Welcome to Story driven Games OT!
You ask why did I create this OT? I'm a huge sucker for story rich games, narrative experiences, walking sims, visual novels etc. If it has great story, engaging characters, captivating narration, I've played it or I will definitely play it (and I hope that you'll play it too!)
There's one thing that I enjoy even more - finishing these games and sharing freshly formed emotions & opinions with other people. These games can have long-lasting impacts and it would be a big shame to not share these experiences with others.
There will be 2 (at least in the beginning) constantly updated sections in this thread:
- Notable releases this month – I'll monthly scour depths of Steam and other stores to search for intereseting story driven games you might haven't heard about it.
- Game of the month – usually biggest release of month to drive discussion as much as possible.
We are a community and this thread should be teamwork. Advices, recommendations, critique and anything else that comes to your mind are not just highly appreaciated but encouraged.
There are only two rules:
- General ERA rules which you can find here https://www.resetera.com/threads/general-faq.9777/
- We are all friends here to have a healthy discussion and enjoy our time here. Please leave hostility, hatred, insults and personal attacks away from this thread.
Recommendations for newcomers
Planescape: Torment
"What can change the nature of a man?"
You are the Nameless One, a hulking figure covered in scars and tattoos collected over the course of countless lives—none of which you can remember, but are now coming back to haunt you. You are prodded awake by Morte, a floating skull and keeper of secrets, to embark on an adventure taking The Nameless One from the dirty streets of Sigil into the mysterious Outer Planes and even into the depths of Hell itself.
Portals riddle the planar metropolis of Sigil, providing access to anywhere in existence, but only if you have the proper key. Known as the "City of Doors," Sigil is a neutral ground where demons, devas, and races from across the multiverse gather under the watchful shadow of the Lady of Pain, the city's enigmatic ruler. This is a place where the word is mightier than the sword, where thought defines reality, and belief has the power to reshape worlds.
SOMA
The radio is dead, food is running out, and the machines have started to think they are people. Underwater facility PATHOS-II has suffered an intolerable isolation and we're going to have to make some tough decisions. What can be done? What makes sense? What is left to fight for?
Enter the world of SOMA and face horrors buried deep beneath the ocean waves. Delve through locked terminals and secret documents to uncover the truth behind the chaos. Seek out the last remaining inhabitants and take part in the events that will ultimately shape the fate of the station. But be careful, danger lurks in every corner: corrupted humans, twisted creatures, insane robots, and even an inscrutable omnipresent A.I.
Bastion
Bastion is an action role-playing experience that redefines storytelling in games, with a reactive narrator who marks your every move. Explore more than 40 lush hand-painted environments as you discover the secrets of the Calamity, a surreal catastrophe that shattered the world to pieces. Wield a huge arsenal of upgradeable weapons and battle savage beasts adapted to their new habitat. Finish the main story to unlock the New Game Plus mode and continue your journey!
The Last of Us
20 years after a pandemic has radically changed known civilization, infected humans run wild and survivors are killing each other for food, weapons; whatever they can get their hands on. Joel, a violent survivor, is hired to smuggle a 14 year-old girl, Ellie, out of an oppressive military quarantine zone, but what starts as a small job soon transforms into a brutal journey across the U.S.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | Hearts of Stone | Blood & Wine
Trained from early childhood and mutated to gain superhuman skills, strength and reflexes, witchers are a distrusted counterbalance to the monster-infested world in which they live.
Play as professional monster hunter, Geralt of Rivia, tasked with finding a child of prophecy in a vast open world rich with merchant cities, viking pirate islands, dangerous mountain passes, and forgotten caverns to explore.
Night in the Woods
College dropout Mae Borowski returns home to the crumbling former mining town of Possum Springs seeking to resume her aimless former life and reconnect with the friends she left behind. But things aren't the same. Home seems different now and her friends have grown and changed. Leaves are falling and the wind is growing colder. Strange things are happening as the light fades.
And there's something in the woods...
Life is Strange
Follow the story of Max Caulfield, a photography senior who discovers she can rewind time while saving her best friend Chloe Price.
The pair soon find themselves investigating the mysterious disappearance of fellow student Rachel Amber, uncovering a dark side to life in Arcadia Bay. Meanwhile, Max must quickly learn that changing the past can sometimes lead to a devastating future.
The House in Fata Morgana (recommended by BoukObelisk)
You awaken in a decrepit old mansion.
A woman with eyes of jade stands before You, informing You that You are the Master of the house, and she Your Maid. However, You have no memories, no concept of self—or, indeed, any certainty that You are even alive.
The Maid invites You to join her on a journey through the mansion's lifeless halls, to behold the numerous tragedies that have befallen its residents. She suggests that among them, perhaps You will find some trace of Yourself.
Silent Hill 2 (recommended by BoukObelisk)
Silent Hill 2 follows James Sunderland, whose life is shattered when his young wife Mary suffers a tragic death. Three years later, a mysterious letter arrives from Mary, beckoning him to return to their sanctuary of memories, the dark realm of Silent Hill.
You must guide James through all-new environments and creepy new areas closed off in the original game. Real-time weather effects, fog, morphing, and shadows set the stage for heart-stopping frights. Be brave as you journey to uncover the truth.
The Longest Journey (recommended by BoukObelisk)
The Longest Journey is an amazing graphical adventure, where the player controls the protagonist, April Ryan, on her journey between parallel universes. Embark on an exciting and original journey of discovery, where you will explore, solve puzzles, meet new people, face terrifying monsters, learn, grow, and live the adventure of a lifetime!
What Remains of Edith Finch (recommended by Regawdless)
What Remains of Edith Finch is a collection of strange tales about a family in Washington state.
