The gaming platform Steam has a relatively new feature that allows you to get game recommendations based on your preferences. MyMMO editor Benedict Grothaus tried it out and was positively surprised.
Finding new games that really excite me isn’t necessarily easy. I’m into the “weird” stuff that no one else seems to notice. The insider tip Against the Storm is one of those games that costs me many hours.
Of course, I also play big titles like Diablo 4 and co., and Baldur’s Gate 3 is my absolute favorite of the last few years. But even that role-playing game is actually more of a niche title with surprising success.
On Steam, there is now the option to create “discovery lists.” You can get directly to this feature via the “Your Shop” button. There, 12 games are suggested that should match your preferences.
And indeed: although I rarely rate anything or follow games on Steam, the platform knew my preferences surprisingly well. In many cases, it simply couldn’t go wrong.
Many games on my lists were even surprisingly cheap. If you want to save, we have more tips here:
Most games suggested by Steam are really good
Admittedly, Steam took the easy way out with the lists. Among my suggestions were plenty of titles that are simply generally regarded as “very good” among gamers, with corresponding ratings, including:
- The Last of Us: Part 1
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Star Wars: Jedi Survivor
- Dead Space
- Call of Duty
Many of the games on the lists I have already played, just not on Steam, like Diablo 4, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, or Starfield. This means: Steam actually suggested exactly what I like. Even my somewhat special taste was satisfied with big titles.
Since I play a variety of games, my library represents almost every genre in some form. And indeed, there were good suggestions for every genre, such as: Grounded and Smalland (survival games), Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1 (fighting games), or Dungeon Master and Dungeons 4 (building/strategy games).
There were a few more games that absolutely do not meet my taste but are undeniably good – Jagged Alliance 3, for example. I’m not listing all 108 games and expansions that were suggested to me in my 9 lists, but the overview should be enough for the impression.
Many gems that can easily be overlooked
What surprised me the most is the number of indie games that Steam suggested to me. Almost half of the games were small insider tips that even I, as an expert, would certainly have overlooked. Insider tip means: they are “very positive” or even “extremely positive” but have only a handful of players, usually just a few hundred.
Coral Island, for example, is a game like Stardew Valley or Sun Haven: building your own farm, meeting people, and forming relationships. Death Must Die reminds of the huge hit Vampire Survivors, only that you play with the powers of death.
In Ratopia, I am supposed to build a rat society, Thronefall is a strategy game from Germany that combines base building with defense. All these games ended up either on my wishlist or directly in my cart.
In addition, there were some indie games that unexpectedly became Steam hits, such as:
- BattleBit Remastered, a kind of Roblox-Battlefield
- Cult of the Lamb, which my boss Leya Jankowski absolutely loves
- DREDGE, which absolutely took off
- a new expansion for Northgard, a strategy game that I absolutely love
Also the crazy survival game Voidtrain was found in the lists:
Steam (thankfully) doesn’t know everything about me
Among the games were some that would actually fit, but that I still don’t want to check out. The new Stellaris DLC deters with bad reviews, as does Cities: Skylines 2. I’d rather stick to “small” alternatives.
In some cases, the lists were completely off. For example, I was suggested several times games like the football manager or EA Sports FC 24. Why? No idea. Probably because someone tagged it as “strategy game.”
Racing games like F1 23, EA Sports WRC, or Forza were also included in the recommendations. But I don’t even have sports games on Steam, not even Rocket League. I simply can’t relate to that. This means for me: Steam doesn’t know all of my preferences after all.
If the games don’t appeal to you, they can easily be refunded:
On the one hand, it’s a shame because my lists don’t fully show what I want to see. On the other hand, it means that I could at least preserve some privacy – and that’s definitely worth something.
One way or another, I will probably use the “discovery lists” more often whenever I’m having a little slump. But that will likely take a while, because soon a hit that I absolutely love is coming:
