Hi, as it’s in my title. I’m looking for narrative driven games with good story, something I can play on my steam deck. Not something open open world but more of a on rails experience.
Things I’ve played that that should give rough idea what I have in mind:
- The last of us
- until dawn/the dark pictures anthology series
- the quarry
- new/remakes of resident evil games
- Road 96
- Alan Wake remake
I obviously have a horror/mystery preferences and I want the story to be told to me, I don’t like the dark souls approach of “guess or read all of the in game books or w/e to have a chance at glimpsing a hint of a story”
Disco Elysium, Weird West and Trails in The Sky FC are great narrative driven games. They deal with a lot of different topics in mature ways, hoping you get some good recs out of the thread
A couple that popped to mind from my library are Pillars of the Earth and the Banner Saga. I haven’t played a lot of either because I prefer open games and get my narratives from books instead, but they were both spoken relatively well of when I looked at them.
Pyre kind of counts, too, though the story and gameplay are both kind of weird. It’s decent, just unique.
Some of my favorite stories in games would be BioShock Infinite (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), Planescape: Torment (lots of reading, but very good), Spec Ops: The Line (stick with it past the first few hours…it picks up), and the Metal Gear Solid series (which, fortunately, are just becoming officially available on Steam very soon). And of course, for the type of game you’re looking for, it would be odd if I left out the likes of Half-Life.
If you want a campy, thrilling, exciting story that knows it’s dumb and doesn’t take itself too seriously, I’d highly recommend the Mortal Kombat games. You’ll have to pirate Mortal Kombat 9 (also known as “Mortal Kombat 2011” or just “Mortal Kombat”) because it’s no longer available for sale, but Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11 continue off of it and lead into the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1. Likewise, from the same developers, the DC fighting games Injustice have really good story modes as well. I don’t like much DC super hero stuff, but Injustice 1 (Gods Among Us) is maybe my favorite thing ever done with Superman. As for Batman, the Arkham series is held in high esteem, and my favorite of those is Batman: Arkham Asylum.
I’m also presently in the middle of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for the first time, and while the story isn’t exactly blowing my mind, it’s intriguing and keeping me interested leading up to the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 in a few months.
You might enjoy Control.
It’s by the same devs as Alan Wake and has an Alan Wake tie in DLC since they take place in the same universe. It’s fairly linear with some optional side missions. The setting is similar to SCP if you’re familiar with that. You’re in an office building dedicated to an organization that contains extra-dimensional threats and there’s been a breach that has to be contained.
Story is pretty straight forward but there are some humorous notes and videos you can find that help explain the primary story and some of the objects that are being contained in the bureau.
Prey 2017, Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex HR, Vampires the Masquerade Bloodlines, Mass Effect, Disco Elysium, FF7 Remake, Guardians of the Galaxy, Rage 1, Spec ops: the line, the witcher 1/2, all the Yakuza games