There's a certain kind of majesty to watching an efficient, well-oiled machine go to work, especially if it means being able to sit back and watch the goodies flow in and the baddies be smacked down in a hail of bullets and shrapnel.
Most games tend to pitch the engineer as the side character. But for anyone who enjoys tinkering or overclocking in life most of all, there are plenty of great games out there that slap wrenches into the player's hand before telling them to get cracking, cranking, or crunching.
12 Deep Rock Galactic
Rock and stone to the bone! All dwarves are tinkerers of one sort or another, but for those unacquainted with the Engineer in Deep Rock Galactic, he goes hard in all things tech and traversal. His specialty is shooting ziplines to high, otherwise-inaccessible places for the team and laying down some classic automated machine gun turrets to keep the crawlies on their toes.
Whether it's from a shotgun or grenade launcher, The Deep Rock Engie also utilizes explosions not just to find resources but to put a stop to the bigger monster. As he likes to say, "Turrets and explosions... you've come to the right place."
11 Borderlands 2
Axton, Borderlands 2's Commando, is able to deploy some killer rigs in his mission to claim the treasures of the Vault on Pandora, including the Dahl Sabre Turret. Like any good combat mechanic, Axton is able to customize his turret (which he occasionally, lovingly refers to as sweetie or honey) to suit his needs on the battlefield.
Well, anthropomorphizing an unfeeling machine is certainly one way to cope with a dishonorable discharge (and subsequent divorce) from a commanding officer and wife.
10 Space Engineers
There's no shortage of games featuring machinists boldly facing up against the worst of what outer space can throw at them. But Space Engineers puts design and creativity at the heart of its gameplay. This sandbox construction gem gives the player unlimited freedom in terms of what to build, where to go, and how to get there.
Designs and blueprints can get complex fast, and know-how is the best way to survive long-term. Joining and welding ships together is extremely satisfying, almost as much as watching each and every piece of another ship crumple and explode following a catastrophic collision.
9 Overwatch
Bearded, brawly, and boastful, Torbjorn embodies the classic turret-dropping dwarven archetype in the classic team-based hero shooter Overwatch. Like many great engineers, Torbjorn has a habit of giving his placements the same loving words that gardeners give their plants.
When sublime works of engineering don't cut the mustard, Torbjorn resorts to the simple manipulation of physics: specifically, high acceleration, constant momentum, and fearsome velocity, all channeled into his hammer and released directly onto the enemy's dome.
8 Construction Simulator
Here's one for players looking for a more down-to-earth experience grounded in realism. Construction Simulator offers a campaign of total construction that gives players the tools (in this case, literally, with real licensed products) to build whatever they want, however they want, in an effort to prop up their own successful construction company.
Up to four friends can use power tools, big rigs, and good ol' fashioned elbow grease to prop up huge structures across wide maps. From renovation to infrastructure revitalization, Construction Simulator is as educational as it is fun.
7 Riftbreaker
While combat engineering is all well and good, there's an element of mechanical masterminding that shouldn't be overlooked: base building. In Riftbreaker, players take control of Captain Ashley S. Nowak, the proud owner of "Mr. Riggs," a mech suit that can throw up a steely array of defenses and tech as fast as it can tear down invaders with a full arsenal of deadly super-sci-fi weapons.
The player's mission is to construct a base and establish a rift link between the alien world and Earth. To do it, they'll need to make sure that the base is tightly defended by a bulwark of automated turrets, flamethrowers, and lasers against all the grizzly things looking to eat them.
6 Teardown
What's more fun for an engineer than seeing a majestic build slowly go up with expertise, precision, and know-how? Watching someone else's creation get torn down! The player can punch holes through buildings with front-loaders, topple bridges with trucks, and explode vaults with high-yield explosives, all in the name of completing shady jobs for shadier clients.
As its name suggests, Teardown is about using all the same tools of mechanical creation for destruction in a mission to pulverize high rises and other real estate into rubble. Cathartic, physics-accurate, and mayhem-inducing, this one is for builders gone rogue.
5 Risk Of Rain 2
Although the engineer class has to be unlocked (by completing 30 stages and the associated challenge), the Engineer in Risk of Rain 2 is easily one of the most satisfying turret-dropping games out there.
The engineer comes equipped with a variety of utilities, mines, and turrets to manage just about any opponent Petrichor V can throw at them. Whatever the engineer can do, their turrets can do, too. In other words, any items the engineer picks up apply to the turrets.
4 Hardspace: Shipbreaker
It doesn't exactly take the same amount of expertise to pull apart a ship as it does to put it together, but at least in Hardspace: Shipbreaker, the job of turning space-faring vessels into scrap is actually highly relaxing and fun. It's a great title to play while burning down that long podcast backlog.
There's a little thinking involved beyond just blowing everything to smithereens, but not so much as to be overwhelming. The same goes for the story: it's just enough to get players involved but leaves them alone enough to ensure that they can fully embrace the pulling apart of ships.
3 Dead Space
This modern classic isn't a free-for-all sci-fi sandbox that lets players shoot their ships into the stars but a tight survival horror. Isaac, Dead Space's protagonist, isn't a powerhouse of bullets, but he isn't exactly defenseless, either. Armed with the tools of his mining trade (a plasma cutter and a super-powered suit), Isaac must fend off hoards of the undead infesting his ship, the Ishimura.
Just like the work of regular engineering, some of the tools take precision to handle. For example, the plasma cutter must be used to slice enemies exactly where they're vulnerable; otherwise, they'll just pull themselves together and get back on the offensive.
2 Guild Wars 2
Armed with a tool belt of tricks, potions, turrets, gizmos, and gadgets that you can shake a skritt at, the engineer is a highly versatile (if not chaotic) class choice to take into the world of Tyria. These masters of invention confront their magically-imbued surroundings with the steely hand of science.
Rocket boots, oil slicks, and personal battering rams are an engineer's bread and butter in Guild Wars 2. End-game specializations even allow the engineer to craft their own sunlight-infused lightsaber or personal magitech companion.
1 Team Fortress 2
"Hey, look, buddy. I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems." It may well be that this soft-spoken sentry gun enthusiast from Valve's legendary team-based FPS Team Fortress 2 is what many people (or at least gamers) first conjure to mind upon hearing the "E" word.
Using scraps of metal found around the map, the Engineer can help his team traverse the area and will deny entry to the opposition by building stationary autonomous guns, dispensers, and teleporters. If that doesn't do the trick, there's always the handy-dandy wrench available to fix the issue.