That’s a lot of Thief content. I have to ask, have you started by any chance to speak like the guards? 
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Hey Siri, define “unsurprising” for me.
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100% and Platinum’d Lego Batman 3 and Lego DC Supervillains.
Now I am playing the remaster of Okami. So far the game is amazing.
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In my case, WoA didn’t make the top 3 (or even top 5) this year. Certainly didn’t expect my top 3 to look like this when the year started:
I had Pentiment and Crusader Kings 2 in 4th and 5th place. The former I can understand, since I spent a good chunk of spring playing it, but the latter I’ve only started dabbling in recently in an effort to learn it, and somehow racked up 50 hrs without even playing a campaign yet
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PowerWash Simulator.
I played it quite a lot when it was free on ps plus over the summer and only recently have gotten back into it but I’m enjoying it so much.
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I came across Suzerain a few month ago, and it caught my attention a bit.
May I ask the ratio between numbers and the political intrigue?
Because I do not really care for the Paradox style colouring map game. Way too many spreadsheets, logistics, and micro-managing. Not enough presiding, delegating, and managing the political landscape.
Suzerain kinda looked like that.
Could you help me to better see if it’s the case?
On a more practical place: how long is a run of it?
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Of course! I was actually planning on posting here about it last month after playing it, since I think it’s a really neat and unique game, but got too lazy to do so, lol. But I was thinking you and @HerbGamer in particular might fancy it if you haven’t played it yet.
Anyways, to address your concerns: it is nothing like Paradox games. There is no map-painting, no spreadsheets (well, a handful, sort of), no logistics, and no micro-managing. The game is narrative-driven, and would probably be best described as a blend of visual novel and RPG. The map can be deceiving as it is simply an interactive background through which you move the story forward, but gameplay essentially consists of reading, clicking dialogue choices, reading, clicking choices on various political decisions, and more reading with more clicking of dialogue/decision choices. There is no sandbox, no construction, no trade, no moving units around the map. It is not a strategy game (though I should mention that the DLC - Kingdom of Rizia - has an optional turn-based strategy warfare game mode for one of its story scenarios, which probably also involves some form of build-up and logistics, but I have yet to buy and play that one, so I am not sure).
There are also no numbers, not apparent ones anyway. You only operate with two visible “currencies” - Government Budget and Personal Wealth. The first one is for, well, government expenditure. The latter serves for personal interests such as bribery, lobbying, or investment opportunities. They are the only two values where the game will inform you on whether a decision you are about to make will immediately cost or gain GB/PW (some decisions will yield gains in the long term, but you won’t know until it happens). There is also a Growth indicator, which is merely a (static) line of a green(ish) or red(ish) colour going up or down (prior to the 2.0 update, this seems to have been called Economy and represented by a bar that would fill up or deplete based on your economy level).
Growth represents your level of Economic Development, which is an important value that the game tracks but does not telegraph to you. Unless you dig through the game files or check an up-to-date wiki or something, you will have no clue (other than an educated guess) about whether and how much a decision will increase or decrease it. The game also tracks public opinion of your character, which impacts how different social/ideological groups perceive you and can affect your re-election prospects or even lead to stuff like riots or coups. Again, the game does not give you any indication of gaining or losing it (outside of newspaper articles, intelligence memos, or your staff’s briefing]. Unlike Paradox games (or strategy games in general), there are no explicit numbers warning you of the consequences of your decisions. Everything is hidden from you and you have to rely on your intuition and the information given to you by your staff and other sources in the game.
The abovementioned also sadly means that since it is not a strategy/sandbox, you cannot decide what to do or who to interact with, how, and when. Every action you can take - be it construction, budgetary or cabinet decisions, negotiations with party/opposition representatives or foreign leaders, bribery/lobbying, arrests, or killings - is pre-determined by the narrative and can thus only be taken during specific parts of the story. Similarly, gain/loss of ED or PO is predetermined by specific decisions, and you can do nothing outside of these to influence them. That doesn’t mean there is no replay value though. Quite the opposite. The myriad of policy issues you deal with throughout the story and ways to deal with them is huge, and while most scenes/dialogues will be the same, a lot will become available/unavailable/changed under certain circumstances based on your decisions.
