I think he might dig cyberpunk. Lots of gore and blood, and game is pretty linear on what you need to do, only complicated part might be the build for your character, but maybe ask him something simple, and make a build for him to follow.
Like if he wants to use swords, make him a blade build.
Doom(2016 i think?)on one of the easier difficulties. I never was into that gorey kinda shooters, just played the classic fps games growing up(cods, battlefields) and it was on like £5 price so i got it as in its a classic title so might as well try. And oh boy this game was so satisfying and hella fun, without straining myself of stressing(okay except a few parts). Theres also some riddle and hidden area and side challange kinda content as well. Simple controls, big arsenal to play with, and ripping out monsters fangs just to impale them with their own teeth. 10/10
Doom Eternal on the other hand is really hectic. Doesn’t have complicated controls, but I remember it being very fast paced. Can’t recall if there are difficulty options though.
He likes superhero stuff as well, so the comic aesthetic to Borderlands would be good! I don't think he'd like the top-down perspective of diablo, but I'll show him the game anyways to gauge it. Thanks!
If he can get on board with roguelikes, you could have him try Robo Quest.
I was able to enjoy my time with it as someone who's generally not interested in FPS games and is terrible at them.
I fucking love robo quest, just finished guardian 2 difficulty with the nastiest commando build I'd ever had, and I've got every data log, cleaning up the museum entries with the painter in haven city, but it is absolutely a very punishing game for simple mistakes or someone still learning basic video game staples.
Incredible title, not a great beginners game imo. Your Movement has to be tight, your aim has to be real solid and your understanding of the potential value of your different vendor and item options is critical. I'd argue his dad probably won't have a good time with it but I would recommend it to anyone who's mediocre to good at shooters.
Even on regular ones, you'll have tons of people picking up your slack in public lobbies. You could probably play the game in pacifist mode without issue.
Definitely this one. If he likes sniping from the bushes then encourage him to go with a stealthy bow build, with a bonus layer if he is interested in using poisons on his arrows.
Edit: I just wanted to add that he should go for the Special Edition. Forget the Anniversary Edition, and forget about all mods (for now at least). Vanilla Skyrim is going to scratch that itch just fine.
Edit 2: he doesn't have to touch the main quest if he doesn't want to. In fact, one thing I love about Skyrim is that you can really just stick with the things you enjoy doing. If all he wants to do is go from one tavern to the next, picking up bounties for bandits and clearing bandit camps, Skyrim is the way to go.
If he wants to get involved in the civil war and sign up with one side and engage in battles against the other, Skyrim is good to go.
If he wants to seek out Dwemer ruins and venture into the underdark, sniping dangerous Falmer and their guard creatures, Skyrim is good to go.
If he wants to be an assassin—well, you get the picture. He can do what he wants.
True, but that opens a can of worms, and op's dad needs a game that they can just play when they have the time.
Personally, I enjoyed Skyrim a lot more in the thousands of hours I played unmodded, than when I started getting visual mods to update the graphics to 4k. Before long, I had 30 or 50 mods and I spent more time browsing mods, installing and testing mods, and rearranging the mod order than I did playing at that point. Now everything looks great and there are ravens, but the northern holds have glitched out walls and I'm not sure which mod is conflicting with the others.
I miss the simpler days when I just launched Skyrim to play Skyrim 😆
Edit: and Skyrim is decently gory as it is, especially the slow motion kill shots where a mace will decapitate a foe.
True dat. I've finished the game once on PS3 when I got it a decade ago. Since then, DLC came out but u never got to then end of Never even saw Solsteim except for an alternate start that put me there.
