> Someone suggested to not play for writing

This is not correct nowadays (it was surely so 15+ years ago, very roughly before the introduction of walking simulators and/or the expansion of the indie market).

Regardless, games that are strongly centered on narrative (writing) don't require a huge investment, so I think you'll mostly (or even exclusively) find them in the indie area; action/RPG games also are not the best in this department.

I suggest to start with "What remains of Edith Finch" - you won't be disappointed, assuming you don't necessarily look for action/RPGs.

Fallout: New Vegas is essentially a big choose-your-own-adventure platform with several major choices of varying mutual exclusivity. The real heart and soul of FNV, though, is in the incidental stories found in side quests and companion quests--while they are rarely necessary to "win the game" (i.e., trigger the credits screen), they are often more compelling than the major quests (find the MacGuffin and pick A, B, C, or D) and allow much greater opportunity for forming the player character. I'm not sure that you'll find the total storytelling better than that of a good or great book, but I think New Vegas still leverages the type of narration that is unique (but not guaranteed) by video games.

edit: Just remembered that Planescape Torment was created by Black Isle, the studio that also worked on the first two Fallout games. Black Isle later dissolved, but the key players later formed Obsidian, the studio that developed New Vegas on Bethesda's behalf. I imagine it's very likely you've already played FNV (in which case, I'd love to hear how your experience aligns with mine), but if not, it's probably up your alley.

The recent game The Outer Worlds is also very FNV-like. I really like it!

I, on the other hand, found it very lackluster. Most of the game's environments are filled with identical copy-paste monsters, it's almost entirely lacking all the incidental background quests and character material that make even the "bad" Fallout games feel like there's something new around every corner, and the game very visibly gets a simpler, less player-driven narrative as you go to each new world.

The 'side quest' side of all fallout games is usually far stronger and more interesting/rewarding for sure than the main trail which I think is almost deliberately made flat/weak to encourage you to explore the world more. The really good ones I think are the stories you piece together from terminal entries, particularly those in vaults (Vault 11!).

I had received very strong recommendations about the first two Fallout games.

They all right. I think there is some nostalgia goggles there, same with Planescape: Torment.

Decent writing, for a game, but the isometric view isn't great and the gameplay is clunky. Plot and theme-wise it holds together better than Fallout 3 -- which has plot holes so big you can drive a bus through them -- but FO3 was a lot more fun to play, at least the first 2-3 playthroughs, and has so many freakin mods it's a different game.

The very first two, like from 1997?[1] or the first two mainstream ones (fallout 3 and NV)?

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)

Yes, the actual first two.

I know people love games, but a lot of the suggestions have writing on par with if not worse than Mass Effect.

Give Disco Elysium a go. The writing's good, but how it uses Gameplay to explore that writing is what makes it great. Similar Amnesic setup to Planescape with interesting dialogue mechanics.

Interactive fiction games. I've never been a big gamer (I'm actually in a year-long hiatus from Mass Effect currently...) but I make a point of playing an interactive fiction game every few months. The older one favor logic puzzles sometimes instead of a plot, but the ones listed below do not. They take some getting used to, though.

My favorites in terms of writing: Newish:

  - Spider and Web
  - Babel
  - Photopia
  - Superluminal Vagrant Twin
  - Harmonia
  - The Dreamhold

Oldish:

  - Trinity
  - A Mind Forever Voyaging

The Internet often makes me feel old, but seeing Photopia called a "newish" game certainly put some spryness in my joints again. It's not that it's not a great game - it is - but even in its medium, I do think it should be called a classic by now. A lot of things have changed since it was released.

Over the last several years of very occasionally playing interactive fiction, I've been particularly impressed by:

- Cactus Blue Motel, by Astrid Dalmady. 2016. A coming-of-age story with a bit of magical realism, written in Twine. Highly accessible, and it takes just minutes to give the game a try: http://astriddalmady.com/cactusblue.html

- Chlorophyll, by Steph Cherrywell. 2015. Also a coming-of-age story, but mostly a rip-roaring scifi adventure. Could well make a good introduction to the more modern views on interactive fiction.

- Coloratura, by Lynnea Glasser. 2013. Carpenterian horror from an unusual perspective. Swept the awards in the IF community when it came out.

- Eat Me, by Chandler Groover. 2017. A twisted fairytale that's thoroughly obsessed with food - the richer and the more varied, the better. A great showing of how much a writer who's willing to go far enough with it can do with prose style.

