Gaming for mental health

Nice. I loved AC Black Flag and Odyssey but struggled to get into Valhalla. Totally depends on the setting I think.

Totally agree about AAA games. I do play them but tend to stick to the single player. They are stressful. I've been looking at more retro type games recently on PlayStation store. Will likely check out Narita Boy and Hyper Light Drifter. Have you tried Journey or Rime? Both single player and pretty chilled.

i have also tried metrovianias i deeply enjoyed ori and the blind forest.... I am in the middle of our in the will-o'-the-wisp at the moment but keep procrastinating on playing i think there's too much complexity for me. next up i think is hollow night we shall see...

haha. well honestly same i'm doing a degree in business but always get sidetracked on something else 

same

Minecraft might've saved my life. My therapist recommended gaming as a way to escape the dire consequences I was living through back in 2014. 

Not sure if you've played Hellblade : Senuas sacrifice on ps4, but that's a tough play, although incredible from a mental health point of view. Not only are the graphics gorgeous and the gameplay superb, the leaving curve is very linear and the message very positive. That no matter how bad things are, no matter the ugliness and the negativity, if you keep on fighting you can win. Well worth playing, but not your usual switch off and chill out experience like Minecraft, which is basically like digital Lego. 

I game as well. It really helps ease the anxiety and stress. I play on my pc, usually games like Assassins Creed, gta and the Sims.

I greatly enjoy gaming. It's probably been my main hobby since childhood, but lately I have not enjoyed it as much because the games are not as good in my experience. I found I have not liked any AAA game for perhaps over a decade and if people ask I don't tell them I'm a gamer because I feel like the industry has changed so much that I don't really know what people are talking about when they discuss modern games. I mainly play older games and I mainly play single player games.

All modern games seem to be hyper-social and feature loot boxes and require you to play extremely regularly to get rewards, or they are open world games with no limits on where you can go and loads of interactions with NPC, which I find stressful because I can't do them perfectly or systematically, and I get overwhelmed and don't want to play it because it's basically too much like real life.

The games I like to play are generally single player linear FPS games which I can 100% (so games from the 90s to early 2000s), retro platformers or metroidvanias, and roguelikes that I can spend a long time mastering, in which every game is slightly different but still basically linear in their progression of an individual playthrough (e.g. The Binding of Isaac, Faster Than Light).

I like Frozen Free Fall!

I use to play on games all the time, eventually it came to my mind it's not good for my mental health. I found myself developing unhealthy thought patterns because of what I were seeing and hearing.

Now I practice Tai Chi for distressing, it helps with all mental, physical and spiritual health. 

Yes, I like Animal Crossing but generally anything slow paced and building related suits me. Theme Park/Hospital, The Sims, Creatures... all great. 

I also like MMORPGs but I don't currently play any because I get hooked. I've played Star Wars Galaxies and WoW obsessively in the past. 

I also like puzzles and what I call mindless games on my phone. Numberzilla was a good one recently and I spent hours and hours on it. If I could get as hooked on something useful it would be great for my career but I just get hooked on mindless fun haha.

Definitely.  I like city-builder games like Tropico.

God of War is AMAZING you need to try it

I haven't tried Dishonored actually. I'll check it out. I've got a huge backlog of games I'm still trying to get through. I platinumed Days Gone and been looking for something to get lost in since. Might be the time to finally get round to God of War.

I love gaming definitely helps me distress and switch off from the world upgraded to a PC during lockdown too, have you played the Dishonored series? They're great single player games