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”
The first season of The Walking Dead was very good, if you like Until Dawn. Firewatch is also very good, its kind of short, but I personally got sucked into the story. If your looking for old school style RPGS ( OG Fallout/Baulder’s Gate) Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity are good.
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.
- Bioshock Infinite
- Return of the Obra Dinn (You’ll have to work to figure out the story, but that’s the whole point of the game.)
- Undertale (I know it doesn’t look so good on the surface, but it’s brilliant once you get into it.)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (Dumb fun popcorn game with a decent story.)
- Hi-Fi Rush (A little bit lighter in the story department, but an absolute freakin’ blast to play.)
How do you feel about classic adventure or walking sim type games? If you’re willing to trade in shooting for talking and puzzles, there’s some fantastic stories there.
- LucasArts’ adventure games: (Older, more comedic, but some of the greats, and many have remakes available.)
- Grim Fandango
- Full Throttle
- Monkey Island
- The Dig
- Fate of Atlantis
- Wadjet Eye adventure games: (Newer, but emulating older styles. Darker than LucasArts.)
- Unavowed
- Technobabylon
- The Excavation of Hobbs Barrow
- Other excellent adventure games:
- The Longest Journey
- Life is Strange series
- Broken Sword 1-5
- Walking sims: (All story and exploration, very little challenge.)
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Firewatch
The nice thing about Hi-Fi Rush is that, while the story won’t blow your mind, the characters are all lovable, and it’s nice to have a Saturday morning cartoon sort of vibe where everything isn’t super grimdark.
I loved a lot of Wadjet Eye games. Technobabylon is a favourite of mine.
The now-defunct Daedelic had some decent games, my favour is Memoria. I don’t know why, but something about it stuck with me. It’s the right mix of darker fantasy with more low fantasy moments that I like.
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.