The older I get the more I find all games to have horrible writing. Even games I used to love like ME are painful on replay. Most conversations boil down to “I don’t want to do a thing.” “But I’m Commander Shepard and I’m picking the blue option.” “OK, I will do the thing now!” Recent games with ‘good writing’ (pillars of eternity, divinity, MGS5) have all left me completely cold and wondering if I’m even playing the same game as reviewers are.

Maybe I can recommend games with a strong atmosphere instead. Like Morrowind, Deadly Premonition, Sleeping Dogs, Kentucky Route Zero, Silent Hill 2/3. Nier Automata if you like anime (which I don’t, so I didn’t find it as thrilling as many game reviewers seemed to).

Have you tried Planescape: Torment? The original Deus Ex (the prequels are definitely lackluster)? VtM: Bloodlines? Life is Strange? Dishonored?

+1 for VtM: Bloodlines. There is a review by a dude who goes by sseth (that's with 2 x s) that does a good job explaining why it's great.

What can change the nature of a man?

The higher the agency the less need for a plot. If you are looking for strong writing then you'll need to play games that are mostly based on a linear story with less agency. By linear story I don't just mean a half hearted chain of quests. Plot heavy games are almost indistinguishable from books. Sometimes you spend 10 minutes doing nothing but reading.

There is still some good writing out there for sure. Check out Spider-man on PS4 - it's a linear game so there aren't conversation options to choose, but the writing is up there with anything else in the spider-man/marvel universe in any format in my opinion.

The games you mention all seem to be games with options for dialog which if you think about it is hard to write for, games are the only medium where you're essentially choosing your own adventure and the writing has to be able to account for any/all choices and still end up leading you towards some kind of conclusion that makes some sense.

Hmm, I agree the writing in games can be on par with the writing in comic books and superhero movies, but I’m not sure that’s a compliment :)

Have you tried Disco Elysium?

Waiting for the switch version! I have a strange feeling I won’t like it though. All the dialogue I’ve seen is too self-consciously ‘wacky’. Although I don’t know to what extent that’s influenced by the fact that I see it via youtubers playing it and they’re picking the stupid options.

I think that Mass Effect had pretty good writing in the first game but the later games are pretty bad. Disco Elyseum has great writing, you might check that out.

The atmosphere of the first Mass Effect was incredible. After more than a decade later, I still have fond memories of that game.

The second one though, didn't really click with me, and I stopped playing the series there.

Maybe with EA games being on Steam now, I could give the third one a try.

I have a different take here: ME1 I loved, it did some incredible world-building and the reveal of the true bad guy will stick with me. However, ME2 is my favourite. It’s an appreciably smaller story, but it’s all about the characters, and they’re engaging people. The first visit to the nightclub is cracking.

ME3? Failure from start to finish. The opening scene just basically says “the last two games were completely irrelevant”. The ending is not only unsatisfying, it relies on stuff that was barely established even in the first game and not even mentioned in the others. It’s a textbook case of failing to stick the landing.

(And the less said about “choose your favourite primary colour” as an ending the better. Should have just had one ending and made it a good one.)

ME1 was groundbreaking for the time but really has not stood the test of time all that well. The gameplay mechanics are significantly rougher than ME2, ME2 feels like a shooter with strong RPG elements and ME1 feels like KOTOR where you get to aim the guns, it is very much an old-school bioware RPG title. The mako planet exploration is excruciatingly bad. Droid scavenger hunt on the citadel is excruciatingly bad. Endless elevator rides are excruciatingly bad.

There are some sequences that felt tedious but the story is definitely the best part overall.

ME2 is definitely the apex of the series by modern standards.

Also you forgot to mention ME:A. Maybe your face was tired? ;)

> ME2 feels like a shooter with strong RPG elements and ME1 feels like KOTOR where you get to aim the guns, it is very much an old-school bioware RPG title.

Funny, that difference is exactly what I most disliked about ME2.

I haven’t bothered playing it. Hardly even seems canonical and the reviews described it as worse than DA:I, which... did not impress me.

Frostbite engine is such an unwieldy monster that it has killed the last 3 games that tried to use it, all of them top-tier AAA franchises no less (BFV, Anthem, ME:A).

