Your top 5 games that felt the most mysterious to you

[trimin]

I've made a similar topic on mysterious games before but the recent Dark Souls Remastered announcement has got me thinking again about experiences I've had surrounding the mystique of some games I've played. I'm also curious of what games people have found the most mysterious other than the last one they've played. These are games that, by their design and atmosphere or just by being around the time of little to no internet, created a feeling of mystery when you were playing them.

So please rank your top 5 games that you felt were the most mysterious at the time that you played them and briefly describe why. This can be based off just memories of being mystified by a game. Here are mine:

5) Donkey Kong Country 3
I remember being totally obsessed with finding out what the deal with that secret cave was on the world map. I remember even having a dream about it as a kid and wondering for days what it could be and how to unlock its mysteries.

4) Mortal Kombat 2
This game had the benefit of having no internet to spoil its secrets. Rumors flew and me and my brother tried playing through 99 rounds to unlock the secret character who appears on fire in the background of the bridge level.

3) Super Mario World
First time seeing a world map in a game and it sparked my imagination as a kid. I would spend hours looking over the map and level layouts in the guide. Also had dreams about the super secret star levels and wondered what other secrets lay about in the world map.

2) Dark Souls
With the other games on this list being games I played as a kid, it speaks to the allure this game has even in this day and age. Even after spoiling myself with youtube videos, this game still intrigued me and held a mystifying feeling while I was playing. So many things happened that seemingly felt out of place that it made me feel like anything could happen. You always wondered what more could be hidden if you just digged deeper.

1) Harvest Moon
Here's a game that as a kid opened me up to a whole new way of playing games. Really felt like living your life and each day brought something new and possibly some mysterious event. It could happen on a rainy day, or in the middle of the night. One day you're watering your plants like normal and the next a huge earthquake opens up a path to a mysterious pond. You hear rumors about a mysterious flower that blooms on a certain day at the peak of a mountain. You run into tiny little elves living somewhere on your farmland! Kid me had a lot of dreams about this game: unlocking a new farming tool, finding a new path, etc.

 

[Cropwolfe]

5. Gorogoa - a recent game that I enjoyed but no clue what was going on. The art was fantastic though.

4. Majora's Mask - my favorite game of all time but it was very mysterious the first time I played it. It took years for me to figure this game out - both for story and gameplay.

3. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery ep: another great game but very mysterious and baffling. I had to read up on this one to complete it

2. The Witness: still do not understand what was going on with that island

1. Shadow of the Colossus: Another favorite game but very mysterious (especially my first play throug). Playing this game made me want to know everything about it and I still enjoy reading about it to this day

 

[GamerJM]

I grew up in an age where the internet was prominent, so I've never really felt that mystery with most games. The one exception to this, though, is the gen 1 Pokemon games. Stuff like Missingno, 'M, Mew and then later the Mew glitch, urban legends like Pikablu. It was just something special, gen 1 has a lot of issues but in some sense you just had to be there.

 

[lordlad]

5) Journey
4) Nights into dreams
3) metal gear solid 2
2) destiny (during the alpha & beta stages)
1) Bloodborne

 

[trimin]

I grew up in an age where the internet was prominent, so I've never really felt that mystery with most games. The one exception to this, though, is the gen 1 Pokemon games. Stuff like Missingno, 'M, Mew and then later the Mew glitch, urban legends like Pikablu. It was just something special, gen 1 has a lot of issues but in some sense you just had to be there.

Click to shrink...

Yeah it's really hard to create mystery around a game these days. But there are are devs interested in bringing that back. I watched that Noclip video on games like Frog Fractions and Spelunky and the devs want to invoke the same sense of awe that they felt playing games during a time when there was no internet around. I really appreciate that, and from what I played of Spelunky, it does feel like there are a lot of things kept obscure and hidden from the player.

Here it is:

 

[Squarehard]

Chrono Trigger would probably be towards the top of that list.

It was interesting traveling back and forth in time, and once you get the Epoch, sometimes I'd just spend awhile hopping through the different worlds to explore.