As Edith, you'll explore the colossal Finch house, searching for stories as she explores her family history and tries to figure out why she's the last one in her family left alive. Each story you find lets you experience the life of a new family member on the day of their death, with stories ranging from the distant past to the present day.
The gameplay and tone of the stories are as varied as the Finches themselves. The only constants are that each is played from a first-person perspective and that each story ends with that family member's death.
Ultimately, it's a game about what it feels like to be humbled and astonished by the vast and unknowable world around us.
Homeworld 1 (recommended by BoukObelisk)
Deported to a harsh desert world, exiles have struggled for three thousand years to regain the stars. Now it's up to you to guide them home through a brutal empire bent on annihilation.
Homeworld 1 follows the Kushan exiles of the planet Kharak after their home planet is destroyed by the Taiidan Empire in retaliation for developing hyperspace jump technology. The survivors journey with their spacecraft-constructing mothership to reclaim their ancient homeworld of Hiigara from the Taiidan, encountering a variety of pirates, mercenaries, traders, and rebels along the way.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall (recommended by BoukObelisk)
In 2012, magic returned to our world, awakening powerful creatures of myth and legend. Among them was the Great Dragon Feuerschwinge, who emerged without warning from the mountains of Germany, unleashing fire, death, and untold destruction across the countryside. It took German forces nearly four months to finally shoot her down - and when they did, their victory became known as The Dragonfall.
It's 42 years later - 2054 - and the world has changed. Unchecked advances in technology have blurred the line between man and machine. Elves and trolls walk among us, ruthless corporations bleed the world dry, and Feuerschwinge's reign of terror is just a distant memory. Germany is splintered - a stable anarchy known as the "Flux State" controls the city of Berlin. It's a place where power is ephemeral, almost anything goes, and the right connections can be the difference between success and starvation. For you and your team of battle-scarred shadowrunners, there's no better place to earn a quick payday.
Now, a new threat is rising, one that could mean untold chaos and devastation. One that soon has you and your team caught on the wrong side of a deadly conspiracy. The only clue: whispers of the Dragonfall. Rumors that the Great Dragon Feuerschwinge may still be alive, waiting for the right moment to return…
The Beginner's Guide (recommended by OniluapL)
The Beginner's Guide is a narrative video game from Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable. It lasts about an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives. Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they do not understand.
Hellblade - Senua's Sacrifice (recommended by Fredrik)
Set in the Viking age, a broken Celtic warrior embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover.
Created in collaboration with neuroscientists and people who experience psychosis, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice will pull you deep into Senua's mind.
Danganronpa Series (recommended by MikeNeko)
Hope's Peak Academy is home to Japan's best and brightest high school students—the beacons of hope for the future. But that hope suddenly dies when Makoto Naegi and his classmates find themselves imprisoned in the school, cut off from the outside world and subject to the whims of a strange, murderous little bear named Monokuma. He pits the students against each other, promising freedom to anyone who can murder a fellow classmate and get away with it.
It's up to you to find out who Monokuma really is, and why you've been taken from the world you once knew. But be careful what you wish for—sometimes there's nothing more deadly than the truth...
MikeNeko's advice:
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
Will you follow your moral compass, or will you apply the letter of the law?
The great freedom of action in Crimes & Punishments allows you to conduct your investigations in the manner you deem appropriate. Use the 14 extraordinary skills of detection for which Sherlock is famous, choose the avenues of enquiry you wish to pursue, interrogate your suspects and, from your deductions, name the guilty parties... you can even determine their fate! The ramifications are far-reaching, and your decisions will exert a real influence through your reputation or the surprising consequences that will arise where you least expect them…
Gravity Rush | Gravity Rush 2
I'm going to nominate Gravity Rush 1-2. It is a bit of an odd choice and one that will not immediately feel like the narrative has much of a substance or worth to it. The characters will feel like one note tropes and the actions, consequences etc will often feel insignificant. As you play the game more however you will start to take note of some of the darker tones and themes. How underneath the surface things are much more complicated and in the same way this further develops characters as you begin to realise they are the way they are also due to their circumstances.
This is a long but fantastic post on reddit that was posted also in the OT a while back. It contains some spoilers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gravityrush/comments/7rhp9x/gravity_rush_the_spirit_of_kindness_spoilers/
The style and presentation of the narrative is also interesting and certainly not the pace for everyone. At its core it is about Kat who discovers her role in the first game. She essentially becomes a super hero, the hero for the city. This comes with the exciting world saving adventures as well as the more mundane, delivering and mingling with the regular folk. It shows Kat not just in action but also in her daily life. Gravity Rush 2 expands on this, she has found her identity and knows herself as the Gravity Queen who loves helping people but she must again find her place and build up the trust of the people in a new city meaning back to mingling and helping people with various tasks, big and small.
It is important to note that this isn't like a typical power trip where you just go from one fight to another. Kat's growth also comes from playing with others and seeing how they interact. It is as much about her as a super hero as it is about how she fits into the world. For example, in the gravity days comics one of her jobs was to baby sit.
The game also has one of my favourite endings in recent memory. It wraps up the game very well and leaves you wanting more. I will say that it did take quite a while to get there though and not all of it is great from a narrative perspective.
Nier Automata
NieR: Automata tells the story of androids 2B, 9S and A2 and their battle to reclaim the machine-driven dystopia overrun by powerful machines.
Humanity has been driven from the Earth by mechanical beings from another world. In a final effort to take back the planet, the human resistance sends a force of android soldiers to destroy the invaders. Now, a war between machines and androids rages on... A war that could soon unveil a long-forgotten truth of the world.
Sagebrush
newgamewhodis said:
Alice: Madness Returns
newgamewhodis said:
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