Looking for a customisable squad single player game.

[Agent of Fate]

Hi Everyone.

I?ve made topics in the past asking for game recommendations, but I think I?ve been too specific and didn?t get any replies. So I thought I?d try again a little more general.

So I?m looking for a single-player game where you control a team/squad/party/group (genre doesn?t matter, RPG, TBS, RTS, Shooter whatever) but where they are all customisable. Not just equipment and classes, or even names like in some JRPGS, but also in appearance. The more customisation the better.

The only caveat is I don?t want anything too hard. I know X-com lets you do this, but the RNG in that game hates me, and the fact you can lose the game at the start and not be aware of it but not performing your research in the right order does not appeal to me at all.

I?ve got a few older games that do this to a limited degree (Icewind Dale and Dragon Quest IX) but I?m hoping there?s something new and with more options.

Thanks!

 

[Lufia Erim]

Divinity orignal Sin maybe be interesting if you like oldschool like Wrpgs. Be warned though it is a VERY long game.

Diagaea 5 is also a Very customizable and long Japanese Strategy rpg. And also a very long game.

 

[Zhukov]

XCOoooooo...oh.

It does have easier difficulties.

Aside from that I can't think of much. Most RPGs only let you customize your protagonist and fill out the party/squad with premade characters for story purposes.

Divinity Original Sin has you customize two party members, then choose up to two premade ones.

 

[Agent of Fate]

Two votes for Divinity Original Sin? I should check it out then.

I got the first Disgaea when it came out on Steam and played a bit of it, and while it wasn't exactly what I was after I did have fun and will play the whole thing at some point. Given the second on is also coming to Steam, might just a matter of time before 5 arrives.

And yeah, I do know it has easier difficulties but.. uh... *embarrassed look* I sorta do badly on those too. I like tactical games, I'm just not good at them.

Thanks for your suggestions guys!

 

[josemlopes]

Jagged Alliance Back in Action, although most fans of the series didnt like the game. It has some issues but its fun when things work well.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

If you're on PC XCom2 has a lot of mods that lessen the frustrating parts of it and make it more enjoyable. The main one being a mod that extends the Avatar Project completion timer so you can do stuff at more lesiurly pace. Theres one that gets rid of it altogether.

Theres also one that causes soldiers to become less gravely wounded and one which gives inactive soldiers xp which means you aren't forced into continually using rookies.

And yet another that clears the seed roll on the RNG so if you miss that 95% chance shot you can reload and it will reroll the shot instead of keeping the previous result. I don't use that one though.

Also, look up confirmation bias in relation to RNGs

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Try maybe Warhammer: Chaos Gate off GOG? Gives you small 5 man squads that have to accomplish turn-based missions.
Or Dawn of War 2? Lets you customize entire squads of Space Marines

 

[Sonmi]

XCOM's difficulty is part of its appeal, I wouldn't give up on it just yet. The feeling of satisfaction when you finally complete your first Hardcore Ironman run is second to none.

Also, Wasteland 2 allows you to build your whole squad.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Wasteland 2

[small]hehehehehahahahahahmwahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHA[/small]AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Also, Wasteland 2 allows you to build your whole squad.

Damnit.

Dragons dogma let's you carry you're own personal ***** around with two other player created bitches (in the US prison sense of the word of course). They allow for great customisation and great combat variety. Divinity original sin is quite tricky also though, just throwing that out there like a tasty bit of bait.

Dragon Age games allow a fair bit of fashion customisation. Though only the main character's features are your own, You can at least make everyone else wear funny hats.

 

[Agent of Fate]

Wow! I come back after work and there's a fair few suggestions! Thanks guys!

Jagged Alliance: I had a look and it didn't seem to say anything about character customization, or did I just miss that?

X-com 2 with mods does sound appealing. Though I have to ask is there a mod that turns it into Gerry Anderson's UFO? ;-p

Chaos Gate is on GOG? Darn, I didn't see that. I missed it when it first came out so I will be looking at that one.

