October 2025 General Games discussion thread

[Colif]

Windows 11 25H2 is out... but it doesn't do much. All it does is changes the version number to 25H2 and installs any updates you haven't got in the last few months. Looking at changes, I have them already

Microsoft's Windows 11 25H2 Update Is Here—But Don't Expect Too Much

The latest version of Windows 11 merely catches everyone up with interim features from the past year and extends its support time frame. At least it installs in a jiffy.

au.pcmag.com

Probably a good thing really.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more Nightingale and was pleasantly surprised to see that the new realm had some actual story elements, complete with main quests. It's not anything groundbreaking, but I really appreciate having a clear goal to work towards and having something to immerse me into the world.

The monsters in the second realm are also a lot more deadly, which is good because the ones in the first realm were complete pushovers.

The design of the second realm is also better. The first realm was quite empty, this one feels more alive.

The biggest downside right now is the crafting. Crafting isn't instantaneous, each item takes a couple of seconds before it's done. You can walk away from the workshop while it crafts, but you can't chain orders using the output of earlier orders and advanced items need several steps (i.e. ore to ingot, ingot to metal plate, metal plate to blade). Then there are a couple of things that take 30-50 seconds to craft, like enchantments or, worse of all, lumber, which you need a ton of but takes forever to make.
It's not too bad if you just keep a stack of most crafting materials on hand, but it can be annoying when you just want to quickly build something and have to wait 3 minutes just for the lumber to be done because you ran out.

 

[Frindis]

Nah, that's not getting greedy, that's getting profitable. They put the product out there for super low cost, lose money, get lots of customers to start paying, make the product good, lose more money while draining away customers from any competition (essentially dumping on the market) and/or preventing new competition, then finally raising prices. Ideally, they don't do that until they think they are pretty much a monopoly, but they'll also do it if they just can't afford to lose so much money anymore.

IMHO, there's simply no way they could have kept that price point, at least with new games. It might work with older games, though, if you could somehow get people out of the "I must play what just came out" habit.

Agree with the sentiment, it's just that with 99,99% of these MUCH larger companies that use a similar strategy end up giving you a worse and steadily increasing product price in the end. They do it because it is basically boiling the frog alive and I don't approve of that as I'd like to be kept at 37 degrees. So it's not so much about the business strategy per se, it is who does it and their reasoning behind it.

 

[CreepyCanuck]

As I lost access to my original account (yay me for an expiring domain with an email that no longer exists), figured I’d start here as new. Some of you may or may not know me as Crazy or CreepyCanuck from the Discord server, even though I’m rarely on it now and not really active as a moderator any longer.

My son (6) has recently discovered a love of horror games on Roblox, and as a horror fanatic, I couldn’t be happier by this. I’ve been playing some with him, and he also likes to watch me as I play, which is naturally Silent Hill f this month.

Hinako just finished up in the school and my son loved the giant plant monster. Oh, to be so innocent.

I’ve also been playing Cronos: New Dawn, and I’m excited to continue and finish both.

 

[Colif]

its possible admin could help with the username thing...

Discord and forums are two different worlds mostly. I been here long enough to notice. I used to be a mod too but I was rarely in the discord channel... my name was but I rarely looked there.

I don't speak for anyone apart from myself but you totally welcome to hang around. Not like we have enough people to say otherwise

 

[CreepyCanuck]

its possible admin could help with the username thing...

Discord and forums are two different worlds mostly. I been here long enough to notice. I used to be a mod too but I was rarely in the discord channel... my name was but I rarely looked there.

I don't speak for anyone apart from myself but you totally welcome to hang around. Not like we have enough people to say otherwise

I’m not overly worried about it. Not like I had much on it lol, just the age and all that. I took a hiatus from gaming and Discord (still have to an extent, though finally coming back) and figured I’d check back into the world and see what’s going on!