Lots of good memories with that game back then.

 

[Zaied]

• Snatcher - This game exudes mystery, especially the premise; you aren't exactly sure who's a snatcher or not, where snatchers come from, or what their purpose is. Neo Kobe is a great setting as well. Kojima really nailed the cyberpunk vibe.
• Tomb Raider - Between the elaborate puzzles, death traps, and all the animals and dinosaurs trying to kill you, the original Tomb Raider is one of the most memorable adventure games.
• Assassin's Creed - When I first played this I couldn't wrap my head around the concept of the Animus and I pretty much knew nothing about the Third Crusade, so there was plenty of mystery between the modern day story and Altair's story.
• Dishonored - Exploring Dunwall was very rewarding since you get to uncover more about the world and characters rather than having everything told to you in a cutscene. There's also a lot to gain just by listening to the NPCs chatter. And the collectibles are worth going after just for the conversations with the Outsider.
• Metal Gear Solid 2 - The first three Metal Gear Solids were equally mysterious to me, but MGS2 was my first one. MGS4 cheapened some of it with the nanomachines, but the plot lines and final act were still unbelievable at the time. The scene with the colonel stands out.

 

[dadjumper]

Breath of the Wild - The whole game is surpise after surprise. Nuff said. Best game ever probably.
Mercenary Force (GB) - I still don't quite understand how this game works. It's a side scrolling shmup where you choose a team of up to 5 soldiers from 5 different classes. Each one has their own shot type and the formations can change. I just don't know what's going on whenever I play it, but it's pretty good.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - Having just come off finishing the first game and having not played the base version, XCOM 2 was overflowing with new mechanics that I didn't understand yet. The photo mode, the bond system, the new classes and skills and weapons and buildings... this was just a case of being overwhelmed with new stuff constantly, and all of it ended up being pretty good (except the Avatar Project)

I can only think of these three right now

 

[trimin]

You know what MGS3 managed to create a good amount of mystery for a relatively modern game. So much wacky stuff happens in that game. The dream sequence, The End's early departure, and that ladder.. Like wth

 

[halcali]

Final Fantasy VII - There's a cave that Cloud should be able to enter, which potentially pertained to Aerith's demise.
A great many things were left on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

Super Mario World - Star Road was mind-blowing to my 9-year-old self.

Front Mission 3 - Just how deep was that pseudo World Wide Web suppose to be?

Super Mario Bros. 3 - You can thank The Wizard film for giving this game an aura before it was even released outside Japan.

Metroid - JUSTIN BAILEY, other-worldly corridors and music that felt real. This mysterious game pushed me to discover all its secrets.

 

[Oscillator]

#1. Myst - Pure mystery, in every way, shape, and form.

#2. Quake - Incredibly intricate level design, with secrets hidden virtually everywhere.

#3. Banjo-Kazooie - The overworld is filled with out-of-the-way tunnels that lead to surprising things.

#4. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA - This surely holds the record for most shortcuts in a racing game.

#5. Jet Set Radio Future - All kinds of mysterious odds and ends are scattered throughout.

P.S. Dark Souls looks right up my alley in this department, but I'm waiting for the Switch version.

 

[shoemasta]

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: from the jazzy music to the conspiratorial tone, MGS2 always had an air of mystique for me.

2. Demon's Souls: personally think this one manages to this really capture this strange feeling better than almost any other game in the SoulsBorne series. The dark environments, the pagan inspired art style, the use of obscure instruments, etc.

3. Shadow of the Colossus: practically the poster child of mysterious games.

There are definitely more but I can't think of them at this moment.

 

[halcali]

yeah, Demon's Souls is certainly the most mysterious in that it gives you very little in way of story to piece together.

 

[somethingisme]

Bloodborne, from the moment I walked into a courtyard and was ... let's say... whisked away. If only I'd had eyes to see at the time!

