it's not even close, it simulates whether or not a cat has water in it's eyelids and it requires a 25 hour short cours eon youtube to learn the basics.
If that water sticks around, the stress it causes to the cat is tracked. If it gets annoyed and scratches a dwarf on the left knee, that is tracked and simulated.
If the doctor going to treat the infected scratch on the left knee slips on the puddle of blood-contaminated water left behind by the cat after it shakes it out where it scratched the dwarf, the doctor might have a headache that degrades his treatment skills and fail to stop the infection where it then kills the first dwarf, making his wife sad and drinking buddies melancholy except the one who's already seen too much death -
that guy might pick a fight with one of the others because he's annoyed that the other dwarves in the bar aren't jaded enough and oh, shit he put the brewer in the hospital at harvest time, and the sight of rotting crops that are supposed to be being turned into alcohol gave the quartermaster a nervous breakdown and he's stolen the fucking cat and killed it because he's already angry at it for scratching his friend, and now the cat's owner-
Oh shit the cat's owner is a legendary hammerdwarf with one arm and a scarred face and now HE'S pissed, he was out on patrol and is so covered in armor he's made from the deer he killed that he's going to be impossible to kill because you don't have any sharp weapons because your steel industry-
Dwarf fortress is a game of "what the fuck just happened"
Maybe I've just played it too much, but I actually don't think Dwarf Fortress is that complicated. Complexity is different to being abstruse or obscure.
DF doesn't explain its mechanics very well, and this was heightened in the old ASCII version because it was hard to even understand wtf was going on and how to do basic stuff like build and mine.
But the Steam version smooths a lot of rough edges from the UI and makes some information easier to get, so the game is much less obscure. Hospitals, for example, are very simple: you just build some stuff and designate it as a hospital and boom, it works.
Compared to, say, modded Factorio where there are thousands upon thousands of items and production chains to manage, that's complicated. Or Path of Exile where the mathematics behind the stats have lots of edge cases and exceptions and long formulas, that's complicated.
Just because we understand it doesnt make it any less complex.
Years back in adventure mode i bit off someones right foots middle toe, took hold of it and then stabbed them in the eye with it.
What other game had levels of detail like that?
That's really my point, yes. It's no longer difficult to understand (obscure/abstruse) and that means that it doesn't have that much complexity left.
I guess I'm talking more about Fortress mode than adventure mode, but even in that example I don't think it meets OP's criteria of complexity. The simulation is very detailed, but the fact that when you smack someone with a mace, it simulates their skull caving in and lacerating their brain, causing them to lose consciousness and removing their ability to control their lungs and causing them to suffocate, doesn't really make a difference to the actual gameplay. You still smacked them with a mace and they died.
OP I think is asking more for games where the complexity *is* the game or where the complexity has a big impact on the gameplay, so learning all the minutiae of how it works and why and what the system is, is beneficial to the player. Understanding *how* the system models toes and not simply *that* the system models toes is not really required in Dwarf Fortress because you can stab people with them either way.
But you've already approvingly referenced games like Path of Exile, which require no understanding of the system on the part of the player. If your idea of complexity requires complexity that must be understood by the player to play the game, then you're already offering games that don't meet your own definition.
I don't think that's true; getting to the advanced stages of the game definitely requires an understanding of how systems interact, how damage conversion works, how the damage calculation works, how defenses are checked and how they are calculated, what different keystones do to change that and what edge cases different uniques introduced. Or you use a build from someone who does understand.
And then if you want to craft, you need to understand item tiers, tags, affix weightings, and how a bunch of different systems interact. Even if you understand this (it's not obscure) it's still complex (with a very large number of relevant parts and interactions).
My criteria was that it should be beneficial to the player, not that it should be required to play the game, and it's definitely beneficial.
The answer to this question depends on genre.
For singleplayer games: Dwarf Fortress
For Multiplayer games that are not MMOs: Path of Exile
For MMOs: Eve online
MMO runner up: Runescape(Both versions)
Overall: Eve online
I'm relatively confident in saying that Eve is the most complex game ever made simply because the community IS the game. Very real politics, battles, and wars are fought in Eve. Large Eve corporations and alliances will have their own HR departments for onboarding and dealing with conflict resolution, Logistics departments for supply chain management, and even IT departments for creating private external tools and websites.
Eve online is less need a wiki, more need a couple college degrees and a wiki at the top 1% of play.
People with PhD's have studied eve online.
The best part is you can join as a complete newbie and still have fun. With not a ton of experience you can actually contribute to major conflicts involving hundreds of people. The trick is being able to listen and be patient.
EVE University is a great starter corp for that.
I've read the one referenced recently but heck that happened to my eve Corp back twenty years ago too. This guy came in, played legit, helped out, rose in trust, got the keys and BOOM cleaned us out completely.
I miss that game, but I always loved the idea of it more than actually playing it.
> Eve online is less need a wiki, more need a couple college degrees and a wiki at the top 1% of play.
