Games

• Factorio, I know you said you couldn't get into it, but try peaceful mode, it's a great game even without enemies
• RimWorld, it's an excellent colony management game
• Dwarf Fortress, this is the big boss, it's really hard to start, but it's the most complex simulation game out there. If you can get into it, it's infinite hours of fun.

Horror/action: Dead Space.
FPS/time manipulation: Singularity.
Factory/combat(optional): Dyson Sphere Project

Singularity still stands up as it's graphics are decent. Super cheap on GoG. Dead Space if you get the original would be cheap. HD remaster would be more. If you love factory games but have never played DSP god damn do I wish I was you. Recommend playing without combat enabled on first run to just enjoy how gorgeous the game is and to help with learning everything before throwing in combat management

Shall I recommend WarZone-2100 ? It's free

Naturally we need to know which suggestions "won" ASAP

Kenshi.

If you can get past the kind of... weird control scheme...

The game is basically a single player mmorpg.

You start off as an absolute weakling, and there is no ... scaling, the way most other rpgs either generally have certain levelled enemies in certain areas, that you progress through linearly or unlock sequentially, or just an outright whole world spanning dynamic level matching kind of system.

You can be battling a small beast... and then a herd of very, very much more dangerous beasts, or slavers, will just happen to pass by, and royally fuck up your day.

Every character in the game, including you, plays by the same rules.

All major NPCs can be killed, the game is also full of varying factions with varying alignments towars other factions, and they will treat your character differently based on your race, the kinds of actio s you do, your reputation with other factions.

The storytelling is ... a sandbox/emergent approach. Not in the sense of 'there are no story lines or quests'... but in the sense of... a whole lot of stuff is out there, but you have to self direct yourself to go out and find it, or randomly encounter it.

Also, you can gain allies, make your own faction, and control a small army... and you can even build your own settlement, and economically interact with the rest of the world.

... Its... kind of hard to describe.

There really aren't any other games quite like Kenshi.

Its got a good sized modding scene, and it incorperates at least some elemenrs of... every game you mentioned.

If you use a mod to up your max follower/faction member count... you can basically play the game as an RTS (with pause). Build a settlement, recruit followers (or enslave them), arm them, fees them, train them up, and go take over a city if you want.

... Or play basically solo, just you and your bonedog, maybe as a bounty hunter for hire, or a hashish smuggler, or get a pack animal and run a trade caravan.

Hardspace Shipbreaker.

I think you might like 'Rogue Trader', even if you don't know anything about the 40K universe. Cool story, choices and fights.

Don't worry too much about not knowing the background lore. The game contextualizes a lot in dialogues and even little mouseovers. But be careful, if you like SciFi, you might fall into the awesomely rich and grim rabbit hole, that is Warhammer 40K.

The Emperor protects.

Not on steam, but Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is pretty good, and free.

Slay the spire is really fun and different than what you've listed.

It was the first rogue like deck building game. Fantastically done.

Terraria.

The Bioshock games are really fun in a very dark way. They are incredibly unique—I haven’t played anything else quite like them. Personally, I liked the first two better than the third one. The first two take place underwater, which sort of creeped me out from the get-go. The third is in a city in the sky.

If you like factory designing games, I can recommend anything by Zachtronics.

They're all esoteric programming/automation type puzzle games, and they all have their own unique solitaire games built-in for whenever you get tired of the main game.

My personal favourites are SpaceChem - scifi molecule factories - and Opus Magnum - steampunk alchemical molecule factories. Something about the molecules just works for me, don't know why. Plus the Opus Magnum solitaire game is really unique and fun, and it has a user-made level feature, so you can keep playing.

Last Call BBS is a collection of minigames they made as their final release before shutting up shop, so it's a lot more casual than the others, but a lot of fun.

Kenshi

I wanted to recommend go, but you said single player... there's always Katago to play against.

I guarantee you'll never truly 'beat' the game!

Oblivion Remastered is really good.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Thank me later

Factorio. Aka cracktorio.

Dark Souls, no sense of management besides managing to not die, but it’s single player (with optional online interactions) and is good. Hard but satisfying when you get it. Lots to explore in the world.

Try Shroom and Gloom! It's a roguelike deck builder on itch.io, completely free if you want it to be. Very challenging and really fun

ITT all games dancing around Bannerlord but no one recommended it yet.