As for DoW 2, well it is in my steam library, and I really should play it. Just at the moment I'm looking at something closer to the Mordheim/Necromunda scale. (And yep, I've got Mordheim to!)

Going back to Xcom, I do understand the appeal of the difficulty and challenge. It's just not something I personally enjoy. Beating a difficult section is less 'Yay I did it' and more 'Thank *bleep* I don't need to do that again'. Goes double when it's all down to the RNG.

Wasteland 2. Hmm... is this a 'everything is doomed and there is nothing but extinction' post-apocalyptic or 'we have fallen but are rising again' post-apocalyptic?

Dragon's Dogma isn't a bad call, just I'm not sure about the whole pod people thing! ;-p

And Dragon Age isn't quite what I'm after. It still has the pre-made secondary cast.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions so far! A lot of these I'll be looking out for in the Steam sales.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Jagged Alliance: I had a look and it didn't seem to say anything about character customization, or did I just miss that?

You get to customize your "main character" mercenary. The rest of your squad is made up of mercenaries that already have their own personalities and traits.

If you're going to play Jagged Alliance, don't play JA: Back in Action. It's a cheap, ugly, bare-bones reboot of Jagged Alliance 2. Just play Jagged Alliance 2. It's a significantly better game, and its modding community is fantastic. If you install the fan-made JA2 1.13 patch (don't let the name fool you, it's practically a complete overhaul that fixes a lot of the game's wonkier mechanics and adds hundreds of new weapons/ammunition types/armor/clothing/equipment items to the game) you get the option to make an entire squad of custom characters instead of just your main character.

Assuming you have the 1.13 patch, customization options include the character's hair and skin color, basic clothing colors, voice (each voice having a different personality), how good they start out with various combat and technical skills, special abilities (You can have no special abilities, which gives you more skill points, one particularly strong special ability, or two weaker special abilities - which include things like Ambidextrous which will make your merc more effective with dual wielded weapons, Stealth which will make your merc quieter while sneaking, Night Ops which will increase your view distance in the dark, etc.), and you can optionally choose to give your custom character various personality quirks (like heat intolerance, fear of insects, or the always-amusing Psychopath which makes your character occasionally disobey orders to fire full-auto while laughing maniacally if you give them a machine gun).

From there, you can customize pretty much everything about their gear. With the 1.13 patch you can use various pieces of load-bearing equipment to specialize what types of things your character can effectively carry (like you could equip a thigh holster to carry a pistol and some handgun magazines, or you could instead have a pouch for first aid supplies and a canteen instead - it's all pretty customizable). You can customize all of your weapons with various attachments like suppressors, scopes, grenade launchers, shoulder stocks, grips/bipods, extended magazines, etc. to fit the role you want the character to fill. You can deck them out in light-weight armor that allows them to be agile in combat, or suit them up in friggin' Explosive Ordinance Disposal suits packed with ceramic trauma plates to make them slow-moving walking tanks if you feel like it.

It's pretty great. I've played through JA2 with the 1.13 patch probably a dozen times now.

Wasteland 2. Hmm... is this a 'everything is doomed and there is nothing but extinction' post-apocalyptic or 'we have fallen but are rising again' post-apocalyptic?

The second one. The Wasteland franchise is sort of the spiritual predecessor to the Fallout franchise (the Wasteland Rangers are even referenced a few times in Fallout, probably most prominently in Fallout 2) . That said, I'm not super fond of it. The combat isn't particularly engaging, and it takes a real long time to start getting interesting. It's gotten an official upgrade with the Director's Cut release, which to its credit, fixes quite a few of the problems I had with the game when it launched... but it still feels like a game that could have used more development time.

Personally, if I'm going to want to play a combat-based squad game with this aesthetic, I'd rather play the non-canon Fallout Tactics than Wasteland 2.

 

[meiam]

Valkyria chronicle maybe, although it has little customization. There's also the classics tactics like FFT and tactics ogre, but again little customization beyond gameplay wise.

This is pretty hard, I don't remember anything about appearance customization since I'm the kind of person who just click random, did FTL have it? There were a few more warhammer game all about small squad combat like space hulk, but gameplay wise they were pretty meh.

