We are in the height of summer (or winter in the southern hemisphere) and the vast majority are enjoying school or university vacations. In any case, if you have some free time to play, you might get yourself into a rant about what to play, and we plan to help you out with indecession.
And it is that the normal thing is to have time for a game, so there is no decision to make, but with more time doubts arise and one can end up wasting time looking for what to play instead of doing it.
Free time
But let’s start with the basics, during the holidays there is more time so you have to take advantage of it by playing those games that are eternal. So it is a good time to dedicate yourself to sagas or games that are very long and that we have abandoned or have not even started due to lack of time.
In this section, the Yakuza saga is a good recommendation, they are not exactly 500-hour games, but the entire saga can take that. They are very Japanese games, so be prepared for intense stares, very long silences, discussions of honor and very strange humor. Anime fans will enjoy it.
Another recommended saga is The Witcher, the first and second installments can be played on almost any PC and the third is one of the best games of recent years. It will take you about 200 hours to complete it all. Along with this we can recommend Mass Effect with remaster included and the new Assassin’s Creed saga, playing Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla can take about 300 hours and will help you catch up with the assassins.
Essential sagas
Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts are great options too. Their games are not that long but you will surely want to play them twice to understand the story. Each one can take you another 100 hours, depending on how much your difficulty costs you and also they will not leave you indifferent.
Lastly, the famous Souls saga can take you between 200 or 300 hours depending on whether you follow the side missions or not. If you don’t have a PS5, it’s fine to start with Dark Souls 1 and then get to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, while if you have the Sony console you can also play Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne. It is a difficult but essential saga today.
Any of these sagas can take your entire vacation depending on how much you play, but if you have more time, maybe you can skip a couple of franchises and have something to share with other gamers.
Leave your life online
If you don’t fancy long sagas and stories, you can always dive right into the online world. There are not few options: Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, League of Legends, DOTA 2, CS: GO, GTA Online, Red Dead Online or even FIFA and NBA 2K21.
Any of these can take up all of your vacation time, but unless you’re a big fan, it’s not recommended. Try different genres like shooter and moba, or combine them with a sports game. Also, if you have friends in the same game, the time is more enjoyable and you will most likely become rich in game resources and skins.
This section includes Blizzard, Riot Games and Valve. The big three of PC Gaming offer a lot of online experiences and you can basically play anything without leaving their game client. If you are not aware of what they offer we recommend downloading their game installers and taking a look at their online titles, some like DOTA 2 even allow you to earn some money.
In the variety is the spice
But maybe the best option for some is to take a look at the industry, if you have not had time to play many things you may want to try them all. In this sense, it is better to play several indie, AAA and other lesser known sagas to understand what is going on in the current development.
Therefore, instead of playing the entire Yakuza franchise, you could try Yakuza 0 to understand what it is about, as well as only a Dark Souls and only The Witcher 3. When you go through the online titles you can try Call of Duty: Warzone, your MOBA of preference and keep an eye on Forza Horizon 4 and its online races.
On the other hand, if you want to try current AAA, you should know that, due to the pandemic, it has been a slow year. Which is why only three AAA games stand out to date: Resident Evil Village, It Takes Two, and Hitman 3.
Lost years games
Then you have dumb indies to try, this year only we have Valheim, Loop Hero, and ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights. Also, if you haven’t been able to try indies from previous years, we recommend Hades, Blasphemous, Hollow Knight, Undertale, Cuphead, Superliminal, Firewatch, GRAY, Inside Disco Elysium, VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, What Remains of Edith Finch or Untitled Goose Game.
For its part, among the AAA from previous years that you may have missed we have: Ni no Kuni, Mortal Kombat 11, NieR: Automata, Nioh, Alien: Isolation, Ori and the Blind Forest, DOOM, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Batman: Arkham Knight, A Plague Tale: Innocence. Each has changed the industry in their own way, so they are good options for catching up.
In addition, the best thing about these is that they have been in the market for a while so you will get a community already formed and, above all, quite cheap prices.
Themed games
You can also go for the option of games that always remember the holidays, a category in which the Nintendo sagas dominate. We are talking about games that many associate free time with, perhaps out of nostalgia or a combination of intangible elements.
Here all Mario, Animal Crossing and the many Nintendo “party games” such as Super Smash Bros. Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis and Mario Gold stand out. Luckily, the latest installments from all of these franchises are great starts, so you can’t go wrong with any for this vacation.
Along with these Nintendo games we get others like The Sims 4, Stardew Valley and Fall Guys. Any of these can occupy all your vacations perfectly, in addition, it is most likely that you return to these every summer only by association.
To finish we have special mentions for Final Fantasy XIV, Monster Hunter World and World of Warcraft. Holidays are also associated with MMOs (although MH: W is not exactly one) and these are very addictive and long, in this case we are talking about more than 1000 hours to enjoy them, so you always have the option to play a single title and make this an MMO.
Conclusions
This is how our game recommendations for the holidays conclude. There are still many more, but the ones we mention here are a good starting point, both for those who have not played in a long time, and for those who are attentive to every movement of the industry.
In the same way, make sure you don’t play too many hours in a row without eating or drinking liquids, watch out for possible addictions, stay away from paid loot boxes and try to enjoy yourself before anything else.
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