It is optimized for two things, Battlefield and FIFA, and it is even cumbersome for that (see: BFV's lifecycle and the numerous long-standing bugs that plagued it). It was never designed for an RPG and things like inventory systems and facial animation did not exist and had to be invented (badly). But EA is all-in on the "everything has to run frostbite company-wide".

This characterization is inaccurate and misleading. A game engine is a basic framework with which to build a game - responsible for things like platform abstraction, memory management, and the basic rendering pipeline - but much of what is identifiably part of any specific game lives on top of that. Unreal Engine and Unity don’t ship with “inventory systems” and neither are “designed for an RPG”.

Having worked on multiple Frostbite and multiple Unreal games, both engines are capable of building a wide variety of games. The discrepancies in my experience aren’t technical but organizational. It is hard to compete with the scale of Epic’s developer support organization and the wider industry inertia around their technology.

Make sure to get all of the DLCs as it will make the third episode immensely more enjoyable

> I think that Mass Effect had pretty good writing in the first game but the later games are pretty bad.

I really enjoyed the first Mass Effect and its three-way balance between storytelling, exploration and combat.

I was really looking forward to playing Mass Effect 2, but its storytelling didn't seem as good as the first game and exploration was almost non-existent. ME2 is more focused on combat, which seems to be what most people want (ME2 gets fantastic reviews), but to me that's the least interesting part of a game.

I never played Mass Effect 3, but I hear it is even more combat-focused.

Mass Effect 1 spent a huge portion of its attention on world building. And I agree, it's an outstanding achievement. Mass Effect's world is a very compelling place.

But by the time you get to Mass Effect 2, that world is already built. So ME2 instead spends its time telling a more contained story in that world. It's a valid choice, even if not your cup of tea.

ME2's story works because it's a relatively well executed Seven Samurai-style plot. We've seen this story many times before. It's a classic. Sci-fi stuff threatens the galaxy, assemble the crew, watch them love/hate each other through tough challenges, some don't make it through the epic conclusion, etc. Standard. For a lot of people, it's fun to relive those story beats in an interesting new world (Mass Effect) in a novel format (video games).

I think of ME2 as a smart and enduring example of video game writing craft. They were juggling a lot of different requirements: player choices affecting the story (including from the first game); a huge, complicated new setting; making the story accessible to new players without needing to play the first game; developing interesting characters; supporting multiple protagonists (male/female, paragon/renegade) and varied character interactions based on those attributes; supporting high production values (all lines voiced by real actors); fast development timeline; on and on. Hanging all of that on a familiar plot structure probably brought a lot of structure to what was otherwise a pretty chaotic project. Furthermore, what ME2 does better than other games in the series is let characters drive the action, rather than dragging characters from event to event. The writers did an amazing job on ME2 in context.

> Mass Effect 1 spent a huge portion of its attention on world building. And I agree, it's an outstanding achievement. Mass Effect's world is a very compelling place.

It really is.

It's a tremendous shame that ME 3 ruins it.

I agree that there is a lot more world building in ME1, but in the last few days I've been playing it again, and I'm finding that it doesn't exactly hold up.

The game just feels like a chore. For one thing, the environments are too big. There's a lot of walking to get from one plot-point/action-sequence to the next. Second, the combat is bad. AI, controls, weapons that don't shoot where you point them until you level up several times to upgrade the skill. The conversation trees often feel like I'm just going through the paces of uncovering Codex entries for XP, and the long, pregnant pauses between dialog portions as the game loads up the animations for your responses is super annoying. It's an exercise in frustration and it really harms the storytelling aspect. I just never feel like I'm in any kind of flow of hearing the story. It feels dragged out (and I even have bug-fixing and fast-elevator mods installed).

I'm a fairly middling FPS player, and by that I mean I usually rank in the middle of online matches against humans, and I can usually finish single-player campaigns on "hard", if I have the patience for it on those days. But ME1 has been so consistently frustrating me that I've about decided to quit.

I think ME2's great reviews were mostly driven by the excellent cast of memorable characters you got to assemble throughout the game. Such an upgrade over the BioWare trademark mild soup of forgettables in ME1, and also the biggest reason ME3 was maligned after relegating most of those beloved characters to a 5-minute scene.

Also, the vastly upgraded combat system.

Everyone says ME2’s combat is much better than ME1’s, but as someone who rarely plays shooters, I didn’t really notice much difference.

What changes in ME2 made the combat vastly better than ME1?