Other mysterious/enigmatic games:
Bioshock
Metroid Prime
Super Mario 64, with its overworld and myriad secrets
Mortal Kombat

 

[RoyaleDuke]

Fallout 2, the first time I played this game which actually wasn't that long ago, probably close to a decade originally, and I think maybe five years ago? As well as a more recently playthrough that stalled because of other things to play and I've played FO2 at least two or three times to completion on top of all the failures and restarts. It is an extremely punishing game that is one of the few that I feel delivers on the feeling of playing a PnPRPG except it has an entire visual interface. Things I love about this game are gone from a lot of others, the fact you can examine everything for unique descriptions, if you have enough points in certain skills and attributes you can hit certain parts of the body but if you take certain traits you may or may not be able to do that(things like fast hands, etc), the game is one of the few games, even in the old CRPGs that feels completely reacitonary to how you play the game, and I've gotten outcomes I'm not sure were even possible since they weren't listed online. I'd have to replay to see if I can get the permutations again because the game is so variable. Unlike Todd Howard's claims of FO3 and 4 having very dynamic endings, the orignal games actually did. I can honestly tell you that I cannot tell the difference between the different permutations that Howard claims are in the game, I mean for FO3 alone he claimed there were 300 permutations of the ending cinematics...yeah okay.

Even New Vegas had more end slides than FO3, and reactivity to player choice but the new fallout games still pale in comparison.

Pillars of Eternity, this is the first time I've seen a game like this in forever. It really hits home that feeling of playing old Infinity Engine games in more ways than just visuals, and I feel like wholly exceeds on those old games. modern classic.

REmake, you take a genre defining survival horror game and lovingly remake it while also adding to the game in ways that don't detract or ruin it, you keep a lot of the identity of the series, fixed camera angles, tension, puzzles, ambient noise and incredibly memorable music for different rooms and moments in the game, dynamic themes for enemies. This game was a mystery to me since I hadn't played the original by the time this game came out because I didn't have a PS1 growing up when RE came out. I didn't play RE1-3 till a lot later, probably 2003ish or so. I remember hating it at first because I didn't really appreciate survival horror games as much as I do now, but it became a favorite much like a Kubrick or Lynch movie.

Alien Isolation, this is how you make a game that is true to a film franchise and game IP that hasn't really been done faithfully. Alien Isolation is the 20 hour experimental, interactive Alien movie you never thought you knew you wanted, it even turns partially into Aliens at points while still maintaining a tone that is in line with the mythos established in the canon of the first film, and tbh, really only that first film. The world and aesthetics they've created, the systems, and the incredible Alien AI on the harder difficulties made the game one of the best games I've ever played, and one of the best survival horror games of the last decade easily. It has labyrinthine levels in compared to many games, backtracking, exploration, crafting and item scavenging, physical movement that reminds me of Thief II, as well as Full Body Awareness. It is a game made solely for the fans of the first movie and even in a way I think it could appeal to fans of the second movie. This does what Ridley Scott could not do. I'd love to see a star wars game come out now and be this good, and true. (Obsidian it is time for KOTOR3). This was one of the first times in awhile where I sat back and said "wow, a survival horror game, an alien game, and AND, an immersive sim stealth game wrapped up together," beautiful.

KOTOR2 changed the way I saw Star Wars. It was a complete flip of the mythos in a way that was also a subversion, and expansion that I completely agreed with, it also brought back the mystery and soul to Star Wars as a whole I feel, not really knowing what the force really is, while also defining what it is, is something that KOTORII and the writers for the game do incredibly well and supplanted Obsidian as one of my favorite developers. I didn't even know at the time I played it that it was unfinished and rushed. The music, the depth of the game mechanics, and the characters were all incredible to me and I think I've probably played the game way more times than I care to admit.

 

[ClearMetal]

The only one I can think of at the moment is the first Kingdom Hearts. I was twelve at the time it came out and while I knew all the Disney characters, I had never played a Final Fantasy game before. So all the influences from that franchise were completely new to me.

