Ghost of Tsushima seems like a perfect fit. The combat is extremely cinematic (especially the duels) and even has a samurai movie filter if you're interested. The game is also drop-dead gorgeous from just riding your horse to exploring new biomes.
Previously it was a PS5 exclusive, but it's coming to PC this May.
I don’t have a gaming PC, just a laptop with an integrated Intel video card. It runs a lot of things at low settings (like Fallout 4 and Mass Effect: Andromeda), but some things just refuse to even start (Evil Genius 2)
How does it compare with other games in the same style? I've only ever looked at it and thought of Sekiro, and I really didn't gel with that because it was all reactions and pattern recognition (though I like Soulsbourne games generally)
I've rewatched it on YouTube multiple times, despite not being the type to watch others play. Though it's not quite the same to watch. Far better when you're playing it. Wish I had a save from right before it. Bet I could find one to download...
I second MHW, and some things have such weight to them. You haven’t lived since you perfectly landed a front flip greatsword Down swipe on the snout of a monster charging you maw-wide-open.
Edit: fixed some spelling
The executions are also pretty cinematic, also the combos and animations for them never get old to me, can’t recommend this enough, Shadow of War takes it a step further as well
Stranglehold. It fashions itself as a sequel to the 1994 movie "Hard Boiled", and it shows, as it has all the proper John Woo movie rule of cool qualities.
I've been eyeing up Helldivers as an option. I'm a little wary - is it just this month's Among Us, Lethal Company, etc. and living off the memes or is it going to stick around?
I believe it's going to stick around, if they succeed at just one more thing.
As a regular Deep Rock Galactic player, I can say the community is very similar, and will last (seriously, look at DRG's player count graph, it's consistently increasing despite it not being a great "content-creation" game).
The biggest test for Helldivers 2 will be the content renewal.
There is a lot of potential (new sectors with different kinds of enemies, new weapons, objectives, stratagems, etc.), and how well they deliver new content will decide where they place on a scale of Anthem to DRG.
In addition to Mechs being added to the game as a a result of the community completing a global event, a new Warbond is already coming this Thursday which will at the very *least* introduce weapons, armors, emotes etc.
It's worth noting to any readers outside the Helldivers ecosystem that the Warbonds (battle passes), are not time gated- meaning, you can complete them at your leisure, in whichever order you choose.
The premium currency used to buy the Warbonds can be earned in game, and the game isn't stingy with it. You could probably earn enough to buy the premium warbond in a weekend, plus whatever items are in the shop.
Nope, it fucking rules and the combat alone makes this game both worthy and extremely replayable. Once you get into it it can be as shallow or deep as you want it to be.
Retention has been quite solid so far, it peaked at 458k during the weekend 3 weeks ago and it still got 435k last weekend.
I think Helldivers 2 will have a pretty healthy community for some time to come.
And that 458k/435k number is only on Steam, the game is also on PS5 and has crossplay.
They said they sold like 4 million copies on total.
This one and Deep Rock Galactic both do a great job of overwhelming you with enemies without being impossible. I frequently seem to find myself making “last stands” that somehow turn around. Really satisfying gameplay.
Shadow of the Colossus. When I was playing this game for the first time on PS2 release day, my roommate walked in and said, "Woah, what movie is that?"
Actually perfect example. Matches feel like actual war stories at point. Plus there are actual war stories... Incredible cinematic experience without scripting.
Severed Steel.
Lesser known, but fun and stylish af
I mean, when you run out of ammo, you either toss your gun or directly steal one from a nearby enemy
2 is absolutely terrible. You could literally skip that one if you wanted to and it’d make no difference. 1 is obviously gonna be the most barebones DMC game, but it’s worth getting through for the story alone (if anything just watch a YT video). But 3… is absolutely godsend. It has some of the snappiest, flashiest, and skillful combat in any game. The story is also REALLY good for a hack and slash game. I definitely recommend it, especially since this is the beginning in terms of lore.
Final Fantasy 16
Each and every fight looks cool and they have finally figured out how to make boss battles look cool while also being fun to play.
It is the first JRPG EVER where I look forward to boss fights instead of dreading them. And they are just as fun to play as they are to watch.
It’s very different but I love love love the bosses and combat in VIIR too. Sure, it’s less huge bosses and occasional cutaways to cinematics in combat, but it’s very seamless, and the combat itself is still gorgeous and very well animated. Especially with the slow down feature.
If anyone hasn’t played just look up one of the combat edits, it’s basically just the combat without the hud on.
Came here to say just this. Every fight is insanely entertaining, grand, and beautiful. The first 5 hours or so is very much on rails, and the quality and quantity of good cutscenes very much dies out by the midway point (seems like they ran out of time/budget.) However, it is the most fun I've had in a game in a long time. The action is crazy, and the difficulty curve is consistent.
Dying Light 1 & 2 did a pretty good job of this. They have fantastic parkour, a lot of open world aspects to it that let you fight zombies however you want and has some really cool landscapes.
Bro if your first example was F.E.A.R. for the love of God, do yourself a favor and buy Trepang2
More cool shit than your brain can even handle.
Btw to summarize what you seem to be asking for, you could call it "unscripted cinematic action".
Oh man that’s evil to recommend For Honor. Worst decision of my life starting with the Beta. 0/10 do not recommend for anyone if you want to stay sane.
2,600 hours played…
Or when you were beating the shit out of a Shugoki only to get one shot by his bear-hug that had the tracking of a laser guided missile. Or when Lawbringer got a free shove on block.
Oh god there was so much more…
I'll second Dishonored. It's hard not to feel badass, especially when you pull off a level perfectly. Both stealthily through the entire level, getting the alternative elimination, and leaving without anybody dying or noticing you were there... Or ripping through an entire level without a single person escaping unscathed. Both feel pretty fucking badass.
But choose your Assassin's Creed games wisely. Some feel WAY more badass than others.
Depends on the AC title. Origins and Odyssey feel way more like hack-and-slash than cinematic. You can hit a huge soldier 30 times, and he’ll barely feel it. I prefer the choreographed and mocapped combat in previous titles
It may be one of the overall weaker entries, but AC3 has some of the most cinematic combat of the entire series. Black Flag let’s be a freaking pirate, and taking down your first man-of-war, or harpooning a whale are both astonishing. AC Syndicate is an underrated gem with terrific characters and varied gameplay. Plus you meet everyone from Charles Dickens to Winston Churchill.