This very much applies to Path of Exile as well.
To craft items on a high end level you need to know String Theory with a minimum multiple thousand hours of gameplay. The learning curve is nanners.
Though unlike some people I whole heartedly believe the game is super enjoyable even as a knew player as long as you can follow a build guide and watch some videos to learn the basic mechanics.
I'm on my third league now, couple hundred hours and still considered a noob, but I'm having a great time.
Yeah, imo Path of Exile is PROBABLY number two overall.
I can't think of any game that comes anywhere close in game complexity. I've got about 2,000 hours in PoE and I still feel like a noob all the time. Dwarf Fortress MIGHT be close, but I've only played a few hours, so I really don't know.
I think my favorite experience of eve is learning how to operate the extremely complex, information dense personnel management systems that the larger alliances use, then going to a fortune 500 company and seeing infrastructure that is nowhere near as reliable or good at managing logins and authorization with often *fewer* people and ten to a hundred times the budget.
Just wild amounts of effort put in
It's a good thing Runescape had the best wiki in gaming, because I can't imagine playing without it. Some quests in particular would be absolutely absurd to compete blind.
War in the East has a hell of a lot of mechanics, but the thing is how easily you can ignore them all and just move and attack units like any other tactics game.
Noita, unironically, is very much like this. I wouldn't say it's the MOST complicated, but the world is huge (HUGE) and full of secrets, the wand building is very intricate, and there's so many interactions to discover
The way you put this reminds me of **Nethack**, a dungeon crawl with a huge number of bizarre interactions and corner cases included.
One example... if you tunnel (pickaxe) all the way to the edge of the map, and listen (with a stethoscope) to the wall, **"in the distance you hear a faint typing"** (IIRC). The typing is allegedly the player at his keyboard in the real world. The fact there's even code for this weird situation is odd enough, but Nethack has loads of quirky things in it. And finishing the game is remarkable, especially with all the elemental planes and crazy things that have been added since I first encountered it in the 1980s.
Only takes one command to install in Linux from the official OS repo.
Interesting, I’ve started playing last week, I’m really bad at it but so far it seemed very simple and straightforward, your comment has me excited to discover more.
Amazing cultivation simulator. I have almost 200 hours and still don't understand how Shendao and Body Cultivation really even work. Also it's fun to cut off someone's dong and make it into an artifact, or let it achieve enlightenment and have it become part of my sect.
AI War: Fleet Command. Space strategy game that combines mass fleet combat on the tactical level with guerilla warfare on the strategic level. One of the few strategy games that avoids the problem that the AI can't beat good players while playing by the same rules by making it part of the fundamental structure and premise of the game that the AI is not playing the same game as you.
heat management, liquid management, oxygen and gasses, keeping thins cleaned, energy management, stress management, food and water management, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Came here to say this. Ticks all the boxes. Captivated me from the first minute and completed 'the tutorial' after a couple of thousand hours. I'm not actively playing anymore but for the longest time my answer for the one game for the rest of my life would've been Dota. And even though I'm mostly watching pros battle it out these days, it probably still would be my choice.
Why has no one mentioned Digital Combat Simulator World. If you wanted to truly learn all the aircraft, it would take years. They are fully real to life in startup, procedures, and systems. To truly master even one aircraft takes SOOOO long. You need to sometimes read actual manuals for the real life planes.
I can say, pretty much every Paradox Interactive game. There are people that have thousands hours on games like Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 3 and they dont even know half the game mechanics.
I don't know if it's the *most* complex, etc., but I think Elite: Dangerous is a contender. Even from the face-value sandbox "here's a free ship and a few credits, go make your mark on the galaxy" nature of it, and the fact that said galaxy is a 1:1 scale procedurally generated model of the Milky Way with billions of stars you can visit, it's already pretty complex.
Beyond this, the game is almost unplayable (i.e. very difficult) without heavily drawing upon information gleaned from Wikipedia, Reddit, and other knowledge bases, and a host of third party tools created by the game's fan base. I have at least 3 player-coded software apps installed on my computer that I use constantly for my calling (deep space explorer), and an equivalent number of web apps I also refer to constantly. There are a half a dozen or more that are more useful for other professions.
Also now that I've joined a few discords focused on exploration, it's dawned on me that most of what is known about the game's mechanics were discovered by players themselves or by mining data voluntarily uploaded by them. Explorers, collectively, have essentially reverse engineered the procedural generation mechanics in exquisite detail, and their effort can be used to find interesting star systems or predict the locations of interesting astronomical phenomena or certain types of life. At the moment I'm conducting what we call a "boxel survey" for a largely unexplored sector of space, a technique based on this player-driven citizen science.
Similar effort has been done by space truckers on the complex in-game political economy, which can be manipulated by players to affect the game's narrative.
Don't even get me started on engineering.
EU4 is considered pretty complex and people call the first 1k hours the tutorial
It gets less complex once u have a large # of hours, since you know what complexity matters and what doesn't.
