People missed the point of this, its games that you waited for after release, not games you waited to release.
Patient Gamers
A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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Yeah, my intention was to ask more in the spirit of the capital Patient Gamer, as in the community name, instead of just a gamer who is patient. Some good discussions happening here so it's all good either way.
I turned 40 this year. I pledged for Star Citizen when I was 20-something 🙃
It's still my dream-game, so I'm still patiently waiting.
I want to love this game but every time I try to play it I run into a plethora of game-breaking bugs within an hour. Maybe my grandkids will enjoy it.
It sure hates to be played
Starbound. Waited years while it was in development, and my buddies and I just let the hype build and build. When it finally came out, it wasn’t even close to worth it. At the time, it still seemed like something that would eventually get to where we hoped (or at least for the most part), but picking it up every few months/years showed us the dev team’s ideas were great on paper, but they just weren’t capable of implementing any of it well.
More recently, I’ve seen YouTube docs that have gone into the awful development and bad treatment of young developers who weren’t paid, and fired after they caught on that they never would be.
On the bright side, it gave my friends and I a new appreciation for how great Terraria is, and why it’s similar features work so well when Starbound’s didn’t
Maaaaan I bought this game on release and it was actually better then than compared to now. Before, you could be "evil" and kill innocent villagers and loot their stuff. The game also wasn't mission-based like they made it later on in development, the progression was more comparable to Terraria where you just find and craft equipment across planets.
Then they started limiting what the player could do, railroading them into linear story missions, making progression slower etc. It was a big disappointment, because the game isn't bad, it's just built on many bad decisions.
Wow, I played it very very early, while they were just starting to introduce the concept of missions at all. It seemed cool then, sad to hear it's got worse.
Sonic adventure for the Dreamcast. It was released in 1998 and I played it for the first time in 2019... and it blew my mind. It's such a solid game, a really cool environment with amazing camera angles, diverse levels, and a difficulty that's just right.
The Outer Worlds. Would have been the last game to date that I'd had pre-ordered, but they went Epic exclusive, so I decided to be patient and wait for the Steam release. Year goes by and it releases for Steam, but at original launch price. Decide I'm not willing to pay full price for a game I had to wait extra for.
Now it's turned into a game of seeing it go on sale and remarking, "Come on guys, you can do better than that."
You can pick it up now, along with a couple other games for $12.
The crosshair not being in the middle of the screen really killed that game for me.
Fo3 Fonv and halo 3 were all that way also. It's a hard thing to unsee
On console they do yeah, but it's fine with a controller.
With M&K though it needs to be in the middle, they needed a toggle in Outer Worlds, crazy they didn't have one.
The Witcher 3. I'd been following its development since the Witcher 2, and I loved the games and the books. After 5 years of waiting I knew that it wasn't likely to live up to my expectations, so I prepared myself for disappointment.
Then it came out, and it was the best RPG I'd played. Some of the Novigrad story lines went on for too long, but that was my only issue with it. I've 100% it three times. Best €30 I ever spent. The DLC was somehow even better than the base game. I have no idea how CDPR managed it.
I only buy games on steam or very rarely GOG. I refuse to buy a games that are exclusive to a single platform. I don't want to pay people to remove my choices. So there's been a few games I've waited to leave their exclusive deals with epic or whatever. Satisfactory is one. They had an epic store exclusive I think for 2 years and then they went to steam. I very much enjoyed the game. I'm still waiting for escape from tarkov to join us on steam.
Unless I have friends doing multiplayer at this moment, I just waitlist games until they hit $5. And when that happens I buy them. So I have a large game backlog. I don't anticipate or wait for games. I just wait list and forget and then I have happy surprises during the steam sales.
I think I had lost seas on my waitlist for 2 years 3 years.
What if something is $6 and it’s never been this cheap for 7 years now? You wait more?
I'm only human! It's a rule of thumb! Depends on my emotional state when I see the sale. So yeah I've snagged a $6 game sure.
Other times you pay less right so it averages out.
I waited four years for breath of the wild, and when I finally played it, it was like I was playing an entire new genre. Like I was playing ocarina of time for the first time and the world seemed endlessly exciting. Except this time I could climb mountains and paraglide.
Death Stranding. Completely forgot about the game until I got it in humble monthly, and... Damn it was worth playing. In retrospective, I'd have been happy dropping 60 on it. I thought going in it'd be boring gameplay for a weird story, but the gameplay was actually REALLY FUN and the story was weord.
+1. It's one of those games that got better overtime. When it came out in 2019 there were people like, "Really? A hiking / Amazon Prime simulator?"
But after the Pandemic, the isolation and theme of yearning connections really hit home, and the entire design and philosophy just clicked and worked for me. I started appreciate everything about the game. I think Hideo Kojima even said he's going to try and not predict the future in Death Stranding 2 😄
Almost every game. I just can't afford most games for the full price so patience isn't a virtue but a necessity. Currently I'm waiting to play FarCry 6. My old GPU couldn't handle it, then I got a new one and another game sale happened. But as soon as I'm through with AC Valhalla I might give it a try.
The only full price PC game I played from release that I can recall was No Man's Sky (my hot take: it was great from the start). And I got that one gifted.
The next waiting will be done for Starfield, I think. But that's more for stability ("ripeness") and mod situation.
