Stardew Valley dethrones Valve classic as Steam’s top-rated game - Dexerto
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Cozy farming sim Stardew Valley has become the top-rated game on Steam, surpassing a Valve classic in the process.
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23h

I can never relax with that game. I just get it in my head that I must get my chores done right now and it always fucks my head up.

Noxy
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1618h

Good.

Nothing against Portal 2, but Stardew Valley just offers so much more for so much longer

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79h

In game time isn’t everyone’s metric for a good game. Some of my favorite games only have a few hours of content, but those few hours are really good.

I’ve watched some let’s plays of Starcraft Valley, and I’m glad I did because I probably wouldn’t like it, and if I had to give it a rating, it would be pretty mediocre.

I think it being so positively rated is that there are a ton of casual gamers that this type of game really appeals to, not that it has a lot to do.

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49h

I know it’s a typo, but now I want a cozy space ranch game based in the world of StarCraft.

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38h

Lol, yeah, that could actually get me to play. “Whose a good hydralisk? You are! Yes you are!”

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Can’t agree with this. I got dozens of hours out of Portal 2, simply from replaying it so many times (which is an amazing feat in of itself because I never finish games).

Meanwhile I was bored of Stardew Valley after two hours of wandering around and not being able to find anything to do. From what I’ve gathered, the game expects you to figure out how play it on your own. I’m in my late 30s and I have bills to pay. I don’t have the time nor the patience for a game like that anymore.

Edit: Point I forgot to make is that I feel like for a game to be considered the highest rated among them all, it should have universal appeal. But that’s just my 2¢.

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49h

I preface this with the caveat that all grants are subjective and you can like what you like.

Stardew Valley is a love letter to the harvest Moon games(and I guess rune factory as well). If you have ever encountered those games you immediately know what to do in Stardew.

I think where Stardew is different is that it came later and benefited massively from the “cozy game” popularity.

While I played harvest Moon on a super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and Gameboy my girl friend who did not have that exposure growing up loves Stardew. This generational and gender Crossing game has tapped markets that were not available back then. Couple that with the fact that at this point you can play that game on basically any platform from phone to console, new and old and it’s totally understandable why this headline might be true.

Russ
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210h

This is pretty much how I am, too. I’ve purchased SDV three times but could never get into it because I have no idea what I need to do.

Big fan of the dev though and how much he does for the game, even if I don’t personally play.

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4182d

It’s Portal 2… the Valve classic is Portal 2

Captain Aggravated
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181d

writing headlines like that should earn a nice lengthy face tazing.

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It might feel wrong to call their last proper sit down at a couch/desk singeplayer experience a “classic”, but its older than Half-Life one was when it came out.

That makes me feel old and I wasn’t even around for HL1. How’s your back feeling, millennials?

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118h

Ergonomic chairs, high end sports cars, and staying active has kept my back in great shape.

Also, {{{posture check}}}

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120h

I’ve been biking so much lately that my legs are getting hella toned, the rest of my body is starting to tone too and I’m feeling much more alive and healthy than I have at any other point in my life!

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119h

How long have you been biking for you to see these changes? I.e. what is ‘lately’?

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118h

This is my second season. I’m biking about 5 hours a week right now, averaging about 40-50 miles per week. I don’t know how obvious the toning would be to others but I can certainly see it, since y’know I’m the one who sees myself the most

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120h

34 and need a cane. Now get off my parents lawn!

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120h

We’re at that age where you have to exercise and watch what you eat if you want to be in good health (and not have your back hurt.) The friends I grew up with who haven’t touched a vegetable in their life, no longer happen to look healthy and thin.

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282d

How’s your back feeling, millennials?

Wearing good shoes and keeping my weight down and staying active so it feels fine.

Swordgeek
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71d

Gen X weighing in. That’ll only last you so long, then your body starts to rebel no matter what.

chocrates
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1d

Won’t work for everyone but I switched to thin sandals and my feet got much stronger and healthier.
I’m still working on the being too fat part

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11d

My doctor says that you don’t want squishy shoes and he recommended doc martens because they have a cork insole.

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452d

Not great. Thanks for asking.

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102d

I was 22 when Half-Life came out. I’m tired.

Captain Aggravated
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31d

pretty okay, just had a shower and I’m chilling on the couch with my cat. She is steadily purring. comfort level is around a 7.8, maybe 7.9.

I bought HL1’s GOTY edition when it came out.