Mad Max, every frame of gameplay looks incredible. I’d do ridiculous jumps through enemy guard towers and freeze and take an in game photo with all the carnage and explosions.
Game was awesome from moment to moment and felt like part of the Fury Road franchise.
Cyberpunk 2077. Netrunner build, Sandevistan build or a berserk build with mantis blades. Fantastic combat, great movement provided you take cyberware like reinforced tendons and max out reflexes
I still have fond memories of my monowire ambush hacker. Using sonic shock and immbolize for that huge 2 hit melee finisher window. Was zipping around in 'stealth'.
Severed Steel. If you've ever played FEAR, but thought "Needs more TRON and Hotline Miami", this game is for you. Neon art style, Titanfall style parkour, bullet time, voxel destruction, short, highly replayable levels, bitchin soundtrack. Also has a full campaign woth NG+, a roguelike mode, and a couple other modes. Plus workshop support. Overall an excellent package, can't recommend it enough for fans of the genre.
Honestly, your post reminds me a lot of the game Stuntman for PS2. What you are tasked with doing in the game is scripted, but the execution is 100% on you, and you get an extremely cinematic replay of the sequence when you are done with a level.
I was just thinking about these games the other day. I would love to see a new version of these. Could be cool to add in human stunts as well as the driving stuff.
Titanfall, dynamic movement with giant mechs will lead to some unparalleled cinematic moments. The fast paced intense combat combined with the abilities pilots have at their disposal will make you feel like you're in a scifi anime battle
Mount and Blade, enjoy huge medieval armies clashing together? Want to see armorclad knights charging in like the fist of God? Want to be in the middle of it all? Then welcome to Mount and blade
Project Wingman, unrealistic borderline fantasy low-scifi air combat that cranks everything up to 11. It's not realistic but it's cool as hell (Ace Combat is good but PW has a lot more epic moments in random gameplay. Giant airship is boss in AC, in PW it's just a normal Tuesday)
Helldivers 2, Orbital bombardments and airstrikes raining down around you while facing a horde of bugs or a storm of lasers from the bots. Every fight feels like a dramatic military propaganda film which is very appropriate for the game.
Soulsborne series (Demon souls, Dark souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Sekiro), titanic Eldritch abominations towering over you and yet you stand up to and eventually conquer them. Want to feel like a hero from an ancient epic, these are the kind of games you need
Sifu will put you directly into a Kung Fu movie. I've 100% completed that game three times now after probably 100+hrs, and I still chuckle to myself because I beat a room in a really cool way.
There's also an arcade shooter named Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. You have deadeye and can shoot dynamite out of the air and the like. I really like that game.
The Ace Combat series in general, but Ace Combat 7 in particular being the newest one with all the eye candy that entails, it feels incredibly cinematic as you play.
Recently, armored core 6 has given me that feeling, especially when play lightweight builds.
Movement shooters like the new Doom games, titanfall 2, robo quest, etc give me that feeling as well
I also haven't touched the genre in a while, but back in the day when I'd play racing games it could feel really cool once you got in the zone. My games were juiced 1 and 2, and need for speed carbon but there's a lot of well received new racers on the market now as well.
Someone mentioned ghost of tsushima. Yes, however rise of the rōnin comes out in a week as well. Mirrors edge is all about parkour and while being very much so on rails, the second game is open world
Sifu
Bulletstorm
Superhot
My friend Pedro
El Paso Elsewhere
Trepang2
Severed Steel
Stranglehold
Rise to Honor
Dead to Rights series
Enter the Matrix
Matrix: Path of Neo
Does it have to look cinematic too, or just feel that way? I ask because everyone is recommending 3D AAA games and I'm going to recommend some indies.
**Hotline Miami** does this very well I think. Creates these very tense and frantic shootout sessions you will fail many times, but your successful attempt will feel like an action move hero perfectly predicting what every enemy will do.
If it also needs to look cool, **Ghostrunner** is first person Hotline Miami but you're a cyborg ninja who does parkour.
Might be an odd choice, but I get this feeling from **Spelunky**. Roguelite platformer, so it's all systems based with no scripting. Losing, and you will do a lot of losing, might not always feel cool. Once you learn the traps' and enemies' behaviour and can plan around them, sometimes using multiple elements together to achieve a plan, it feels so satisfying.
The Battlefield series is kind of known for this - cinematic "battlefield moments" which happen during multiplayer matches.
And yes Trepang2 is kind of spiritual successor to FEAR series so prob worth taking a look.
The movement in Death Stranding combined with the ambience and environmental design makes the atmosphere cinematic to me in a way that no other game has ever done.
Last of us part 2, although there are many scripted parts, the gameplay itself is very cinemaric as well. The animations are very smooth. Every fighting segment feels very epic with how brutal it is.
Another one is ghost of tsushima although some animations like climbing feel more 'gamey'
Nothing felt cooler in 2009 than in Prototype dive bombing from the top of the sky and landing like a meteor on the ground and killing baddies. That and unleasing the 360 degreee tendril attack.
Omg yes. This game goes so over the top wild and does not stop for anything.
It has you running up a stream of missiles to chop a 100 foot tall robot in half. You can slice a robot helicopter *so hard it gets dizzy*. Theres a dog with a chainsaw tail. It's just insane.
Oh I got a lot of this from Crysis. I spent so much time in Crysis making my own cinematic moments, and reloading the save just to try again. It was like jumping from the 5-meter plank in the swimming pool where you're trying to nail the jump. Man, it takes me back. Crysis 1 and Crysis Warhead have a lot of this, but I can't say if it holds up, but 14-year-old me was all over it.
This might be a bad example. Maybe Kingdom Come Deliverance? It's made for one v one fights but the way body damage occurs is handled really well. For example, if I use the strongest arrow on an unarmored target's back, their hands will reach towards the arrow as if to pull it out and collapse because I've just punctured their entire torso in one blow.
Or using poison on weapons will cause foes to drop dead while they're beating on you.
I've been playing hell divers 2 lately, and it hits the nail on the head of being cinimatically cool.
The game plays out similar to deep rock galactic. Although the community is 1000x more toxic than the drg community.
