I recently finished Rise of the Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy XVI, and I’m hesitant what I should play next (PC or PS5).
With FF I enjoyed the game and the story was all I expected from it, and I’m really looking forward to the DLC.
With Tomb Raider… damn that game is all over the place. The story is predictable, and also stupid. “Why did you rush in there? Without weapons? Against an army?”, and other similar thoughts kept running through my head. I don’t feel inclined to play Shadow of the tomb Raider (the sequel).
I have a backlog of too many games, and lately it takes a lot of effort to start because I don’t know if it’s worth the time investment. I love games with good stories, and playing a game that puts the lore and story in the background feels like a waste of time.
Sure, I could get started on Baldurs Gate 3, I’ve heard great things. But is the story great? Will I be able to say “oh that chapter/fight/act is awesome!” To other people looking for game experiences?
Experiences like Escaping from the ship in Super Metroid, helping that king in Witcher 3, fighting Psycho Mantis in MGS, fighting Titan in FFXVI, killing the first colossus, escaping from darth Vader, that first Mario odyssey stage, beating the first boss in Bloodborne, playing “Brothers” for the first time and getting to the ending… all great experiences with awesome stories to tell
TL;DR: what am I missing?
EDIT: Holy crap I didn’t expect these many replies. Thank you! There are many recommendations I’ve already played, and many others I will definitely play. Thanks!
If anyone is interested in the result:
Recommended, bought:
- Bioshock 2
- Black mesa
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Death stranding
- Deaths door
- Detroit become human (PS5)
- Disco elysium
- Dragon Age
- Elden ring
- Fallout 3
- Fallout 4
- Fallout new Vegas
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Hades
- Half life alyx
- Hellblade senuas sacrifice
- Homeworld
- Horizon zero dawn
- Inscryption
- Just cause 3
- Life is Strange
- Mass effect 3
- Metro series
- Ori and the blind forest, and sequel
- Oxenfree
- Persona 5
- Planescape: torment
- Shadowrun dragonfall
- Shadowrun Hong Kong
- Soma
- Spider-Man
- Subnautica
- Tyranny
- Wolfenstein series
Recommended, to buy:
- 13 sentinels (PS4)
- Age of decadence
- Cruelty squad
- Dead space
- Ghost recon wildlands
- God of war ragnarok
- Grandia
- Kingdom Come Deliverance
- Octopath Traveler 1 & 2
- Outer wilds
- Pathologic 2
- Red dead redemption 2
- Song of horror
- Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG
- The hex
- the last of us part 2
- The upturned
- Torment: tides of numenera
- Withering rooms
- Yakuza
Already Played, and yeah, these are awesome:
- Alpha centauri
- Bioshock 1
- Bioshock infinite
- Borderlands series
- Control
- Dark souls series
- Deus ex human revolution
- Deus ex mankind divided
- FFXIV
- Ghost trick
- God of war 2018
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Hollow knight
- Hotel Dusk
- Mass effect
- Mass effect 2
- Nier: automata
- Nier: replicant
- Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney
- Portal
- Portal 2
- Psychonauts 1 & 2
- Spec ops: the line
- Stray
- the last of us part 1
- The Stanley parable
- Titanfall 2
- Undertale
- What remains of Edith finch
- Witcher 3
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Undertale
Ghost trick (it’s on steam now woohoo)
BioShock trilogy
The original Ace Attorney trilogy
Also +1 to outer wilds. It’s been mentioned a dozen times here already. It’s my game of the decade.
Shouldn’t need to be mentioned but play all of these games blind because story is a huge part of them.
I highly recommend Outer Wilds if you haven’t already. Just don’t get it mixed up with Outer Worlds
Outer Worlds is good too. Not as good as Outer Wilds, but still good. Sorta like New Vegas in space
Spider-man is something that isnt mentioned here yet. It has amazing setpieces and a good story.
Baldur’s Gate story is great, yes.
Dragon Age (fantasy magick adventure) and Mass Effect (space opera) are also great.
Describing Mass Effect as a soap opera makes me irrationally angry. I think you meant “Space Opera”, although even that isn’t accurate. It’s far more like Star Trek than Star Wars.
I definitely meant space opera lol oops
Metro series. It is not a horror game but have a nice story. Also, Astroneer is good. I didn’t give any change to these two games in the past, but now I regret my decision.
I was gonna say metro as well. Caught it on stream two years ago, liked it. Read the books, awesome. Playing the first one rn, found out I‘m a wimp.
Also fallout except 76 (I have it but i dont like playing it, I really don’t like the always online part).
The witcher series (currently reading the first book after watching the series and finishing all three games.
The first three Metal Gear Solid games have fascinating stories. They’re not the most logically sound stories and they have a lot of weird elements that make them hard to follow. At the micro scale they’re not the most comprehensive. On the macro scale they’re not hard to get into at all. When the story hooks you it really hooks you.
I was a child when I completed the first two MHS games. I never finished MGS3 because the disk got smashed to pieces. I do remember liking it a lot though. MGS2 is my favorite of the bunch. It was a good mix of old characters and new that carried the story in a satisfying way.
The absolute best story in video games(IMO) is the Mass Effect trilogy. For the longest time those games set the bar for video game story telling to me. Every character was so easy to get invested in. I cared for all of them and deciding who completed the journey or not was a series of deeply personal tough choices that carried across three games. Did the ending suck? Absolutely. Do not let that last 0.1% mar what is easily %99.9 one of the best space scifi stories in any medium.