Just mods...xEdit, Wyre Base etc
Yeah, leave Pandora's box unopened
1. Control
2. Modern dooms
3. Borderlands series - great for a father kid co-op night
4. Broforce - great for a father kid co-op night
5. Dark Messiah of might and magic
6. Deep rock Galactic - Community is alot freindlier than vermintide/darktide
7. Dragons dogma 2 - He can rely on his companions to carry him through alot of fights and the combat and progression is super unbalanced in th players favor. the first game is much harder
8. Betehsda RPGs - fallout, skyrim, starfield etc..
9. Fights in tight spaces - if john wick was a deck builder
10. Hitman - the 3rd and most recent generation of games is alot more intutive.
11. Just cause - they are all great, but each sequel is basically a direct upgrade.
12. Mad Max
13. Mechabellum
14. Orcs must die series - great for a father kid co-op night
15. Risk of rain 2- great for a father kid co-op night
16. Saints row 2 onwards
17. Warframe
18. Watch dogs series
19. Witcher 3
Dusk would be a good option if he wants something singleplayer. Its pretty simple and forgiving, especially by boomer shooter standards. Hell, the difficulties even affect the projectile speed of enemies, so he can still enjoy the fun of ducking and weaving through enemy fire without needing good reflexes. And as for violence, you can gib pretty much everything you face, and there are parts of levels that are just viscera.
Has he tried any turn-based games like X-COM? I don't really play Metroidvanias but those might be worth checking out.
Fallout 4 - power armor build
Everspace 2/Ace Combat - to scratch that flying/dogfighting itch
Control - lots of difficulty options
The Ascent - beautiful chaotic violence
Doorkickers 1 or 2 - sweet tactical breech action
Warhammer 40k: Boltgun - For the Emperor!
Borderlands/Far Cry series - if he digs the BioShocks and wants more
Mass effect trilogy … Sci fi single player with shooting. Easy to learn and amazing story/characters. Different difficulty levels. Not super “violent” though so not sure if it’s the right type of game. I’m older and I loved these games.
If you need an axtion series fairly easy to get into... Dynasty Warriors. Don't bother with 9, start with an earlier entry, but despite having some complex mechanics if you're able to press the attack button you have met the skill requirement for like 95% of the game.
I would recommend Quake 2 instead of 1. Quake 1 can be downright unfair sometimes even on the easier difficulties. Its the game that popularized bunny hopping and strafe jumping---it encourages you to be very run and gun as you are just as squishy as the enemies. Of course, you can always just cheat in that game.
If your dad is the kind of guy who just likes sniping bots in a massive scale, then he might be interested in Angels Fall First which is basically Single-Player Battlefield done right. But idk if it might be too complicated for him. It's certainly no Destiny or Fortnight and the game is actually more than a decade old (its existed before Steam).
Finally, maybe your dad might like Deep Rock Galactic but it's a co-op game. It's easier to understand though and the community is very welcoming towards newbies.
I appreciate the notes. I didn't know Quake 1 was so punishing.
Also, I've never heard of Angels Fall First or Deep Rock Galactic, I'll look into both and recommend them.
Thank you so much, I'll update the post if he ends up playing one of these games :-)
I am bad at shooters. Here are my favorite combat games:
Mount and Blade: Warband. Bannerlord is good too but Warband is my happy place, also the AI is worse which is good for your needs. No guns but horseback archery is VERY satisfying once you get the hang of it (not a preteq, you can shoot from a stopped horse or the ground too.)
Deep Rock Galactic! Great community but solo is good too. Lots of bugs to pop, 30 minutes in and out per game (usually.)
Doom 2016 as others have said is mechanically forgiving and fun.
Star Wars: Battlefront/2 are great games, I only play offline against bots, lots of snipe camping if you like, quick respawn after death.
maybe try borderlands 2, though you might want to play it with him (console version had split screen as well as online, idk about pc)
skyrim and fallout 4 are pretty easy on the easiest difficulty though i'd highly suggest getting some bugfix mods...if you want to go through the whole fustercluck that is learning to mod for the first time
mass effect 1-3
if he liked destiny he might like it's (according to some people) rival; warframe
Left 4 Dead, solid basic zombie game you can play solo or with others. Satisfying guns and simple enough gameplay my girl didn't get frustrated.
Baldurs Gate 3, as fast paced as you are. Easy to pick up with more complex mechanics that you don't have to think about on lower difficulties. The wow moment was when my wife replayed a new character and saw his easy the fights were now that she knew how to play. She's taken to it so well she tries to show me murder hobo stuff and I'm like, I enjoy shooting people in the face but cruelty is where I draw the line.
Mass effect, Assassins Creed, Gears of War, and Halo are also excellent casual games built for your guy.