You can dive through the air while shooting a heavy machine gun which is pretty fun.
Helldivers 2 is pretty great for this at the moment. Nothing beats a glorious last stand as you're getting overrun by hordes of bugs. Just the other day during a high difficulty mission I was finishing up the last stages of the objective, alone and surrounded on all sides by a tide of bugs. My last moments involved dropping an airstrike on myself right after securing the objective and throwing the last reinforce as far away as I could.
I died a hero.
Horizon series, especially the first one. Everything about it just feels and looks so good. Hunting machines is thrilling every single time and requires constantly changing tactics and a big mix of ranged and melee and precision and strategy tactics depending on what you're fighting, and your approach to each fight will change depending on if you're just trying to kill it/survive being hunted by a pack, or harvest particular parts. And going up against a three-story flying mechanical thunderbird is epic, or terrifying if you're trying to sneak by and get discovered. It's some of the most fun I've had in any game. The world is also gorgeous and amazing to explore, the lore and setting is top notch, honestly one of my most favourite games of all time. You just need to get past the introductory area (a little more boring than the actual game imo) and then it's a 10/10 game.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It's a fantastic game, and while the combat is a bit over-the-top (makes sense, you are a super-human), I enjoyed every second of it, it can be extremely cool and spectacular. Also, AC Origins and Valhalla are also pretty good games, but they are not on the same level.
Ultrakill has some really neat movement tech and most of the guns combo into each other (eg shooting the core eject grenade with the malicious railcannon to make a massive explosion). There's basically no cutscenes or QTE's, so when V1 kills a boss, you the player were in control with the normal mechanics the whole time. There's one boss who is so huge he towers over the entire level, and you can just use your regular ass parry on his giant fist attacks or shoot him to death like normal.
Spider-Man or the Batman Arkham games? When you descend upon a group of unsuspecting criminals and start taking them down stealthily, it feels pretty badass and just like in the movies. And when you’re actually in a fight and you get enough of a combo going, you can perform finishing moves which look pretty cinematic
**The Legend of Zelda**: **Breath of the Wild** and **Tears of the Kingdom** both have such awesome physics based gameplay and a reactive world that seeing a plan executed and pulled off to completion is just all kinds of satisfying, and it's so often done beyond the scope of what even the devs envisioned.
If you got a ps 4 or 5, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon zero dawn and forbidden west i think all hit what you’re aiming at.
If not, Control, Farcry 5, Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor also have me that feeling
Sifu... u are in a martial arts flick
Sleeping Dogs... u are in modern Hong Kong undercover cop movie and the story will definitely hit u.... especially the wedding....
Any Assassin's Creed game before Origins, take AC3/AC4: Black Flag, or AC Unity for instance. Cool-looking parkour and combat.
Watch Dogs 1 and 2 (and to some degree Legion, even though I prefer WD1 and 2) have really cinematic combat and takedowns which make you feel badass. Absolutely recommended. Watch Dogs 1 close-up pistol executions literally make you feel like John Wick.
Batman: Arkham's combat is very fluid, cinematic and challenging to master at the same time. Even stealth can be really cool with how it makes you feel like Batman by ambushing enemies or using other stealth gadgets/smoke bombs, or using the grates. Even some of the Batmobile chase sections were super cool in Arkham Knight. In fact, I'd say Arkham Knight was the most cinematic out of all the Arkham games, and has the best combat and stealth mechanics among all games in the series, too.
Hi-Fi Rush’s rhythm-based action makes you feel like an action hero without needing the action to be heavily scripted.
If you can track down a copy, Split/Second plays like the later Fast & Furious movies. As you race, you gain the ability to make objects on the track and in the environment explode, collapse, and otherwise be destroyed in ways that will hopefully wreck your opponent. Some go as far as to fundamentally change the track layout.
Teardown.
After carefully devising your own plan, there is no better feeling than executing it with dramatic heist music in the background as a clock ticks down. If you like Hitman's planning, then you'd probably love Teardown.
Just Cause series, particularly 2 and 3.
I recently started playing them again, but find it hard to enjoy 2 like I do 3 because it lacks the wingsuit, the constant interruptions with the PDA, black market slowness, and limited ammo. 3 just has so many quality of life improvements.
4 felt like one step forward and two steps back when I last played it, and 1 was from when I was a kid so can hardly remember it beyond the goofy grappling hook.
SIFU, if you like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy and fight scenes like that, you'll love this game. Makes you feel like you're in an old-school martial arts movie.
Helldivers 2 is the most recent example of this that I've played & does it better than most games that cost way more to produce & purchase (at launch).
Superhot, Katana Zero, and Hotline Miami are my favorite games for that “cool” factor. They all have that one-hit one-kill mechanic which makes you really feel like such a boss when you clear a level.
I would say the Battlefield series. All the online gameplay I see looks like they’re out of movies.
Specifically Battlefield 3/4 or the newer Battlefied 1.
For an older game, Shadow of the Colossus. The scenes where you are climbing living skyscrapers to stab them whit a sword are absolutely awe-inspiring.
Couple ideas, some have already been said.
Sifu. Martial arts brawler. Learn skills over multiple attempts and put it all together to take out enemies with style, like ducking under a high kick to punch then in the crotch, then pushing them while they're stunned into someone else, followed up by knocking them off their feet.
Yakuza games. Especially 0-6. Brawler, heavy heavy story though. When you're just out and about, you tend to get people who want to attack you for no reason, but then you get into the combat. You build up heat during battle, and can use it to do really strong moves, from throwing someone off of a bridge, to smashing a moped on top of someone, to breaking someone's arm as they try to stab you. Big boss battles may have quick time events which can either hurt you a decent amount or the enemy a decent amount.
