Life is Strange Might have just been I played it at a point in my life that I could really relate to it but characters have stuck with me since playing it. Looking back, it could have been so much more then it was in terms of choices and such. But I still think overall it was great

I’ll never forget loading Myst on my performance 5200 and getting lost

The big ones for me are the one where I made friends and very personal experiences:

Tibia, Eve Online & Warhammer Online

Which reminds me, I haven't messaged certain former guild leader in a while!

Ar Tonelico. I was very into world building in high school. And this game hits the closest to my imagination at that time. I just can't forget that feeling years after. Regardless of the weird visual novel-y parts of it

Neon white was super fun, still working in 100% for the good ending.

Undertale. The messages that game give you. Goddamn. That game also came to me at a point in my life where I needed it. The soundtrack saved me from contemplating a terrible decision. It saved my life. Wonderful game and an incredible experience.

SOMA. The ending still freaks me out until this day.

So many people mentioning Outer Wilds, think I will have to revisit that. There are a lot of honorable mentions like HL2, SOMA and Ocarina of Time. But for me, the outstanding mention would have to be the original Elite on the Sinclair Spectrum. For such an early, technically simple game it had so much depth and gameplay, and challenge (took me weeks to master that damn docking procedure without crashing!).

Bioshock Infinite. Love the aesthetics and world building in this game.

Well I would answer Outer Wilds (in particular, with the DLC), but since you already said it, ummm....

Probably Hollow Knight. I remember just loving the exploration in that game, and the difficulty made everything feel well earned. I haven't played Elden Ring yet, but it sounds like people had a similar reaction to that, but in 3D.

Medievil

Ports of Call on the Commodore 64. One of the first video games I ever played. Set up a shipping company, buy a ship, buy low and sell high and get better ships. Occasionally you have to take control of the ship (incredibly rudimentary, but it was 1986, give them a break) to dock or leave port, avoid a collision or avoid reefs, but for whatever reason I keep coming back to it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085260/Ports_of_Call_Classic/

The Witcher 3 is probably the greatest video game I've ever played.

The Last of Us 1 & 2 is probably the greatest video game story I've ever experienced.

These 3 games are something I think about in some capacity very often and are, in my mind, the benchmarks that every other game is held to.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age are my notable mentions.

Eastward is an indie game I got because I saw someone recommend it on Lemmy a couple years ago. The pixel art was amazing, and some of it had a very unique eerieness. The story was heartwarming at times and creepy at other times. The only real complaint I had was that so much of the story remained unexplained after the ending, I really wanted to see all the little pieces of plot tied together.

The Witcher 3 (mainly the DLCs), the story was so good, like it's the only game I can remember where I was waiting to play it every weekend just for the story.

Ocarina of Time - the music is so amazing, I can still remember all of it.

Runescape Classic (like 2002) for making me impervious to scams - you get scammed by some players once and that sticks with you.

I think skyrim and Hitman Absolution. They were the first games that I bought by myself ob my pc, starting my real gaming era.

Half-Life 2. I have so many playthroughs that I lost count. At the time of release, the gameplay and physics were mind-blowing. The atmosphere over time got even better when Valve released bloom lighting. The water and sky were breath taking. I still go back and visit to this day.

The closest is Ghost Trick I guess? But frankly while being another masterpiece, it didn't stick THAT much more than the others, after a month or two even the 10/10 games come to mind only if I think of a related topic.

The most influencial would be Etrian Odyssey IV since it got me into giving JRPGs another go, after years of not being impressed by any of the classics (Final Fantasy 4-5, 6 kept my attention until the endgame, Golden Sun...), and now I basically beat them (mostly Atlus' so far) on a bimonthly basis. I guess EO in general sticks the best, but it's hard to label one game since I quickly went and started playing all of them.

Night In The Woods deeply affected me first with the ending, and then again with the whole scenario that unraveled outside of the game. Few things make me feel melancholy like thinking of that game.

Immediately reading the title, Outer Wilds was the first to come to mind. There's nothing quite like it, and I wish I could relive the feeling of playing it for the first time again.

Xenoblade Chronicles. A world so alive and then that ending... I was 15 and it surely shaped the way I think about the world today

The Last of Us (both parts). Just started a new play through of Part I. It truly is a masterpiece in storytelling

Neverwinter nights and it's expansion packs still sticks with me

I've mentioned this game already in a few comments recently, but I think it really deserves more attention.

Prey (2017): I've loved it since the first moment, and I still think about the story and lore very often. It's almost impossible to find a similar game (Bioshock 1 and System Shock 2 have quite some things in common with Prey, but the latter has its own unique vibe).

My record must be Photopia. 25 years later, I still feel half a tear forming by thinking too much about it.

Shovel Knight stuck with me more than I think the developers even expected. Maybe because I went through a rather distressing breakup at the time.

Yeah yeah, I know I probably read more into it than they put into it, but I did and it stuck with me.

Firewatch, Hellblade, the Mass Effect trilogy, Cyberpunk 2077 to name a few. ME and CP77 are probably the ones that lodged themselves hardest in my mind by far.