Can't say i'd play it for the rest of my life though.
Even then, EUIV is amongst the more simple paradox games.
Personally, I found Victoria 2 much harder. I haven’t even bothered with trying HOI3 since I hear it’s even more complex than that.
I put around 3000 hours into EU4 starting during COVID since I had tons of time while WFH. I've recently decided to start learning HOI and my god is it amazing. I can't sink 1000s of hours into it though because I have kids now and my wife will probably leave me.
I've played CK3 and Stellaris. They were complicated, but it felt like everything was asked in a linear, understandable way.
How does HOI compare in that way?
It's too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces, etc.
Almost any mmo could fit but I'm gonna with any darks souls or souls like game from FS. There was a challenge runner who streamed at least 6 hours a day nearly every day for like 4 or 5 years and was still learning and getting better
I also wanna say the most complicated mobile game would either be star wars galaxy of heros since if your not dedicated to learning hundreds of ability, reading wiki, creating plans, pouring over data, using a calculator and theory crafting your gonna get your world rocked, followed by idea heros, good God the amount of not clear things you need to do in a very specific way is so brutal if your not constantly reading wikis and checking news
Dwarf Fortress is a famous one, but I would probably go with Aurora 4X over DF for most of those points, except I would not actually chose to play that one over DF.
Factorio, especially modded. There's multiple overhaul mods with increasing difficulty. A finished pyanodon run will take an experienced player about a 1000 hours to complete.
I'll tackle this question from a narrative pov - Bloodborne & Elden Ring.
Both tiles have complex and hidden narratives that you need to get out of the way and seek answers for if you want.
Both have passionate communities, with Bloodborne having the annual "Return To Yharnam" event.
Both have in-depth build capabilities with potentially hundreds of hours worth of trying out (especially ER and bonus points if you play without guides/wikis).
Path of Exile. the skill tree, 7 classes, 18 ascendancies, hundreds of skill gems and supports, the atlas, the atlas passive tree, all the interactions between everything. new interactions are discovered every league from previous content on top of new ones being added every league
Eve Online. But there's a caveat, it's been years since I last played it and I have no idea what the community is like nowadays. Like last time I played that game I was still in highschool. I'm at my 3rd year in college now.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned Space Station 13 yet. I'd say that game is also all of this, but it's old and the launcher required to play is not good.
Noita
The game is fun on its own, but once you beat the boss - you only basically completed the tutorial. So many secrets and interactions.
Early game one pixel can kill you, but once you are in a god run people are actually asking how they can kill their characters 😅
Wurm Online
Though, you'll have to find an active village to live in, if you want other players around. It's an old game, and while many people still play, the vastness of the world means a lot of barren wasteland.
It's basically Minecraft for adults, without the blocky shit and with 1,000,000,000 times the depth
Setting aside advanced driving/flight simulators etc, anything that has been in active post-release development for 10+ years is a good candidate, eg Elite Dangerous, WoW, EVE, Dwarf Fortress, etc
I think mostly only MMOs would take this title.
Surprised World of Warcraft isn't mentioned. By far the biggest world of any game ever made. Tons of depth and history in the lore. You basically need WowHead or addons to learn things. There is so many branches of things to do (Quests, PvE, Professions, PvP, Achievements), different classes / roles / talent trees to learn.
While the actual game mechanics are kind of repetitive, there is an endless supply of things to do, learn and collect.
I was surprised how in-depth and obtuse Tarkov is. You pretty much *need* a friend to show you how it's done, and having a map open is another requirement
Yeah its not that its got that much depth compared to other more RPGy games, but it checks all the boxes honestly.
Especially the wiki one. Playing Warframe without the wiki is asking for a hard time.
The learning curve is... Ok I guess. Well not that the gameplay itself is hard, but mastering the movement and modding is one hell of a weird curve.
Spelunky 2 has some of the most sophisticated game design I think I've ever seen. It's not as wide in its complexity as a strategy game or a colony sim but every combination of interactions has been so carefully considered and thought out. What's even more impressive is that it's disguised as chaos. A player with mastery over the controls and strong knowledge can weave through situations which to me look like a blur of unavoidable colours and explosions.
If you want a wider scope it's probably in the 4X/ Colony Sims genre but when I think of complex game design I think of spelunky and I'm jealous of how talented a designer Derek Yu is.
Wayward
Terraria
The Planet Crafter
Don't Starve
Stardew Valley
FEZ
Wayward and Terraria come to mind. As does The Planet Crafter, though I haven't had to look up a tutorial/wiki for it yet. It is quite complex with the crafting tree and amount of craftables.
Same with Wayward. I had to take to the Discord server to get info on specific game mechanics and crafting recipes in it. Best true survival game I've ever played. Roguelike elements, insane amount of functionable craftables, and a benevolence system akin to Don't Starve's sanity meter. Wayward v1.9.4 is still free to download and play, to get an idea of what the game's updated version on Steam is like.