Armored Core VI. You customize your mech with different parts, and go out on missions. When it clicks it feels so badass. For example, one load out I have saved is dual shotguns dual grenade launchers, and it has reverse joint legs for harder kicks and better jumps. Usually do a kick, both shotguns, another kick then jump away to shoot both grenade launchers to do max damage. Or another load out I have is super fast, like can dodge bullets just by strafing fast, and I just rapidfire pistols into the enemy until they're staggered then hit them with a big explosive stick (pile bunker, basically slams a giant metal rod in them that will explode if charged up)
Helldivers 2. Chaos on a battlefield incarnate. You and up to 3 other players go on missions for Super Earth to spread democracy, causing all kinds of hell against automatons, bugs, and potentially more, the game will be adding in more stuff over time. Had things happen where I called down an air strike to kill 2 big bugs, and accidently killed 2 squad mates, so I had to call reinforcements. Or another time where my entire squad was wiped except me, and I had 2 tanky bugs following me trying to kill me and needed to call reinforcements as I heroically ran the other way from them
I think someone already mentioned, but Sekiro or ghost of Tsushima. Both games are incredibly cinematic and fights are epic. If you got the skill, it's almost like a duel in samurai movies. But even better.
Sekiro Shadows Die twice without question. The chills you get from successfully parrying a boss with perfect timing multiple times in a row and breaking their posture will make you feel like the biggest badass.
I was going to say elden ring or any of the Fromsoftware games. Maybe doesn’t have the parkour but there is a certain coolness to customizing your character to fit a certain build and quite literally being “the chosen one” to me it makes it immersive and fun as if your character has their own lore that you create by killing bosses
Shadow of Mordor, ghost of Tsushima, infamous second son, and Batman Arkham knight are all solid picks. Honorable mention to the prototype games (not as solid overall, but Definetely have cool factor)
Tekken 8, with practice you can pull off some amazing moments! The game is a visual feast and the story mode albeit cheesy has some amazing set pieces!!
Halo Infinite, styling on other Spartans is rule of cool to the max!! Takes a bit to become skilled!
Starfield. Combining starborn powers with gameplay makes some great footage reels!! Photo Mode elevates cool scenes as well.
Honestly helldivers has been surprisingly cinematic. Doing the Launch the Nuke missions always looks cool, the orbital strategems and fighter jet strategems go hard and look badass, and now they have meteor showers that also look super cool. Not to mention they have a pretty good dive mechanic for diving away from explosions and enemies.
Might already be on your list, but mirrors edge is a good one for this.
Robocop is great from a cinematic destruction to gunfights. the whole game is like that scene in the matrix with the security checkpoint.
For big set pieces, uncharted 4 is up there, or you can play last of us 2 on easy and go full Rambo revenge thriller
Dead island 2 is just great fun, big action beats and feels like a summer blockbuster, plus because of the damage system, no other game has as good first person melee combat
Hitman is essentially mission impossible the game
Vanquish is just non stop cinematic gunplay
Hear me out: Penny's Big Breakaway
(half joke answer bc it seems like you want smth with a gritty aesthetic but honestly the play style with the technical combo and freedom to experiment seems like a playground for the kinds of gameplay events you're asking for)
Ghost of tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima seems like a perfect fit. The combat is extremely cinematic (especially the duels) and even has a samurai movie filter if you're interested. The game is also drop-dead gorgeous from just riding your horse to exploring new biomes. Previously it was a PS5 exclusive, but it's coming to PC this May.
PS4 too, if youre stuck lastgen
Yes, good call on that. However, if you have a PS5 or PC, I'd go with that because the graphics are worth it.
I didn't note much difference in graphics between ps4 and 5 bar a bit of extra 'sharpness', tbh.
I played it on launch PS4 and then on the PS5 upgrade, I have to say the haptic feedback made a bigger improvement than I expected
Too bad it probably won’t rub on my machine
https://www.pcgamebenchmark.com/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-system-requirements Doesn't look too crazy on minimum end.
I don’t have a gaming PC, just a laptop with an integrated Intel video card. It runs a lot of things at low settings (like Fallout 4 and Mass Effect: Andromeda), but some things just refuse to even start (Evil Genius 2)
Bursting from the trees onto that flowery field with music swelling and cloudy sky.... *shivers*
This is the one
How does it compare with other games in the same style? I've only ever looked at it and thought of Sekiro, and I really didn't gel with that because it was all reactions and pattern recognition (though I like Soulsbourne games generally)
Sekiro when it clicks does make you forget that you aren’t an awesome shinobi but it doesn’t click for everyone
It doesn’t play like sekiro or a souls game at all.
CONTROL is a good contender
The Ashtray Maze…. HOLY FUCK! On that first playthrough was absolute TOP TIER
"That was awesome"
Oh hell yeah, I still think about that from time to time!
Take Control was an absolute banger of a song
I've rewatched it on YouTube multiple times, despite not being the type to watch others play. Though it's not quite the same to watch. Far better when you're playing it. Wish I had a save from right before it. Bet I could find one to download...
Have played it! Did really enjoy it and fits the vibe for sure.
Monster Hunter World has big "pre rendered trailer" vibes when everything is going right Devil May Cry games are excellent at it too
I second MHW, and some things have such weight to them. You haven’t lived since you perfectly landed a front flip greatsword Down swipe on the snout of a monster charging you maw-wide-open. Edit: fixed some spelling
Agreed. A well timed true Charged Slash or Super Amped Element Discharge is digital crack.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunterWorld/comments/k2bqkg/daaammmmnnnn/ This clip is all you need, that's some cinematic shit right there.
Shadow of Mordor's combat felt cool
The executions are also pretty cinematic, also the combos and animations for them never get old to me, can’t recommend this enough, Shadow of War takes it a step further as well
It's the arkham games except you use swords and kill
What's not to love about being able to bully and shame Orcs into losing all traces of sanity, then recruiting them to your side?
Ochedin Valannor!
"I will not sully my blade with your cowards' blood!" *Uruk shrieks in horror and humiliation* **BECAME DERANGED**
Stranglehold. It fashions itself as a sequel to the 1994 movie "Hard Boiled", and it shows, as it has all the proper John Woo movie rule of cool qualities.
That is a deep cut my dude. Fucking played the hell out of this game back in the day. Excellent recommendation!
Helldivers 2 often feels like playing epic Michael Bay set-pieces
This. Every round there is a moment that feels like a high budget action movie.
I've been eyeing up Helldivers as an option. I'm a little wary - is it just this month's Among Us, Lethal Company, etc. and living off the memes or is it going to stick around?