 

[Satinavian]

As for DoW 2, well it is in my steam library, and I really should play it. Just at the moment I'm looking at something closer to the Mordheim/Necromunda scale. (And yep, I've got Mordheim to!)

And there i was just about to suggest Mordheim ...


Well, most options were already named. Maybe Blackguards, but that is also basicaly gear customization.

Oh, and Pillars of Eternity. While there are existing teammates, you can ignore them and create your own. It would be similar to the icewind dale approach, only with better writing.

 

[WindKnight]

Kind of old, but Battle Isle Infestation was a lot of fun when I got it. Turn based, ap commands, limited ammo, enemies that required differant tactics to defeat (one hulking enemy beeds to be flanked because it is invulnerable from the front, a ranged enemy is only vulnerable when it fires, so you need someone to 'overwatch' to shoot it as it opens and before it fires). your squad grows as the missions go on, losses are permanent, and your solders can get better weapons and equipment as they lvl up.

Having said that, there is some rng in the mix, the lvling system rewards planning ahead and factoring long term aims into the immediate upgrades as there's not much room to waste skill points, and there's an early mission that becomes a slaughterhouse if you've not got at least one person with a certain weapon, and having that weapon will lock that character off from certain upgrade paths, or at least mean you've 'wasted' some of the skillpoints used to get that weapon.

 

[Tayh]

This thread makes me sad. We really need more decent squad-based games.
As for recommendations, since all the good ones have already been mentioned, I can only offer Silent Storm and its sequel Silent Storm: Sentinels.
Set in an alternate version of WW2, you create your own character and then pick 5 more pre-made and voiced companions to accompany you as you take on missions or simply roam the country looking for random encounters.
Also, it's currently 80% off on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/silent_storm_gold

 

[Kerg3927]

Seems like most RPG's used to be like that... Bard's Tale, D&D gold box series, Wizardry. You just don't see it anymore. Now it's design you main character and fill out your party with NPC's you encounter throughout the game. Baldur's Gate is the first one I remember like that, and Bioware has done it that way in all of their games. I guess it's because games are all voice acted now.

I kinda miss being able to design a full party, though.

 

[Agent of Fate]

Wow! It does seem like there's not all that many games out there. You'd think they'd be more!

Sounds like Jagged Alliance really does need that patch to be what I'd like. I'll look into it.

I find it really hard to get into post-apocalyptic games as I find the setting to be... just to bleak! At least if there is an indication things are getting better it's a startpoint

Valkyria Chronicles is another one in my Steam Library that I hope to get to playing soon.

FTL... same sorta thing I'd dislike Xcom for. RNG and 'don't expect to win first time'

Pillars of Eternity lets you create your own party members? I did not know that. Definitely getting it next time it's cheap then.

Battle Isle looks interesting old school. Might pick it up. There's a bundle pack on GOG that has it and more that looks pretty good.

WW2 isn't a setting I usually go for, and given the non-customizable party members it's not quite what I'm after, but given how cheap it is right now, it's probibly worth a try!

I'm sorta surprised there's not more indie games that focus on this sorta thing. They do tend to fill up the niches in the market.

Thanks again everyone! It's great of you!

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Mugen Souls lets you do that, though it also has a lot of premade chars too.

 

[Marik2]

Maybe swat 4 and some of the rainbow 6 games ?

 

[Frankster]

Templar Battleforce is an indie squad strategy game that came out last year that is pretty solid.
Your squad is decked out in 40kish power armor which you can change the appearance of, as well as choose between helmeted and non helmet portraits.

Otherwise seconding Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance 2 with 1.13 patch so you can make a squad of custom mercs.

One oddball suggestion I got is Freedom Force. Basically it's a superhero squad game where you can design your own hero and the powers they get, and even use a whole squad of custom superheroes instead of the default ones if you wish.

Oh and though the wizardry series has already been mentioned, i particularly recommend wizardry 8 because i think visually it holds up well enough to be palatable for a modern gamer.