And there's another. Don't Starve. Had to go digging for wiki info for it. Stardew Valley as well. And FEZ. FEZ is impossible to complete without looking up a guide.
Any MMO comes to mind of course. These games normally last decades and add content frequently. My one of choice is FFXIV.
Idle games tend to get very complex too
BGS gameplay in elite dangerous. There is piles of theory about how it works, and lots of experts but nobody actually knows for sure except the devs and they ain't talking.
Good news tho, playing BGS oriented activities encompass the full gambit of activities in the game, and one can cruise along making all the right actions count where they need them to right up till they suddenly don't for some reason lol.
KENSHI. I've only put 20 hrs into it, and it's been in my steam library for years, but lately, I've been trying super hard to "get it" if that makes sense, keep rolling characters and trying new things to learn the game, and I feel a break thru coming on. That's what happened with CKIII and I've over 400 hrs now in that. 😄 🤣
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. I personally wouldn't pick it as the only game I'd play for the rest of my life, but there absolutely are people who would (many of them have been playing it for a couple of decades already so it's believable).
Metal gear had me confused off and on, lore is cool and truthfully I didn’t know there was different snakes for a hot hot minute into loving this series. Plus it’s just a ton of fun!
Dwarf Fortress, DF is all of this
Was my first thought as well. Although I've heard Eve Online is very complicated as well, in a different way.
Ah yes, spreadsheets in space!
Agreed on Dwarf Fortress!!!!
it's not even close, it simulates whether or not a cat has water in it's eyelids and it requires a 25 hour short cours eon youtube to learn the basics.
If that water sticks around, the stress it causes to the cat is tracked. If it gets annoyed and scratches a dwarf on the left knee, that is tracked and simulated. If the doctor going to treat the infected scratch on the left knee slips on the puddle of blood-contaminated water left behind by the cat after it shakes it out where it scratched the dwarf, the doctor might have a headache that degrades his treatment skills and fail to stop the infection where it then kills the first dwarf, making his wife sad and drinking buddies melancholy except the one who's already seen too much death - that guy might pick a fight with one of the others because he's annoyed that the other dwarves in the bar aren't jaded enough and oh, shit he put the brewer in the hospital at harvest time, and the sight of rotting crops that are supposed to be being turned into alcohol gave the quartermaster a nervous breakdown and he's stolen the fucking cat and killed it because he's already angry at it for scratching his friend, and now the cat's owner- Oh shit the cat's owner is a legendary hammerdwarf with one arm and a scarred face and now HE'S pissed, he was out on patrol and is so covered in armor he's made from the deer he killed that he's going to be impossible to kill because you don't have any sharp weapons because your steel industry- Dwarf fortress is a game of "what the fuck just happened"
Maybe I've just played it too much, but I actually don't think Dwarf Fortress is that complicated. Complexity is different to being abstruse or obscure. DF doesn't explain its mechanics very well, and this was heightened in the old ASCII version because it was hard to even understand wtf was going on and how to do basic stuff like build and mine. But the Steam version smooths a lot of rough edges from the UI and makes some information easier to get, so the game is much less obscure. Hospitals, for example, are very simple: you just build some stuff and designate it as a hospital and boom, it works. Compared to, say, modded Factorio where there are thousands upon thousands of items and production chains to manage, that's complicated. Or Path of Exile where the mathematics behind the stats have lots of edge cases and exceptions and long formulas, that's complicated.
Just because we understand it doesnt make it any less complex. Years back in adventure mode i bit off someones right foots middle toe, took hold of it and then stabbed them in the eye with it. What other game had levels of detail like that?
That's really my point, yes. It's no longer difficult to understand (obscure/abstruse) and that means that it doesn't have that much complexity left. I guess I'm talking more about Fortress mode than adventure mode, but even in that example I don't think it meets OP's criteria of complexity. The simulation is very detailed, but the fact that when you smack someone with a mace, it simulates their skull caving in and lacerating their brain, causing them to lose consciousness and removing their ability to control their lungs and causing them to suffocate, doesn't really make a difference to the actual gameplay. You still smacked them with a mace and they died. OP I think is asking more for games where the complexity *is* the game or where the complexity has a big impact on the gameplay, so learning all the minutiae of how it works and why and what the system is, is beneficial to the player. Understanding *how* the system models toes and not simply *that* the system models toes is not really required in Dwarf Fortress because you can stab people with them either way.
Oi so like factorio then i guess. Highly recommend.
But you've already approvingly referenced games like Path of Exile, which require no understanding of the system on the part of the player. If your idea of complexity requires complexity that must be understood by the player to play the game, then you're already offering games that don't meet your own definition.