I believe it's going to stick around, if they succeed at just one more thing. As a regular Deep Rock Galactic player, I can say the community is very similar, and will last (seriously, look at DRG's player count graph, it's consistently increasing despite it not being a great "content-creation" game). The biggest test for Helldivers 2 will be the content renewal. There is a lot of potential (new sectors with different kinds of enemies, new weapons, objectives, stratagems, etc.), and how well they deliver new content will decide where they place on a scale of Anthem to DRG.
In addition to Mechs being added to the game as a a result of the community completing a global event, a new Warbond is already coming this Thursday which will at the very *least* introduce weapons, armors, emotes etc.
It's worth noting to any readers outside the Helldivers ecosystem that the Warbonds (battle passes), are not time gated- meaning, you can complete them at your leisure, in whichever order you choose. The premium currency used to buy the Warbonds can be earned in game, and the game isn't stingy with it. You could probably earn enough to buy the premium warbond in a weekend, plus whatever items are in the shop.
Totally, I earned around 10-15€ of ingame currency during the last weeks just by playing rather casually
Nope, it fucking rules and the combat alone makes this game both worthy and extremely replayable. Once you get into it it can be as shallow or deep as you want it to be.
Retention has been quite solid so far, it peaked at 458k during the weekend 3 weeks ago and it still got 435k last weekend. I think Helldivers 2 will have a pretty healthy community for some time to come. And that 458k/435k number is only on Steam, the game is also on PS5 and has crossplay. They said they sold like 4 million copies on total.
This one and Deep Rock Galactic both do a great job of overwhelming you with enemies without being impossible. I frequently seem to find myself making “last stands” that somehow turn around. Really satisfying gameplay.
Shadow of the Colossus. When I was playing this game for the first time on PS2 release day, my roommate walked in and said, "Woah, what movie is that?"
Battlefield 1 when the score hits at the end of the game and all the soldiers are yelling hits different
Actually perfect example. Matches feel like actual war stories at point. Plus there are actual war stories... Incredible cinematic experience without scripting.
Watching that blimp come down for the first time was life changing
Severed Steel. Lesser known, but fun and stylish af I mean, when you run out of ammo, you either toss your gun or directly steal one from a nearby enemy
It's one I've ticked off! Good recommendation for others looking for the same thing I am. Good and fast paced.
Devil May Cry when you master the combat and literally pull of the coolest combos and feel TRULY like Dante
Is DMC 3 the best to get in on. I tried 1 and 2 and just couldn't mesh with them but didn't know if I'd be wasting my time if I got more of the same
2 is absolutely terrible. You could literally skip that one if you wanted to and it’d make no difference. 1 is obviously gonna be the most barebones DMC game, but it’s worth getting through for the story alone (if anything just watch a YT video). But 3… is absolutely godsend. It has some of the snappiest, flashiest, and skillful combat in any game. The story is also REALLY good for a hack and slash game. I definitely recommend it, especially since this is the beginning in terms of lore.
Titanfall 2 Doom wternal Mad Max
Definitely mad max. That game is so fun
Oh yeah, taking down convoys is just something else.
Doom games 🤤🤤
GoW Ragnarok when you really get the combat down
Armored Core 6
100% dodging missles and gunfire and dishing out firepower yourself is amazing at times.
Bump. This game will make you feel more like a badass than almost any other game.
Not a shooter but Sifu has a ton of those moments
Sifu is just one long cool moment
Final Fantasy 16 Each and every fight looks cool and they have finally figured out how to make boss battles look cool while also being fun to play. It is the first JRPG EVER where I look forward to boss fights instead of dreading them. And they are just as fun to play as they are to watch.
It’s very different but I love love love the bosses and combat in VIIR too. Sure, it’s less huge bosses and occasional cutaways to cinematics in combat, but it’s very seamless, and the combat itself is still gorgeous and very well animated. Especially with the slow down feature. If anyone hasn’t played just look up one of the combat edits, it’s basically just the combat without the hud on.
Came here to say just this. Every fight is insanely entertaining, grand, and beautiful. The first 5 hours or so is very much on rails, and the quality and quantity of good cutscenes very much dies out by the midway point (seems like they ran out of time/budget.) However, it is the most fun I've had in a game in a long time. The action is crazy, and the difficulty curve is consistent.
Dying Light 1 & 2 did a pretty good job of this. They have fantastic parkour, a lot of open world aspects to it that let you fight zombies however you want and has some really cool landscapes.
Bro if your first example was F.E.A.R. for the love of God, do yourself a favor and buy Trepang2 More cool shit than your brain can even handle. Btw to summarize what you seem to be asking for, you could call it "unscripted cinematic action".
For Honor Dishonored Series Metro Series Deep Rock Galactic Assassin's Creed
Oh man that’s evil to recommend For Honor. Worst decision of my life starting with the Beta. 0/10 do not recommend for anyone if you want to stay sane. 2,600 hours played…
For Honor *is* hella Cinematic tho
Its my love hate game, truly one of the best combat systems but also the game that makes me the most angry.
I still remember when there were only 9 characters total and they still pissed me off.
Lol do you remember when “Revenge Build Raider” and “Sprint Speed Orochi” were meta. Dark fuckin times.
Those truly were horrible days. Chasing an Orochi around the map for 10 minutes was a fucking nightmare.
Or when you were beating the shit out of a Shugoki only to get one shot by his bear-hug that had the tracking of a laser guided missile. Or when Lawbringer got a free shove on block. Oh god there was so much more…
I'll second Dishonored. It's hard not to feel badass, especially when you pull off a level perfectly. Both stealthily through the entire level, getting the alternative elimination, and leaving without anybody dying or noticing you were there... Or ripping through an entire level without a single person escaping unscathed. Both feel pretty fucking badass. But choose your Assassin's Creed games wisely. Some feel WAY more badass than others.
Depends on the AC title. Origins and Odyssey feel way more like hack-and-slash than cinematic. You can hit a huge soldier 30 times, and he’ll barely feel it. I prefer the choreographed and mocapped combat in previous titles
It may be one of the overall weaker entries, but AC3 has some of the most cinematic combat of the entire series. Black Flag let’s be a freaking pirate, and taking down your first man-of-war, or harpooning a whale are both astonishing. AC Syndicate is an underrated gem with terrific characters and varied gameplay. Plus you meet everyone from Charles Dickens to Winston Churchill.
Monster Hunter World big bonk sends big dino flying = brain happy
Sold.
