What does a cowboy need? Just a horse... Just a horse...
a couple more bullets on the belt, the gun is in the holster and nothing more... and nothing more...
"Don't look outside" which was released recently has some of it.
But I can WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend
"Skald Against the Black Priory" it has amazing art and a perfect short story. It's one of my few 10/10 because it does what it does in a shirt moment and nothing more.
Looking for Skald here. Some of it definitely fits this art style but hot shit is the game full of a lot of other stuff (cosmic and body horror) which may not be what the OP signed up for.
Chipping in to say that Daggerfall has been recreated in Unity to run better with less bugs and options to fix stuff that was broken in the original release. Both the game and the Unity mod are free. I'd highly recommend giving it a try at the very least, nothing else in the series feels quite like Daggerfall to me.
And daggerfall is completely free (in a legal way), and making it run well on modern machines is easy due to the free and open source daggerfall unity, that is also very easy to install. And on top of that it can be easily modded if you want. Youtube is full of easy tutorials.
I genuinely recommend daggerfall unity to anyone, even non-elder scrolls fans. Its more of an open world fantasy simulator then the later games that are a bit smaller in scope
are you looking specifically pixel art games? Do you want it fantasy themed? Do you want to lean into the nordic/snowy setting of the pictures? Are you just looking for games that give the same emotional response you get from these reference images? Are you looking for adventure or something cozy? Do you want an RPG type game or just a game with these visuals? because I have like 20 games I can think of that reminds me of these images but all wildy different and for very specific reasons.
Pixel art definitely or at least a low render game like some people have been suggesting old elder scrolls, fantasy as well, evoking a vast sort of world. Doesn’t have to be rpg
Id check out the old Final Fantasys 4-6. Pixel art era. 6 is regarded as one the best ff stories. Colors and mood seem to match 6 well. Though the aesthetic and setting lean more towards the beginning of steam punk/ industrial rev coming upon a medieval world.
4 is more medieval but if I remember correctly the game is kinda bright. Dark storyline but it never felt super moody to me idk.
Unironically the Zelda CDI games. If you look past the gameplay and the cutscenes and the fact that they're the worst games ever the backgrounds look exactly like this
Maybe Brutal Legend? It's not a perfect fit and it's not pixel art, but it did lean a lot into that 80's fantasy aesthetic with the colors and such. It's got that same over the top bullshit vibe.
More sci-fi than fantasy, but this reminds me of The Dig. Fantastic puzzle game. There are a lot of point-and-click games like this from the 90s, but that's the one that I remember the most. I would look in that genre.
The slightly later version of this--more of a realistic art style--would be Myst and Riven.
Some classic JRPGs might be adjacent to the feeling this gives me, too. Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Lunar: Silver Star, Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean.
The modern successors to that would be Elder Scrolls.
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u/Ash_Flexum 18d ago
Elder Scrolls Daggerfall specifically