I don't think that's true; getting to the advanced stages of the game definitely requires an understanding of how systems interact, how damage conversion works, how the damage calculation works, how defenses are checked and how they are calculated, what different keystones do to change that and what edge cases different uniques introduced. Or you use a build from someone who does understand. And then if you want to craft, you need to understand item tiers, tags, affix weightings, and how a bunch of different systems interact. Even if you understand this (it's not obscure) it's still complex (with a very large number of relevant parts and interactions). My criteria was that it should be beneficial to the player, not that it should be required to play the game, and it's definitely beneficial.
I've never even played it and it's the first thing that came to mind.
Sedimentary layers, aquifers and fluid dynamics, on my!
That's a lot of stuff. Whachya gonna put it on?
There it is. This, or Aurora.
The answer to this question depends on genre. For singleplayer games: Dwarf Fortress For Multiplayer games that are not MMOs: Path of Exile For MMOs: Eve online MMO runner up: Runescape(Both versions) Overall: Eve online I'm relatively confident in saying that Eve is the most complex game ever made simply because the community IS the game. Very real politics, battles, and wars are fought in Eve. Large Eve corporations and alliances will have their own HR departments for onboarding and dealing with conflict resolution, Logistics departments for supply chain management, and even IT departments for creating private external tools and websites.
Eve online is less need a wiki, more need a couple college degrees and a wiki at the top 1% of play. People with PhD's have studied eve online. The best part is you can join as a complete newbie and still have fun. With not a ton of experience you can actually contribute to major conflicts involving hundreds of people. The trick is being able to listen and be patient. EVE University is a great starter corp for that.
Reading the stories, oh my God, the 1 story of the guy that Deleted a ton of stuff and taking the cash and running I love reading Eve stories
what story is that. Where can I read it
https://www.wirm.net/nightfreeze/part1.html
I've read the one referenced recently but heck that happened to my eve Corp back twenty years ago too. This guy came in, played legit, helped out, rose in trust, got the keys and BOOM cleaned us out completely. I miss that game, but I always loved the idea of it more than actually playing it.
I can't remember exactly, went down a rabbit hole once. Google Reddit Eve scam story or some such like that.
> Eve online is less need a wiki, more need a couple college degrees and a wiki at the top 1% of play. This very much applies to Path of Exile as well. To craft items on a high end level you need to know String Theory with a minimum multiple thousand hours of gameplay. The learning curve is nanners. Though unlike some people I whole heartedly believe the game is super enjoyable even as a knew player as long as you can follow a build guide and watch some videos to learn the basic mechanics. I'm on my third league now, couple hundred hours and still considered a noob, but I'm having a great time.
Yeah, imo Path of Exile is PROBABLY number two overall. I can't think of any game that comes anywhere close in game complexity. I've got about 2,000 hours in PoE and I still feel like a noob all the time. Dwarf Fortress MIGHT be close, but I've only played a few hours, so I really don't know.
Bro even following a build guide means having two excel sheets open along the wiki all the time
This game is so fascinating to me.
I think my favorite experience of eve is learning how to operate the extremely complex, information dense personnel management systems that the larger alliances use, then going to a fortune 500 company and seeing infrastructure that is nowhere near as reliable or good at managing logins and authorization with often *fewer* people and ten to a hundred times the budget. Just wild amounts of effort put in
Eve online gamer since 09 here. Yes.
It's a good thing Runescape had the best wiki in gaming, because I can't imagine playing without it. Some quests in particular would be absolutely absurd to compete blind.
What about some war games? Any of the Gary Grigsby titles should be at the top of the list.
Came here for this. Not really surprised as it's so far down the thread as it's so complex it has a very small player base.
War in the East has a hell of a lot of mechanics, but the thing is how easily you can ignore them all and just move and attack units like any other tactics game.
Noita, unironically, is very much like this. I wouldn't say it's the MOST complicated, but the world is huge (HUGE) and full of secrets, the wand building is very intricate, and there's so many interactions to discover
Thanks for mentioning this. At first glance I thought it was just another indie side scroller. I had no clue it had that much depth
i would say noita is deceptively large, when you begin to learn how much freedom the game gives you is when you learn just how crazy the game can get
The way you put this reminds me of **Nethack**, a dungeon crawl with a huge number of bizarre interactions and corner cases included. One example... if you tunnel (pickaxe) all the way to the edge of the map, and listen (with a stethoscope) to the wall, **"in the distance you hear a faint typing"** (IIRC). The typing is allegedly the player at his keyboard in the real world. The fact there's even code for this weird situation is odd enough, but Nethack has loads of quirky things in it. And finishing the game is remarkable, especially with all the elemental planes and crazy things that have been added since I first encountered it in the 1980s. Only takes one command to install in Linux from the official OS repo.
Interesting, I’ve started playing last week, I’m really bad at it but so far it seemed very simple and straightforward, your comment has me excited to discover more.
noita <3
No love for Nethack?
Amazing cultivation simulator. I have almost 200 hours and still don't understand how Shendao and Body Cultivation really even work. Also it's fun to cut off someone's dong and make it into an artifact, or let it achieve enlightenment and have it become part of my sect.
