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What video games would you say have the best stories? Feel free to suggest more than one.
The recent discussion of Baldurs Gate 3 tempted me to play a video game after a long break. What games do you suggest for someone who likes getting emotionally involved and likes intriguing twists?
I've played the Mass Effect series and the first Bioshock. Apologies if this is information that is easily found.
I'll throw out some big ones:
Last of Us Part 1 - I read an interesting piece years ago about how the ending subverts the normal player/main character dynamic. It's stuck with me and really helped reshape my perspective as a player. I also thought Part 2 was quite good but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Clair Obscur : Expedition 33 - This video sums up my thoughts but what I loved was this was a "jrpg" that addressed adult themes in a way that actually felt mature
Outer Wilds - beautiful game and beautiful story that sort of unfolds through environmental story telling
Final Fantasy 6 - this is more nostalgic for me but I do remember being blown away by the grand story of the game as it was the first time I ever experienced a JRPG. I've gone back and reread the synopsis and it seems to hold up but I'm unsure how it feels while playing
Some "lesser" known games. Honestly, I'd argue that indie games tend to have better stories than most AAA games.
6 is, I believe, somewhat provably the peak of FF storytelling (i've only played most of them, but hear me out).
It was the end of the 2d era, and got a delayed launch so it got a whole bunch of extra time to cook (entire WoR is because of that).
It's got a very wide cast and while there's technically main characters almost everyone feels like they've got a real plot and arc (except obvious bonus characters like Umaro or GoGo). These plots span a whole bunch of story types (romance, redemption, parental, etc).
The entire story feels grand, logical (for a game), and does actually have a conclusion that doesn't just magically undo everything. Because of its extra development it's a fairly unique plot among video games especially in that things do not always go your way "saving the day" is very much a "well at least now we can survive".
7 coming right after was a good game, but it also sorta poisoned the well for future FF games due to it's massive success.
The plot is, at its core, an ok romance/haremish thing focusing HEAVILY on one character (which is fine, smaller cast and all). It has a pretty terrible ending, good gameplay, and ambitious twist, and for the time gorgeous graphics.
Sooooooo Square saw that, and decided the REST of the FF's would sell based on romance plots with gorgeous graphics. That's a little unfair and all handwavey but 8 and 10 ABSOLUTELY went all in on 7's template, and I think the entire franchise is worse for it.
I'm not someone who often gets all that emotionally involved playing video games, but Outer Wilds really got me invested throughout. I won't be too specific so as to avoid spoilers, but there was a moment discovering something in Dark Bramble which brought me to tears.
It feels like a weird answer to this question given how the storytelling works in that game, but it's absolutely a correct one!
I've been a big proponent of "video games as art" and one of the biggest reasons is because player agency in games takes diegetic story telling to a whole new level. I think Outer Wilds is the best example of this and while yes, even when some games like TLOU can easily be translated into a TV show, the feeling that you get from unfolding the story of Outer Wilds and Gone Home is something that cannot be translated into film or text. It's something I wish everyone would get to experience.
Gone Home is the perfect adaptation of the young adult novel format into the gaming medium.
Also Her Story is probably the most accessible high-impact story for people who aren’t regular gamers. No controls to figure out; no gaming tropes that the game assumes you’re aware of. Anyone can pick it up, play it, and get pulled into its well-delivered narrative. I played it a decade ago and still remember some of its scenes.
Last of Us is a nearly perfect story. Part 2 is a more fun and complete game, but weakens the first game but trying to flesh more out.
Completely agree with you on FF6. Put aside that the packed in map completely ruins the big twist, having to literally kill a god to save the world is great. Also, the music in that game has never been topped.
Red Dead Redemption 2, especially if you get the high honor ending. Arthur Morgan might be one of the most well written characters in gaming, though the rest of the van der Linde gang aren't lazily written at all by any measure. It's a real emotional journey to follow a man who struggles to hold his dysfunctional found family together while knowing there's no longer a place where they belong in the current age.
All of the mainline Yakuza/Like a Dragon games are also great. Kiryu's a legendary character at this point but Ichiban, the protagonist of the 2 most recent titles, is also fantastic. The plots can be somewhat contrived at times and there's goofy things going on especially in the side stories, but they all tell a solid and emotional story in one way or another.
Glad to see yakuza mentioned here. These are absolutely some of the more nuanced and layered games I have ever played. How the topic of masculinity is handled within these games, I find hard to find another piece of art in another medium that does this so well.
I can't believe I forgot about rdr2. What a great game! I can still watch some of the opening scenes in the snowy mountains like a movie in my head.
I have to make a pitch for Chrono Trigger, which had portions that gave me chills when they happened.
Also Portal 2, mostly for the story of Aperture Science and the booming voice of Cave Johnson echoing through the facility after all those years.