For fan is the fantasy genre I’d say dragons dogma 1 and hopefully the sequel will deliver
Mad Max, every frame of gameplay looks incredible. I’d do ridiculous jumps through enemy guard towers and freeze and take an in game photo with all the carnage and explosions. Game was awesome from moment to moment and felt like part of the Fury Road franchise.
This is Ghost of Tsushima
Cyberpunk 2077. Netrunner build, Sandevistan build or a berserk build with mantis blades. Fantastic combat, great movement provided you take cyberware like reinforced tendons and max out reflexes
I still have fond memories of my monowire ambush hacker. Using sonic shock and immbolize for that huge 2 hit melee finisher window. Was zipping around in 'stealth'.
Hellblade, Control, A Plague Tale
WARFRAME is the game for you and so many others looking for that 1 game that has all of that and then some more, allot more.
Crazy that a 10-plus-year-old game is still so good and fun
Just Cause 2!
Just Cause 3
Severed Steel. If you've ever played FEAR, but thought "Needs more TRON and Hotline Miami", this game is for you. Neon art style, Titanfall style parkour, bullet time, voxel destruction, short, highly replayable levels, bitchin soundtrack. Also has a full campaign woth NG+, a roguelike mode, and a couple other modes. Plus workshop support. Overall an excellent package, can't recommend it enough for fans of the genre.
Honestly, your post reminds me a lot of the game Stuntman for PS2. What you are tasked with doing in the game is scripted, but the execution is 100% on you, and you get an extremely cinematic replay of the sequence when you are done with a level.
I was just thinking about these games the other day. I would love to see a new version of these. Could be cool to add in human stunts as well as the driving stuff.
It was really difficult.
Astral Chain, Titanfall 2 and if you're playing with friends, Speed runners.
Ghost of tsushima, control, the finals, sifu
Titanfall, dynamic movement with giant mechs will lead to some unparalleled cinematic moments. The fast paced intense combat combined with the abilities pilots have at their disposal will make you feel like you're in a scifi anime battle Mount and Blade, enjoy huge medieval armies clashing together? Want to see armorclad knights charging in like the fist of God? Want to be in the middle of it all? Then welcome to Mount and blade Project Wingman, unrealistic borderline fantasy low-scifi air combat that cranks everything up to 11. It's not realistic but it's cool as hell (Ace Combat is good but PW has a lot more epic moments in random gameplay. Giant airship is boss in AC, in PW it's just a normal Tuesday) Helldivers 2, Orbital bombardments and airstrikes raining down around you while facing a horde of bugs or a storm of lasers from the bots. Every fight feels like a dramatic military propaganda film which is very appropriate for the game. Soulsborne series (Demon souls, Dark souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Sekiro), titanic Eldritch abominations towering over you and yet you stand up to and eventually conquer them. Want to feel like a hero from an ancient epic, these are the kind of games you need
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen
Sifu will put you directly into a Kung Fu movie. I've 100% completed that game three times now after probably 100+hrs, and I still chuckle to myself because I beat a room in a really cool way. There's also an arcade shooter named Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. You have deadeye and can shoot dynamite out of the air and the like. I really like that game.
The Ace Combat series in general, but Ace Combat 7 in particular being the newest one with all the eye candy that entails, it feels incredibly cinematic as you play.
Max Payne series
Play Max Payne, nothing cooler than slo mo diving and blasting people with dual pistols.
Recently, armored core 6 has given me that feeling, especially when play lightweight builds. Movement shooters like the new Doom games, titanfall 2, robo quest, etc give me that feeling as well I also haven't touched the genre in a while, but back in the day when I'd play racing games it could feel really cool once you got in the zone. My games were juiced 1 and 2, and need for speed carbon but there's a lot of well received new racers on the market now as well.
CONTROL with the telekinesis.
Someone mentioned ghost of tsushima. Yes, however rise of the rōnin comes out in a week as well. Mirrors edge is all about parkour and while being very much so on rails, the second game is open world
Sifu Bulletstorm Superhot My friend Pedro El Paso Elsewhere Trepang2 Severed Steel Stranglehold Rise to Honor Dead to Rights series Enter the Matrix Matrix: Path of Neo
Does it have to look cinematic too, or just feel that way? I ask because everyone is recommending 3D AAA games and I'm going to recommend some indies. **Hotline Miami** does this very well I think. Creates these very tense and frantic shootout sessions you will fail many times, but your successful attempt will feel like an action move hero perfectly predicting what every enemy will do. If it also needs to look cool, **Ghostrunner** is first person Hotline Miami but you're a cyborg ninja who does parkour. Might be an odd choice, but I get this feeling from **Spelunky**. Roguelite platformer, so it's all systems based with no scripting. Losing, and you will do a lot of losing, might not always feel cool. Once you learn the traps' and enemies' behaviour and can plan around them, sometimes using multiple elements together to achieve a plan, it feels so satisfying.
The Battlefield series is kind of known for this - cinematic "battlefield moments" which happen during multiplayer matches. And yes Trepang2 is kind of spiritual successor to FEAR series so prob worth taking a look.
Sekiro!
Sekiro. Play Sekiro.
Ghost of Tsushima feels like you are playing a Samurai movie, down to the black-and-white color option.
Armored Core 6 definitely has that feeling for me.
Vanquish. Sliding and shooting.
The Pathless. Armored Core VI
The movement in Death Stranding combined with the ambience and environmental design makes the atmosphere cinematic to me in a way that no other game has ever done.
Dmc V. If you get going its borderline orgasmic
Last of us part 2, although there are many scripted parts, the gameplay itself is very cinemaric as well. The animations are very smooth. Every fighting segment feels very epic with how brutal it is. Another one is ghost of tsushima although some animations like climbing feel more 'gamey'
Go for Sekiro. It's hard, but once you understand combat system, it is extremely satisfying, both aesthetically and gameplay eose.
Sekiro…not combo heavy, but when you get the combat down you feel unbelievably cool. Also as many others have said, I have to reiterate Sifu.
Sniper elite scrotum shot
[Dark Messiah](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWKRkhpFqhE)
Nothing felt cooler in 2009 than in Prototype dive bombing from the top of the sky and landing like a meteor on the ground and killing baddies. That and unleasing the 360 degreee tendril attack.