For example, the sort of initial “main” plot point of the game is your government’s effort to reform the outdated constitution. You can go about this by either attempting to make it more democratic, more authoritarian, or keep it the same by siding with the elites of the old regime and declaring a state of emergency. All of these have different effects on what you will/can (not) do and how certain people/groups will view you, and result in varying experiences. And after you do one two playthroughs and get an idea of what sort of decisions you’ll be dealing with throughout the game, you can start planning for some very particular and gratifying playthroughs. Throughout the game, you interact with your cabinet members and other important officials, leaders of parties/factions, foreign leaders, your family, and other relevant/powerful people. Sometimes your decisions will have immediate and clear effects, sometimes they won’t have consequences until several turns later, sometimes you will be able to masterfully manipulate and screw people over, and sometimes they will do this to you. All the characters are very well fleshed out, with unique personalities, and as the game goes on, you will form pretty strong feelings towards and opinions about them.
There are numerous decisions to be taken on both the domestic (education, health care, minority rights, law enforcement, infrastracture, energy, etc.) as well as international (trade negotiations, military alliances, etc.) front. All of this is done by essentially just making decisions which your cabinet will implement (aside from trade negotiations with foreign leaders which you eventually do yourself - again, the Rizia DLC might be different in this, since you play as a monarch there with much more extensive executive powers and policy input), and the success or failure of these policies will manifest itself via certain modifiers, which also affect ED and PO (again, you will not be given any numerical visualisation - simply the name of policy/situation in effect in either green, orange, or red colour, and its description). There are no spreadsheets, though you can open an overview of every major city in the country with details on its demographics, GPD, mayor’s party, and which positive/negative modifiers are in effect there, but aside from the modifiers, these have no actual effects for the game and are only for lore/immersion purposes - you can go through the entire game without ever looking at them.
Back when I read the review(s) for it, most mentioned around 8-10 hours, but my first playthrough clocked in at around 30. This is primarily due to the fact that the devs added in a lot of new storylines and scenes in the 2.0 update last year, but is also a result of me being a thorough (i.e. slow) reader who spent a lot of time initially reading through the in-game “wiki” in order to familiarise myself with the universe. Still, the first few hours were the roughest for me, mainly due to there being no gameplay outside of reading and clicking decisions, but the deeper I got into the story, the more stuff started happening, choices began having consequences, and I was completely hooked. I did four more playthroughs in an extra 60 or so hours, two of which were hugely different from the other due to me doing a different kind of constitutional reform in one and an emergency run in the other. So yeah, on subsequent runs you can cut the time to around 10 or so hours, depending on how many different choices you take and how quickly you click through the dialogues.
But yeah, I think it’s a rather unique and really great game (despite the lack of “proper” gameplay), especially if you fancy yourself something political or focused around government simulation. The writing can sometimes range from excellent to mediocre, but when it’s great, it’s really great, and the tense and dramatic situations are conveyed extremely well (the music helps). The lore and world-building is super interesting and engaging, and although inspired a lot by the real world and history, is still substantially different to peak your curiosity. Plus you don’t have the advantage of foresight on what is going to happen.
I actually had a chance to talk to the devs at TGS and play a bit of the Rizia DLC there. The lead dev turned out to be a former modder of Paradox games (HoI3) and member of the team who developed Arsenal of Democracy and (cancelled) East vs West, so that was a neat surprise. We had a particularly long convo about EvW, so I felt compelled afterwards to finally give this game a go after having it for a year in my library, lol.
Oh yeah, and there’s a certified @Heisenberg reference:
PS: Forgot to mention that since the game is story-driven, even if you manage to make it through without being deprived of party leadership, impeached, couped, arested, assassinated, or nuked, and you are re-elected, you don’t get to play a second term in office. The game only covers the first one regardless of how it ends.
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Just read a review of «Indiana Jones and the Great Circle». As a fan of the series (movies and the Lucasart games) I really would like to play this. The review made a few comparisons to Hitman, so I got even more excited.
