Good singleplayer games without any story?

Players usually want a good story in their games. I can enjoy a good story too, but sometimes I just want to get going and do stuff without listening to several minutes of dialog in-between action.

Do you know any games where there’s no story (or very minimal/skippable one), and the game mechanics alone carry the game?

EDIT: Thank you all for the suggestions. There are some that I’ve never heard of and look very interesting. Will definitely pick some of them up.

fraenki,

Earth Defence Force 5

There’s mostly only some really funny voice over during the missions. EDF6 is already there but the developer always takes his time to translate the game into English.

Firefly7,
@Firefly7@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you’re looking for something arcadey and replayable, the Touhou series might be worth looking into. Great music, too.

flyinghorse,

Disc room is such a fun game and it has almost no story

arcrust,

Factorio. All about letting the factory grow.

I also started playing wizards of legend recently. It takes maybe 20 minutes to get through the tutorial, then it’s just game. I’m enjoying it so far

Smoke,

Oh no there’s a stoty all right. It’s the story of thinking you’re in Castaway, then finding out you’re actually in The Lorax…as the Once-ler.

sculd,

Vampire survivor? 20 Minutes Till Dawn?

Vordus,

Vampire Survivors has more story than vampires. Which is a low bar to clear but it just about does.

LoamImprovement,

I know Axiom Verge has a Speedrun mode that cuts out all the cutscenes, I don’t know if that qualifies though, and you do kind of have to know what’s going on outside of that. The story itself isn’t necessary to enjoy the game though.

Sordid, (edited )
@Sordid@beehaw.org avatar

Kenshi is a post-apocalyptic sandbox open-world RPG / base-building game with a bunch of lore but absolutely no plot for you to follow.

Lmaydev,

One of my favourite games. So much fun.

Illustrious_Luck5514, (edited )

Interstellar Pilot 2. It’s admittedly a mobile game, but genuinely the best one I’ve ever played.

TLDR: It’s a sandbox spaceship pilot simulator where the “goals” are to dominate laissez-faire capitalism

Essentially, in the game, you start with one small starship, and travel the universe completing missions, buying and selling goods, and fighting off bandits.

Other games have this premise, but they’re mostly point-and-click games that take place universally in menus. Not so for Interstellar Pilot.

In Interstellar Pilot, the UI really matches the thing that you’re doing. When you’re at a station trading, it’s an ordinary menu, but when you’re in your ship, the UI is much more reminiscent of an actual ship’s dashboard, and you can pilot your ship anywhere you like in the 2.5d space, rather than just clicking buttons. Even in stations, where the UI is more menu-ey, the buttons you can select are on the peripheries of your screen, while the center is occupied by a view of the station and the area around it, as it updates in real-time.

Anyway, once you get enough money you can build up your empire sandbox style, buying ships and having them run automated scripts in the background—and eventually building stations that can let you manufacture goods and military ships to further your plans.

And what are those plans? They can be anything! IP is a sandbox game, so you can make as much money as possible, set up a self-sufficient economy, hunt bandits, or attempt to conquer the galaxy to your heart’s content.

And that’s not even getting into how good and layered the combat is. From light but reliable lasers, to stronger but less accurate plasma pulses, to slugthrower-style guns and guided missile, to ECM’s, which interfere with missile guidance, to mines that deter chasing another ship, to the hexagonal shield system, in which you can only take so many hits from each direction before they start to damage your hull, to the fact that your weapons themselves sometimes take damage randomly, to the space dust and cloaking devices that ships can use to hide and the echolocation mines that can be used to find such ships.

That said, for all the complexity the combat has, it never feels overwhelming. At any point, the player can pause the game at any time, freezing the entire universe, but still allowing the player to manage their stuff in it—activating weapons on ships (that will fire right when the player resumes time), buying and selling goods and ships, giving their ships new orders, etc.

Honestly, the game’s combat is both intuitive and spectacular and rarely gets talked about just because of how simple it feels. It’s also integrated perfectly with the trade and cargo systems. If your ship gets hit without it being blocked by a shield, some cargo might fall out of it, and you’ll have to pull it back in with your tractor beam before your opponent grabs it with theirs. Artillery shells, missiles, mines, and ECM’s have to be stored in your cargo bay, so you have to keep track of how many you have and balance that with how much cargo you’d like to carry.

And the ships are crazy customizable. There’s over a dozen different ship models, each with its own stats for things like maximum speed, turning rate, hull strengh, and weapon turret placement. As for weapon variation, each ship model has a couple of different variations with different turret placements, but that’s just the beginning. At military outpost stations, any weapon can be swapped out into any turret (as long as it’s compatible with the ship model), and ships be upgraded with a variety of other components too (better generators and shields, cloaking devices, passenger modules, etc.)

And for what it’s worth, the art and animation kicks ass. (Admittedly the old IP1 models more than IP2, but the creator (yes, singular) is planning to add custom paint jobs in the future, allowing for even more ship customizability). The space scenery looks stunning and seamless, and the ships all feel unique control-wise.

Anyway, Interstellar Pilot is a phenomenal game, and a (rare) credit to the entire mobile gaming industry. If you’re going to get it, I recommend getting Interstellar Pilot 2, which is the one currently in development (by the way, this entire game was made by one person in their spare time). (I think it’s also on Steam now for PC but it did originally start as a mobile game so I’m still counting it as one)

wtfeweguys,

How the heck is this game free? It doesn’t even capture any data (on iOS) except identifies and they aren’t used to track players. Gonna give it a try.

johntash,

Well you convinced me to try it, and it’s even free. Thanks for the recommendation!

ZeroSkill_Sorry,

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord. There is a small background storyline that you can choose to follow, or completely ignore. When I play, I create a story in my head.

CapedStanker,

I amassed a huge amount of gold and then wasn’t sure what to do. The story said I had to find some guy but I kept just chasing him around the map and could never catch him.

Chef_Boyargee,

I’d have to recommend Untitled Goose Game, Goat Simulator, the Karamari series, and music based (do the thing to the beat) games like Dance Dance Revolution, Taiko Drum Master, Guitar Hero, etc.

SeriousBug,

Return to Castle Wolfenstein? The new Wolfensteins have quite a bit of story, but the old one is all skippable.

radialmonster,

Dead Cells, you can even turn off 'lore' in settings.

Omegamanthethird, (edited )

Rogue Legacy was going to be my suggestion. Such an easy (as in no stories/puzzles to keep track of) game to pick up and play. It’s something that was lost a bit on the second game. But it looks like you’ve played it.

Dungeon Encounters is a pure turn-based RPG with almost no story.

Theatrhythm is a fun music game.

Sound Shapes is a platformer.

Immortal Redneck is a FPS rogue-like.

That’s just what’s in my games list that might be what you’re looking for.

Nomecks,

Runescape. Open and grind.

Durango807,

Ready or Not is basically just a swat game with no story or dialogue that matters to gameplay.

Or a building or strategy game. Something like Cities: Skylines would maybe be good if you like that sort of genre.

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