Question What game is the best stressbuster?

[XaviErr]

Something that comes up a lot when you ask gamers why they like gaming is the phrase “I do it to relax.” After a long day at work or school, it’s great to be able to rest your mind and pop in a game—it gives you something to keep you occupied while cooling down from real-life anxieties. What's your stress reliever game?

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well I've never played Fortnite and Minecraft, and likely never will (not my type of games), and of the other two, I was a bit disappointed by GTA V, but IV was pretty good. I also liked The Witcher 3. I can't say any of them were as "relaxing" as one I played this summer during an extreme and stressful heatwave we were having, called Days Gone. It's just very unique and well done. The game world is beautiful, outdoorsy, and fun to ride the bike through, the enemies are immersive and quite often random and unexpected, and the sound is really good. My last play through I didn't sleep to travel in daytime like I used to, so I was often riding through dark forests and tunnels at night. Mind you as well, if you ride too close to a zombie that sees you coming, they can pounce on you and knock you off your bike, especially at night, when they are stronger and more aggressive.

This last play through I also played with a mod called Massive Hordes, which makes most of them MUCH larger, except for ones that are scripted as part of the campaign. At first I worried not sleeping would conflict with this and make things too hard. After all, if one zombie can knock you off your bike, imagine what 500 could do if you unexpectedly rode up on them. Then I realized you can use them like weapons against hostile camps. All you really have to do is maintain stealth (mainly stay quiet), alert an enemy with one of 3 types of oil can suppressors you can scavenge from abandoned cars, then watch the horde swallow them up as they loudly fire back at you. LOL

The game just uses some interesting concepts, like zombie hordes that roam, and hibernate collectively. Your bike is also a small armory of sorts you can store extra ammo on, and you have to be near it to save game. You can also upgrade it quite a bit and you have to if you want to get all the syringes in medical cold storage crates the game's federal emergency response teams leave behind (NERO - National Emergency Response Organization), because some of them you have to jump the bike over a big gap to get to. Syringes boost your Stamina (most important), Health capacity, and Focus (slows time when you take an aimed shot).

There are also several missions you do for one of the NERO scientists in exchange for him looking for your once assumed dead wife, including one that takes you deep into a dark cave to look for his missing team of 4 scientists. That is a very spooky mission. It's just very well done, and the story is engaging and immersive. There's no other zombie game quite like it, but as the devs say, it's not really just a zombie game.

 

[Pifanjr]

I think any open world game in which I can just roam around works as a relaxing game. Skyrim, GTA V and Assassin's Creed (especially the ones with sailing) come to mind.

Other chill games that come to mind are Stardew Valley and Sunless Sea. Building management games, such as Cities Skylines, can be relaxing as well, as can 4X games, like Civilization, especially on lower difficulties.

 

[Brian Boru]

I would vote 'Other' if it was a choice—none of the 4 work for me.

any open world game in which I can just roam … 4X games, like Civilization, especially on lower difficulties

Completely agree, those would be my choices too if I want to relax for 30-60 minutes.

For 5-10 minutes, I play an old solitaire game called Pohtzee, which is a cross between POker and yaHTZEE—Yahtzee scoring using cards instead of dice. Available in this cool free pack of solitaire games, under the Action & Scoring tab:

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Check out this old thread for further suggestions:

What PC games do you play that are relaxing?

So at the moment it's a bit stressful being cooped up indoors. So what PC games do you play that you find relaxing? I'm currently playing American Truck Simulator Two Point Hospital House Flipper I'd also recommend My Time at Portia. Although not give a good review in PC gamer I found...

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[MrShadow]

have any of you ever played a game called stardust on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1571640/stardust/ (ive linked as it doesnt seem to come up in searches for stardust on the steam app)?
i honestly recommend it for chilling out with,its not difficult and doesnt cause motion sickness,its easy to understand,any ancient or modern computer will run it etc.
i bought it a while ago and use it as my relaxation game -its very unique,and theres no death or level upping, its very similar to mindfulness,it takes you out of your head for a while.

it used to be FORZA horizon 4 as my relaxation game,i had around 90 odd cars in the game collected and hundreds of hours spent, but i had to remove it off my C drive due to lack of space for my adobe creative cloud software-damn thing wont install on my external SSD game drive yet i can run an arachni server off it no problem.

 

[Colif]

choice added for sane people who might play another game

 

[mainer]

It varies with my mood, but I agree with some others, that loosing myself in a familiar open world game like Skyrim can be extremely relaxing. The mechanics and controls are so ingrained in my mind, that I don't need to think about what keys or buttons I'm pressing, I can just loose myself in the world. I also love the settlement building part of Fallout 4, and I can spend hours just building up different settlements, giving each one a unique feel or theme (as long as I don't get interrupted by one of those popup messages like: "Sanctuary Hills is being Attacked!".

And there are times I just want to relax by looting and killing monsters in a good ARPG. I often go back to play Grim Dawn, Titan Quest, Sacred 2, and now Diablo 2 Resurrected. Sometimes that frantic combat of defeating mobs of enemies and taking their loot is a great stress reliever.

There are also times where I just want to be part of an epic adventure, playing some older games like the Mass Effect games, or one of the Dragon Age games, even the some of the older classics like Baldur's Gate 1 &2. The Witcher 3 would also fit in this category.

It just depends upon my mood, and to a certain degree how much time I have, so it's impossible for me to list just one game.

 

[bh3bh3]

If you want to get out of stress, play kids game like candy crush, or something to do with marbles and bubbles. Try the easy game it, this will lessen your stress.

 

[Zloth]

None. If I want to relax, I take a nap.

 

[V4tex]

GTA is the best stressbuster, you can doing anything in that game