What are your best "podcast" games of 2023?

The term "podcast" game generally means a game that's engaging enough to play while you're doing something else like talking on the phone, exercising on a machine that leaves your hands free (like an exercise bike), or, obviously, listening to a podcast. These are often grindy or repetitive games with a decent core loop but where you're not constantly having new and unexpected mechanics thrown at you or being placed in high stress high skill situations where you need complete focus (or dealing with a lot of cinematics you want to pay full attention to.)

I find myself drawn to podcast games a fair amount to play either while working out or just when I'm tired and don't want to put in the level of focus that so many big modern games require. They're a great way to actually relax with a game as opposed to get stressed out by one. A lot of these games tend to be roguelites, open world games, or something like a farming sim. I'm always looking for more so what are the best ones you found this year?

Here's my list:

Diablo IV - This game does have some big cinematic moments but a lot of it is just running around clicking on stuff over and over again. There's a huge map with a ton of stuff to see and do but most of the time you're engaged at like a 60% level.

Reverse Bullet Hells (Army of Ruin, Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde, Whispike Survivors Sword of the Necromancer) - These Vampire Survivor-likes all involve just running around avoiding damage and collecting autofire weapons (though some feature a special ability you can trigger.) They're run based and extremely repetitive but just engaging enough not to be boring.

Street Fighter VI World Tour Mode: Obviously high level fighting game play is among the most focused of any gaming, but just running around taking out AI mooks with your goofy character and exploring the city is pretty low stress, especially if you've played so much Street Fighter that you know the moves in your blood. RPG elements also make it grindy, and buyable health items mean that any enemy can be conquered if you just save up the cash.

Merge & Blade - A puzzle game crossed with an autobattler this game has just enough strategy to keep you focused but a relaxed pace and a simple enough premise to never feel too stressful.

Genshin, started playing it this year and despite having to button through metric tonnes of dialogue it's been frankly amazing, actually i'm kind of glad it's making me look at dialogue because i've... started to... like... the story.

I've played a variety of free to play games with all their monetisation BS and grinding and there's been a few i've enjoyed, i don't mind grinding and material gathering if i'm watching a stream or listening to a podcast, but so far Genshin just doesn't seem to do that, i haven't had to spend a penny and it's been rewarding throughout.

The time limited events are insane, i'm in the middle of one now and there's always interesting simple mini games alongside a really well told story quest and new characters, i'm regularly blown away.

I just constantly feel while playing it that this game shouldn't exist, it has too much good stuff in it i'm confused, i'm so used to half assed reycled content in F2P games, it's a Chinese developer but i haven't heard any horror stories, i hope the devs are ok it's clear an unbelieveable amount of work goes into it but they're achieving something amazing.

Edit: I should mention Flight Simulator which also like Genshin is not a 2023 game, but new planes made by the community and regular world updates by the devs have kept it well supported throughout its life, my plane of the year (no one cares) is the Mitsubishi MU-2, but shoutouts to the recently released Short 330 by Blackbox which i haven't put enough time into yet and is "beautiful".

Honkai: Star Rail: when I'm done with the story-related missions I can just let my party auto-grind for materials and listen to whatever.

Diablo 4 - I feel a little bad about this, but I don't think I paid attention to any of the dialogue in the game. I know I'll be playing the campaign again at some other point with another character, so maybe I'll listen to it then. But this game really is all about clicking things until they explode and seeing what combinations of power allow me to do that the quickest.

Steamworld Build - this game ended up being more of an idle game than I expected. It's a city builder where you also mine multiple levels below ground to gather your resources to be able to expand your city to gain more resources quicker. It's a really fun loop that's pretty low stakes. I've been a fan of previous Steamworld Games but this one has a replayability to it that their previous games lacked to me.

Teardown - I only started playing this when it got added to PS+ and had the invert look option patched in, but it instantly clicked with me. I do need other noise while playing it though because it just sounds empty until you're actually committing to the run. So it has been the game I'm playing while listening to Giant Bomb's GOTY podcasts.