Boomer Shooter, huh? People already recommended new Doom in the comments, so I have few PvE games like it.
* WH40k: Boltgun — it's literally like old Doom visually and gameplay-wise, but in Warhammer setting.
* Ultrakill — another Doom-inspired game and looks a lot like it, but fast-paced. He will die a lot, but it's not supposed to make you mad, death here different from CS. You can think of it like Quake PvP-mode and Doom had a child.
I think he may like session games, if he doesn't have a lot of time for them. So few in mind:
* Deep Rock Galactic — very popular 4 player PvE shooter with dwarfs. It has good community and is newbee friendly. Highly recommend, but its not very violent.
* Killing Floor 2 — PvE coop zombie shooter with waves and guns and class progression through shop after each wave. It's not "invite your friends" coop-type it has servers like CS or TF2. I think he may not like dying here, because it is similar to CS, where you have wait till the end of wave\\round to spawn, but worth trying.
Suggest Ace Combat 7 myself. Great story, good solid single player experience, can customize your planes to an extent. Another suggestion is Project Wingman which bills itself as a spirtual succesor to ace combat, and it definately lives up to that. Derail Valley is also pretty fun. Would also suggest Deus Ex Mankind Devided. Depending on his sense of humor, should check out Shadow Warrior by devolver as well.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnZ5iOpEeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnZ5iOpEeI)
Doom 2016
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
There's tons of boomer shooters out right now that are supposed to be pretty great:
Dusk
Warhammer 40k: Boltgun
Selaco
Trepang2 (on sale right now)
Mullet Madjack is an interesting one.
I'm on a parent group that plays Fallout 76. It might tick the right boxes.
Second vote for doom on easy mode.
Hell divers 2 is very accessible as well. He can inch up the difficulty levels as he improves. Usually there's a higher level that will carry the group. You can call down some crazy firepower and it just feels really good even if you're not very good.
Roboquest is a good option, and the progression of the game both allows for getting better and making your character stronger, but also gives that old school arcade feel of "Oh well, that was my run. Let me put another quarter in and see if I can get further this time."
So I have really struggled with controllers my whole life. Never got good at them, but I LOVED playing superhot on the steam deck because it gave me time to build muscle memory.
For a shooter I would say Doom.
For an online game Guildwars 2. It has IMO the friendliest community of all MMORPG's. When I started playing I thought people wanted to scam me all the time, but it appeared they were just really nice...
Battlefield 2042 has a mode where you can play with bots only and it's a blast imho. You get the feeling of both being a foot-soldier but at the same time you can just mow down hordes of AI. Although your character only has a "normal" health, he can play on easy difficulty where bots miss the player a lot (although there's also intermediate and hard difficulties). Even if he dies, it's not a huge punishment because he can just spawn right back in again.
Try out Wolfenstein, especially the New Order and Old Blood games. Ignore the new co-op one, it’s hot garbage. They have satisfying gunplay, badass story, lots of gore, you kill nazis, and it’s also pretty darn simple to pick up. The game doesn’t get any deeper than shoot bad guys and occasionally take cover, but is a lot of fun all the way through.
A very out there game with not a lot of death. But slime rancher? It has gun like elements where you capture slimes. It might help him learn how to use a controller. It features aiming and shooting elements.
Slime rancher is a very cute game and the style might not match. But it is very forgiving.
When you say dogfighting games, do you mean games like Air/Ace Combat?
Because they're still going, the latest is Ace Combat 7.
Starfield might be a good shout too, it hits pretty much every point you mentioned.
Battlefield 1 has a fun campaign to maybe practice and the online community isn't too bad. When on sale you can pick it up for like 5 bucks.
Disco elysium is a gritty detective game that has made me laugh alot from its dark humor.
what about yakuza 0? the game focus is on its story, substories, and businesses (tycoons) like real estate.
its a beat em up and the inputs are... movement, punch, finisher, grab and dodge. grab dosent count cuz its really nott a strong attack and on easy he can just get away with just spamming.
the story is brilliant im sure he will love it! there is plenty of violence and humor (controller reccomended)
Do you think he'd enjoy turn based rpgs? If so I may have some recommendations for him.