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92d

You didn’t have to be such a jerk about the back pain tho.

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41d

That makes me feel old and I wasn’t even around for HL1. How’s your back feeling, millennials?

I’m not old you’re young! I’m not hunched over grabbing my back grimacing that’s just my power stance!

bbbbbbbbbbb
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72d

Doing fine. Sit up straight, do some light exercises, stretch, youll feel fine

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42d

Shit, you’re correct. It’s hard to believe. It feels like my first play of Portal 2 was just a couple years ago. It has been fourteen years…

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151d

Here i was imagining “valve classic” was somehow a wildly popular game ive never heard of

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81d

Bobby Lee did it.

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cake
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The fuck is with the clickbait title? For shame, OP

Edit: Thanks for changing it.

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21d

How exactly?

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171d

It didn’t mention portal 2 before OP edited the title

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81d

would’ve been better from the start indeed but it’s not that clickbait

it was the name of the original article

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1882d

And I’d say that it is 100% deserved. Stardew Valley is a once in a lifetime kind of game and has one of the best developers you could ask for. Free new content and updates for 10 years and it’s still like $20 and frequently on sale. The developer actually tweeted out once that if he ever charged for new content that he’d want everyone to publicly shame him.

“I swear on the honor of my family name, i will never charge money for a DLC or update for as long as I live. Screencap this and shame me if I ever violate this oath.”

Stardew Valley is the gaming industry at its best and one of the best indie games out there.

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442d

My only issue has always been that I cannot throw more money at the ape. So I buy the game for gaming-adjacent friends and almost always ruin their lives convert them

Bunbury
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61d

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve re-purchased the game for Switch and iOS after already having it on my PC for ages. I didn’t really want to play it on those platforms but just wanted to give more money to concerned ape.

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102d

That’s what I do too. I’ve bought it for all my friends or have convinced them to get it. Feels like I’m a drug dealer trying to push it on everyone I know lol.

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252d

And at those prices I’ve bought it at least twice

Pennomi
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192d

I’ve bought it at least 5 times; sent it to a lot of family members.

Tarquinn2049
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112d

Hehe yeah. To celebrate the recent patch increasing multiplayer to 8 people. We basically started like a DnD group sessions style of playthrough. We would meet weekly and play for like 8 hours at a time. Was pretty great.

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02d

Meh, I prefer Terraria.

ssillyssadass
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892d

What valuing quality over profit does to a mf

Jolteon
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201d

To be fair, portal 2 was also built when valve valued quality over profit.

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41d

when valve valued quality over profit.

I like this

Fuck valve and their gambling

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482d

Portal is such a great series. I hope we get a new one one day.

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131d

It’s one of my favorite games of all time, but I don’t think Portal 2’s basic formula would be culturally relevant if it was reused today. The quippy writing is very 2010s-coded (à la Guardians of the Galaxy), the gameplay is a bit too simple to be re-used as is in 2025, and the sweet&short linear storyline of Portal 2 would ironically be lacking ambition for a successor to Portal 2.

Like all truly Great pieces of classic media, Portal 2 is a product of a skilled and truly passionate team getting together at the perfect time with the right idea, and reaching its public at a culturally relevant time.

The Portal universe still has stories to tell, and there are still test chambers to solve, so I obviously wouldn’t complain if Portal 3 came out, but I understand why Valve wouldn’t want to make a barely decent game in the shadow of Portal 2.

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219h

The Talos Principle became an interesting spin on the idea of FPS puzzles that try to keep you engaged. They got more direct with introducing the lore of the world around each time (P1<TTP1≈P2<TTP2). The puzzles are probably less eye-catching because you rarely shoot yourself into air, they are closer to classic 2d logic timekiller games, but I find these games are what Valve need to look at to see if they want to expand the world like that in their own way. If we assume Portal 3 would be about portals, wouldn’t reinvent the formula from the ground up, I think they’d need to go for higher stakes, and seemingly expanding the world or the mission at hand (from the probably sterile conditions of it all affecting just Chel and Apperture’s robots and facilities), be it an escape into the outer world of some sort (although it overlaps with Half-Life, is it bad?) or make her herself not the only thing at stake. My only hope is that it won’t be AR\VR\whatever experience because it would make me nauseos and\or poor.

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218h

(They’ve already stated they won’t do Portal: VR because of the nausea issue.)