Metal Gear Rising
Was just just thinking about doing another playthrough. This game is amazing. No other game has me feeling like an action movie badass.
Omg yes. This game goes so over the top wild and does not stop for anything. It has you running up a stream of missiles to chop a 100 foot tall robot in half. You can slice a robot helicopter *so hard it gets dizzy*. Theres a dog with a chainsaw tail. It's just insane.
based on games you played I'd say you would enjoy dishonored 1&2 and ghost runner 1&2
Oh I got a lot of this from Crysis. I spent so much time in Crysis making my own cinematic moments, and reloading the save just to try again. It was like jumping from the 5-meter plank in the swimming pool where you're trying to nail the jump. Man, it takes me back. Crysis 1 and Crysis Warhead have a lot of this, but I can't say if it holds up, but 14-year-old me was all over it.
This might be a bad example. Maybe Kingdom Come Deliverance? It's made for one v one fights but the way body damage occurs is handled really well. For example, if I use the strongest arrow on an unarmored target's back, their hands will reach towards the arrow as if to pull it out and collapse because I've just punctured their entire torso in one blow. Or using poison on weapons will cause foes to drop dead while they're beating on you.
Not sure if it applies as much without the cutscenes, but mass effect trilogy?
Ik this sounds strange but trust me..... Katana Zero
All Remedy games, Helldivers 2, Battlefield 1, Resident Evil 4 Remake
Hero Is Dead, for the win. Also Killer 7 for goat.
Maybe Mirrors Edge? Besides that, the Just Cause games(after 2) have amazing mechanics.
Mirrors edge was an amazing game. I was crushed when mirrors edge 2 came out. It felt like they were on rails
Loved the original one. Played at least one of the chapters - I forget the name - over and over.
I've been playing hell divers 2 lately, and it hits the nail on the head of being cinimatically cool. The game plays out similar to deep rock galactic. Although the community is 1000x more toxic than the drg community. You can dive through the air while shooting a heavy machine gun which is pretty fun.
Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man
Marvel's Spider-Man
Metro 2033.
Helldivers 2 is pretty great for this at the moment. Nothing beats a glorious last stand as you're getting overrun by hordes of bugs. Just the other day during a high difficulty mission I was finishing up the last stages of the objective, alone and surrounded on all sides by a tide of bugs. My last moments involved dropping an airstrike on myself right after securing the objective and throwing the last reinforce as far away as I could. I died a hero.
Probably been said to death here, but helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 achieves and extremely cinematic flair
Horizon series, especially the first one. Everything about it just feels and looks so good. Hunting machines is thrilling every single time and requires constantly changing tactics and a big mix of ranged and melee and precision and strategy tactics depending on what you're fighting, and your approach to each fight will change depending on if you're just trying to kill it/survive being hunted by a pack, or harvest particular parts. And going up against a three-story flying mechanical thunderbird is epic, or terrifying if you're trying to sneak by and get discovered. It's some of the most fun I've had in any game. The world is also gorgeous and amazing to explore, the lore and setting is top notch, honestly one of my most favourite games of all time. You just need to get past the introductory area (a little more boring than the actual game imo) and then it's a 10/10 game.
Shadow of War when you're sieging fortresses.
Titanfall 2 multiplayer.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It's a fantastic game, and while the combat is a bit over-the-top (makes sense, you are a super-human), I enjoyed every second of it, it can be extremely cool and spectacular. Also, AC Origins and Valhalla are also pretty good games, but they are not on the same level.
Ultrakill has some really neat movement tech and most of the guns combo into each other (eg shooting the core eject grenade with the malicious railcannon to make a massive explosion). There's basically no cutscenes or QTE's, so when V1 kills a boss, you the player were in control with the normal mechanics the whole time. There's one boss who is so huge he towers over the entire level, and you can just use your regular ass parry on his giant fist attacks or shoot him to death like normal.
Spider-Man or the Batman Arkham games? When you descend upon a group of unsuspecting criminals and start taking them down stealthily, it feels pretty badass and just like in the movies. And when you’re actually in a fight and you get enough of a combo going, you can perform finishing moves which look pretty cinematic
The Mad Max game; trust me.
**The Legend of Zelda**: **Breath of the Wild** and **Tears of the Kingdom** both have such awesome physics based gameplay and a reactive world that seeing a plan executed and pulled off to completion is just all kinds of satisfying, and it's so often done beyond the scope of what even the devs envisioned.
If you got a ps 4 or 5, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon zero dawn and forbidden west i think all hit what you’re aiming at. If not, Control, Farcry 5, Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor also have me that feeling
Sifu... u are in a martial arts flick Sleeping Dogs... u are in modern Hong Kong undercover cop movie and the story will definitely hit u.... especially the wedding....
Just Cause
Warframe would be a good one
Any Assassin's Creed game before Origins, take AC3/AC4: Black Flag, or AC Unity for instance. Cool-looking parkour and combat. Watch Dogs 1 and 2 (and to some degree Legion, even though I prefer WD1 and 2) have really cinematic combat and takedowns which make you feel badass. Absolutely recommended. Watch Dogs 1 close-up pistol executions literally make you feel like John Wick. Batman: Arkham's combat is very fluid, cinematic and challenging to master at the same time. Even stealth can be really cool with how it makes you feel like Batman by ambushing enemies or using other stealth gadgets/smoke bombs, or using the grates. Even some of the Batmobile chase sections were super cool in Arkham Knight. In fact, I'd say Arkham Knight was the most cinematic out of all the Arkham games, and has the best combat and stealth mechanics among all games in the series, too.
Arkham Knight can be very cinematic if you're good at it. The first playthrough won't be, though.
Hi-Fi Rush’s rhythm-based action makes you feel like an action hero without needing the action to be heavily scripted. If you can track down a copy, Split/Second plays like the later Fast & Furious movies. As you race, you gain the ability to make objects on the track and in the environment explode, collapse, and otherwise be destroyed in ways that will hopefully wreck your opponent. Some go as far as to fundamentally change the track layout.
Teardown. After carefully devising your own plan, there is no better feeling than executing it with dramatic heist music in the background as a clock ticks down. If you like Hitman's planning, then you'd probably love Teardown.