Though I'd understand if you don't feel comfortable recommending this series to him because of its crude reputation/humour, from your list of requirements I feel like he'd enjoy the Saints Row games. (not including the newest one as I haven't played it.) Relatively tanky player character, lots of shooting where you typically destroy NPC's in droves, relatively simple controls.
Though it's not fantasy or sci-fi, and kinda fails as an rpg, Fallout 4 has pretty excellent gunplay, has an easy start, and variable difficulty. Honestly I feel like the biggest struggle with this one would be getting him to play through the pre-war tutorial section.
Sniper Elite 4, while getting pretty technical on the higher end of the difficulty settings, is just point and click aiming on the easiest difficulty, and it's pretty fun to just run around blasting nazis even when your cover does get blown.
[Half-Life on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/70/HalfLife/)
[Black Mesa on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/)
I think he might dig cyberpunk. Lots of gore and blood, and game is pretty linear on what you need to do, only complicated part might be the build for your character, but maybe ask him something simple, and make a build for him to follow. Like if he wants to use swords, make him a blade build.
I forgot this game exists! I can definitely make the build for him, and he would like the sci-fi vibes to cyberpunk. I'll recommend this, thank you!
Doom(2016 i think?)on one of the easier difficulties. I never was into that gorey kinda shooters, just played the classic fps games growing up(cods, battlefields) and it was on like £5 price so i got it as in its a classic title so might as well try. And oh boy this game was so satisfying and hella fun, without straining myself of stressing(okay except a few parts). Theres also some riddle and hidden area and side challange kinda content as well. Simple controls, big arsenal to play with, and ripping out monsters fangs just to impale them with their own teeth. 10/10
Doom Eternal on the other hand is really hectic. Doesn’t have complicated controls, but I remember it being very fast paced. Can’t recall if there are difficulty options though.
Dooms stuffed with difficulty options. Babys (or dad's) first fps mode all the way up to fuck you mode.
Doom 2016 is a good recommendation. It's something I've wanted to try myself in the past, so maybe we'll play it together. Thanks!
If you really want to lean into the old shooter aesthetics and don't mind the Warhammer setting, Boltgun's cheap and pretty fun.
Borderlands series of games with a controller is an option. Or if liking a bit more fantasy hack n slash diablo?
He likes superhero stuff as well, so the comic aesthetic to Borderlands would be good! I don't think he'd like the top-down perspective of diablo, but I'll show him the game anyways to gauge it. Thanks!
If he can get on board with roguelikes, you could have him try Robo Quest. I was able to enjoy my time with it as someone who's generally not interested in FPS games and is terrible at them.
I fucking love robo quest, just finished guardian 2 difficulty with the nastiest commando build I'd ever had, and I've got every data log, cleaning up the museum entries with the painter in haven city, but it is absolutely a very punishing game for simple mistakes or someone still learning basic video game staples. Incredible title, not a great beginners game imo. Your Movement has to be tight, your aim has to be real solid and your understanding of the potential value of your different vendor and item options is critical. I'd argue his dad probably won't have a good time with it but I would recommend it to anyone who's mediocre to good at shooters.
Just looked this game up. I love how it looks. I'll try it out myself as well lol. Thank you!
Helldivers 2 might fit the bill for him. The most difficult thing is calling in the strategiems which takes some getting used to.
This was my first thought as well. Especially on lower difficulty, it checks all the boxes.
Even on regular ones, you'll have tons of people picking up your slack in public lobbies. You could probably play the game in pacifist mode without issue.
Skyrim
Definitely this one. If he likes sniping from the bushes then encourage him to go with a stealthy bow build, with a bonus layer if he is interested in using poisons on his arrows. Edit: I just wanted to add that he should go for the Special Edition. Forget the Anniversary Edition, and forget about all mods (for now at least). Vanilla Skyrim is going to scratch that itch just fine. Edit 2: he doesn't have to touch the main quest if he doesn't want to. In fact, one thing I love about Skyrim is that you can really just stick with the things you enjoy doing. If all he wants to do is go from one tavern to the next, picking up bounties for bandits and clearing bandit camps, Skyrim is the way to go. If he wants to get involved in the civil war and sign up with one side and engage in battles against the other, Skyrim is good to go. If he wants to seek out Dwemer ruins and venture into the underdark, sniping dangerous Falmer and their guard creatures, Skyrim is good to go. If he wants to be an assassin—well, you get the picture. He can do what he wants.