I think the first game relied on weapon overheating to limit how fast you could fire.

The second game used ammo clips and that made combat far easier.

That’s right. I’ve seen arguments over which scheme is better, but the second game’s scheme is definitely more orthodox.

I also keep hearing ME1’s combat described as “clunky” and ME2’s as “smoother”. Without much experience with this type of game, I think I just don’t have the skills to feel the difference.

You're probably playing on a PC with mouse and keyboard. The Xbox 360 Mass Effect controls were not great, but that was the original release.

> Disco Elyseum

Thanks for reminding me of it! I loved it. I didn't finish it though and might come back to it.

The greatest piece of games writing for me is the worldbuilding of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, through the informative texts for buildings and technologies.

Direct narrative in games is very tricky, because it can conflict with player agency.

Games aren't novels, if that is what you want. It's interactive storytelling. The interaction of story, gameplay, world building, relationships, choices, and immersion. Each individual element might not be extremely satisfying in isolation. But when combined into a cohesive experience it's something unique altogether. Mass Effect is likely revered because of how well it does that. Not because it is a good novel.

Mass effect is a CYOA novel. The moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't matter to the story; the only way in which the story is interactive is in the CYOA choices and the passive storytelling (unlocking codex info, environmental storytelling)

Maybe the game-play doesn't matter to the story (I'd argue it does because of immersion), but it definitely affects the experience. The experience is a collection of it's parts. You can't look at one in isolation (aka the story) and say that' its inadequate compared to an experience where that is the only part (a novel). Because a game offers more than just the story and if you ignore those other parts then you aren't appreciating a game for what it is. They all work together.

Sure, but a game would generally be improved by being less disjointed, right?

“428: Shibuya Scramble” _is_ writing, pretty much literally, as the game resides in the visual novel genre. However it manages to weave a complex tale of parallel interconnected narratives that is only possible in the digital medium; if you can approach it with an open mind I highly recommend it. One of the very few games that earned a 40/40 score in Famitsu magazine.

Is it actually filmed? Haven't played anything like it. Thanks.

I suffer with you here, as I mostly play to enjoy a story interactively. That makes gaming a really frustrating experience, as players in general seem to value action and farming over a good story... there are, of course, exceptions to this though: one of my all-time favourites is The Last Of Us 1 (haven’t bought the new one yet), which had incredible writing. Another was Witcher 3, maybe not for the main story line but all the detailed stories hidden in the woods of the game. Then there’s God Of War, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Unravel, all of which I can heavily recommend.

What do you think of The Last Of Us 2?

Different person, I think Last of Us 2 really stretches the medium and that is commendable. But the overarching themes are not satisfying.

I think people forgot that Last of Us 1 wasn't a satisfying ending either, aside from being able to empathize with why people did what they did.

In that light, Last of Us 2 really doubles down on making you feel dissatisfied, and I like that such a possibility mirrors real life: irrational, striving for redemption, but not necessarily getting it.

I hate that I had/choose to experience this in someone else's shoes. I love that they choose to portray it. The feeling is almost analogous to watching The Road if it ended with the adult's perspective, or how Children of Men kept me entertained, on the edge of my seat and able to admire the technical prowess of the intense long scenes with no camera cuts, but not sure if the resolution was a resolution at all. And how that's life.

I found the story of the leaks, backlash, counter-backlash, counter-counter-backlash etc. very entertaining. FOOOORE!

I found the real world reaction to be perplexing and also ignorable.

I found the story of the game to be very nihilistic, and that just doesn't make for something that feels good, but portraying that took real effort which I can appreciate.

My litmus test is asking myself "If this game had a different name and wasn't part of a franchise I liked, would I appreciate it" and the answer is yes, a resounding yes.

Nier:Automata has great world building and story. Also I'd suggest checking the Zero Escape games: 999 and Virtue's Last Reward.

Seconding NieR: Automata. It's a pretty quirky game with tight controls and combat, which is a plus, but the story is interesting and has a lot of variety.

In a similar sci-fi vein I've just started on Detroit: Beyond Human, which I've got high hopes for, story-wise.

Star Control 2. Game lore is massive and deep, and is given out in small chunks, never overwhelming the player. Mass Effect actually borrows from this game a lot.

Tie Fighter. If I had any doubts fighting for the Empire, they were all gone in just five of six missions. After that, I wanted to blast as many traitorous rebel scum from the space as I could!

