Comment by shmde | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shmde | Hacker News Reader

Here are some single player narrative/story driven games which are worth your time and money and also has decent to good storyline. The author seems way too salty over some games I think.

- The Last of Us 1 & 2 ( Must play )

- RDR 1&2. ( 2 is must play )

- GTA IV - Mafia 2

- A Plague Tale: Innocence ( must play )

- Metro series.

- Inside

- Witcher 3

- A Way out ( needs 2 player )

- Night in the woods

- Breath of the Wild ( if you own a switch )

- Undertale

- The whole Walking Dead series by TellTale. ( Similar theme of Last of Us )

- Life is strange. ( People say it has a clichéd story but I loved it )

- Detroit become human.

- Yakuza Series

- Sleeping dogs ( A man who never eats pork buns is never a whole man! )

- GoW (2018) ( PlayStation exclusive )

- Uncharted series especially Uncharted 4. ( PS exclusive but its coming to PC soon )

- Horizon Zero Dawn

- Nier Automata

- Subnautica

- Firewatch

- Alan Wake.

- Fallout (especially New Vegas)

- Dishonored series

- Pathologic 2.

- Disco Elysium.

The author knows that being salty and otherwise obnoxious drives clicks, which is as much how he makes money as the writing in the games.

I'd disagree with Undertale, which is the only one on your list I have played, although I didn't make it far (a few others you mention are on my list already). Of course, there is always quite a bit of personal taste involved in such things.

My list would be something like:

-RiME

-Falcom's Trails series

-My Brother Rabbit

-Rakuen

-Röki

-Higurashi When They Cry Hou

-King of Dragon Pass/Six Ages (particularly the mythology parts)

Maybe also to a lesser degree:

-Amnesia: Memories

-London Detective Mysteria

-To The Moon

Of these, RiME and My Brother Rabbit have no text but still tell a story very well IMO while Falcom's games have tons of text (more than any individual book) and cut some corners in the story but do a lot of things well and you get to interact with a lot of different characters and hear their perspective on the world.

Higurashi When They Cry Hou was IMO unquestionably the best written of them all (which makes sense as mentioned in another thread it is a book with sound not an interactive game), although I liked it least since I don't like horror but didn't realize it is a horror game.

For Fossil Echo and The Journey Down I thought the storytelling was particularly good in how it combines video with the game but the story itself was not all that good and the games themselves were disappointing IMO. I think I would put The Longest Journey in a similar category also (and likely Sibera, although I've only played a bit of it).

This is Jeff Vogel's blog.

That's funny. When I saw him being salty and obnoxious I checked the author on the piece, but since it was a Substack and didn't say "Jeff Vogel" I decided it was just a coincidence and I should keep reading since it was a new perspective. Guess not.

Star Control II and Alpha Centauri are on par with the best SF books out there. Vernor Vinge quality, I would say.

Oh yeaah SCII

SCII is a great example. The way the Ur-Quan are characterized, their motivations revealed, their factions delineated, is a lot more than you know about most villains. The way some little side mysteries become plot threads while others reveal the depths of the side character races is really good storytelling.

Where is World of Warcraft in all of this :(

Arguably one of the largest story worlds of all. Almost endless lore and a game which resolves around story telling.

It's been mentioned around on other comments but take a look at Outer Wilds if you have the time, you and I seem to have very overlapping preferences and I was surprised not to see it on your list.

Appreciate the suggestions! Will have to take a look at the few that I haven't yet.

Prey was interesting too, and I also enjoyed Deathloop from the same studio (story is mediocre, but the way you discover it during the gameplay is very compelling).

From telltale, I enjoyed also tales from the borderland.

I guess the list should also contain a lot of eastern RPGs. Final Fantasy (e.g. the FF7 remake) and similar titles have a lot of story.

Life is strange part 2 was a huge disappoinment. There is a subpar story in the game, and literally zero gameplay (click a button every 5 minutes - without exageration). Probably more for people who are interested in the atmosphere of the game than anything else.

since you mentioned Alan Wake all games by Remedy seem to have good stories backing the gameplay. Control would easily make a nice twisted TV series.

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