Just about the same here except for me it's just that I don't have the time to play every game I want to. The Steam Deck has helped me to play more and fit a little bit of gaming in here and there. I did get Final Fantasy XVI right at launch and set aside a lot of time to play through it.
But to answer the OP, probably Dark Souls. I played it a little at a friend's house years ago when it first came out but never actually bothered to buy it until the end of 2021 when it was on sale through Steam. Immediately played through it, fell in love, then played through the second one. I haven't played the third yet, but it is on my list.
I waited a while for sekiro. Finally broke down and got it on sale after it had been on my wishlist for 2 years.
I found it too challenging, even as a fan of their other games, it just didn't click. Finally I hit a wall on some enemy who I couldn't kill and gave up. Sad cuz I really wanted to like it.
Fallouts. I knew they existed for, I don't even know, decades? I finally got New Vegas some years back (and others later) and it really is the greatest game ever made. I don't know why I waited.
It's actually great that you started with New Vegas. This can help give you perspective about why Black Isle/Obsidian understands the IP so much better than Bethesda does. I truly consider 3 and 4 to have great moments, but are overall trash when you compare them to 2 and New Vegas.
I really like Bethesda a lot as a publisher (Doom/Eternal, Hi-Fi Rush) but I really wish people would stop buying the games they develop until they figure some things out.
I was planning to start a full replay of FO1-2-3-NV this week, but man, those games have not aged well presentation-wise. I ended up installing only F:NV with the Viva New Vegas modlist; I tried adding visual mods, but the game kept crashing. But at least I've got a stable version of the best game of the series now.
It would be nice if someone made a remaster of FO1 and 2 like they did with Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. I don't mind the top-down perspective, buv i would like some more graphical fidelity and UI improvements.
Red Dead Redemption 1. Played it for the first time about a year ago. I knew how it ended, but it was still worth the wait to experience everything myself.
IDK, probably Mass Effect? I just got Mass Effect Legendary this year and I've been playing it, and it's fantastic! I didn't hear about it at release for some reason, and I had heard the game was great, but decided to wait to see if they'd remaster it or something. They did, but it was too expensive, so I held off.
I eventually got it for ~$15 on a Steam sale and about 6 months later, here I am playing it. And yes, it's worth it, the game runs fantastically on my Steam Deck and it's a ton of fun.
My main reason for being patient is to get the best experience (fewer bugs, all DLC, etc), not just to save money, and I think I got it at the right time. My coworker is also playing through it for the first time, so I have someone to talk to about it.
World of warcraft. I'd been playing the games since warcraft 1. My parents wouldn't pay for my subscription so had to wait years to get it after release. 100% worth it. Amazing game back in the day.
Diablo 3 and 4. 3 was kinda worth it. 4 not so much.
StarCraft2 and hell yeah. Loved it.
Skyrim, again definitely.
Fallout 4. Despite some things lacking I thought it was awesome.
Seven kingdoms conquest. Was very shit.
I was playing Guild Wars back in the days and I remember trying the free trial of WoW. At the end of it, I decided against getting a subscription, knowing how many hours I'd sink in the game. Truely a masterpiece.
Yakuza 0. Had a PS4, but wanted to play it on the PC instead so kept waiting hoping it would be ported to the PC. It later then did and I waited longer for a price drop and it ended up showing up on a Humble Bundle so finally snatched it years later.
It was worth the wait. Very enjoyable and I did all the side quests. Cabaret club was an amazing part of the game.
Yakuza 0 is one of those rare "game of the century" candidates, especially since most people are able to buy it on steam sales for $5. It is truly unbelievable how ambitious each Yakuza game is, yet they still manage to have amazing QC and polish in spite of how widely scoped they are.
2002: Kingdom Hearts ......... 2005: Kingdom Hearts II ......... 2019: Kingdom Hearts III
14 years!
It's not a case of having waited for it as such, but I played The Last of Us this year, after watching the show. I'd say it was worth it, and I don't mind that a lot of the story beats and emotional moments were 'spoiled' as such, because I still felt them when playing the game.
Haven't moved on to the second one yet.
Probably Duke Nukem Forever. I told myself that if it were ever $1, I'd buy it.
Then it was in the $1 tier of a Humble Bundle. Gonna be honest, still not really worth it, I don't think. Never finished it, didn't really think it was that fun.
Dark Souls trilogy, waited a long long time to try it out due to the memes of the brutal difficulty.
When DS remastered came out, I finally took the plunge and am now a through enjoyer of souls games. They are difficult, but fair (as long as you're not doing pvp lol)
I only played the first Half-Life about 6 months ago despite having friends who grew up playing it. Well worth the wait, it was fantastic (I played Black Mesa to be fair, not the original Half-Life, but I’ve heard they’re near identical). That’s definitely my longest. The main other one is Dark Souls, I’ve been wanting to play it since it came out and only started it a month ago. I’ve played DS3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro, but this is my first time with DS1.
Skyrim, and yes it was. Got it on disconnected in a pack with Prey for €19, so that was excellent value for money.
I still haven't played Red Dead Redemption 2 despite getting it on sale two or three years ago.
I'm generally just more interested in indie games for some reason.
I'm still waiting for Silk Song, if that counts.
I only played Doom 1 and 2 when D3 was about to come out, so it was about 10 years old. I played some mod with polygonal models/hires textures so it wasn't a vanilla experience, but in terms of game and level design I was quite blown away.
Also I played Metal Gear Solid 3 only about 5 years ago, so that was a ~15 years old game.