 

[Pifanjr]

I defeated the boss of the second realm in Nightingale, a big corrupted bear that downed me in two hits. Luckily the game allows you to bring a NPC companion that can revive you.

Once I got the boss down to 75% of its health it ran off and began healing itself by sapping a few corrupted trees, making himself invulnerable during the process. So I had to switch to my axe and chop the trees down, which stunned the boss allowing me to get a whole bunch of hits on his weak spot, killing it in one go.

I thought that was a fun way to combine the resource gathering aspect of the game into a boss fight. I think that the combat is this game's strongest aspect, especially the two boss fights I've done.

The game would also probably be better with 2 or 3 friends, as you could spread the workload of gathering resources and crafting new items, plus you'd be able to specialise into different types of weapons. I almost exclusively use melee just because I find myself in melee distance most of the time anyway, but there is quite a wide variety of ranged weapons, as well as magic.

 

[Zloth]

There was a lot of area in the NW corner of the Elden Ring map that I could see but couldn't reach. The Volcano Manner in the NW was also CLEARLY way bigger than the few rooms I was allowed into. There are big lava lakes on the map that I can't see at all! So, I probably need to get to the rest of the castle in order to access those other areas.

I play through the game, get access to more of the castle and... uhhh... nothing is even close to letting me go toward that part of the map? Something ain't right. I checked a video and, sure enough, there has been a ladder going up a cliff that I missed several hours back. It leads to a bunch more ladders, too! Kinda weird to climb a mountain via ladders, but it worked. There was a bunch of interesting stuff up there that I would have completely missed because there was a ladder on a freakin' cliff with a bunch of nasty monsters around it's base!

(At the very tip top of the mountain there was, naturally, a boss. I summoned my tankiest summon, let it draw some agro, and started fighting the boss. My summon was going down fast and I really wasn't hurting the boss all that much, so I slid right back down the ladder to get away from it. It's a big bull critter, so it couldn't follow, but it DID cast a spell and blast me when I got to the bottom of the 100 yard ladder! I ain't goin' back up there for a while!)

 

[BeardyHat]

There was a lot of area in the NW corner of the Elden Ring map that I could see but couldn't reach. The Volcano Manner in the NW was also CLEARLY way bigger than the few rooms I was allowed into. There are big lava lakes on the map that I can't see at all! So, I probably need to get to the rest of the castle in order to access those other areas.

I play through the game, get access to more of the castle and... uhhh... nothing is even close to letting me go toward that part of the map? Something ain't right. I checked a video and, sure enough, there has been a ladder going up a cliff that I missed several hours back. It leads to a bunch more ladders, too! Kinda weird to climb a mountain via ladders, but it worked. There was a bunch of interesting stuff up there that I would have completely missed because there was a ladder on a freakin' cliff with a bunch of nasty monsters around it's base!

(At the very tip top of the mountain there was, naturally, a boss. I summoned my tankiest summon, let it draw some agro, and started fighting the boss. My summon was going down fast and I really wasn't hurting the boss all that much, so I slid right back down the ladder to get away from it. It's a big bull critter, so it couldn't follow, but it DID cast a spell and blast me when I got to the bottom of the 100 yard ladder! I ain't goin' back up there for a while!)

I know almost exactly where you're talking about and yeah, that's a lot of ladders. Didn't recall the boss off the top of my head, unless it's the one on the cliff that overlooks the Manor?

I finished RoboCop a few days ago. Think I got about 20 hours out of it, which was definitely worth the $5 I paid for it. I am happy to have finished it though and ready to think about other games.

 

[Pifanjr]

I went into the next realm in Nightingale. It's a desert environment with low gravity, meaning you jump higher and there are large chunks of rocks flying in the air with POI on top. The enemies are also different, with a lot of them resistant to my sword now so I've had to craft a hammer.

I also updated all of my tools and weapons to the next tier. This time I actually paid attention to the different ingredients I had and what their effects are. The final result adds together all of the modifiers of each ingredient and the higher tiers give some major bonuses.