Come to think of it, the idea of a game telling a grand, mysterious story was also a novel concept for me. Until that point (I got it together with a PS2 from my parents for Christmas) I mostly played Mario games on the N64 and stuff like The Sims on the pc. So this was really my first game with more than a throwaway story.

As I did not know what kind of game it was in the first place, I did not know what to expect either. I remember spending time on the first island and having fun, blissfully unaware of the coming disaster. When everything suddenly went to shit and Sora somehow ended up in Traverse Town, I was amazed. What just happened? Where were Riku and Kairi? What was I fighting against? Who was the villain? Where did the keyblade come from and what was its function?

That entire game was a magical, mysterious experience.

I'll always be thankful for the store clerk who dissuaded my parents from buying some shitty licensed movie game and recommended them Kingdom Hearts instead.

 

[MoonFrog]

I could never figure out Mario's time machine as a kid. Don't think I got past the surfing. It was mysterious to me. I might have gotten further at some point trying it as an adult; not sure.

 

[petran79]

1.Entomorph: Plague of the Dark Fall
One of the best games mystery wise, you are stranded in an alien world. Too bad technical issues prevented it from getting more popular.

2.World of Aden: Thunderscape
Made by the same company.

The world of the Thunder Age has a distinctly steampunk feel. The world has recently and drastically changed from medieval swords-and-sorcery to a mixed renaissance and Industrial Revolution tech level. Flintlocks and muskets are the best weapons an adventurer can hope for, but there are extremely expensive, very powerful machine guns called "storm cannons." The world has also recently fallen under the effects of the "Darkfall", an event causing thousands of demons or "nocturnals" to enter the world, along with Corrupted, those who have made a deal with the forces of the Darkfall for power-and usually a curse of some sort.

3. Bioforge
One of the best sci-fi settings, you have no clue about your indentity as a cyborg from the start

4. Realms of the Haunting
You enter a huge mansion and have to find clues about your father.

5. Shadow of the Comet
Inspired by Cthulhu mythos.Entering a mysterious town where all the people are suspecting your every action. Carelessness can lead to death

 

[ffvorax]

Final Fantasy VII - I always found something new to discover in the world by myself and it was amazing then to read theories
Shadow of the Colossus - When I found that I could really climb the main tower... :O also the world looked like full of mistery and discovery to make... not so true but it looked like... XD
Dark/Demon Souls - More Dark maybe, but both had some interesting secret to discover playing blind at the time!
Shadow of the Beast (series) - Maybe because it was super hard, but on each game to find out how to solve a section was always an incredible discovery
Wario Land - My favourite "mario" game EVER, I loved it, loved to find out things and that depending on the money you got, the ending changed... <3

 

[takriel]

In no particular order (but older games have an advantage because of children's fascination and nostalgia) :

Illusion of Time
Dark Souls
Majora's Mask
Super Metroid
Myst

 

[Creation_Scapes]

I'll echo what others have mentioned with Mario 64 over-world and and I'll throw banjo kazooie 2 out there as well.

 

[Dussck]

Bloodborne
Mortal Kombat 2
World of Warcraft (during beta)
Silent Hill 2
Ico

 

[Thorzilla]

5. Bloodborne - No other game has got me as tense and inmersed as Bloodborne. Every bit of the game is perfectly crafted to make you feel oppressed and chased, yet overcoming all the se challenges and fighting your worst fears is a rewards in itself for daring to face the mysteries of the Hunt.

4. Pokemon Yellow - Being a kid, playing Pokemon with my friends, exploring every nook and cranny and reading magazines trying to figure out secrets is one of the best memories of my childhood. There was something very mysterious about Pokemon and its 8 bit World that sucked me in big time.

3. Botw - Amazing world building and perfect use of narrative and storytelling through exploration. There is nothing more mysterious and ominous but exciting and alluring than the possibility to explore a huge world without boundaries with all its treasures and perils. This game should be higher in the list but the last two have a huge place in my heart to rank higher.

2. FFVIII - I was about 9 when playing the game and, even through I had the fantastic Piggyback guide, I loved getting lost in the map. I Also loved the mystery surrounding the game, the witch story arc, time travelling, finding all the game's secrets, etc.