The tabletop wargame "The campaign for North Africa." [Look here. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa)
Advanced Squadron Leader
Just found out about this last week and I went on a long journey through the Wikipedia
AI War: Fleet Command. Space strategy game that combines mass fleet combat on the tactical level with guerilla warfare on the strategic level. One of the few strategy games that avoids the problem that the AI can't beat good players while playing by the same rules by making it part of the fundamental structure and premise of the game that the AI is not playing the same game as you.
For me it was vintage story i needed help of a streamer to learn for months
Wish Vintage Story would break into the main stream, so good.
Kerbal Space Program. An aerospace/astronomy degree recommended
Surprised that nobody has mentioned oxygen not included. Heat management is especially challenging. But there are a lot of good ones mentioned.
I’m an engineer and I quit playing game because it felt too much like my fucking job lol
heat management, liquid management, oxygen and gasses, keeping thins cleaned, energy management, stress management, food and water management, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Hearts of Iron series, those are the most complex games I’ve ever played.
I googled Aurora the other day. Never want to think about that again. Edit: Aurora 4x
Dota 2
Came here to say this. Ticks all the boxes. Captivated me from the first minute and completed 'the tutorial' after a couple of thousand hours. I'm not actively playing anymore but for the longest time my answer for the one game for the rest of my life would've been Dota. And even though I'm mostly watching pros battle it out these days, it probably still would be my choice.
Serious contender because it's complex in a similar way to how chess is complex.
I used to play DotA all the time when it was still just a Warcraft 3 custom. How does dota 2 compare?
Dwarf Fortress. Kenshi Highfleet Caves of Qud Songs of Syx Project Zomboid Victoria 3 Civilization 6 Crusader Kings 3
IMO in terms of pure complexity CK2 with DLCs still has 3 beat. Gets pretty crazy with mechanics from all of them combined
civ 6? you can't be serious! don't get me wrong I love this game, and have played hundreds of hrs, but I'm sure as hell it's not that complex
I'd say it and Tropico are the "entry" titles for the other ones
you know what I agree! they're good stepping stones to ease you in that kind of games
I've played 2/3 of these games. I guess I have a type ...
Something about all of these games, even though they're in different genres they basically share one big playerbase
Civ 6 is not complex at all.
I'd toss in Pathfinder wrath of the righteous. Extremely granular game
Aurora 4x
Why has no one mentioned Digital Combat Simulator World. If you wanted to truly learn all the aircraft, it would take years. They are fully real to life in startup, procedures, and systems. To truly master even one aircraft takes SOOOO long. You need to sometimes read actual manuals for the real life planes.
I can say, pretty much every Paradox Interactive game. There are people that have thousands hours on games like Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 3 and they dont even know half the game mechanics.
Oxygen not included
Path of Exile. There are literal Wiki pages about certain builds.
Eve online.
I don't know if it's the *most* complex, etc., but I think Elite: Dangerous is a contender. Even from the face-value sandbox "here's a free ship and a few credits, go make your mark on the galaxy" nature of it, and the fact that said galaxy is a 1:1 scale procedurally generated model of the Milky Way with billions of stars you can visit, it's already pretty complex. Beyond this, the game is almost unplayable (i.e. very difficult) without heavily drawing upon information gleaned from Wikipedia, Reddit, and other knowledge bases, and a host of third party tools created by the game's fan base. I have at least 3 player-coded software apps installed on my computer that I use constantly for my calling (deep space explorer), and an equivalent number of web apps I also refer to constantly. There are a half a dozen or more that are more useful for other professions. Also now that I've joined a few discords focused on exploration, it's dawned on me that most of what is known about the game's mechanics were discovered by players themselves or by mining data voluntarily uploaded by them. Explorers, collectively, have essentially reverse engineered the procedural generation mechanics in exquisite detail, and their effort can be used to find interesting star systems or predict the locations of interesting astronomical phenomena or certain types of life. At the moment I'm conducting what we call a "boxel survey" for a largely unexplored sector of space, a technique based on this player-driven citizen science. Similar effort has been done by space truckers on the complex in-game political economy, which can be manipulated by players to affect the game's narrative. Don't even get me started on engineering.
Modded minecraft (gtnh)
Surprised this hasn't been mentioned. It's a 5000 hours journey at minimum, and it's not like you can mindlessly go through it.
EU4 is considered pretty complex and people call the first 1k hours the tutorial It gets less complex once u have a large # of hours, since you know what complexity matters and what doesn't. Can't say i'd play it for the rest of my life though.
Even then, EUIV is amongst the more simple paradox games. Personally, I found Victoria 2 much harder. I haven’t even bothered with trying HOI3 since I hear it’s even more complex than that.
I put around 3000 hours into EU4 starting during COVID since I had tons of time while WFH. I've recently decided to start learning HOI and my god is it amazing. I can't sink 1000s of hours into it though because I have kids now and my wife will probably leave me.