But when I looked at the system requirements on Steam I realised it probably won’t run on my PC. I would need a new graphics card and a faster PCU. Too bad! Maybe I buy some new components for my PC in about a years time but not just now for a new game.
Anybody here played it yet?
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I’ve just started it as I realised it’s on Game Pass. It is very demanding graphically and, I think, requires an RTX card at a minimum. I wouldn’t say there’s many Hitman comparisons from what I’ve played of it aside from you can hide bodies (sort of). But I’m not very far through. I have enjoyed it so far though.
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If you have a GPU with only 8gb VRAM, set texture resolution to the lowest setting, everything else can be set to medium or high, you’ll have to tinker to see what works best.
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I only have an Intel i5 and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. So I would have to upgrade both. And while doing that I might as well need a new mainboard and probably some other components.
They mention the open world and the way you’ll explore the levels. But also the disguises and how some people are enforcers.
Here’s the full review (in German): https://www.digitec.ch/de/page/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-uebertrifft-all-meine-erwartungen-35897
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Oh yeah I didn’t think of the disguise mechanic. I’ve just got to the first one and it did say something like “officers can compromise your disguise”. But still, I would say the Hitman-ness is pretty minimal. But the gameplay is quite fun, using your whip to disarm enemies, sneaking up and hitting them with a broom, but it’s a little on the easy side (I was expecting closer to Wolfenstein) so I might up the difficulty.
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It’s kinda Hitmany as in you can approach your objectives in a number of different ways/from a number of different paths. It’s Immersive Sim Lite.
It’s also much much better to go slow and quiet than loud.
I’m playing on Hard and at first I thought it was easy but then when you get to larger areas with more enemies, being overwhelmed by baddies is sure death, so you have to be a bit more careful and scope out the areas first and come up with a plan of approach.
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Thank you @Rimland 
That seems to be the kind of game I would be interested in.
From what you tell me on agency, informations, and narratives, it looks like a “Chief of State managing his cabinet and entourage. Barely, and with a lot of potential biases, and isolation to the rest of reality” The Game. It seems fun!
I think I will try and play it next year. Maybe in spring, or if I have long travels.
It feels like a train game. ^^
While I’m posting.
I also saw my recaps.
Not a lot to them:
- Hitman with a couple hundreds of hour.
- Mass Effect, with an hundred, from my trilogy playthrough at the end of last year/start of this one. And none since.
- And then only some anecdotal plays.
I think the reason I play Hitman is because it’s a bunch of self-contained 1-2 hours sessions. Frequently a bit less. Outside of the occasional long main mission replay, everything else from Freelancer to ET and FCs are 5 to 15 minutes long.
So I can play it without issue every two or three evening or so.
I think the only time I let myself truly loose myself into a longer playthrough is at the end of the year, the holidays.
Last year was Mass Effect.
This year will be Cyberpunk 2077.
But after that, unless I find a short game, I don’t really play. No game announcements caught my eyes lately. Even less their core designs. (I like RPG, don’t like looting and useless stats, and Fantasy is a genre I do not have a taste for)
My entertainment were more books and other readings in 2024.
And you know what? I liked it. 
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I’ve actually already bought Suzerain and played it before. Definitely a great experience. It fits that political niche I have while not being as overwhelming like Paradox games. I also like to do rping in political games which made Suzerain great. It always felt like I was directly in the story making decisions. Paradox games it’s more just lots of thinking and doesn’t allow roleplay like the way I wanted (excluding some mods which can add a little bit).
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Just started Indiana Jones on Game Pass as well, but I don’t think I’ll see it through. There’s such a thing as too many collectibles. Going through every nook and cranny to find a baseball card will get tired fast. I also don’t like the first person perspective. Third person would work so much better for this game. To me
it feels more like a Far Cry game with some puzzles on top, so far. (note: I always play Far Cry stealthily)
I understand a certain comparison with Hitman, but Hitman is better
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I played through A Plague Tale: Innocence this week and started A Plague Tale: Requiem, after remembering that my brother had recommended both too me awhile ago.
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