soon as he finds a girlfriend (people from that generation don't really seem all that interested in dating, to be honest), my gaming time will probably be gone for good. I've been trying to find a new co-op partner with very little luck so far. Which is to say that if I want to play Barotrauma co-op, I probably need to do it this summer.

I have games i just cant play without having someone i know, usually my wife or son. Not that i dont like the game itself and its not that i havent played any solo, but they just are more fun. This includes Helldivers 2, Killing Floor 3 and now.. Hytale which to be fair is like an adult RPG i would totally play by myself just in minecraft-looking form but its something my son and i play.

Youre spot on about the dating. My sons turning 21 soon and has friends but noone wants to really go out and celebrate according to him and my son also has no interest in dating anyone right now too lol. So i will def. lose touch with certain games when he moves on like that.

I'm going to try holding my wife at gun-point and see if I can get her interested in any games

. My wife i guess i consider a gamer but her amount of time over the last few years has drastically went down where i feel i gotta do this




I wanna circle back around to the game Hytale. Its, to me, like an open-world RPG that just looks like minecraft but with its own subtle differences in style. Seems there is a lot more to fight and do when exploring the world but im not a minecraft player so i cant truly attest to that, just seems this way for me.

As mentioned, its a game i only play with my son otherwise this wouldnt be a game id play but im kinda glad i did. We've built our house, got all our neat little workbenchs/chests together and now we just run off and explore the world. I look forward to the campaign when they add it

 

[Zed Clampet]

I have games i just cant play without having someone i know, usually my wife or son. Not that i dont like the game itself and its not that i havent played any solo, but they just are more fun. This includes Helldivers 2, Killing Floor 3 and now.. Hytale which to be fair is like an adult RPG i would totally play by myself just in minecraft-looking form but its something my son and i play.

Youre spot on about the dating. My sons turning 21 soon and has friends but noone wants to really go out and celebrate according to him and my son also has no interest in dating anyone right now too lol. So i will def. lose touch with certain games when he moves on like that.



. My wife i guess i consider a gamer but her amount of time over the last few years has drastically went down where i feel i gotta do this




I wanna circle back around to the game Hytale. Its, to me, like an open-world RPG that just looks like minecraft but with its own subtle differences in style. Seems there is a lot more to fight and do when exploring the world but im not a minecraft player so i cant truly attest to that, just seems this way for me.

As mentioned, its a game i only play with my son otherwise this wouldnt be a game id play but im kinda glad i did. We've built our house, got all our neat little workbenchs/chests together and now we just run off and explore the world. I look forward to the campaign when they add it

My son and I played Hytale right before his semester started, and I'm thinking about just playing by myself because it really was very fun. I didn't actually do much combat, but my impression was that it was better by far than MInecraft's original combat that was just spamming attack (I stopped playing before they went to the attack timer). It also seemed like you really have to explore to find places that have the resource you need. There was almost no iron where we were, but I went exploring and found a large ice cave filled with iron. Anyway, that game has a ton of potential, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they didn't add more content in year 1 than Minecraft has in 17 years.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm going to try holding my wife at gun-point and see if I can get her interested in any games

. My wife i guess i consider a gamer but her amount of time over the last few years has drastically went down where i feel i gotta do this

My wife has enjoyed games in the past, but since living together she definitely started gaming a lot more. Unfortunately for me, she isn't very interested in cooperative games. The only exception is World of Warcraft, sadly, which she has become heavily invested in. Even if I didn't dislike the game, I don't have enough time to keep up with her.

 

[Johnway]

Well the Humble choice is up for this money and... Another miss!. Sure, tempest rising is nice, but everything else doesn't interest me.

Speaking of games, its march and i had a quick look at my current list of new games in steam for 2026. So far its 20! but nearly half of them were free and i've spent just shy of £30. Total value £376 or around 92% savings so far. So meh. But all things considered, still being good. I can't see any other games being purchased this year tbh. Surely not as much as 2025 though.

oh and i thought i might have a jolly avatar for the forum as well. Did have a whole load of AI generated avatars as well, but this one seems to resonate with me for some reason. A jolly skull in a space suit. Perhaps symbolzing my meaningless progression in life as i keep doing something whilst being (metaphorically) dead inside. maybe symbolizing my learned disappointment and accepting mediocrity.Probably. it just looks cool or something.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Perhaps symbolzing my meaningless progression in life as i keep doing something whilst being (metaphorically) dead inside. maybe symbolizing my learned disappointment and accepting mediocrity.

Welcome to Club Mediocre. The only people who aren't members are the clueless and the narcissists. There might also be a few non-members who are in the .00001 percent of the population who are actually extraordinary. It's really a tough life progression. We start off as the center of the universe, doted on by our parents, assured of our unique greatness. Then one day we look around and finally think, "Well, that's embarrassing. I've been an idiot this whole time...." This might just be describing me.

Well the Humble choice is up for this money and... Another miss!. Sure, tempest rising is nice, but everything else doesn't interest me.

For me:
I already have Hard West 2 and Small Land

I'll give Tempest Rising, Sworn and Etrian Odyssey a shot

Chants of Sennaar and Zero Hour are not going to happen.

I'll either give Bread and Fred to @Pifanjr 's girl, or if he doesn't want it, I'll just let it expire.

 

[Zloth]

...I don't have enough time to keep up with her.

City of Heroes! Sidekick system works great for teaming up with higher level folks.