I've heard *excellent* things about this one, and it's definitely on my list of games to play, when I can get it cheap
I receently finished it.
It really deserves a lot of the praise even though there are some sore spots (e.g. that squad positioning can sometimes be handful - e.g. when your medic seems to be always out in front or your recon sniper always has is line of sight blocked) but in the end it really was very fun in self-punishing kind of way.
Also finished
The Pathless, a resident of my bucket list, and good chill game to come down on.
It is kinda
Shadow of the Colossus in reverse in a lot of ways - your are cleaning the spirits of corrupted god-beasts, movement is horizontal instead of vertical etc etc pp.
But there are two reasons, why I would recommend it:
Firstly, it is one of the games that does a wide open world with low guidance "right" IMO. It has a stylized art-style that gets rid of a lot of the clutter that devs with realistic graphic styles stuff their open worlds with (which looks impressive but no much else). You have no map but as long as you get to Vantage point you can activate a special vision mode that hightlights points of interest. Additionally, central to the main movement mechanic is that that the world is full of "targets" which give you stamina and speed boost when shot (in later stages even vertical lift) - meaning traversal doesn't feel like crossing a lot of empty space even if you are doubling back.
Secondly, it has an interesting way to deal with difficulty. While the fights with the corrupted beasts are challenging, requiring to you to have good timing on shots and evades, there isn't really a game over mechanic. If you get hit beyond a certain point or but especially powerful attacks, only your progress resets, up to a limit, often not more than to just the beginning of the current phase of encounter. The only time I had something close to a game over was during an optional "storm encounter", when you fail to evade a corrupted beast in the open world and fail the subsequence stealth encounter. bBt all it does was scatter an upgrade currency that would fade out if not quickly collected. But that currency is quite plentyful and the upgrades are not required in any form to beat the game, the ability you raise with it just makes vertical traversal a bit easier.
... and now for something completely different I am playing
Helldivers 2 - because nothing spreads democracy, liberty and the Super Earth-way of life to alien worlds like a targeted rain of high explosive shells.
(All related friendly fire incidents are ruled to be unavoidable by a board inquiry.
)