I love games with HQ’s , base of operations or just general area’s to improve as a game progresses.
Playing The Division right now, I am upgrading the main base and watching people move in and fill this once empty space, setting up different areas (Medical/Tech/Security), it just looks so awesome and makes it feel like something that I earned by playing the game, and I enjoy going back to that area every time I play.
XCOM and XCOM 2 have great base building (obviously), and the Assassins Creed games really went above and beyond with the idea of a headquarters for your characters. The Villa Auditore in the town Monteriggioni in AC2 was awesome to watch be repaired and re-opening the town shops, as was the entire frontier in Assassins Creed 3 (The Homestead area). I also liked the upgrading in AC IV (the Pirate base/house you had). And also the ship! But upgrading the Cafe in AC Unity was not as much fun and I gave up on that game after a few hours, I haven’t tried Syndicate yet.
I should give Stardew Valley another try, it didn’t hook me when I last played it for a few hours, but I did see that you can really upgrade the farm with neat stuff.
Are there any other games out there where you get to build up/repair your home base as you play the main game, and then return to it between missions to see the changes taking place?
I visited a villa where the guy who can’t be killed lives, and he gives you the impossible quests, but it burnt down as part of the story? Do I eventually go back and repair it?
Metal Gear Solid V had some pretty good base-building. You could hang around it during downtime between missions and see guards roaming around. And in the multiplayer, you would try to sneak into another player’s base they had built.
Also, depending on how much they fit your definition, some survival/Minecraft-likes.
Ignore me, I am thinking of Hearts of Stone, that’s the expansion I am playing, its been 3 or so months since I have played it though. So in Blood and Wine there is a base to upgrade, I think its time to get my ass back on Roach. :)
I have to agree, having a home base and building it up (or rebuilding it as the case may be) is one of those little intangibles that will keep me going in a game I might not otherwise enjoy as much. And of course if it’s an otherwise great game well, so much the better!
These days it pops up so much, it’s almost difficult to call out the best. Even Starcraft 2 allows you to kit out your home starship, with your research and units showing up in their respective bays. And Bully let you basically decorate your dorm room with keepsakes from missions.
One of my favorites was Mercenaries 2 - very early on you “evict” the Venezuelan leader from his villa and take it over. What’s funny about it is the place is wrecked - you drove a tank through it in the process of taking it over after all - and the player character never bothers to repair it, just throws all his or her crap in there. So as you accumulate bombs and weaponry, they pile up in cases along the walls. And the centerpiece is a pile of money that grows throughout the game, as you earn cash from taking on missions. Eventually it reaches to the ceiling, and is one of the best visual representations of player progress I can recall.
Not sure if this fits the bill, but Fallout 4. You aren’t necessarily selecting from set pieces like an XCom game. It’s more of a free-build with dependencies. You build farms, defensive structures (automated or manned varieties), energy sources, work benches, water purifiers, trading posts, etc. You then either assign who you want to work on what, or your people will gravitate towards working on some random thing that isn’t staffed. It’s still one of my favorite base-building games out there, even though it isn’t as fully realized to the story as I’d like it to be.
You also get to build multiple bases and move your people between them. Set up trade-routes to allow sharing of resources between your bases. It’s really great.
Xenoblade Chronicles on the wii has a sort of home improvement game with one of the colonies… it is totally destroyed and over the course of the game you rebuild it slowly.
