this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
131 points (100.0% liked)

Games

20268 readers
473 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
131
What is your favorite simulator game? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
79 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Simulators are one of the earliest PC game genres, and remain compelling experiences to this day, even if they're not as popular as they used to be.

I like all kinds of combat flight sims; the MS Combat Flight Simulator from 1998 was something special, and I've had some similar fun in IL-2 Sturmovik. The newest civil air sims are pretty great too, I'll pop on a podcast and make a flight. They're particularly cool in VR.

I've also found the MechWarrior games to be fun, but I've only played 2 and 5. I got to play a bit of Steel Battalion with the full crazy controller at a con a few years back, and that's got to be a lot of fun once you really know what you're doing.

So what's your favorite sim?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago

Dwarf Fortress, aka drunken dwarf simulator.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

I definitely have the most time spent in Project Cars 2 on PS4, but I've since switched to PC sims and have been playing Automobilista 2 since it is the most similar.

I'd like to get into Assetto Corsa more but idk how to get the mods running on Linux / Steam

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Heavy Gear 1 and 2. So much fun when multiplayer ever worked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Cultist Simulator. (half joking 😂).

Big fan of Cities Skylines in city simulator genre.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Not super in-depth like some of these other games but I love Snowrunner. I can count on 3 fingers the number of games I’ve spent over $100 on the game+ additional content in my entire life. Civ5, Civ6, and Snowrunner. It’s such a relaxing game but can definitely be difficult as well. Also i can play music at the same time and not miss any story because there isn’t really any story.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Anything by Janes Combat Simulations.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Euro truck simulator 2! I have lots of hours in this game, playing date and night. At some point I had a Logitech wheel with pedals and shifts, it was so damn good!!!

My routine was to get a long route through graphic and small roads, listening to radio for hours.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

My parents got me a copy of Harrier Jump Jet by Microprose one christmas. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours I spent on that game, both actually playing it and studying the manual for it. Still have the manual actually but the floppies are long gone.

After that I got every Microprose sim I could get my hands on, F14 Fleet Defender was probably my favorite after Harrier.

Then I kinda lost interest in simulators until Arma came along, spent years where I hardly played anything else.

Nowadays though ETS is pretty much the only sim I play.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

X-plane. Ms flight simulator is drop dead gorgeous, but X plane has a better flight engine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

You can do a lot to improve how it looks, too. There's a lot of custom terrain, and you can download meshes made from satellite photos.

It also works better in VR.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

KSP 1

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I credit Kerbal Space Program for my ability to think in three dimensions. Without KSP, I would have been some kind of dumbass. I thought getting to orbit was just a matter of going up until I was like 18 years old

Have you ever pulled up an old save file to look at the stuff you used to design? I did that the other day and found out that I used to be good at this game. Folded space stations, massive mining rigs, Apollo Style landers, a beautiful SSTO that's braindead easy to fly, an interplanetary module that can dock to the back of said SSTO, I made fancy shit. Nowadays I just slap boosters and docking ports on fuel tanks and call it good enough

I gotta post pictures from that save file sometime

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

2nding this, but also I'm looking forward to KSA, hoping it can be the true successor

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

VTOL VR

https://store.steampowered.com/app/667970/VTOL_VR/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

VTOL VR is incredible

[–] [email protected] 1 points 46 minutes ago

I bought a VR headset solely to play VTOL VR; worth it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago

Swat 4 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

B-17 (intellivision)

F19 (Atari computer)

Jumbo jet (Atari computer)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

For me, my favorites are:

RAH-66 Comanche for flying sim.

Wolfpack (from Brøderbund) for submarine sim. I believe it is also free on archive.org. (Added link: https://archive.org/details/msdos_WolfPack_1990)

Euro Truck Simulator 2 for trucking sim.

F1 2019 for racing sim. But it pretty much requires a wheel and pedals if you want to get really good, which does add to the cost.

EDIT: added link

[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Wolfpack I played up and down 20 years ago. I may check it out again.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I like OpenTTD. Based off the old Transport Tycoon game

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Sim Collector Simulator

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Assetto Corsa, hands down. The mod community have made it into something quite special. I've got pretty much every other driving/racing sim as well, but I keep coming back to AC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Any idea if there is a way to get the mods to work on Linux?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Not sure, maybe through Wine, but I'm almost certain it won't work with my Moza wheel and pedals, or VR.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Derail Valley Simulator. I like my trains.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

If you like building sets, you should check out Rolling Line.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

Not so much the collecting. I like learning how to drive them, and driving them. I blew up my steam engines the first several times I touched the controls

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I should get back into that one. I played some in early access, and it was fun.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Depending on how long ago it was, we've had a couple of updates recently. You can now paint all your engines, and there's a ton of gadgets

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Falcon BMS. It’s a mod of falcon 4.0 from the 90’s. Best combat flight sim out there. DCS is prettier, I guess, but, overpriced garbage by comparison.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Apache longbow 2 from 1997.

Edit: got original mixed with 2

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Farming Simulator.

I grew up in the country and moved to a city. It's neat to see how accurate the older tractors and equipment are to real life.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

The one where you get to shoot jfk.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

American Truck Simulator.

load more comments
view more: next ›