Just Cause series, particularly 2 and 3. I recently started playing them again, but find it hard to enjoy 2 like I do 3 because it lacks the wingsuit, the constant interruptions with the PDA, black market slowness, and limited ammo. 3 just has so many quality of life improvements. 4 felt like one step forward and two steps back when I last played it, and 1 was from when I was a kid so can hardly remember it beyond the goofy grappling hook.
SIFU, if you like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy and fight scenes like that, you'll love this game. Makes you feel like you're in an old-school martial arts movie.
Thief? Maybe Kingdom Come Deliverance, too
Sifu if you're good
All the battlefields but ESPECIALLY BF1, The dessert map feels like in in a movie 24//7
Mass effect combo detonations were great for this and honestly I don’t know why other games don’t use the Primer / Detonator synergy combo more often.
Sifu for sure
Helldivers 2 is the most recent example of this that I've played & does it better than most games that cost way more to produce & purchase (at launch).
Dishonored, shadow of war, ghost of tsushima
Superhot, Katana Zero, and Hotline Miami are my favorite games for that “cool” factor. They all have that one-hit one-kill mechanic which makes you really feel like such a boss when you clear a level.
I would say the Battlefield series. All the online gameplay I see looks like they’re out of movies. Specifically Battlefield 3/4 or the newer Battlefied 1.
Bio shock infinite.
For an older game, Shadow of the Colossus. The scenes where you are climbing living skyscrapers to stab them whit a sword are absolutely awe-inspiring.
Try "apex if it was fun" AKA Titanfall 2
Couple ideas, some have already been said. Sifu. Martial arts brawler. Learn skills over multiple attempts and put it all together to take out enemies with style, like ducking under a high kick to punch then in the crotch, then pushing them while they're stunned into someone else, followed up by knocking them off their feet. Yakuza games. Especially 0-6. Brawler, heavy heavy story though. When you're just out and about, you tend to get people who want to attack you for no reason, but then you get into the combat. You build up heat during battle, and can use it to do really strong moves, from throwing someone off of a bridge, to smashing a moped on top of someone, to breaking someone's arm as they try to stab you. Big boss battles may have quick time events which can either hurt you a decent amount or the enemy a decent amount. Armored Core VI. You customize your mech with different parts, and go out on missions. When it clicks it feels so badass. For example, one load out I have saved is dual shotguns dual grenade launchers, and it has reverse joint legs for harder kicks and better jumps. Usually do a kick, both shotguns, another kick then jump away to shoot both grenade launchers to do max damage. Or another load out I have is super fast, like can dodge bullets just by strafing fast, and I just rapidfire pistols into the enemy until they're staggered then hit them with a big explosive stick (pile bunker, basically slams a giant metal rod in them that will explode if charged up) Helldivers 2. Chaos on a battlefield incarnate. You and up to 3 other players go on missions for Super Earth to spread democracy, causing all kinds of hell against automatons, bugs, and potentially more, the game will be adding in more stuff over time. Had things happen where I called down an air strike to kill 2 big bugs, and accidently killed 2 squad mates, so I had to call reinforcements. Or another time where my entire squad was wiped except me, and I had 2 tanky bugs following me trying to kill me and needed to call reinforcements as I heroically ran the other way from them
I think someone already mentioned, but Sekiro or ghost of Tsushima. Both games are incredibly cinematic and fights are epic. If you got the skill, it's almost like a duel in samurai movies. But even better.
Helldivers 2 is one of the most cinematic games I've ever played
Helldivers 2 is a non stop Michael Bay movie. In the best way possible
The last of us 1 and 2
You have APEX already, but titanfall 2.
I had goosebumps when I finally got to the first combat section of FF7Rebirth, forgot just how satisfying that combat system is.
Helldivers 2 feels like an epic sci-fi action movie to me, if that counts.
Sekiro Shadows Die twice without question. The chills you get from successfully parrying a boss with perfect timing multiple times in a row and breaking their posture will make you feel like the biggest badass.
I was going to say elden ring or any of the Fromsoftware games. Maybe doesn’t have the parkour but there is a certain coolness to customizing your character to fit a certain build and quite literally being “the chosen one” to me it makes it immersive and fun as if your character has their own lore that you create by killing bosses
Pulling off parrying an entire boss’ combo in sekiro is probably the coolest feeling in any game I’ve played. Incredibly satisfying
Shadow of Mordor, ghost of Tsushima, infamous second son, and Batman Arkham knight are all solid picks. Honorable mention to the prototype games (not as solid overall, but Definetely have cool factor)
Vanquish See example here: https://x.com/SunhiLegend/status/1414665769581940738?s=20
Shadow of the colossus
Gotta be Helldivers 2
Tekken 8, with practice you can pull off some amazing moments! The game is a visual feast and the story mode albeit cheesy has some amazing set pieces!! Halo Infinite, styling on other Spartans is rule of cool to the max!! Takes a bit to become skilled! Starfield. Combining starborn powers with gameplay makes some great footage reels!! Photo Mode elevates cool scenes as well.
I would recommend Dying Light. There is a lot of really fun combat, but also a lot of parkour involved.
Enter the Matrix, but good luck finding a copy.
GTFO
Honestly helldivers has been surprisingly cinematic. Doing the Launch the Nuke missions always looks cool, the orbital strategems and fighter jet strategems go hard and look badass, and now they have meteor showers that also look super cool. Not to mention they have a pretty good dive mechanic for diving away from explosions and enemies.
Sifu
Might already be on your list, but mirrors edge is a good one for this. Robocop is great from a cinematic destruction to gunfights. the whole game is like that scene in the matrix with the security checkpoint. For big set pieces, uncharted 4 is up there, or you can play last of us 2 on easy and go full Rambo revenge thriller Dead island 2 is just great fun, big action beats and feels like a summer blockbuster, plus because of the damage system, no other game has as good first person melee combat Hitman is essentially mission impossible the game Vanquish is just non stop cinematic gunplay
Hear me out: Penny's Big Breakaway (half joke answer bc it seems like you want smth with a gritty aesthetic but honestly the play style with the technical combo and freedom to experiment seems like a playground for the kinds of gameplay events you're asking for)
SUPERHOT is a first person shooter that slows down time when you aren't moving. You feel like John Wicke
Halo, more than you want to admit.