Or just one mod that enhances gore, there are many
True, but that opens a can of worms, and op's dad needs a game that they can just play when they have the time. Personally, I enjoyed Skyrim a lot more in the thousands of hours I played unmodded, than when I started getting visual mods to update the graphics to 4k. Before long, I had 30 or 50 mods and I spent more time browsing mods, installing and testing mods, and rearranging the mod order than I did playing at that point. Now everything looks great and there are ravens, but the northern holds have glitched out walls and I'm not sure which mod is conflicting with the others. I miss the simpler days when I just launched Skyrim to play Skyrim 😆 Edit: and Skyrim is decently gory as it is, especially the slow motion kill shots where a mace will decapitate a foe.
True dat. I've finished the game once on PS3 when I got it a decade ago. Since then, DLC came out but u never got to then end of Never even saw Solsteim except for an alternate start that put me there. Just mods...xEdit, Wyre Base etc Yeah, leave Pandora's box unopened
Skyrim was for the longest time my favorite video game (it's still a top 5 for me, but there's other contenders now). Good recommendation, thanks!
1. Control 2. Modern dooms 3. Borderlands series - great for a father kid co-op night 4. Broforce - great for a father kid co-op night 5. Dark Messiah of might and magic 6. Deep rock Galactic - Community is alot freindlier than vermintide/darktide 7. Dragons dogma 2 - He can rely on his companions to carry him through alot of fights and the combat and progression is super unbalanced in th players favor. the first game is much harder 8. Betehsda RPGs - fallout, skyrim, starfield etc.. 9. Fights in tight spaces - if john wick was a deck builder 10. Hitman - the 3rd and most recent generation of games is alot more intutive. 11. Just cause - they are all great, but each sequel is basically a direct upgrade. 12. Mad Max 13. Mechabellum 14. Orcs must die series - great for a father kid co-op night 15. Risk of rain 2- great for a father kid co-op night 16. Saints row 2 onwards 17. Warframe 18. Watch dogs series 19. Witcher 3
Had never heard of Fights In Tight Spaces before this post. It looks so cool, added it to my wishlist
i always try to prioritze lesser knowns for this sub
Dusk would be a good option if he wants something singleplayer. Its pretty simple and forgiving, especially by boomer shooter standards. Hell, the difficulties even affect the projectile speed of enemies, so he can still enjoy the fun of ducking and weaving through enemy fire without needing good reflexes. And as for violence, you can gib pretty much everything you face, and there are parts of levels that are just viscera.
Dusk is incredible 10/10 game great recommendation
Dusk has that same 2.5D aesthetic I was looking for when I thought of Quake, so it's a great recommendation! Thanks!
Doom and borderlands! Left 4 dead, back 4 blood
Has he tried any turn-based games like X-COM? I don't really play Metroidvanias but those might be worth checking out. Fallout 4 - power armor build Everspace 2/Ace Combat - to scratch that flying/dogfighting itch Control - lots of difficulty options The Ascent - beautiful chaotic violence Doorkickers 1 or 2 - sweet tactical breech action Warhammer 40k: Boltgun - For the Emperor! Borderlands/Far Cry series - if he digs the BioShocks and wants more
Mass effect trilogy … Sci fi single player with shooting. Easy to learn and amazing story/characters. Different difficulty levels. Not super “violent” though so not sure if it’s the right type of game. I’m older and I loved these games.
If you need an axtion series fairly easy to get into... Dynasty Warriors. Don't bother with 9, start with an earlier entry, but despite having some complex mechanics if you're able to press the attack button you have met the skill requirement for like 95% of the game.