Disco Elysium: A modern classic of narrative-focused cRPGs. Very, very well-written, runs the gamut from deeply emotional to belly-laughing hilarious.
Planescape: Torment: an old-school cRPG classic that's very much narrative focused. Considered for the longest time to have the best writing of any game due to the story. The downside is that the combat gameplay is mediocre at best as it's not the focus of this game, but it's built in the same engine as many other combat-focused cRPGs.
1000xResist: Another modern classic. Despite the anime presentation, this is actually a Canadian game by a team of four with a background of an experimental theatre troupe. The result is a very well received, deeply emotional story and game. It came out of nowhere in 2024 to be a sleeper favourite for many narrative-focused players.
Marvel's Spider-Man (especially the DLCs): Since you mentioned some big blockbuster games with decent stories, this is another big blockbuster game with a story that actually surprised me. The main game's story is good comic book adventuring fun with well-written characters, though with a few pacing issues. But the DLC campaign (comprised of three DLCs post-campaign) is incredible, I was very surprised to see the plot twists and turns in it. The dynamic between the characters set up in the base game are expanded on and evolved upon in ways that caught me completely off-guard and revealed a lot more depth than I was expecting out of a non-comic Marvel story. It's actually better than most modern Spider-Man comic stories. I haven't played Miles Morales or Spider-Man 2 yet, but here's hoping they match up to the DLC here.
Nier Automata: A lot of people swear by this game's story for its heavy philosophical approach to the nature of existence as a robot. I can see how it really gets the mind going and tickles a lot of people's thoughts but personally I always found it a bit scattered and disjointed to be an all-time great. Still, I am an outlier so this is well worth a shot if the game or its premise looks remotely interesting. It's definitely worth a play if you love off-beat Japanese titles.
Tyranny: Not quite modern anymore but an earlier entry in the cRPG resurgence of the past decade. Made by Obsidian by cRPG vets, this is a particularly unique one that is all about playing as the evil side after they have already won. This is basically a cRPG where you play as the bad guys, and there's nothing else out there quite like it. Like Planescape: Torment, the narrative is the real focus and the combat is middling at best but it at least has competent, quality combat unlike Planescape: Torment, especially if you engage with the magic system.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: The big game from this year, and almost entirely because of its narrative. I won't wax on too much about it since people haven't been able to stop talking about it but I'll simply say that despite all the hype it really does have an undeniably emotional and affecting story with amazing performances by the voice actors and motion capture artists. It's hard not to feel things when they come.
There's probably a ton more I could suggest but I'll have to really sit down and look through my library to find all kinds. I know there are some AAA games that have stories as good or better than Bioshock and Mass Effect, but it also depends on what you liked about those stories or what kinds of games you'd prefer to have quality stories.
I actually liked the combat for being a nice in-between of "too easy and pointless" and "too much time spent doing math rather than building cool combos".
Tyranny is SUCH a shame because it's got so many good ideas going on in it that would've been amazing to see them really polish up in a sequel, but they never got it. Which is a warning to anyone picking it up that while it's probably my favorite cRPG full stop, the story is not finished sadly.
It did also get me into the Black Company book series which the plot borrowed from and holy shit in looking it up they finally published a new book after 25 years bye!
Oh hey that's a great reminder for me to pick up the Black Company. If there's any recommendation people give me after Malazan it's the Black Company.
I bounced of Malazan hard. It felt odd and I rarely cared about the cast. Black company is dark and weird, but that's its big selling point to me. I haven't encountered much else like it.
I must ask how far you got into it before deciding this. By the end of book two of Malazan I was sobbing while being wholesale confused by book one. Not to say that Malazan is for everyone, I can totally understand people not getting into it.
At any rate, Black Company is often the most recommended after Malazan and this reminder is what I needed to go for it. There being a new book is also an interesting prospect.
Looking at a quick synopsis maybe just the first? Maybe I got farther and just totally forgot all this though.
Book one is markedly different on a second read-through of the series. It's utterly confusing the first time around because it intentionally does not guide you into it. The author himself would say that history has no starting point, so where do you start when chronicling a story of an empire?
Makes for an interesting story but a damn tough one to get into. A large part of book one is spent asking who the hell these people are and what's going on.. and what even is the concept of a Warren?
And from a meta standpoint, Steven Eriksens writing improves with each book and the difference between 1 and 10 is stark.
If you ever get the chance to revisit the series and walk the chain of dogs, I'd love to hear what you think then. Some people advise skipping book one and while I don't particularly agree, it does help for some who bounced off of book one a little too much.
Edit to add: not just the Black Company, but this conversation made me look up the release date for Steven Eriksens latest book in the Malazan universe and it was a little over a month ago. It completely passed me by. Time for me to pick up that one too!