MGS2 will blow your mind. This scene from MGS2 has been living rent-free in my mind since I first saw it as a teen when MGS2 came out.
Remember, this game came out around 2000. The internet was just starting to become relevant back then.
The 3rd act of MGS2 hits like a sledgehammer after so much light hearted, self-parodying, comfortably familiar heroic espionage. The story has aged so well. It invokes that eerie 4th wall break feeling that Psycho Mantis delivered, but on a prolonged and more meaningful scale.
As an edgy teen back then, I didn’t fully appreciate the brilliance of MGS2. It’s the one I look back at nowadays if I think about Kojima mindfuckery
The only problem with starting Baldur’s Gate 3 now is that it’s gonna be a crazy high bar for everything that comes after.
But if you want a great story that’s affected by your decisions and character, it’s a great place to go.
I see Undertale but not Deltarune. If you haven’t tried it yet, the two released chapters are free.
borderlands 2
optimally you scour up up to three friends to play with, but even alone the game is excellent.
it has a great story with one of the best villains in gaming ever (my opinion) as good as glados.
apropos glados the portal games are also a definite must play (what with portal 2 being the highest ranked steam game ever.)
My personal disclaimer on this is that Borderlands is way more fun with friends, but if you want to pay attention to the story you probably need to be selective about who you play with. I find most of the people I’ve played with don’t really pay attention to the story and I either need to skip everything or force them to wait for me, not ideal for either person.
Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds)
Ori and the Blind Forest
Hollow Knight
Outer wilds is the best story driven game ever
Also wanted to add Outer Wilds. The story is incredibly interesting and well-told, and it’s one you have definitely not seen before!
I wanted to say Outer Wilds too simply to have OP join us in our search for that high of another player experiencing this game for the first time. Nothing quite like seeing the game “click” when they finally get those big plot points.
Pleasantly surprised to see Outer Wilds here, which I just finished the base game of the other day. Starting the DLC now.
Great game!
+1 for Outer Wilds!
I came here to recommend Outer Wilds too
Red dead redemption 2 has a really good story. Gameplay is pretty immersive and lots to explore.
God of war have a really good story and gameplay is overall fun.
Ni no Kuni II I found to be an interesting story. Gameplay was fun overall.
Ori, both games, has a good story to tell. Overall good platformer
Hollow knight is a fun platformer and overall story is good. Similar but not as good, death’s door.
Death stranding has an interesting story but kind of strange. Gameplay is OK but can get a bit repetitive at times.
Spider-Man, overall fun. Story is unique.
Ghost of tsushima, good story and gameplay. Visually lovely.
Cyberpunk 2077 I found immersive, story wasn’t bad but might not be for everyone.
Second the GOW’s, RDT2 and GOT. Fantastic emotional plot driven games. I’d add both HZD’s too.
Forgot about Horizon. That was a good story as well.
I’m halfway through RDR2 and the gameplay is boring af. Ok not all gameplay, mostly the quests. The world is amazing, and it’s quite immersive indeed but 90% of the quests are, go here, shoot some guys, come back.
The issue with quests in RDR2 is that they give you no autonomy. Most games set a quest objective and give you a dozen ways to achieve it. RDR2 forces you to follow the exact path through the quest that the game wants you to take. If you deviate it either fails to progress or simply fails the quest. It felt more to me like an interactive movie than a game in that respect, though you get full freedom outside of quests.
Spec Ops: The Line.
A bit dated, but one of the few shooters that makes you question your actions and view warfare for what it does to civilians and to soldiers. Definitely some memorable story moments.
Not so thinly veiled take on Heart of Darkness via the games industry.
Fantasic game. Intentionally meh gameplay. One of my faves, highly recommend.
Really good, played it when it came out. That phosphorus scene with the bodies of the victims stuck with me forever
This game is not fun. Not at all.
But I do not regret playing it.
I was really surprised by Titanfall 2. Looks like an ordinary mech shooter (okay there is nothing ordinary about that these days), but the story was solid and the level design amazing.
My only complaint is that it’s way too short of a campaign. It’s very easy to beat over a few hours, but it’s fun the whole way through and I just want more.
If you enjoyed FFXVI, it’s worth considering FFXIV.
It’s currently free to play through its first expansion and the second expansion will be free next year. So it’s a safe game to try from that perspective.
The producer of FFXIV is the same as FFXVI. His mentality has been that he’s wanted players who don’t want to play an MMO to be able to play through FFXIV’s story as if it were a mainline FF game. I’d say 95% of story content can be soloed at this point.
The two caveats are these: This is like playing through five full length JRPGs. To finish FFXIV’s story takes months. It’s easily 400+ hours of playtime imo.
The initial base game story, called A Realm Reborn or ARR is mediocre. It’s not bad, but the story quality spikes up in a big way at the first expansion and then never backs down. Even the end of ARR is really good, but it’s only decent up until then. However, after ARR is some of the best story writing I’ve ever had the pleasure to play. Shadowbringers and Endwalker in particular still bring tears to my eyes when I hear certain songs or rewatch some cutscenes. Truly a beautifully told story.
Mass Effect and Borderlands