I just restarted playing fallout 4. Can give that a shot if you can catch it on sale

Grim Dawn was pretty sick too if you like Diablo style games. I was pretty impressed

It seems like you like games with a lot of replayability, as well as games that make you think a bit. I'm a bit of the opposite (I like shorter, unique experiences), but I also like games that make me think. So here are a few that I've enjoyed that I think fit the bill:

• deck-building roguelikes, like Slay the Spire, Balatro, etc; you can get a lot of hours in it, they generally don't have DLC, and they're more on the "thinking" vs "combat" end of the roguelike spectrum
• Planet Coaster or Parkitect - theme park themed "city builder"; Planet Coaster is a bit of a DLC-fest, but Parkitect only has 2 (and a soundtrack); look around the various "tycoon" games if you like the genre, they can have good replayability
• "coding" games - Human Resource Machine, Opus Magnum, etc; these have poor replayability (mostly just optimizing solutions), but there's a lot of thinking and you can get a lot of hours out of it if you don't look up guides; they're not for everyone, but if they are, they're very satisfying
• Dwarf Fortress - the management game, and perhaps the best in the world at replayability; the Steam version is a huge upgrade, but you can also get the classic version for free, though do be aware that the learning curve is a lot higher than the Steam version
• Sid Meier's Pirates - old game, but I get a lot of hours in it and find it absolutely fantastic; this is more combat than thinking, but it's more thinking than something like Mount and Blade (combat is relatively slow)
• Tropico series - they do have DLC, but you can frequently find a bundle on Humble Bundle or Fanatical or something with all the DLC included for the older games; not as sandbox-y as Cities Skylines, but still largely in that vein

That said, I want to echo what others have said and to recommend branching out. There are tons of great indie games that aren't a total ripoff in a variety of genres, so look around for bundles or something to find something new to try.

Factorio. If you enjoyed Satisfactory you should check out the game that created the genre. They have an excellent demo and although it's relatively expensive compared to similar games, it's the best one and runs like an absolute dream even when things get huge where a lot of similar games slow down.

If you like rpgs and management I'd suggest Battle Brothers, a mercenary company management game. You basically travel the countryside fighting brigands and taking jobs from various cities all while building up your company with new recruits and equipment. It's got a bit of a learning curve but once you get the basics down it's oddly enthralling.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/365360/Battle_Brothers/

Everyone's recommending games but addressing steam recs, there's Backloggd which is Letterbox for games. Sure there'll probably be a similar overlap of games folks love that are not your jam but it'll help you figure out what you like, find something new, and follow folks with similar tastes.

I got no clue if this would count as something you'd be into, but I've been having fun with Skyblock Zero on Luanti.

Idon't know how quickly you could finish it considering I play purposefully inefficiently, but it's a space themed with a quest line to follow where the only limited resource is your time. Spawn on a voxel, keep clicking to gain resources, and build out from there. So far one of my only gripes is storage in the game is only drawers instead of chests, so I constantly have machines and my inventory filled.

Leaning more into the management style of games, might be worth checking out Two Points Hospital (spiritual sequel to Theme Hospital), and the more recently released Rwo Points Museum?

X4 foundations is a sandbox RPG in space where you do whatever you want.

• Different factions with their story, political agenda, sub-factions, technologies
• Walk out of your ship on station, all 1:1 size real time, no loading screen.
• Play first person in your ship (pew pew) in the ship of your liking
• Recruit staff members to build your empire / fleet
• Play as a manager (see RTS kind of) from the galactic map, command your empire, fleet of death, traders, miners.
• Build your own stations with their own production pipeline that Maximize the local resources
• Enjoy 25 years of lore building

I am a big fan, as you can see :D

Have you tried Against the Storm (based on your mentioning of RTS style games)

Check out Dome Keeper. Mine resources to buy upgrades and protect your dome from waves of aliens. There are lots of game modes and modifiers to get different experiences each run.

Balatro.
You think it's simple until it's suddenly 1 am and your brain is mush trying to remember what strategy you're currently using -oops lost, ok one more run...

Soma.
If you're in the mood to be hooked on a story. Scary stuff happens, and youll question life a few times.

Pathfinder.
Wrath of the Righteous is the only tabletop pc rpg you'll need agian. Baldergate 3 is the tutorial mission for this monster game.

Rain World.
If you enjoy metroidvanias with new mechanics.

Tunic.
If you enjoy zelda and dark souls. Theres more to it than it looks. I couldn't put this one down either.

Try a different genre than you usually play.

Tetris Effect Connected

A Short Hike

Cult of the Lamb

What Remains of Edith Finch?

Os there a specific genre of games you are looking for?