+1 for Disco Elysium, and I found it very similar to another favorite of mine, Pathologic 2. Pathologic 1 is good, too, and Pathologic 3 is days away from release, and I expect it's going to be the best yet. Great story, solid mechanics, an immersive world, good tension, and consequential gameplay. It's just an all around great series that I'm surprised I don't see more people talk about.
+1 for Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, and Tyranny. Those games stand out to me because their storylines are exceptional. They tell stories that a book would struggle - and likely fail - to accomplish.
Given how many of my favorite video game stories are on your list, I should probably look into the one you recommend that I haven't played lol
+1 for 1000xResist and Nier: Automata. I'm not usually one for visual novels, but 1000xResist is still one of my favorite games I've ever played. You can tell that the devs were big fans of Nier:Automata, which itself was probably going to be my personal pick for this thread. Happy to see both of these titles in here
Fun fact: one of the main settings of 1000xResist, the Orchard, is partially inspired by the Umeda Sky building, where Platinum Games, the devs of Nier Automata, have their office
Other inspirations from The Promenade (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Hong Kong and Kyoto metro stations, Balamb Garden from FF8
I only knew of Planescape: Torment very vaguely, possibly from some magazine ad I glanced at long ago, but I came across this video and found it utterly fascinating: The Most Philosophical Video Game Ever Made.
Horizon: Zero Dawn has my absolute favorite story in gaming and, if you haven’t had it spoiled for you yet, I promise you won’t see the reveals coming. It was a truly unique story that blew me away. It’s a fantastic game!
+1 for Horizon. I had zero knowledge of the game going in (got it for free) and the story sucked me in so hard. It's now my favorite game series of all time.
Grim Fandango is my favorite game of all time. It's an old school Lucasarts adventure game based around the Mexican day of the dead.
You play as a grim reaper tasked with getting souls from the land of the living to their final resting place. In practical terms in the land of the dead, that means you're a travel agent, and the whole game is based on a guy doing a very mundane job in a very fantastical universe going on a big adventure.
It's an adventure game, so the actual gameplay is dialog and solving puzzles. That sort of thing would probably be called a "walking simulator" these days. The art, music, atmosphere, writing, setting and plot are all incredible though. I got very invested in the characters and plot and still regularly replay the game to this day.
My second favorite game is from the same era, and it's an RTS. Homeworld, from 1998. It has very heavy emotional moments and a grand, civilization sweeping space opera story. The gameplay is what you'd expect from an RTS campaign, except you keep the same fleet from mission to mission, so you feel a sense of progress as the fleet and the technology that makes it up advances.
It has a lot of very interesting story beats and twists, and an incredible orchestral soundtrack. There have been a few sequels but unfortunately none of them quite match the emotional investment I had in the first game.
I also love grim fandango.
I was probably just the right age for the humor when first played it. But the image of glottis tearing out his own heart and throwing it into the forest to try and explain the emotional pain of being sacked will always make me chuckle.
Dispatch is the obvious one I've played lately.
I'd also shout out "Tactical Breach Wizards". For a wacky little strategy game it's got a surprisingly good plot. I absolutely loved the characters and the second it ended, I really wished there was a tv show, or comic book or something that continued their stories.
I think a game that gets straight at what you're asking for is Pentiment. It's a fairly short murder mystery adventure game set in 16th century Europe, where most of what you do is talk with folks in a small place and make choices to steer along how stuff unfolds/who your character is. The story is all about twists and intrigue, and the dedication to the setting runs deep. Though it doesn't take long to finish, it was one that had me returning to see how other choices played out. What's there is a cut above.
BioShock Infinite is a good follow up to the original game if you want to continue a story you already know. The Story DLC is also a must and the game still holds up pretty well. If you enjoy this sort of sandbox story game, the Metro Series is also pretty good.
The 2 God of War reboot games make for a deep exploration of family and fatherhood.
Undertale and Deltarune is an adventure, bullet hell, RPG that deconstructs concepts like player agency and moality in games.
The remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 is a wild ride, especially if you didn't play the original. Death Stranding is also an option, but that's more of a zen, walking sim for me. And theres the Silent Hill remake which is a must. Silent Hill F is an amazing story that's held back by a weak game.
And for short-ish, weirder ones that are best enjoyed with minimal details:
The Stanley Parable
Outer Wilds
Thomas Was Alone
Inscription /Pony Island
Thank Goodness You're Here
ENA Dream BBQ
Wanderstop
Fear and Hunger 1 and 2
Look Outside
A Hand With Many Fingers
Slay the Princess
Many Nights a Whisper
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
I came here to specifically bring up Thomas Was Alone, because that's my go-to example for the power of storytelling. The game itself is fairly standard, and the graphics are literally just a bunch of squares and rectangles in a fairly minimalistic world, but the narration and story... How many games can players emotionally attached to a square?
I would add that the Metro books, starting with Metro 2033, are great! Spiritual successors to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which itself is a spiritual successor to Roadside Picnic, a phenomenal Soviet SciFi novel.