1. Guild Wars OG trilogy - I was no longer a kid playing games anymore but this game managed to suck me in deep. The lore, the music (god, the music), the setting... Everything was perfect. To this day I still believe GW is the sole responsible for making me think so fondly of those years. I even got a friend to play with me not into RPGs OR fantasy.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

Bloodborne - Lore and Lovecraft everywhere
Destiny - What happened to humanity and the Traveler? How does the light work? What does the grim future hold?
Majora's Mask - You're not in Kansas Hyrule anymore
Halo 2 - You thought you knew the Covenant and Forerunners? Ha!
Dark Souls - The nature of the curse and history of the land are both wonderful

 

[Yabberwocky]

It's hard to not default to Ueda games for me - Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian. Ditto to Miyazaki - Demon's Souls is my favorite in that regard, but Dark Souls is close. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is another. That battlefield level alone, man-!

The only one I can think of at the moment is the first Kingdom Hearts. I was twelve at the time it came out and while I knew all the Disney characters, I had never played a Final Fantasy game before. So all the influences from that franchise were completely new to me.

Come to think of it, the idea of a game telling a grand, mysterious story was also a novel concept for me. Until that point (I got it together with a PS2 from my parents for Christmas) I mostly played Mario games on the N64 and stuff like The Sims on the pc. So this was really my first game with more than a throwaway story.

As I did not know what kind of game it was in the first place, I did not know what to expect either. I remember spending time on the first island and having fun, blissfully unaware of the coming disaster. When everything suddenly went to shit and Sora somehow ended up in Traverse Town, I was amazed. What just happened? Where were Riku and Kairi? What was I fighting against? Who was the villain? Where did the keyblade come from and what was its function?

That entire game was a magical, mysterious experience.

I'll always be thankful for the store clerk who dissuaded my parents from buying some shitty licensed movie game and recommended them Kingdom Hearts instead.

Click to shrink...

YES-YES-YES! I think that's one of the reasons I still love the game, all these years later. (I really wish the franchise hadn't started giving answers on plot-points, lol.) Even the worlds were unnerving and so intriguing - Traverse Town with its secrets (and Merlin), the surreal nature of Wonderland, the scale of Deep Jungle, creepy old Halloween Town, the End of the World... the Hollow Bastion alone was extraordinary. There was so much to find, it felt like there was an item, secret, or boss around every corner. The atmosphere was incredible.

 

[angel]

I dont have 5 but Hyper Light Drifter doesnt explain itself one bit. No meaningful dialogue whatsoever, lots open to interpretation, people have a rough idea whats going on and fan theories are good, but the creators say they arent 100% correct. The game world feels amazing and full of mystery even after beating it several times.

 

[Deleted member 7450]

S.TA.L.K.E.R. series.
The Zone, gosh, what a eerie place to wander and wonder.

Shadow of the Colossus
The ruins, the landmarks, the colossi. Love that land.

Majora's Mask
Mistery permeated my first time in Termina. And my second time too. And third. And all the numerous subsequent plays.

Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Fairly linear, fairly simple but what a world to dive and discover stuff.

Metro series
Let me explore the surface pleeeeeaaaase.

Bonus;
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy
The fuck is going on in this game? @_@

 

[D.Lo]

Breath of the Wild - the new champion. So many mysteries to discover, all naturally.
Shadow of the Colossus - The mystery of the narrative is so well done
Link's Awakening - the mystery of the Wind Fish as hinted throughout...
Silent Hill (1) - still the best one due to the core conceit working as a mystery.
Castlevania (N64) - quite an atmospheric game with mysterious places and plot.

 

[The Booktastic Bus]

Goldeneye:

What is the other side of the hole in the air vent in facility?

What is on that island in dam?

What is behind the door you begin in front of in dam?

Where do the guys come from in surface 2?

Also, Perfect Dark to an extent.

