So you are a lone wolf, you don’t like relying on a team, the only one who has your back is yourself. You don’t trust anyone, not even yourself. Okay, I might be going a bit far here…

If you are like me and don’t enjoy team games but enjoy the thrill and adrenaline rush brought by the competitive esports scene then there are games for us as well with an active esports community —with an added plus of minimum communication requirements. Most you’ll see are a handful of emotes or some half-hearted “GG” at the end of a match.

Let’s go:

Starcraft 2

Starcraft 2 is a hardcore strategy game by Blizzard with an ongoing ESL Circuit. It puts the m in the micro. A very fast-paced and technical game that requires mechanical reflexes as much as mental durability, that could multitask dozens or even hundreds of different units. Keep count and micro them at the same time. It’s your go-to esports game when you want to feel like a mastermind strategist (Hearthstone comes in second)

Its first title is the game that put the term zerging or zerg rushing into our lives — a term used for early and/or cheap aggression tactics. Starcraft even has a queen (the only woman to win a Starcraft tournament and the second-highest-paid woman pro-gamer on the planet), she’s dubbed the most successful woman in esports by Polygon. SC2 is still popular to this day and a testament to the false claims about the RTS genre’s death.

Hearthstone

It’s more of a duel than a game. Hearthstone is a virtual card duel game where two sides try to kill each other by eliminating their health pool with their cards. It has a constantly changing and evolving deck-build metas that are also very flexible so everybody’s style gets unique as they progress and stop being a Reddit copycat. No two duels are ever the same. The only form of communication is through emotes. It’s a very comfy and cosy feeling game to watch your avatar being smitten to death by an extremely smart and lucky opponent.

It has ongoing tournaments which have prize pools exceeding USD 500,000. Not as stressful and reflexively demanding as other genres but requires a lot from your intelligence stats.

Street Fighter

Your ultimate classical fighting game since 1991. From underground arcades to esports. It’s intense. Extremely hard to master. Fiercely reflexive. Very enjoyable to spectate when two characters bash each other to death with their controllers. Watching a fight doesn’t require prior experience after all.

SF also has an active esports scene with ELEAGUE pro tour, Evo tournaments and many others. It’s as Solo as it gets.

Quake

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like:

A timeless classic. Quake is an Arena FPS game that’s the opposite of CSGO. Intense 1v1 duels with no other objective than killing your enemy (there are other game modes here and there but the gist of that’s the gist of it). If you enjoy the first-person perspective but don’t want to rely on a team to succeed then this is your game. Over 100 arenas to bury thousands of hours into. It has had an ongoing esports scene since 1997, with dozens of different leagues and tournaments held each year. Bethesda is now organizing Quake’s own Pro League that you can stream on twitch. This game is not going anywhere.

Quake is not just a repetitive run’n'gun game though. You are not bound by gravity all the time, and maps are very vertical. It has diverse tactics that an individual can use in a match. It’s the game where the term rocket jump got coined —you shoot a rocket at your feet, spring yourself into the air and blast your opponent’s face with a ray gun is a good example of a rocket jump performed well.

Fifa

COME OOON INGERLANDDD, SCORE SOME GOAALSSSS *BANG BANG*

Well, sports… If you are not all into shooting, deckbuilding, commanding hundreds of units and buildings or straight out fighting each other. You can always sort things out and find your satisfaction in an old fashioned football match. It doesn’t have to be football too, there’s NBA 2k or Madden Football if you are into those… sports. If you are like me and have been asking for a good boxing game for years then you may still have to wait a bit longer, sorry.

Fifa has broken the Guinness record with 2.5 MILLION players attempting to qualify to its Fifa eWorld Cup in 2015. It’s football and it’s never getting old. If you are into simulated sports, you can spectate or compete in the never-ending world of Fifa.

“FOOOTBAAAALLL!!!!”

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5 solo esports games for lone wolves