Came here to say God of War. I played the first one, and that story experience stayed with me. Haven’t played the second yet.
The Alters is a very recent strategy/management game with an excellent story. You play as Jan, the only surviving member of an expedition to a far off planet to find a cool new material only theorised on earth, Rapidium. You find it, and to replace your fallen crew you use the Rapidium and the quantum computer on your base to simulate what your life would have been like if you made different choices, then grow a cloned body to house that "new" version of yourself in.
You and your "Alters" have to work together to move the base and make it back home in one piece. This is done through classic management sim and basebuilding tropes, but you still always only control your original Jan, so the gameplay is split between building and improving your base, assigning tasks to your Alters and doing work yourself, and going to explore the weird alien planet in third person view. It's beautiful, plays great, and I personally think the story has all the makings of a classic Sci Fi book. It's that good, and because Jan's life path branches a lot, every playthrough will tell new stories.
I have to ask, why not Baldur's Gate 3? Is it the length? I pushed through this holiday season and finally finished the last part of the game, it really is like three AAA games worth of content in one game, which I understand could sound intimidating. It holds up to the hype, really and truly. I usually skip over a lot of voiced dialogue in games, but the voice actors did such a phenomenal job in BG3, pulling me into the universe, they really got into their roles and sold the characters to me. The writing is magnificent, and impressively, it ties almost all the side quests into the main story, which is a rarity in the games I play, where sidequests are often filler storywise. It's even more unfathomably impressive with the branching story paths, that the writers had to account for. To manage all of that intricate writing is godlike
I'm very interested in BG3 although I have to confirm that my computer has the specs to handle it. I just was reminded how much I've enjoyed video games with good stories and thought I'd get recs while I'm thinking about it.
BG3 is one of the best games I've played in the past decade, easily. It captures the magic of D&D, brings Faerûn to life in the most meticulously realized way yet, and the world just seems really alive. And the amount of leeway they give you to find solutions to things is impressive
It's rare for a game that gives you "choices" to not feel like you're just picking one of 2-3 rails to go through a theme park attraction, but BG3 has such a tangled web of options you can't help but be immersed. It also helps that you don't fully get to choose how you interact with the myriad characters or events, because dice rolls for checks will determine success. Similarly, fights can play out differently based on what each character (including enemies) rolls, or what tricks you use. (e.g. knocking enemies into pits with Thunderwave.)
I've just picked up Divinity: Original Sin 2 because I wanted to see how much of what I like about BG3 was present in Larian's own franchise...and I'm now definitely excited about the new Divinity game they just announced. DOS2 is the same engine, albeit with a less refined UI, and lacking fully animated cutscenes for dialogue...though there is full voice acting in the dialogue windows that pop up. Many of the game mechanics from BG3 were already present, though the RPG elements are not the D20 system, so it's a bit different in that regard.
So far, it's great. It has a compelling story set in a richly detailed (and equally dark, if not more) world. It kind of makes you learn what's going on by talking to people and reading books. It definitely has a lot of the same magic.
I didn't see it during a quick pass, but What Remains of Edith Finch is very, very well written when juggling all of the very different stories it's telling and meshing all of those in between the gameplay elements. It's gimmicky during the low points but the theme work is very consistent and it sets a very high bar when it comes to that sort of integration.
Because it's been on my mind with the new patch coming out I will have to throw down FFXIV. Sure the base game and first expansion was a little shakey for some people, but after that through EndWalker is some of the best story I've ever played (Even Dawntrail is great, but it's the start of a new story so it's still coming together). Especially for an MMO. I came up with WoW and I always basically bypassed the story and most of the music, I always felt it was just the fact of life for an MMO, but then I came to FFXIV and it absolutely blew me away. I could gush about this game for hours. It was the first time I couldn't have a tv show or movie or something on another monitor while I played (at least the MSQ and Hildibrand). Just be prepared, when it grabs you you're going to be in for a wild 400+ hour ride (and that's probably on the low end to get through the latest patch content). I'm still a noob at 1400 hours.
Interesting. I've never heard anyone suggest Heavensward was anything other than a masterpiece. It, and the post-ARR patch that led into it, were the definitive "whoa, things are getting real" moment.
A Realm Reborn deserves some slack because it was a bit of a rush job, while they were literally building a new game and winding down another at the same time, so they could replace the ill-fated 1.0 of FFXIV. It also has to introduce the whole world of Eorzea, build up the main characters and kick off a decade-spanning story. They've also made it a lot less aggravating than it used to be...some filler quest lines were condensed a few years ago.
But yeah, no MMORPG comes close to the storytelling of FFXIV. It's been said that it can stand on its own as a Final Fantasy game, even if it weren't an MMORPG...to the point that they've been slowly adding and expanding features that allow players to progress through content on their own. Such as the Trust system, which lets you bring NPCs into a dungeon or trial, so you can progress through the story alone. Not that I recommend that, since the community is great and even moderately skilled players will surpass the NPCs.