I completely agree with your analysis, they would need to completely switch up the ambitions from a writing perspective for Portal 3 to make any sense. There are plenty of super interesting stories to be told in Aperture Labs, but I don’t think that Valve is structured to write any of them

Valve has always been “gameplay/tech first, story second”, and it just happened that Portal 2 delivered unexpectedly well on the writing. But I don’t think they can make a game with gameplay/tech twice as ambitious as Portal 2, and at the same time double down on Portal 2’s amazing writing. They’re just human and most of the people involved have moved on with their lives; in fact Portal 2 was their last truly ambitious narrative-heavy game, and they had to hire the old writers as consultants to make Alyx (which I haven’t played but from what I heard the narrative wasn’t on HL2’s level).

I’d love to be proved wrong but IMO there won’t be a Portal 3 for as long as Valve exists in its current form.

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I agree. But hear me out:

Portal 3 explores the fleet of Gaben’s megayachts with puzzles to get a control of them and also some abordaging\swimming mini-games to get from one to another, from smaller to bigger, with the last one being the promised Aurora Borealis, where game leaves us on an uncertain moment after we too see the feared G-Man but in Freeman’s glasses, got catched by a Smoker’s tonque in mall ninja rainbow colouring, only to be freed by Pudge teaming up with Scout.

VALVE TEAM: THE END OF LIFE FOR DEATH FORTRESS: EPISODE FOUR: THE PORTAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL

I’m happy they don’t do that and for all I care I can wait if they do something or not as long as I can still play in their classics.

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15
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2d

I had to settle for Lego Dimensions. Better than nothing. And GLaDOS arguing with HAL 9000 was pretty epic.

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32d

Both Portal levels and both Doctor Who levels were great.

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62d

If you like portal you may also like superliminal. It’s the only game I’ve found that scratches the similar itch

Ech
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320h

For anyone that hasn’t seen it, Portal: Reloaded is a fan-made dlc that’s really quite good as well.

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82d

For the puzzle part, sure, but not the humor. I like The Stanley Parable for that aspect.

Evkob (they/them)
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42d

In a similar vein to Superluminal, I’d also recommend Viewfinder, it’s kinda like Portal but with a camera rather than a Portal gun.

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41d

Antichamber is another that feels similar. Although Antichamber doesn’t really have a plot.

Evkob (they/them)
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117h

Ooo I’ve never heard of this! Kinda sad I only saw this comment after the Summer Sale :P Thanks for sharing!

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114h

If that’s your kind of game, Unfinished Swan is another thats more plot based, but still has some fun puzzles. Doesn’t get mentioned as frequently so usually one people haven’t seen/played before.

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42d

I’d also recommend The Talos Principle and The Turing Test for similar itch scratches.

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31d

Thanks for reminding me I have the Talos Principle 2 DLC in my inventory that I have to play!

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120h

I still haven’t played 2!

0li0li
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God I wish I could enjoy it. I feel like I’m missing out. I just, I don’t get it :(

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719h

There are probably games or other media that you love that the average Stardew Valley fan wouldn’t click with. You’re not missing out, you’ve just got other stuff you enjoy.

0li0li
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Very true, but then again most Overwhelmingly Positive games I find amazing. I do have a long list of games I love and a selection I actually always keep installed, some of which are mediocre by many people’s standards ;)

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101d

Are you into dramatic NPCs? If no, you have to play it multiplayer with someone who gives a crap about pixel people.

I tried playing it alone but every system in the game is puddle deep so I was only able to play until winter by myself.

Then I played it with my girlfriend, and I spent 100 fondly remembered hours.

0li0li
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218h

<3

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141d

While I enjoyed it, it was also very stressful. I think we just played wrong. We covered every millimeter of the plot with farms or other useful stuff and then proceeded to be busy for more than half the day with just maintenance. At some point this meant that we never got to explore and often barely had time to go to the stores or talk to the people in the village.

Apart from overcooked it was probably the most stressful game Is ever played and it’s not supposed to be like that

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520h

Yeah my problem with stardew is I feel too invested in min-maxing my time so I end up stressing over every minute in the game and it’s too exhuasting

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314h

I find it funny, because it is not required at all. You could be the most casual lazy ass gamer, and still see and accomplish every piece of content inside the game. The game doesn’t penalize you, and instead goes out of the way to reward the player for everything they do, even if it is just loitering around and barely progressing stuff at random and by chance.