In Area 51: infiltration you can get into the back door of A51 near where you destroy the Comms array. The door a little further in is locked, though.

Of course all the answers to these questions are now known but for a 9 year old it seemed very mysterious.

I especially love the Area 51 maps in perfect dark. Although there are 3 separate levels, the maps are all actually separate parts of one big one! (Iirc, there was a diagram showing it)

 

[Ayirek]

Morrowind was the first game I played where I really felt like I was dropped into a mysterious world. I didn't get that sense in a game the same way until Breath of the Wild.

A different kind of mysterious, but I recently did my first playthrough of Myst (well, RealMYST but it still counts!) And I'm so glad I did it blind. Incredibly intriguing concepts and wonderful puzzles - except fuck the Selenic Age.

Of course I have to mention Limbo. That's more on the creepy side of mysterious, but it's such a wonderfully bleak world and I love every inch of it.

 

[trimin]

1. Guild Wars OG trilogy - I was no longer a kid playing games anymore but this game managed to suck me in deep. The lore, the music (god, the music), the setting... Everything was perfect. To this day I still believe GW is the sole responsible for making me think so fondly of those years. I even got a friend to play with me not into RPGs OR fantasy.

Click to shrink...

Yeah got my cousin hooked on Guild Wars. Those were some good memories farming underworld with 55/spiteful spirit, going on chest runs, and doing faction pvp. Eventually we bought all the expansions but it was the first game that really captivated me. The world felt dense, at least lore wise.

 

[Egida]

Ico, SotC and Trico share this theme of mysterious civilizations lost long ago which is absolutely mesmerizing.

 

[Deleted member 4359]

Call of Duty 2 - At a store demo, was around 2006 and hadn't played a console FPS before, was 9 years old, I thought you had to shoot with A and had no idea what to do. Looked amazing.
VVVVVV - Just the presentation and it's entire look, this was prior to my knowledge of the European 80s scene so this must of been a big factor
Halo Reach - Forge World
Nier - Playing the demo from the JPN marketplace and hearing that music, I knew this was something really special, and then the

Spoiler

text

part completely fucked me since I went unspoiled
GTA V - Sounds dumb, but up until it came out, or rather, leaked we know nothing about the game which was going to turn out the biggest success in this industry. Coming off GTA IV the hype was unreal for what it would actually be.

 

[Thorzilla]

Yeah got my cousin hooked on Guild Wars. Those were some good memories farming underworld with 55/spiteful spirit, going on chest runs, and doing faction pvp. Eventually we bought all the expansions but it was the first game that really captivated me. The world felt dense, at least lore wise.

Click to shrink...

God yes. Dual monk UW farm was so much fun too. The endgame was Also fun and challenging as hell. The Deep, DoA and FoW stand as some of my top gaming memories. 12v12 faction battles were a revelation too, back in the day, knowing that the skirmishes had a very real effect in map control. I wouldn't have another holy shit moment PVP wise útil WvW in the sequel. Those were the days!

 

[angel]

Ico, SotC and Trico share this theme of mysterious civilizations lost long ago which is absolutely mesmerizing.

Click to shrink...

imagine a prequel, actually seeing them. Would be mind blowing if done right.

 

[CloudWolf]

Hollow Knight is probably one of the most mysterious ones I've played recently. I had no idea what to expect with every new zone.

 

[Deleted member 4378]

Zelda 1. It felt so huge and mysterious as a kid, and still kinda is. A Link to the Past & OOT give me a similar feeling.

More recently, probably Dark Souls 1. For some reason, I still think there's something hidden in the game, even though I played it forever, and it has been datamined to hell.

I'd probably also add Xenoblade 1 and Okami to the list, as both have a mysterious world, with a focus on exploration.

It's funny, as I just noticed most of the games I named are also on my list of all time favs. ;)

Edit: forgot to mention SOTC & Last Guardian of course.