I've been a constant subscriber since 2018 sometime, so 7-8 years now.
Tbf I did not play HW when it was new. I played after the ARR patch content streamlining. I'm not trying to say HW was bad, just in the context of story through EW, if felt a little... middling? It felt like the writers were still trying to find their way (and oh boy did they find it!) but I'll admit I could just feel retroactively spoiled with where the story ended up going. Even the first parts of StB felt a bit shakey (although I acknowledge the need to set things up for ShB and EW).
RE: trust system stuff, I'm the weirdo that likes to just experience the game and not indulge in the community aspects in most cases, just so I can go with my own flow. It's probably just me overcorrecting from being ultra hardcore raider in WoW for a while (I do not have the time or ability to do that stuff anymore) mixed with anxiety for fucking things up for the PUGs. The introduction of NPC dungeons was huge. It also had it's issues... if you die there's no rez coming. You have to nail it every time or start over (I think they're changing this with the more recent patches?).
Either way, the game is both one of the best stories of all time and at the same time the greatest love letter and nostalgia hit from anyone that's a fan of the FF series imo.
I will say the most common opinion is that heavensward is better than stormblood, and stormbloods popular opinion redemption largely came about more recently (especially as the endwalker patch content and dawntrail launch content have had mixed to negative receptions)
Every so often I really miss going through the FFXIV MSQ for the first time. 5.3 was my first new patch (started during lockdowns when the game stayed on 5.2 for much longer than usual because of, well, pandemic) and that was truly an experience.
It is such a hard sell because MMO but… man. It really revived my respect for the FF franchise (which was then ironically dashed again by FF16) after personally being disappointed in it since after 12.
Perhaps my favorite game on the Gamecube is called Eternal Darkness. I'm not sure how it would hold up today, don't think I've played it since it was current gen, but the story absolutely sunk its hooks into teenage me.
Chicory was a lovely game with a sweet story, and Wandersong was fun and creative. Wandersong was a bit short, but I enjoyed it a lot, and Chicory was about art, and creativity, and learning from the mistakes of the past.
Tunic was a lesson in nonverbal storytelling, and the player's understanding of the world changes drastically after certain events. When you get more context, you end up completely reinterpreting the same pictures. It also adds a meta component, in which the game guide is a physical item you have to collect.
Besides Warframe, I have been playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 that was kindly given to me by @xavdid during the Tildes Game Giveaway. Here is my thoughts, besides an embarrassing amount of time looking up as to why my truck would not go above 10 kmph (I completely forgot that shifting was a thing despite playing other driving/racing games before), the game is really fun if you like spending time going from point A to point B and building up a business from the ground up. To which, I do find that gameplay loop fun. I do find playing it to be relaxing and completely different in terms of pacing from my usually game that I play. It is nice to shut down my mind (although I shut it down enough to forget to shift into a higher gear) and just drive from one country to another delivering cargo.
The Longest Journey
It really is magical.
I’ll also add the first Syberia game as a similar recommendation. It has a romantic subplot that is subpar, but if you ignore that, it tells a beautiful story in a compelling world, complete with outright theme delivery that mimics literary fiction.
Maybe not quite at the level of some of the titles already mentioned in other comments, but I was a big fan of Borderlands 2. For a RPG looter shooter, this games has, in my opinion, a really good story. It’s quite long especially if you do most of the side quests. The villain is a real a-hole. You really get to hate him. There is also quite a lot of humor which is a pleasant surprise. Very diverse array of characters, with throwbacks to Borderlands 1, which is cool if you played it.
The first three that come to mind are Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, Pentiment, and Celeste.
Thronebreaker is set in the world of the Witcher series. You play as a queen who is defending her lands from a hostile force that has invaded. To do so you need to make some tough choices, and man do those choices actually matter. I've played a lot of games before that claim that you need to make tough moral choices, and usually they just boil down to either being a saint or comedically evil. Not this game. There were multiple times where choices that seemed easy had MAJOR repercussions later, and plot twists that I never even imagined. 10/10 game. 10/10 story. Oh and the gameplay is based on one of my favorite card games ever, gwent, but even better because they incorporate elements of the scenery/plot into the card game (e.g. you're walking near a cliff and suddenly some rocks fall towards you, that gets represented in the form of rock cards that your hero card has to avoid or defeat). I thought these sorts of integrated puzzles were really well done.