The same holds for food. There is a hunger bar, but it's honestly hardly relevant. The biggest reason you will want to eat is to make sure your buffs are active. You can have three food buffs active at the same time and they can massively increase your stats, making combat, travel and collecting all a lot easier.

While I enjoy combining ingredients, one downside to crafting is that there are too many steps. For example, to make a sword, you need a blade, a guard and a wrap. However, to make a blade you need to first melt ore into an ingot, then forge the ingot into a metal sheet and the forge the metal sheet into a blade, with each step taking a couple of seconds but adding nothing to the process. It would be nice if it was possible to skip some of these steps, or at least be able to use the output of one step to queue the next step so you don't have to babysit the process.

Similarly, it would be nice to be able to use the finished products from a crafting station without having to pick it up first. You can already craft directly from chests, so I don't see why you couldn't use the finished crafts from the station directly.

Luckily you don't need to craft new tools very often. Tools do have limited durability, but they can be repaired using "essence", which you can get from deconstructing any item directly from your inventory, so it's trivial to keep your items in full condition the entire time.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Making me want to play Elden Ring again, except Im playing a lot of different stuff already as it is.

Im at the end game for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night I think, 70% of map explored and not too many corners I can get too anymore. Its a fun game with a weird art style that Ive liked. One of the last movement abilities you get allows to to flip the map upside down and walk on the ceilings, which was a fun surprise and pretty clever I thought.

Also finishing off Hollow Knight finally. Ive got to the last boss but the map was only 67% explored so decided to go and fully check out the Queens Gardens and other stuff missed before finishing up. Theres also the arena I havent touched so probably spend some time there as well. Its just such a homely vibe playing that game, the art and music make it a nice place to wander around. Not to mention the movement and combat just feel really good. Will get Silksong when its done, cant believe it came out at only €20.

Had an urge to pick up Disco Elysium again and Im around 10 hours into another playthrough, maybe the funniest games ever made.

I drop into Crusader Kings 3 most days, at the stage where Im trying to develop my culture enough that my succession law doesnt just split my entire realm into warring sibling factions every time the main character dies. The eugenics program is going well, most kids are coming through as beautiful and Intelligent, just need to breed in some herculean blood for the extra health bonuses and when the culture is ready I'll work on forming the Empire of Guinea or possibly Mali. I usually fall off the game before I hit late medievel times but hope to this time make it to the games end times.

Also been playing Baby Steps every so often, which is very funny for entirely different reasons than Disco, but also quite smart. Nate is a nasty boy.

 

[dxchase]

Took a big chunk out of Borderlands 4 this weekend. Its been fun playing the game cooperatively, they did a good job with most of this one but there are some caveats

First, the game runs fine and i dont really have any, or ever had any, performance problems even if ive seen people with better and worse setups than me complaining. Compiling shaders is annoying, but borderlands is hardly to blame for that since its par-for-the-course now with games and ue5.

The good. It looks nice, the story-line is fine, voice acting is good and the jokes are also funny. That part was done really well, no complaints here. You dont even have to be near people to hear them if you are talking, which i like. The enemies are varied and fun to shoot and then we have...The weapons! They are fun and have good attachments to them. They are pretty varied in design, sound and uniqueness which i like, albeit i feel like i get a lot of single-shot guns or charge-up weapons rather than full-auto SMGs/ARs etc.

There is also A LOT to do. Lots of sidequests and bounties to chase for loot too.

Some bad

There are a couple of different aspects here. They arent big systems, just in-game setups and stuff i dont like.

First off, the inventory is terribly set up. You are forced into using filters that reset almost every time you leave the inventory menu. So if you pick up a bunch of guns, those will not pop-up when you open your inventory. Youll have to choose the tab that says "recent" and even that wont include every gun you just picked up.