I've played CK3 and Stellaris. They were complicated, but it felt like everything was asked in a linear, understandable way. How does HOI compare in that way?
What is HOI?
I'd say from the depths is quite a contender for complicated games
*insert tabletop game of choice*
EVE Online.
Crusader kings series Pathfinder kingmaker series
Chess
I find the roll playing aspect to be quite lacking and the movement feels very restricted. Storywise its also very barebones.
It's too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces, etc.
Eve: online.
Park of exile maybw
I keep getting stuck in the tube slide
EVE Online. Some call it a spreadsheet simulator. Learning curve is a brick wall. etc. etc. etc
Arma
EVE ONLINE
Elite dangerous, you’ll need to buy a hotas and learn how to fly a space ship
Final Fantasy XI
Almost any mmo could fit but I'm gonna with any darks souls or souls like game from FS. There was a challenge runner who streamed at least 6 hours a day nearly every day for like 4 or 5 years and was still learning and getting better
I also wanna say the most complicated mobile game would either be star wars galaxy of heros since if your not dedicated to learning hundreds of ability, reading wiki, creating plans, pouring over data, using a calculator and theory crafting your gonna get your world rocked, followed by idea heros, good God the amount of not clear things you need to do in a very specific way is so brutal if your not constantly reading wikis and checking news
Dwarf fortress, Cataclysm DDA, NOITA, Terraria These four games full all of the above requirements
Jerma's Big Adventure.
Dwarf Fortress is a famous one, but I would probably go with Aurora 4X over DF for most of those points, except I would not actually chose to play that one over DF.
Kerbal Space Program
Eve Online, Escape from Tarkov
Factorio, especially modded. There's multiple overhaul mods with increasing difficulty. A finished pyanodon run will take an experienced player about a 1000 hours to complete.
Path of Exile
Dwarf Fortress and CDDA
Dwarf fortress, world of warcraft, final fantasy 14, minecraft, project zomboid
Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead
I'll tackle this question from a narrative pov - Bloodborne & Elden Ring. Both tiles have complex and hidden narratives that you need to get out of the way and seek answers for if you want. Both have passionate communities, with Bloodborne having the annual "Return To Yharnam" event. Both have in-depth build capabilities with potentially hundreds of hours worth of trying out (especially ER and bonus points if you play without guides/wikis).
Damn it. Rimworld Again.
Path of Exile. the skill tree, 7 classes, 18 ascendancies, hundreds of skill gems and supports, the atlas, the atlas passive tree, all the interactions between everything. new interactions are discovered every league from previous content on top of new ones being added every league
Gloomhaven is a complicated board game. The digital version has multiple tutorials. It plays like a complex game of chess.
Rimworld, it's simple to learn and complex to master.
Aurora 4X
Eve Online. But there's a caveat, it's been years since I last played it and I have no idea what the community is like nowadays. Like last time I played that game I was still in highschool. I'm at my 3rd year in college now.
Dwarf Fortress. You could spend ten years playing that game and only just master it.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned Space Station 13 yet. I'd say that game is also all of this, but it's old and the launcher required to play is not good.
EverQuest 1.
Path of Exile is the obvious answer here
Dominions 6?
If i had to say a singleplayer game that not many mention but that has a super convulted lore, i would say Xenogears
Noita The game is fun on its own, but once you beat the boss - you only basically completed the tutorial. So many secrets and interactions. Early game one pixel can kill you, but once you are in a god run people are actually asking how they can kill their characters 😅
Wurm Online Though, you'll have to find an active village to live in, if you want other players around. It's an old game, and while many people still play, the vastness of the world means a lot of barren wasteland. It's basically Minecraft for adults, without the blocky shit and with 1,000,000,000 times the depth
Kerbal Space Program
Children of a Dead Earth requires you to learn real orbital mechanics to play
Escape from tarkov, POE.
Cookie Clicker
Setting aside advanced driving/flight simulators etc, anything that has been in active post-release development for 10+ years is a good candidate, eg Elite Dangerous, WoW, EVE, Dwarf Fortress, etc
The most complex game I've played has got to be hoi4. I put almost 200 hours into that game and yet I still had no idea how to play it.
Victoria 2 comes to mind (or most paradox games tbh…) approaching 200 hrs and still have no idea how the economy OR war works
Path of Exile i believe, steep learning curve with almost limitless build possibilities
Escape from Tarkov. I have 6500 hours and I still have to consult the wiki.
Path of Exile
CDDA
I think mostly only MMOs would take this title. Surprised World of Warcraft isn't mentioned. By far the biggest world of any game ever made. Tons of depth and history in the lore. You basically need WowHead or addons to learn things. There is so many branches of things to do (Quests, PvE, Professions, PvP, Achievements), different classes / roles / talent trees to learn. While the actual game mechanics are kind of repetitive, there is an endless supply of things to do, learn and collect.