Pentiment puts you in the role of a medieval artist who finds himself in a sort of whodunit situation. The setting is incredible (though I'm biased since I love history), the attention to detail is wonderfully deep, the characters all feel like their concerns and fears and hopes are real, and the story has some fun twists and turns as you would expect from a whodunit-style game. That all would be enough by itself, but one thing that makes this game incredibly memorable for me is that one of the side characters is based on a real historic figure, one that I read about back in grad school. I didn't notice at first, since I wouldn't expect the game to have a random reference to an obscure historical figure, but as the dots started connecting I literally gasped out loud in excitement when I realized it. And this isn't part of the main story or anything, just crazy attention to detail. In fact, in my playthrough of the game I wasn't even able to confront this character about what I knew IRL. Fantastic game, great story, incredible atmosphere and attention to detail.
Spoilers for said character in case you are curious
The character Martin is based on Martin Guerre who was a real 16th-century peasant who went away for war and then mysteriously returned looking like someone else. A trial ensued where different members of his family claimed he was/wasn't the real Martin Guerre which is why we have records about this unusual case. I remember reading a book about this case during a class on historiography and so when I noticed that Martin had changed personalities halfway through the game I was floored! Super interesting story and it was just a minor subplot in the overall game.Expedition 33 has the best story of any game I've ever played, hands down.
BG3 has a great story. Multiple actually, nested. Awesome.
South Of Midnight - surprised me, and I played it after E33.
Grandia 2, also
The Gunk.
Are the ones that come to mind.
Oh, I should add, I really enjoyed the world and story of Horizon: Zero Dawn. Forbidden West not so much, but ZD was great.
Japanese visual novel are by definition narrative heavy and more often than not full of twists. Classics includes the Ace Attorney series (courtroom drama) , the Steins; Gate series (mundane-ish science fiction), the Fate series (urban fantasy) ...
Otherwise for more traditional games, Nier Automata is also an recommandation. Sci-fi introduction to modern philosophy and fourth wall leaning with well endowed fembots, katana and stylettos.
I agree with the others that recommend Clair Obscur (however I wouldn't put it so high on the list) , Outer Wilds, 1000xResist, Disco Elysium. The Yakuza series as a whole is very good but not all time great; as a fan I care more about the characters than the plot; there's so much games that I kinda (and I've played them all! except the PSP ones, the first samurai one, and the latest Majima one (yet!)) don't care what kind of governmental conspiracy Kiryu ends up in, I just want him to live his best life.
Mostly came to add further hype to 1000xResist.
Compared to Nier, it's far less depressing 98% of the time
Click to expand spoiler.
I would have said 100% of the time but man, the end of Nier: Automata's weight of the world credit sequence still lives rent free in my head.In contrast, 1000xResist very intentionally does not sexualize their character models.
Click to expand spoiler.
No luck catching them well endowed fembots then?
It's just the one, actually
Don't forget the way too cute and mouthy Scanner units either. And the sexy semi-incestuous this-cannot-continue to be this hot twins.
1000xResist has admittedly very few character models: children are NOT sexualized and wear regular life uniforms; various powered bio suits that fit men and women functionally; middle aged mom and dad; maybe drama class leotards at most.
I appreciate both approaches, but somewhat resent that sexy fembots sell more copies of a game. and inspire more fan art
I've played games that people around me say have great stories, but I rarely find myself agreeing, so I tend to avoid story-driven games.
Maybe the most controversial example of this is Red Dead Redemption 2. The game was so obviously divided into either barely (or non-) interactive "characters talking and advancing the narrative" sections or action sections where there's this constant, meandering, trivial and absolutely boring expositional background dialog. All connected by an open world where none of that seemed to practically matter much. This made it feel like the pacing was always off, and like nothing was actually at stake even when the cutscenes or dialogue would imply otherwise.
Then there's the natural difference between how the game portrays player characters and how I actually play them. I can go on an absolute rampage, lassoing people in and throwing them of cliffs or offering them to the alligators, and then in the next cutscene my character will be a kind of gentleman robber with moral standards again. I can't take that seriously. Going on a rampage and fleeing is some of the most fun I had with this game, but neither the writers nor the mission designers seem to have agreed, or don't seem to care about the incongruity. It's like the game couldn't decide whether it's an awesome open world cowboy asshole sim or four seasons of an HBO show that should only have lasted for one.
I was also extremely put off by the voice acting at times. In particular, Jack Marston as a kid is very obviously played by an adult woman talking in a squeaky voice. If the game ever immersed me in its story that would have taken it away immediately.
I think RPGs are better suited for me, at least in theory, since they make player choice meaningful in the narrative sense and can adapt the narrative to your play style, but RPGs also tend to be filled with cliches that bore or annoy me. They seem especially obsessed with creating archetypal characters that all have a very overt, obvious dispositions or attitudes towards everything, which makes them not seem like people, and they employ saturday morning cartoon tropes to make sure you know what it is within a minute of hearing them.