 

[haveheart]

Yeah it's really hard to create mystery around a game these days. But there are are devs interested in bringing that back. I watched that Noclip video on games like Frog Fractions and Spelunky and the devs want to invoke the same sense of awe that they felt playing games during a time when there was no internet around. I really appreciate that, and from what I played of Spelunky, it does feel like there are a lot of things kept obscure and hidden from the player.

Here it is:

Click to shrink...

Boy this video is good.

Really interesting takes by these great developers. Couldn't help but just nod along everything they said. It's a shame that games more and more rely on handholding over the past years.

No wonder immersive sims are slowly dying.

My top 5 in no order:

Gothic 2
Prey
Dishonored
The Witness
Morrowind

 

[Dervius]

Unfortunately don't have time for lengthier write-ups:

The Final Station:
Great story lead game, has a mysterious story unfolding around you, almost separate to you and you struggle to piece it together. Great ending too.

Hyper Light Drifter:
As someone has said, almost no dialogue, primarily environmental story telling in an absolutely beautiful game. A joy to explore and wonder.

The Solus Project:
Designed for mystery, stranded on a mysterious planet alone, struggling to survive. You explore a seemingly abandoned and hostile planet, and encounter strange structures and technologies. Right up my alley.

INSIDE
Oh man. What a game. Absolutely dripping in mystery and atmosphere. It has a drmatic conclusion that raises more questions than it answers, and the in-game secrets just add new layers to the mystery. What an absolute joy.

Dark Souls
A masterclass in environmental story telling. You're just in the game. Coming up against bosses with the constant feeling of greater meaning behind it all. Look a little closer at your surroundings and the item descriptions and a deftly woven fabric of myth and history comes to the fore. Never before have I so enjoyed trying to figure out the back story of a game, discussing it with friends or watching videos from the likes of VaatiVidya. It absolutely enhanced my enjoyment of the game..


Honourable Mentions:
Assassin's Creed 1: The Templars, the Assassin's, the Animus, the small teases at the end of the first game really leant into a strange and enjoyable sci-fi conspiracy story, before the jumped the freaking shark.

The Evil Within 1: The game and it's sequel go somewhere that I actually quite like, but the first half of that first game, I spent most of having absolutely no freaking idea what was happening, like playing through a waking nightmare. It was brilliant and played into the horror aspects brilliantly. It gets more heavily explained later on but those first hours were an exercise in bewildered wonder.

 

[trimin]

More recently, probably Dark Souls 1. For some reason, I still think there's something hidden in the game, even though I played it forever, and it has been datamined to hell.

Click to shrink...

YES this is something I also wanted to point out. Some games still five off a sense of something still hidden even though there's not just by their atmosphere. Also that bit of randomness, such as rare enemy encounters or good procedural design, can add a lot to that atmosphere.

 

[Servbot24]

Demon's Souls is the most obvious one. Once I got past the first level and started going into the lava tunnels, I felt completely engrossed and like I was exploring some completely ancient and untapped layer of the world that was literally limitless in the terrors that could be beyond.

Majora's Mask and Wind Waker both felt mysterious as well and are the only times I've cared about story in Zelda. Those worlds were so unique and felt so deep, not in their expanse but in their art direction and in the way they tantalized you with small details. Breath of the Wild had some of these qualities, but felt too much like a playground to be quite as grippingly mysterious.

I'll also nominate the two main Mega Man Legends games. I've played both of them to death and yet I still wonder if there could be things I haven't seen.

 

[Cyberhaven]

The first Halo game. I didn't understand the Convenant, the Flood, the map layout, the weapons., the Halo ring. I loved that feeling, especially with the epic soundtrack it felt very alien and mysterious. Halo 2 killed the vibe, I knew it would happen eventually, but it was so damn good.

 

[Bashful Trey]

Undertale. I had no idea what to expect when people first started talking about it. By the time I put it down I had played 90+ hours, poking at every nook and cranny, and messing around with the game files and save states.

That game will always mean something profound to me. It is a stirring game underneath its humour.

As for a list:

Bloodborne
Dark Souls
Undertale
Yume Nikki
Chrono Cross
Metal Gear Solid 2