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14h

Personally I’d say that “always striving for the maximum and stressing myself out” is a personality trait that’s not only a problem in Stardew Valley for me haha. I’m o it’s not a great mindset to have, but unfortunately it’s a subconscious drive that’s hard to eliminate.

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It doesn’t feel like that though. For example, trying to earn money and progress by going into the cave or whatever to fight nets you almost no money gains and eventually your gear can’t keep up.

As someone who doesn’t enjoy farming sims because they feel like work, it just doesn’t feel like the game cares if you progress in other ways. And it may not penalize you, but a lot of the other options feel tedious because of the drastically lower rewards you get from trying to earn money through those activities.

Thing is, that’s ok. The game just isn’t for me and I am fine having moved on.

Ech
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I never understand why anyone puts together those massive farms. Personally, I always end up leaving the vast majority of the space unused. My farms only ever occupy the space directly in front of the house, and even that needs sprinklers asap.

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14h

I guess it’s just a mindset difference. I’d say me and my friends are all pretty competitive gamers (as opposed to more creative gamers). We tend to play games mostly for the challenge. Also didn’t help that we had just finished our Facorio playthrough. So in our mind we still had “the factory must grow”. So our minds were like “if space -> use space”.

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51d

The urge to make even more money

The days are just too short in the game

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Some people have a money anxiety built in that translates into the game. The funny thing is they bring it all themselves, the game makes absolutely no fuzz at all about making money.

The very first scene is the main character running away from the ratrace to a farm. Yet the very first thing some players do is bring in the ratrace with them. Everything in the game makes money and no money at all is ever required by the game from the player, except to advance the farming itself. It doesn’t even have banks or debts like animal crossing.

It’s bizarre how people, when left to their own devices, simply reproduce the worse habits of real life.

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71d

no money at all is ever required by the game from the player

Yes it is though? To upgrade the house, purchase new equipment, buildings, to see more features

Sure, you can do without money, but then you’re going to miss half of the game’s features

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31d

I might be remembering wrong, but I think it is entirely possible to develop relationships with the town characters and see almost all of the cutscenes without ever upgrading any of those.

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221h

maybe, but I would say that’s not most of the game’s features, I personally don’t really care about it

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114h

Then you don’t engage with over 60% of the game anyways. Sounds to me like a balanced game that has something to offer to a variety of players, and anxieties, overfixation and stress with some gameplay and not other seems to be something the player brings in and is not caused by the game.

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1d

No the game has a much, much worse anxiety time crunch in trying to 100% it before the end of year… 2 ( I think) when grandpa shrine first measures progress.

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61d

You don’t find out what that means unless you made it to year two and it immediately tells you that you can keep trying anytime you want.

It’s not a one and done, you can literally retry the test infinitely. There is no crunch period at all, this anxiety comes from players misunderstanding things the game says in plain English.

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372d

No pressure on their next game or anything.

SSUPII
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162d

Deadlock doesn’t look bad

I’ve been over the hero shooter fad for almost a decade. Where are the actually new ideas for the genre?

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102d

I think Deadlock is pretty up there. That said, it’s closer to Smite than it is a hero shooter. The community-driven character builds mean meta is pretty fluid and it has what I would describe as a very accessible MOBA-centered design. I don’t care for MOBAs much, but to say Valve isn’t innovating here would be disingenuous. I think my only problem with it is that it’s lacking something that makes the gameplay loop feel satisfying, but that may just be my bias against MOBAs talking.

That said, it’s closer to Smite than it is a hero shooter.

I haven’t played Smite since it came out, but has it really changed that much that it’s no longer a hero shooter? 🤨 It was like Overwatch, 2 years before Overwatch came out.

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82d

Smite was not that much of hero shooter, Paladins from the same company was a hero shooter.

Hm… Maybe that’s what I am thinking of. I know for sure that Smite is the reason Tribes: Ascend was left for dead, though, and that’s reason enough to hate it.

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42d

I miss Tribes: Ascend, great game. Hi-rez love to kill their games.

Paladins always was better than overwatch and they killed it too.

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182d

Well it is the best game.

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52d

jesus did i go back in time???

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42d

No, my child. You are where you belong.

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42d

As a DS9 fan, to me that sounds way meaner than you probably intended.

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12d

XD yeah no I meant just ironic edgy blasphemy

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02d

deleted by creator

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02d

Published: Jul 08, 2025, 22:37

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01d

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