That said, I started playing Disco Elysium this year and the first impressions were very promising. I haven't gotten very far yet, though, but I particularly like that it seems to accommodate a lot of styles of approach while rewarding you for leaning into your character
My favorite emotional stories are FF14 (FFXIV), this one is an MMO but has an abaolutely spectacular story, and the Portal games. The portal game story is told primarily through world details, so you need to be intentionally looking for it, but it's there, and it's great.
Anachronox was always a favorite of mine. One of the wittiest games I've played. It is ancient now, but available on GOG, I believe. Yep, just checked and it's on sale for less than a dollar...97 cents for the next day and a half.
Final Fantasy X - I haven't played better game when it comes to story. You have to get into the game though.
When I played it, I felt like I was living the life of main character. I went through the struggle as him, I felt the same feelings as him, I was him. That means I went on a journey with other characters, made connections with them, became friend of theirs. And if you are able to do this, you are ready for the rollecoaster ride that the story of this game is.
I don't want to spoil anything, but if you keep attention on what goes on and remember it (and doean't mix in another game while you play), you're not gonna believe how the story goes and after ending the game you won't believe how absolutely perfectly the story got executed (as in made into reality, not butchered). The ending sequence of the game is unforgettable. If you ever play the game, these words of mine will come back into your mind when you finish the game.
It is the best game I have ever played. There are no games anywhere near this one on the top of my "story hall of fame".
One important footnote - I haven't played Final Famtasy 7. I know it is good, but I don't have my own experience to back it up or make comparison.
I have played both, and to me FF7 is the pinnacle. I'll take the risk of annoying the FF6 purists too :)
When FF7 came out it was just mind blowing. It was an absolutely massive game set in a massive open world that could (for the first time) be experienced "high resolution" (up to 640x480 on the PC version) 3D with beautiful prerendered sets illustrating all sorts of locations. The music was so damn good, it lives rent-free in the minds of millions of people from that generation, even though it was generated by MIDI chips. Technologically, the one significant drawback this generation has when compared to FFX is the lack of voice acting ("Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!") Also even for big productions, budgets were much more modest than they are these days, and it shows here and there, although not as much as in, say, Xenogears.
The story they chose to go with all of this was excellent - and, best of all, it has absolutely stood the test of time. The science fiction core of it is decent - the hostile alien invader biding its time just like in Pandora's Star. But the massive, monopolistic corporation sneakily taking the reins of power, sucking the planet's resources dry, always acting with callous indifference and a myopic lack of ethical compass, up to the point where millions of people die? The well intentioned but misguided eco-terrorists? The manipulation of public opinion through propaganda? The grunts who have a human side but do horrible things in the name of "just following orders," and the one who choses a different path (I'm being vague because spoilers)? All of it is still one hundred percent relevant today. The original game's story just holds up.
These days it's cool to be disdainful of FF7 because it's a victim of when it came out. Its very early 3D now looks to us very goofy and ugly (I personally tend to dislike early 3D in general). In a world of cinematic-grade games, its budget limitations are now painfully obvious - a horrible english translation, bad animation, etc. But that's a modern, unfair judgment of a 90s videogame, in my opinion. It's why I've been quite happy that it's being remade with a fantastic budget and fantastic quality, even though Tetsuya Nomura sneaked in some unnecessary Kingdom-Hearts-ness that wasn't in the original.
I know a lot about FF7, I even played it up to Junon (I beliebe that is the name of the city) and I know some of the most important things that happen in the story.
I also played and finished FF7: Crisis Core.
I know FF7 is legend and I know it deserves its status. I just haven't played it enough to make conclusion on my own.
I wasn't accusing you of anything, just saying that there's (I've observed) a lot of disdain for FF7 out there these days.
Sorry, I didn't mean you offended or accused me of anything. I just wanted to let you and others know that I played a bit of FF7, but can't conclude on anything since my knowledge is very limited.
I should have written that when in my original comment, my bad.
EDIT: I see I wrote I haven't played FF7 in my original comment. I should have written "didn't finish" as it would be more precise.
No problem, I hope you get to play it someday! Or the remake!
I really liked the story in Drova. While it may be fairly typical fantasy setting the actual dialog and plot were quite well written.
It's hard to say too much without spoilers but to me it all felt really organic. Instead of some generic 'kill X monsters to complete quest' crap it reveals some real choices and consequences that weave into the overall story.
I'm also not usually the type of person to get hung up on grammatical errors but it sure was refreshing to complete a text heavy game and not notice any at all.
This war of mine is just a conveyor belt of gut punches.
At its core it's a fairly slowpaced survival & resource management game but it is set in a modern city that is a war zone and you play as a civilian just trying to survive.
There is something in how it is played, the resources you have, the events that happen and ofc the art style that in my non-experienced opinion really drives home both how incredibly mundane and despairing that situation is.
I think that many of us that play games are used to violence and death as a way to make progress, even as storytelling. We kill a boss to get to the next level. But we don't really notice the death.
