Games

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the most recent example, but I also love the writing of Horizon. I wish it was more mature, but it's good writing overall. Excellent setup.

Outer Wilds. The game isn't very text-heavy, but what there is feels important and personal. With the way the story is told, it is quite possibly my favorite story overall. I don't want to say too much, since knowledge is key in that game, but I would highly recommend it.

I just played around 6 hours of it, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 intro made me cry. With everything going on in the world right now the sense of despair is very relatable.

A lot of games are written pretty 'middle of the road' to get as much of a broad base as possible. A few stand out though.

The Last of Us really hit hard when I played it. I came to the end of that game feeling a little bit like I had an adoptive daughter, and feeling guilty that I had, to my mind, let her down.

There wasn't much 'writing' in it but Shadow of the Colossus also hit me pretty squarely in the chest.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was another that had some real power to the writing. Go listen to this setup (stop at 2:47)and tell me that isn't made to give goosebumps.

Cyberpunk 2077. Years since I booted it for the first time I am still at it

Blue Prince sure feels like it counts, our whole family is hooked, and has been playing it every day for about 2 weeks now. Even well after rolling credits.

In a similar vein, I'd have to say Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds. Together with Blue Prince, they all have a storytelling strategy of "you have to put some effort into getting the story out of it", but the effort makes every new discovery or revelation feel super rewarding.

Celeste is the one that comes to mind for a more traditional story that REALLY hit.

Persona 5 comes to mind, too. I was ENGROSSED in that story for months. Even if it went off the rails a couple times.

I'm also gonna shout-out Tales of Symphonia. That game was formative for me.

New Vegas, the writing of the dialoges are brilliant. Some of the funniest or straight up saddest stuff are both there.

• Life is Strange
• Telltale walking dead
• Final Fantasy X (or VII, or basically insert most any)
• Gone Home
• Mass Effect 1&2 (never finished 3 lol)
• Outer Wilda
• Undertale
• Descent Freespace 2
• Silent Hill 2
• Heavy Rain
• Disco Elysium
• I have no mouth and I must scream
• Limbo
• Braid

The Cat Lady is one I'd say stands out to me.

Gone Home - when I finished the game I was legitimately sad that I couldn't spend more time with the people whose lives I got to know so intimately from their environments. And yes, they didn't feel like characters anymore, they felt like actual people. That's one of the highest praises I can give to a game's storytelling.

Disco Elysium is, without a doubt, the best written game I've ever played. That game had me experience the entire rainbow of emotions.

FFVII set me up to be an eco-Marxist.

Disco Elysium helped me come to terms with my alcoholism and learn to move forward with my life instead of wallowing in self pity and loathing for the things I had done.

Really those are the two games that affected me most heavily in my life.

A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Infocom.

It's an old text adventure from the 80's with a particularly cool and oddly relevant concept: You take the role of an AI that's been meticulously raised in a simulation to truly become a general intelligence. The reason this project was undertaken was to eventually send you, the AI, into other simulations based in the near future to test the outcomes of various political policies of the new republican government, record your interactions, and report back to the engineers who created you.

The game's designer said that he created the game in response to the despair he felt from Ronald Reagan being elected.

I haven't gotten super far in it, but it has an incredibly well written short story in the manual that details all the events leading up to the start of the game, and so far the game itself is unlike anything else I've ever played.

What Remains of Edith Finch comes to mind for me.

In the game, you play Edith Finch going back to her family home. It was home to multiple generations of the Finch family. This family has a serious case of bad luck, and most of them didn't get very old. As Edith, you explore all of the rooms and see the final moments of the person who used to live there.

It is not a horror game - but it is haunting, in a sense. If you enjoy good stories and writing, give it a try. It's only about 2 hours, and best played in a single sitting. It's also on sale regularly.

Bioshock infinite, really pulled me in.

Seconding Spiritfarer.

I also became entirely entranced by Horizon: Forbidden West. A death in that game hit me unexpectedly hard, and I had to take a couple days off from playing it to kind of deal with the grief. I tried the first Horizon, but I feel it didn't get anywhere close to the depth in worldbuilding and character development of the second game

Horizon: Zero Dawn. Such a haunting, beautiful story.

CrossCode. I won't spoil anything, but Lea very quickly cemented herself as my favorite protagonist of all time.

Hell blade: Senua's Sacrifice.

The game itself helped me understand people, who are no longer with us, in a better way. The manner in which psychosis is presented is powerfully accurate, at least from an outsider perspective. It made me cry as it portrayed struggles in a manner truthful to the symptoms beyond the effects - the story and execution of it really gripped me.

Journey, there is no word but the story is so well written i

Yakuza 0 got me very hard in the feels...

Such a shame that the next ones (1-4) weren't as good. But Zero... what a ride.

SOMA still lives in my brain 10 years later.

Life is Strange
Spiritfarer
Titanfall 2
Hellblade
Red Dead 2
Hades
Oxenfree

Many more, but these stood out on actually caring about the characters and what happened to them.

Come on, noone mentioning Planescape Torment so far?!

I'll say the obligatory Red Dead Redemption. What a ride. From beginning to end. It legitimately feels like an "epic" where the character and world develop.

As you get to the end of the game and you're in the more populated areas that feel like they have left the wild West behind and the parallel with the story... it's great.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 and 2 have an awesome main story line with writing that makes me feel like I am playing video game sequels to A Knight's Tale.

But then it also has some pretty yawn inducing stuff, too, that might be interesting to history buffs since it takes place in real life, during real historical events in Bohemia. A lot of politics and nobility dick-waving. I skipped through a lot of random side quest dialogue because it was just an hour of discussing politics. 🤣

Disco Elysium tho is hands down the best written game I've ever played. We need more video games to be written by actual authors. It also just has an insane amount of branching paths and differences in how you play that mostly appear in dialogue, but also just wearing different clothing can change things dramatically.

The quarry, and until dawn were pretty good. A bit lacking in gameplay, but awesome stories.

Witcher 3 tells many stories that contribute to an overarching story.

Fallout new Vegas does it with the option of murder hoboing

Bg3 is pretty good story wise too ❤️

All games from the Too the Moon series.

Talos Principle is the best story I’ve played hands down.

A Way Out. Highly recommend playing it with your closest friend. Fucking game made me feel stronger emotions than any other game I've ever played, because the motherfucker I was playing with is my best friend. I'm not going to spoil the ending, I'm just going to say: heavy fucking feelings