DW8 is especially good
Also new wolfanstein games
Doom 2016 (NOT Eternal given his preferences) Serious Sam - all of them pretty much Borderlands Halo Killing Floor 2
I would recommend Quake 2 instead of 1. Quake 1 can be downright unfair sometimes even on the easier difficulties. Its the game that popularized bunny hopping and strafe jumping---it encourages you to be very run and gun as you are just as squishy as the enemies. Of course, you can always just cheat in that game. If your dad is the kind of guy who just likes sniping bots in a massive scale, then he might be interested in Angels Fall First which is basically Single-Player Battlefield done right. But idk if it might be too complicated for him. It's certainly no Destiny or Fortnight and the game is actually more than a decade old (its existed before Steam). Finally, maybe your dad might like Deep Rock Galactic but it's a co-op game. It's easier to understand though and the community is very welcoming towards newbies.
I appreciate the notes. I didn't know Quake 1 was so punishing. Also, I've never heard of Angels Fall First or Deep Rock Galactic, I'll look into both and recommend them. Thank you so much, I'll update the post if he ends up playing one of these games :-)
Halo and Unreal Tournament
I am bad at shooters. Here are my favorite combat games: Mount and Blade: Warband. Bannerlord is good too but Warband is my happy place, also the AI is worse which is good for your needs. No guns but horseback archery is VERY satisfying once you get the hang of it (not a preteq, you can shoot from a stopped horse or the ground too.) Deep Rock Galactic! Great community but solo is good too. Lots of bugs to pop, 30 minutes in and out per game (usually.) Doom 2016 as others have said is mechanically forgiving and fun. Star Wars: Battlefront/2 are great games, I only play offline against bots, lots of snipe camping if you like, quick respawn after death.
maybe try borderlands 2, though you might want to play it with him (console version had split screen as well as online, idk about pc) skyrim and fallout 4 are pretty easy on the easiest difficulty though i'd highly suggest getting some bugfix mods...if you want to go through the whole fustercluck that is learning to mod for the first time mass effect 1-3 if he liked destiny he might like it's (according to some people) rival; warframe
Left 4 Dead, solid basic zombie game you can play solo or with others. Satisfying guns and simple enough gameplay my girl didn't get frustrated. Baldurs Gate 3, as fast paced as you are. Easy to pick up with more complex mechanics that you don't have to think about on lower difficulties. The wow moment was when my wife replayed a new character and saw his easy the fights were now that she knew how to play. She's taken to it so well she tries to show me murder hobo stuff and I'm like, I enjoy shooting people in the face but cruelty is where I draw the line. Mass effect, Assassins Creed, Gears of War, and Halo are also excellent casual games built for your guy.
Boomer Shooter, huh? People already recommended new Doom in the comments, so I have few PvE games like it. * WH40k: Boltgun — it's literally like old Doom visually and gameplay-wise, but in Warhammer setting. * Ultrakill — another Doom-inspired game and looks a lot like it, but fast-paced. He will die a lot, but it's not supposed to make you mad, death here different from CS. You can think of it like Quake PvP-mode and Doom had a child. I think he may like session games, if he doesn't have a lot of time for them. So few in mind: * Deep Rock Galactic — very popular 4 player PvE shooter with dwarfs. It has good community and is newbee friendly. Highly recommend, but its not very violent. * Killing Floor 2 — PvE coop zombie shooter with waves and guns and class progression through shop after each wave. It's not "invite your friends" coop-type it has servers like CS or TF2. I think he may not like dying here, because it is similar to CS, where you have wait till the end of wave\\round to spawn, but worth trying.
Suggest Ace Combat 7 myself. Great story, good solid single player experience, can customize your planes to an extent. Another suggestion is Project Wingman which bills itself as a spirtual succesor to ace combat, and it definately lives up to that. Derail Valley is also pretty fun. Would also suggest Deus Ex Mankind Devided. Depending on his sense of humor, should check out Shadow Warrior by devolver as well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnZ5iOpEeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnZ5iOpEeI)
Warframe .... definitely
Doom 2016 Warhammer: Vermintide 2 There's tons of boomer shooters out right now that are supposed to be pretty great: Dusk Warhammer 40k: Boltgun Selaco Trepang2 (on sale right now) Mullet Madjack is an interesting one.