This game let me notice the grim reality of war (or something I would guess is close anyway).
Not to discount the many great suggestions made here, but great video game stories should not be limited to epic narratives with high stakes and betrayal and convoluted twists and reveals. I played and enjoyed these types of games that had these stories, and as memorable as they may be, heroes and fantasies don't tend to be as relatable. This is very much a problem for video games that are overly populated with space marines grinding out an honest life in the apocalypse, which in turn provides a special niche for video games with small scopes and low stakes.
That's why something as underrated as A Short Hike hits so hard. It's a small indie game about exploring a mountainous island; you get to the top and you're done. It's very simple, but everything about it drives an emotional narrative in which the protagonist is irrevocably changed by the end. It's a minimalist adventure with a beginning, middle, and end that dutifully capture the struggles that the protag is going through.
Spoilers Ahead
A girl with a sick mother gets sent away to a provincial park. There's no reception, she can't talk to her mother, and there is nothing for her to help the situation; she's just a girl. Deprived of any agency, she sets out what she can do: brave the unexplored park outside her new lodgings and conquer its mountain. Her desire for fulfillment is the same as the player's, so we set out, encountering challenges that push the girl to her limits (as a crow, she can't fly very far, etc), all with very little dialog.But where she succeeds in the physical world by summitting the mountain is likewise mirrored in her internal journey of self-actualization, overcoming her fear of losing her mother when she finally gets a clear phone signal and gets to speak to her mother to learn that everything is alright. She didn't actually help her mother; she didn't move the needle in the real world, but this story is a beautiful coming-of-age moment for the girl crow as embodied by a transcendent flight that she was not able to perform before (it's an ending shared by the also underrated open-world jaunt Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip).
The use of a mountain as a metaphor is probably better used in Celeste, an underrated gem that I shamefully have not completed.
The minimal use of spoken dialog is also put to sublime use with Dear Esther, a great game that also features a strong, if undetermined, narrative.
Spoilers
My interpretation is that everything has to do with the protagonist: he's the murderer, he painted all those messages and set up those fires, he's experiencing all again for the first time by drugging himself with the stuff you find, he kills himself by throwing himself off the tower and is set free at last.I guess what I'm saying is that it isn't so much the story that a video game tells, but the way it is incorporated in the game itself that makes it great.
Xenogeara (PS1) - All of the "Xeno" games have an arguably great story, but I still feel that Xenogears had the best and most ambitious story. The game is flawed (they clearly ran out of time/money so the end is very rushed), but man, no other Square game hit as hard IMO, and this came directly after FF6-8 and Chrono Trigger.
I really wanted to respond to this thread with something interesting and have been thinking about it for a little bit... but I don't think rating stories as better than one another really works; video game or otherwise.
It's hard to justify this with a rational argument. I'm most definitely capable of taking a story and saying if I enjoyed it or not, if I enjoyed it a lot or only a little, what I like and dislike about it. But putting a story below another, or even one above all others, is a lot harder. It feels like a disservice to both. Every story ever told has something different to convey. If I were to pick some grand fantasy epic to qualify as the "best video game story" above all the rest, objectively or subjectively, I would feel like I'm designating every other fantasy story, every detective thriller, every slice of life about a bartender making ends meet, every abstract allegory on human connection, every story about some fluffy friendly creature beating up a god for cake, every story that someone else might have loved at some point in time, every story that someone might have needed in their life... as lesser. Not as much worth engaging with.
I apply the same logic to most forms of art including games as a whole ; and personally, I tend to engage with media in a very 'neurodivergent butterfly' manner: I'll hover between 5 to 6 different games in a period based on what I crave and frequently hyperfixate on one thing for days to weeks, with very little control over the process. As a result, I can appreciate and think hard about anything, but I have some trouble pointing out personal favourites in anything. I don't know if that's good or bad! (And for games, it doesn't help that I tend to care a lot more about gameplay than story)
In lieu of all that, I'll just state this: there's only two games with stories that I remember actually crying to. There's Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, the first console game I owned that wasn't Disney shovelware, which made child me cry during its ending, both because it was sad and deeply engaging and because I genuinely believed I wouldn't be able to play it afterwards. And there's Final Fantasy XIV, which was great throughout but specifically made me cry a river during post-Shadowbringers (surprisingly, not at the point where everyone else cried). There are tons of other stories that have touched me in some way, but those are the ones where I have 'empirical proof' of that fact, something I can explain. I don't know if they're the best stories, or my favourites. But they did make me cry.
They're great, in any case. Video games are great. I love all games.
The new God of War games have incredible stories and are dripping with lore that I couldn't get enough of. You don't need to know anything about the previous games except that Kratos is a Spartan that became a god and murdered the entire Greek Pantheon using the super bad-ass Blades of Chaos. If you are interested in mythology you would enjoy these games.