When you are selling items, you cant look and compare at the same time so you kinda have to guess whether or not its better than what you have equipped. You have to back out, go to your own menu and then filter out whats "junk" and then sell the junk if you want to compare better.

If you join a friend and are playing with them, you might run into the issue where your characters skills will reset. Its happened to both of us when we joined each others games. Its not always, but it happens.

The map is really annoying to navigate. They put big blue icons over areas for you to find somethin but the map is terrible at showing terrain and the icons can be over an area but that area can have 4 levels for you to look and 2 of them arent accessible until you go around a different way. I get it, its fun to look for things, but this mini-map, and ill throw in the HUD, is just so bad to me. Even with the finder on the ground, itll lead you right into walls and mountains. So navigation is more annoying than it should be.

The game is still a solid experience and if you like borderlands you are 100% going to like this one, although i feel like i had more fun with borderlands and borderlands 2 personally.

 

[Johnway]

So i was scrolling reddit and noticed an interesting one man dev team game that brings back the army men vibes. its cheap and there is work on a free expansion, Check it out:

Melted Valor on Steam

The Green Forces battle the ruthless Tan menace in a war across the neighborhood. Command toy soldiers, fight bugs turned into chemical weapons, and defend your home in this all-out fight for survival.

store.steampowered.com

i think what i like best is of course the battle through the gardens and the home against not just the tans, bugs and killer toys. for a one man dev team i'm suitably impressed.

 

[neogunhero]

Now that the Autumn Sale has come and gone, I’ve ended up refunding a lot of games I picked up. Most of them I picked up on a total whim without thinking if I’ll actually set time aside to play it. Plus, I picked up so many games that I realistically can’t play them all, so I cut back to just the ones I will actually play. So far that means I’ve kept Skin Deep, Yakuza Like A Dragon, Monster Train and Shakedown Hawaii. Everything else I posted about is refunded, but at least now I’m left with a tasty $28 in my Steam Wallet for future purchases. I kind of let my self off the deep end during this sale. I think it’s because the sale started right when I got a big bonus on my paycheck, so that caused me to lose control of my game spending. Thank goodness for refunds.

I'm still playing Yakuza and Skin Deep. Yakuza for when I feel like I want to relax and enjoy a story, Skin Deep for when I want something more engaging.

However, I'm also still deep into STALKER SoC, and haven't given up on that yet. I just made it out the X18 Labs with the documents and gave them to the barkeep, now I'm in Wild Territory helping Scientists push back against an ambush. Sometimes I forget about the factions and which sides you can choose to be on in this game, I'm just kind of going with the flow. It's been so long since I beat this game, and I typically don't play STALKER for the story, but this time around I'm wanting to.

I cranked the difficulty up, and with the mod I'm using that makes guns more accurate and deadly, firefights get very intense. Getting into the lab requires you to take out a nearby camp with a good 20 or so enemies, then going to the lab entrance requires about the same amount of people to go through, so that whole mission was very hard.

I think I'm getting close to the end, and once I finish this game I want to focus more on Yakuza Like A Dragon.

 

[BeardyHat]

Now that the Autumn Sale has come and gone, I’ve ended up refunding a lot of games I picked up. Most of them I picked up on a total whim without thinking if I’ll actually set time aside to play it. Plus, I picked up so many games that I realistically can’t play them all, so I cut back to just the ones I will actually play. So far that means I’ve kept Skin Deep, Yakuza Like A Dragon, Monster Train and Shakedown Hawaii. Everything else I posted about is refunded, but at least now I’m left with a tasty $28 in my Steam Wallet for future purchases. I kind of let my self off the deep end during this sale. I think it’s because the sale started right when I got a big bonus on my paycheck, so that caused me to lose control of my game spending. Thank goodness for refunds.

I'm still playing Yakuza and Skin Deep. Yakuza for when I feel like I want to relax and enjoy a story, Skin Deep for when I want something more engaging.

