The Best Single Player Games for When You Want to Play Alone

Gaming keeps trying to make everything multiplayer and it keeps being wrong. Single player games offer something fundamentally different — total control of your pace, no anxiety about performing for others, the ability to inhabit a story or world without interruption. Some of the best experiences in the medium are purely solo by design, and the genre has never been more alive than it is right now despite decades of executives betting on live service.

Here's what's worth playing alone, organized by what you're in the mood for.

The Modern Narrative Epics

Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian is one of the best RPGs ever made and essentially a single player experience (the co-op exists but feels secondary). The reactivity to your choices, the companion relationships, and the sheer scale of three acts each the size of most games — it's the CRPG renaissance peak.

Elden Ring from FromSoftware is playable co-op but designed as a single player odyssey through one of the most imaginative open worlds ever built. The soulslike combat, the Lands Between, and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC create probably 150+ hours of focused content.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt remains one of the best RPG narratives ever written. Geralt's adventures across Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige still hold up brilliantly.

Red Dead Redemption 2 from Rockstar is the most atmospheric open world ever made. The single player campaign tells an epic tragedy across 60+ hours, and the environmental storytelling rewards slow play.

Cyberpunk 2077 (with Phantom Liberty and 2.0 patch) delivered on its ambitions. Night City is dense with stories, and V's arc through the main narrative and DLC is genuinely affecting.

The Action-Adventure Masterpieces

God of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarök reinvented Kratos as a father struggling with his past. Santa Monica Studio made cinematic single player games that earn their scope through character work rather than spectacle.

Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West tell a focused narrative across two massive worlds. Aloy's character arc is one of the best in modern gaming.

Ghost of Tsushima strips traditional open world UI in favor of environmental guidance (wind, birds, foxes). The samurai combat is elegant and the Iki Island DLC deepens everything.

The Last of Us Part I and Part II remain essential single player experiences. Part II in particular uses its structure to make arguments about violence and perspective that only work because you're alone with them.

The Indie Masterpieces

The indie scene has produced some of the best single player experiences of the past decade.

Hollow Knight is a metroidvania with the atmospheric depth of the best AAA releases at a fraction of the development budget. Team Cherry built a world that rewards exploration for over 40 hours.

Celeste tells a story about anxiety through precision platforming. The mechanics and narrative are inseparable, and both hit harder than they should.

Undertale and Deltarune watch you play and respond. Toby Fox's games use meta-awareness in ways only single player experiences can.

Outer Wilds is the best discovery game ever made. Exploration IS the progression, and it only works because you're alone with your own reasoning.

Disco Elysium is the best-written game ever made. Your detective's internal monologue of skill voices is intimate in a way no multiplayer game could replicate.

Return of the Obra Dinn has you solving the mystery of 60 crew members' deaths. The deduction is meditative and solitary.

SIGNALIS captures what 90s survival horror felt like through meticulous pixel art and resource scarcity. Rose-engine made something genuinely unsettling that requires complete focus.

The Roguelikes and Roguelites

Most roguelikes and roguelites are single player by design. The "one more run" psychology works best alone.

Hades remains the genre gold standard. Supergiant's narrative-driven roguelite is as compelling as any traditional RPG.

Dead Cells is action roguelite excellence. Tight combat and endless replayability.

Slay the Spire and the roguelike deckbuilder genre offer pure strategic depth for solo play.

Balatro has consumed months of single player time for countless players. The mathematical depth is best appreciated alone with your own discoveries.

Vampire Survivors is the bullet heaven that launched a genre. Simple to start, deep enough to lose hundreds of hours in.

Inscryption is a deckbuilder that becomes something else entirely. Best played blind, alone, in a dark room.

The Strategy and Management Games

Civilization VI (and the upcoming VII) offers infinite single player depth through AI opponents and procedural maps.

Stellaris from Paradox is grand strategy in a procedural galaxy. Thousands of hours of content for solo players.

Crusader Kings III is medieval drama disguised as a strategy game. The emergent stories of betrayal and succession are pure solo entertainment.

RimWorld generates colony stories through systemic simulation. Each playthrough becomes a unique narrative.

Frostpunk and Frostpunk 2 test your moral flexibility in crisis management scenarios. Tight, focused single player experiences with weight.

Into the Breach from Subset Games (the FTL studio) is turn-based tactical perfection. Every decision matters, every move has consequences, and the puzzle depth sustains hundreds of hours.

The Story-First Games

Life Is Strange and its sequels use time manipulation as narrative mechanic.

Kentucky Route Zero is magical realism as interactive theater.

What Remains of Edith Finch is short stories about a cursed family, each told through different mechanics.

Spiritfarer is management game as meditation on death and letting go.

Citizen Sleeper tells a cyberpunk story through dice rolls and difficult choices.

Norco is point-and-click adventure rendered in surreal industrial Louisiana aesthetics.

The Atmospheric Experiences

Journey is a wordless 2-hour walk through a desert toward a mountain. thatgamecompany captured something film can't.

Gris is a platformer about grief told through color and music.

A Short Hike is 2 hours of pure charm climbing a mountain as a bird.

Sable is open world exploration without combat, enemies, or pressure.

Death Stranding invented a new genre combining walking simulator with asynchronous multiplayer. The connection-through-package-delivery premise is somehow brilliant.

Why Single Player Matters

Multiplayer games treat other people as the content. Single player games treat the game itself as the content. Both are valid approaches, but they produce completely different experiences. Single player design can commit to specific stories, pacing, and mechanical systems that require undivided attention — which is exactly what a lot of players want.

The indie development scene skews heavily single player because small teams can't sustain the infrastructure multiplayer requires. Fortunately for players, that constraint has produced some of the most refined game design of the past decade. The best single player games aren't a lesser version of "real games" — they're often the ones where developers had the most creative freedom to do exactly what they wanted.

Pick whatever appeals from this list. Every single one rewards the time you give it, which is what single player games are actually about.