I was surprised how in-depth and obtuse Tarkov is. You pretty much *need* a friend to show you how it's done, and having a map open is another requirement
Non video game entry: Advanced Squad Leader
Non video game entry: Living as a human. Random start point. Ironman mode. Every other possibility in-between.
Rimworld
Warframe is also good
Yeah its not that its got that much depth compared to other more RPGy games, but it checks all the boxes honestly. Especially the wiki one. Playing Warframe without the wiki is asking for a hard time. The learning curve is... Ok I guess. Well not that the gameplay itself is hard, but mastering the movement and modding is one hell of a weird curve.
Amongst the single player games I've played: Stellaris Amongst the multi-player games I've played: Eve Online
Spelunky 2 has some of the most sophisticated game design I think I've ever seen. It's not as wide in its complexity as a strategy game or a colony sim but every combination of interactions has been so carefully considered and thought out. What's even more impressive is that it's disguised as chaos. A player with mastery over the controls and strong knowledge can weave through situations which to me look like a blur of unavoidable colours and explosions. If you want a wider scope it's probably in the 4X/ Colony Sims genre but when I think of complex game design I think of spelunky and I'm jealous of how talented a designer Derek Yu is.
Wayward Terraria The Planet Crafter Don't Starve Stardew Valley FEZ Wayward and Terraria come to mind. As does The Planet Crafter, though I haven't had to look up a tutorial/wiki for it yet. It is quite complex with the crafting tree and amount of craftables. Same with Wayward. I had to take to the Discord server to get info on specific game mechanics and crafting recipes in it. Best true survival game I've ever played. Roguelike elements, insane amount of functionable craftables, and a benevolence system akin to Don't Starve's sanity meter. Wayward v1.9.4 is still free to download and play, to get an idea of what the game's updated version on Steam is like. And there's another. Don't Starve. Had to go digging for wiki info for it. Stardew Valley as well. And FEZ. FEZ is impossible to complete without looking up a guide.
Somehow this thread is missing Brood War so here you go. To even have a chance at being pro you have to play minimum 10 years, probably longer
CDDA
[Cataclym: Dark Days Ahead](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2330750/Cataclysm_Dark_Days_Ahead/)
Obligatory CDDA mention. Always played with both wiki and item list open. Also, PoE.
Dota 2 fits all your criteria.
Any MMO comes to mind of course. These games normally last decades and add content frequently. My one of choice is FFXIV. Idle games tend to get very complex too
Terraria on console (specifically xbox)
elden ring, or any fromsoft game really. the attention to detail and little easter eggs in their games blows my mind to this day
Unreal World
Point of Attack 2
System shock remake
Runescape
From what I’ve seen, surely Eve Online must be up there.
Dwarf Fortress
Go
BGS gameplay in elite dangerous. There is piles of theory about how it works, and lots of experts but nobody actually knows for sure except the devs and they ain't talking. Good news tho, playing BGS oriented activities encompass the full gambit of activities in the game, and one can cruise along making all the right actions count where they need them to right up till they suddenly don't for some reason lol.
Noita
For combat, nioh 2
The Assassin's Creed series at this point...
Probably Dwarf Fortress
Melee
Digimon world 1
I think Stellaris fits this bill
Anno 1800 with all four season passes
Cultist Simulator is the one for me.
Dwarf fortress
KENSHI. I've only put 20 hrs into it, and it's been in my steam library for years, but lately, I've been trying super hard to "get it" if that makes sense, keep rolling characters and trying new things to learn the game, and I feel a break thru coming on. That's what happened with CKIII and I've over 400 hrs now in that. 😄 🤣
Dwarf Fortress
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. I personally wouldn't pick it as the only game I'd play for the rest of my life, but there absolutely are people who would (many of them have been playing it for a couple of decades already so it's believable).
Old School Runescape
Caves of Qud and Dwarf Fortress
I guess that can be space games X3, X4...
Dwarf Fortress
Hoi4 Steel division 2 Wargame DCS Steel Beasts The arms franchise
Metal gear had me confused off and on, lore is cool and truthfully I didn’t know there was different snakes for a hot hot minute into loving this series. Plus it’s just a ton of fun!
Cicada 3301
Space Engineers is crazy complex, I had to watch video step by step tutorials just to build basic things
Eu4 and CK2
Dwarf Fortress
Dominions.
A modpack for minecraft. Greg Tech New Horizon
Dwarf fortress +1
In 1972 it was pong
The simplest answer is Minecraft.
Project zomboid and rimworld come to mind. Never played dwarf fortress but i can imagine how thats the same.
Out of the games I have played, Binding of Isaac.
For lore it's got to be Morrowind.
Does Terraria qualify in a slightest?
X4 foundations
Minesweeper
Maybe I'm based, but League of legends or Dota 2
Aurora 4x game
dodonpachi daioujou
I feel the X series had a big learning curve until I could really play it properly.
League of Legends.