However, I'm also still deep into STALKER SoC, and haven't given up on that yet. I just made it out the X18 Labs with the documents and gave them to the barkeep, now I'm in Wild Territory helping Scientists push back against an ambush. Sometimes I forget about the factions and which sides you can choose to be on in this game, I'm just kind of going with the flow. It's been so long since I beat this game, and I typically don't play STALKER for the story, but this time around I'm wanting to.

I cranked the difficulty up, and with the mod I'm using that makes guns more accurate and deadly, firefights get very intense. Getting into the lab requires you to take out a nearby camp with a good 20 or so enemies, then going to the lab entrance requires about the same amount of people to go through, so that whole mission was very hard.

I think I'm getting close to the end, and once I finish this game I want to focus more on Yakuza Like A Dragon.

I didn't end up picking up too much, only three games and one of them wasn't even on sale, but I'm going to return it, because it ended up not being very interesting.

I want to get back to Stalker. I was playing it on Deck, which is a good fit for it, but I get so frustrated trying to use a controller in an FPS game, but I don't particularly feel like playing on an actual PC. But that game is so good; it's also been ages for me since I last played and completed it, but I was ravenous for it back when it first released.

 

[neogunhero]

I didn't end up picking up too much, only three games and one of them wasn't even on sale, but I'm going to return it, because it ended up not being very interesting.

I want to get back to Stalker. I was playing it on Deck, which is a good fit for it, but I get so frustrated trying to use a controller in an FPS game, but I don't particularly feel like playing on an actual PC. But that game is so good; it's also been ages for me since I last played and completed it, but I was ravenous for it back when it first released.

Apart from playing an FPS on a controller, now is the time to get back in. The Enhanced Edition is updated now and feels just like the original. Steam Workshop support is a bit shoddy, not many mod makers there and they don't all get updated with game patch releases, but it's there. Some slight QoL improvements as well make it just as good if not slightly better than the original. Only thing is, the game looks like crap if you don't turn on DLSS. FSR and XeSS are there but they look worse. This PCG article explains that it is used to give better texture filtering and AA results than without it, which is strange to me because I think they should just fix the visuals without the use of upscalers lol.

 

[Johnway]

So humble choice for October is out and some good games. Alas i've got System shock and v rising so its not quite as compelling deal for me.

So with a heavy heart, probably will skip this one.

 

[Zloth]

I've played a little Skin Deep, too. The tutorial was pretty disorienting - like they decided the level was too long for a tutorial, so they just teleport you through most of it. It was fun after that, though.

No points for going through this game non-violently.

 

[neogunhero]

So humble choice for October is out and some good games. Alas i've got System shock and v rising so its not quite as compelling deal for me.

So with a heavy heart, probably will skip this one.

Lots of great games here that I don't have but want to check out; V Rising, Atomic Heart, System Shock Remake, Samurai Showdown, Caravan Sandwitch... though I may still skip it. I have too many games as it is. What a great month though!

I've played a little Skin Deep, too. The tutorial was pretty disorienting - like they decided the level was too long for a tutorial, so they just teleport you through most of it. It was fun after that, though.

No points for going through this game non-violently.

The tutorial was a bit disorientating. I get what they were doing, keep flashing forward a little to make the intro story move faster, though I wish it were a bit simpler. However, it does a good job at showcasing the chaos you'll eventually get yourself into.

Although this game has a lot of stealth elements, I am the clumsiest person in the world and can't stay hidden for long so I always end up having to attack the pirates. I try my best to take out enemies before anyone else notices. I try to make sure I always have a walkie-talkie on me so I can deescalate the combat alerts whenever I do get caught.

---

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I still have money in my Steam wallet so I picked up another game, PIGFACE. It's another first-person immersive sim-like, tasking you with small levels full of enemies and objectives and allowing you to approach them however you'd like. You can choose to go stealthy or guns blazing. In a way, it's very much like you're doing a series of Far Cry style outposts, which honestly is a great idea for a game to me. The vibes here are so good. It's very dingy, dirty, scummy, just all around an unpleasant place to be and I love it. It's still very early in development but people are loving it already, and I can't wait to see the future of this game. I think it is being made by a solo developer which is neat.