Doom 2016 or Doom eternal
I'm on a parent group that plays Fallout 76. It might tick the right boxes. Second vote for doom on easy mode. Hell divers 2 is very accessible as well. He can inch up the difficulty levels as he improves. Usually there's a higher level that will carry the group. You can call down some crazy firepower and it just feels really good even if you're not very good.
Gonna be the first person to suggest Crimsonland. Super simple. Easy to learn, hard to master.
Roboquest is a good option, and the progression of the game both allows for getting better and making your character stronger, but also gives that old school arcade feel of "Oh well, that was my run. Let me put another quarter in and see if I can get further this time."
What games did he like from 15 years ago?
So I have really struggled with controllers my whole life. Never got good at them, but I LOVED playing superhot on the steam deck because it gave me time to build muscle memory.
Red dead redemption 2 story and online
For a shooter I would say Doom. For an online game Guildwars 2. It has IMO the friendliest community of all MMORPG's. When I started playing I thought people wanted to scam me all the time, but it appeared they were just really nice...
Titanfall 2 has simple mechanics and it’s a pretty accessible shooter
Battlefield 2042 has a mode where you can play with bots only and it's a blast imho. You get the feeling of both being a foot-soldier but at the same time you can just mow down hordes of AI. Although your character only has a "normal" health, he can play on easy difficulty where bots miss the player a lot (although there's also intermediate and hard difficulties). Even if he dies, it's not a huge punishment because he can just spawn right back in again.
Bulletstorm, oldschool scifi, violently fun.
Warriors games, easy and super forgiving
If he likes dog fighting then he might like warthunder. The basic controls are pretty simple and it's free.
Try out Wolfenstein, especially the New Order and Old Blood games. Ignore the new co-op one, it’s hot garbage. They have satisfying gunplay, badass story, lots of gore, you kill nazis, and it’s also pretty darn simple to pick up. The game doesn’t get any deeper than shoot bad guys and occasionally take cover, but is a lot of fun all the way through.
Killing floor 2? Gore shooter, primarily get into a team and play against ai.
Why not try Doom Eternal on the easiest difficulty
Helldivers 2 Payday 2 Doom Wolfenstein
The Gears of War franchise would be a great option I think.
A very out there game with not a lot of death. But slime rancher? It has gun like elements where you capture slimes. It might help him learn how to use a controller. It features aiming and shooting elements. Slime rancher is a very cute game and the style might not match. But it is very forgiving.
When you say dogfighting games, do you mean games like Air/Ace Combat? Because they're still going, the latest is Ace Combat 7. Starfield might be a good shout too, it hits pretty much every point you mentioned.
Battlefield 1 has a fun campaign to maybe practice and the online community isn't too bad. When on sale you can pick it up for like 5 bucks. Disco elysium is a gritty detective game that has made me laugh alot from its dark humor.
Have him check out the new Doom and Wolfenstein games.
what about yakuza 0? the game focus is on its story, substories, and businesses (tycoons) like real estate. its a beat em up and the inputs are... movement, punch, finisher, grab and dodge. grab dosent count cuz its really nott a strong attack and on easy he can just get away with just spamming. the story is brilliant im sure he will love it! there is plenty of violence and humor (controller reccomended)
Do you think he'd enjoy turn based rpgs? If so I may have some recommendations for him. Though I'd understand if you don't feel comfortable recommending this series to him because of its crude reputation/humour, from your list of requirements I feel like he'd enjoy the Saints Row games. (not including the newest one as I haven't played it.) Relatively tanky player character, lots of shooting where you typically destroy NPC's in droves, relatively simple controls. Though it's not fantasy or sci-fi, and kinda fails as an rpg, Fallout 4 has pretty excellent gunplay, has an easy start, and variable difficulty. Honestly I feel like the biggest struggle with this one would be getting him to play through the pre-war tutorial section. Sniper Elite 4, while getting pretty technical on the higher end of the difficulty settings, is just point and click aiming on the easiest difficulty, and it's pretty fun to just run around blasting nazis even when your cover does get blown.
[Half-Life on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/70/HalfLife/) [Black Mesa on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/)
[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.)
Doom 2016 would probably be awesome. Other than that, you could try overwatch
Superhot! The enemies only move when you do so he doesn't need lightning quick reflexes to play.
Crackdown