Adam Tyner

My kid sister's in her late teens and is about to start college, and I wanted to get her a slightly early birthday gift so she'd have something new to play before school starts. I asked if there's anything on her wishlist, and she said she's sure she'd love anything I picked out, which history has proven not to be the case.

She favors games with some kind of online/social component. Over the past couple of years, she's been into Fortnite, GTA Online, Red Dead Online, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. She said she likes it when games have both a single player campaign and an online mode. The one game I've gotten her in recent years that she liked enough to play all the way through was Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and she told me that she's into single player games like that with a good bit of action.

Examples of games I've picked out for her that she either returned for store credit or barely played are Ori & the Blind Forest, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Just Cause 4 (which I preordered and didn't know was terrible yet), and DropMix.

She has an Xbox One S and just got a Switch. Before she told me all that, I figured I had a wealth of Switch games to choose from (all she has are Animal Crossing and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe), but if she's looking for something more action and/or multiplayer oriented, I'm not sure that's the best option.

I figured I'd see if any of you have better suggestions than anything I've come up with. Because left to my own devices, I'd probably get her Maneater or something. Super Mario Odyssey was Plan A, but it doesn't fit her suggestions. She didn't seem into Overwatch when she played it over here a couple years ago. I've run through a long list of other games in my head (Splatoon 2, Gears 5, Doom Eternal, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Control, Sea of Thieves), and none of those seem quite right to me for one reason or another.

Do you have any suggestions? If so, I'd appreciate it!

Dan

What about a year of Nintendo Online and Game Pass? She might find some stuff to kill time, especially with the latter.

Not sure what else... I've heard Titanfall 2 has a great campaign (but never actually got around to it myself...), but the MP aspect may be a bit dead these days.

Would the newest Mario Kart (edit: saw she has that already) or even Mario Maker be up her ally?

Or you can go super off the rails and get her Pathologic 2

Gideon68

What Dan posted. First thing to come to mind is GamePass. She can sample a lot of games and find one she likes. Ori, Gears and SoT are all GP I believe.

Michael Corvin

How about a couple of collections of two of the biggest games/franchises of last gen? The Bioshock Collection and Borderlands: Handsome Collection. Both are on the Switch now, although I'm not sure how they look or play on Switch.

Dan

I think Bioshock Collection is still only $10 right now and I believe you can buy it as a gift.
On Xbox that is. It's a bit more on Switch.

Edit: nope. Back up to $50. But that borderlands collection is $10 now.

PerryD

Splatoon 2 was my older daughter's favorite game for a long time, playing with random people online.

Decker

Smash Bros is pretty fun and addictive and accessible to most skill levels. If she wanted something online, that would be a good choice. And if she likes it, there are two more Season Passes of fighters to give her.

tanman

I'll comment more on the switch since that's newer to her and she might get more excited about something for that system. There are very few games on the switch that have both a single player mode and online component. Luigi's Mansion comes to mind with an incredible single player game and an anemic (although still really fun) online multiplayer mode. Splatoon 2 is a great game and very addicting and does have a single player campaign but it's pretty limited and repetitive with no real story. But it's mainly multiplayer.

Of course Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild and I'll throw in Link's Awakening are all masterpieces representing the top tier of their respective franchises but all single player.

But based on the description "action and multiplayer oriented" I would go with Splatoon 2. It's all multiplayer and has two main modes including a very addicting horde mode and it's one of those that's somewhat simple to learn hard to master type of games that you can spend a lot of time on developing your skills. And although at it's base it's a shooter It's also quite a unique game with a lot of unique play mechanics so it both feels somewhat familiar but at the same time completely new.

K&AJones

Money...but with a twist....

My Grandson's...yea I have one and Granddaughter also....Birthday is next week. He has the Oculus Rift and came over to use ours (Cyberpower PC from last year) but his family PC doesn't meet the qualifications. So I challenged him to seriously think about aiming for getting Gaming PC not just for it but to open his world up beyond consoles. He can play a different console game every day for a month and still not get to everything.....He's not old enough for a job and all but last few weeks he's been putting more effort in doing chores and getting an allowance. He's got a Jar on his stand with "Fund for PC" on it and he said he's serious about it and knows it's going to take some time. So he's just asking for money but everyone is encouraging him and plus this is a great learning experience; saving, earning and the reward from it.....just my two-cents.

Maxflier

My suggestion would be Splatoon 2, with the expansion pass as well if you can afford it because people rave about how great the single player expansion pass is. Can't vouch for it myself as I never finished the base single player campaign.

Adam Tyner

Thanks so much for all the suggestions!

She's on my Nintendo Online family plan, although I'm not sure if that gives her access to the old school games or not.

I did get her a GamePass subscription in 2018 that she didn't really do anything with, but I wonder if she'd have a better time with it now. As counter-intuitive as this might sound, I think GamePass can be extremely daunting to someone who doesn't live and breathe gaming. It's the choice paralysis thing. If you give someone a choice among 25 things, awesome! If you give someone a choice among 600 things, they might choose nothing and give up. Which is basically what happened last time. She played #IDARB for a couple of minutes, started creating a character in Sea of Thieves, and goofed around in Farming Simulator, and that was it.

How has Splatoon 2's online been recently? Still active? My wife and I were both obsessed with the original Splatoon, but we dropped the sequel pretty quickly because of the incessant disconnects from other players. Over the course of my last 50 matches, there was at least one drop 38% of the time (usually before the match even started; and it never happened to me). And 89% of the time, the disadvantaged team lost. We weren't having fun when there'd be a near-guaranteed victory or near-guaranteed defeat every couple matches, with it all coming down to numbers rather than skill. I don't know if/how that's changed since Nintendo started charging for online and with any patches since then, though.

Titanfall 2 and Mario Maker did cross my mind. I like the idea of Smash, although my hangup is that it's more of a party game and is dependent on having other people around or her friends having the game too, which I'm not sure if they do. I played through one of the solo modes to unlock all the characters and found it to be kind of a grind. But I'll think through things some more and maybe pester her for further ideas, like if her friends are playing anything online that she doesn't have.

It's been kind of a weird year for gaming so far. It feels like the only enormous, brand new release on the Xbox One year-to-date has been Doom Eternal, and the only real heavy hitter on the Switch so far is Animal Crossing. That's not to say that there hasn't been plenty of other good stuff, but none of the other new releases on those platforms have seemed all that zeitgeist-y, which I'd imagine is what someone who only plays a few games a year would gravitate towards. I want to get her the cool new thing, but there isn't one!

lwhy?

How about Stardew Valley or Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town?

Dan

Wait... Deadly Premonition 2 is out tomorrow. Get her that!

Decker

My son plays Smash with random people online all the time and loves it.

Also Paper Mario comes out in a week and looks like it might be a lot of fun. Another one to consider.

tanman

Maybe one day I'll get it but I didn't really enjoy the included single player campaign. Its kind of a chore to get through.

tanman

So you are familiar with splatoon. I played pretty regularly about a year ago and I didn't notice that many disconnects. I did play a little bit of salmon run just a few days ago and it was fine. Just as addicting as ever.

It's definitely not the latest and greatest though. That's the unfortunate thing about that game is that by it's very nature it does have a limited lifespan and we're already a few years into it.

Really Animal Crossing seems to be the game everyone is into right now.

Maxflier

I agree, that’s why I never finished it. I don’t know what’s so different about the expansion that people rave so much about it.