 

[Frindis]

Been playing some Digimon Stranger Stories and Dark Souls. Stranger Stories got some amazing art, and I have fun playing around with different skills and Digimons you train. It is also a bit challenging since I don't know much about these types of games, so I'm trying to suck up some NPC info and such to help on the way.

Dark Souls Remastered looked like low-textured crap, so I had to download a mod (re-remastered it was called) that made it look like it should. Having a blast entering an almost pitch black area called Tomb Of Giants. The Catacombs (just above) have so far been my favorite area and enjoy these low-lit areas and eerie ambience. Makes it so much more immersive, and you really feel the dread of this place.

Here is my character in Dark Souls, looking a bit peckish for some strange reason

 

[Pifanjr]

I've played a little Skin Deep, too. The tutorial was pretty disorienting - like they decided the level was too long for a tutorial, so they just teleport you through most of it. It was fun after that, though.

Honestly, I'd rather have a tutorial that's too short than one that's too long. I can always look up information that I've missed, but if a tutorial just keeps dragging on it kills all of my motivation to keep playing.

Nightingale for example has a really slow tutorial, which almost made me quit the game. Even after the tutorial the game ramps up very slowly, so it wasn't until I got to the third realm that I started to really enjoy the building and crafting aspects of the game.

It's not uncommon for (survival) games to make you work for basic quality of life improvements, but when done wrong it can just feel like an unsatisfying grind to get to the "actual" game.

 

[BeardyHat]

Apart from playing an FPS on a controller, now is the time to get back in. The Enhanced Edition is updated now and feels just like the original. Steam Workshop support is a bit shoddy, not many mod makers there and they don't all get updated with game patch releases, but it's there. Some slight QoL improvements as well make it just as good if not slightly better than the original. Only thing is, the game looks like crap if you don't turn on DLSS. FSR and XeSS are there but they look worse. This PCG article explains that it is used to give better texture filtering and AA results than without it, which is strange to me because I think they should just fix the visuals without the use of upscalers lol.

Huh weird. I did start it on my Deck some time ago, but it mostly looked ok from what I remember. But it's been awhile, so I may be misremembering.

 

[Frindis]

I still have money in my Steam wallet so I picked up another game, PIGFACE.

Played the first level after the tutorial and looks to be a promising game. It got a huge homage to Manhunt, one of my favorite games I played on PS2 (even the game title shares similarities with the last boss from Manhunt named Piggsy), I also get a lot of Hitman 2 and Straftat feel from the game, which definitely isn't bad

 

[neogunhero]

Huh weird. I did start it on my Deck some time ago, but it mostly looked ok from what I remember. But it's been awhile, so I may be misremembering.

Maybe it's just an Nvidia GPU thing, using anything besides DLSS makes the game look very harsh and blurry to me. I get white pixelated aliasing artifacts, like the sharpness is increased too much without it. Very strange though, never had a game act this way before.

Played the first level after the tutorial and looks to be a promising game. It got a huge homage to Manhunt, one of my favorite games I played on PS2 (even the game title shares similarities with the last boss from Manhunt named Piggsy), I also get a lot of Hitman 2 and Straftat feel from the game, which definitely isn't bad

Yes!! Manhunt and Straftat inspirations is what I'm picking up on as well. I'm very excited for the future of this game, it seems to be off to a great start already.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've mentioned before that I hadn't noticed any bugs in Nightingale, but since then I've had a couple of crashes to desktop. I haven't really lost any progress when it happened, but when it happened again this evening I suddenly felt like giving up on the game and finding something else to play.

Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow, but I might also pick up my Baldur's Gate 3 save again. I've left off somewhere in Act 3 and I would like to finish the game at some point.