Betrayal at Krondor. One of the best RPGs I ever played. Writers could challenge R. Feist himself!

Full Throttle. The finest LucasArts quest ever, with great characters and story.

Visual Novels. Danganronpa.

Hyperdimension Neptunia games made after 2013.

I would love to see games with emotionally involving improvisational acting with A.I. characters but we're not yet there yet.

Social interactions in virtual reality can can you into an intense places: characters can invade your personal space (to the point of causing an adrenaline dump) or make you feel uncomfortable by keeping too far away. Will we see something that is halfway between "Frog Blender" and "Ender's Game?"

I liked:

Beneath a steel sky

Psychonauts

Ico (I don't think there was much of an explicitly stated story, it's mostly atmosphere)

Pillars of Eternity and if you haven’t, the Baldur’s Gate series.

The Shadowrun RPG setting is very 90s but if you like that sort of thing the Dragonfall game a couple years back was quite well written - I had no prior experience with the RPG world but enjoyed it because of the story.

I really recommend Kentucky Route Zero, in case you're looking for a superbly written game. It's one of the best narration-driven games of the last few years.

I really enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn for the writing. Portal 2 and Planescape Torments had really good writing too.

But I agree with you, it's very difficult to find really well written games. Otherwise games that are closer to the old point and click adventure game genre have generally better writing: Gone Home, To the moon, The Book of Unwritten Tales, Overclocked an history of violence to name a few.

the Dishonored series for one.

Not sure if "worldbuilding" and "writing" are the same, or whether resources invested in the former leads to shortcuts in narrative, etc.

For Mass Effect, the main storyline seemed to be beholden to Video Game "Boss" requirements, but the side stories and character stories allowed whomever was assigned to those, to shine...

I recently finished Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Outer Worlds) where most of the story is told through "journal entry" style text. I thought it was a very poignant, bittersweet story. I also appreciated that there's no combat in the game.

Seconded. Outer Wilds was absolutely wonderful. The gameplay is lacking in places but after watching the making of documentary [1] my mind is still kind of blown by the technical side, even if it didn't transfer 100% smoothly to the player's experience.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbY0mBXKKT0

This video has given me even more appreciation for the game. The exploration in their design process, yet still achieving very intentional design for guiding player motivation. Incredible.

There's only a few games I enjoyed for the writing. Hard Rain and LA Noire come to mind.

God of War 4 The last of us Uncharted 3 + 4 Shadow of the Colossus Metal Gear Solid (I recommend watching one of those videos putting the story into chronological order) GTA 4 Red Dead Redemption 2

ToDo's on my list: - The Last of us 2 - Ghost of Tsushima

Psychonauts!

If story is your bag then Spiderweb Software's catalogue is worthy. Also the Project Eternity games: Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity 1&2.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Metal Gear Solid in this thread (although I really enjoy all the indie suggestions).

Each MGS game is essentially an epic interactive movie[^], with individual cutscenes lasting up to an hour.

Granted not everyone likes Kojimas style, but those who do won't regret their time. Best played sequentially from MGS2.

[^] MGS5 is a notable exception as an open-world style game and an abrubt ending, ultimately leading to Kojima leaving Konami. Still good fun and brings some of the stories from earlier games together.

Erhm, you'd be missing out on a lot by not playing MGS1. And MGS2 is considered one of the weaker entries in the series.

As for "Kojima's style", it's basically "AAA Japanese Game Studio Style", which is "tell a coherent story through the first half, then go completely off the rails in the second."

Surprised nobody has mentioned the Metro series. It’s made after a book, and I think it’s pretty good story-wise...

Witcher 2 and Dragon Age Origins (also Bioware

Second the Witcher series. They really bring out that Eastern Bloc cynicism / black humor, it is very refreshing compared to western games.

If you played and liked the games, read the books too. There are many things that can be written in the story, but are difficult to put into gameplay or movie.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was pretty awesome

Yes!

You might look at it and think "Robot dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic world where humans hunt them with bows and arrows? Sounds like good dumb fun, even if the writing is preachy and nonsensical." Thing is, the writing isn't preachy and nonsensical. It's unexpectedly excellent. They did something unusual:

1. hired a good writer 2. early in development 3. listened to him

and the results are phenomenal. No caveats necessary -- the story has none of the Mass Effect "strong limbs, weak backbone" issues.

Also, while HZD used to be a PS exclusive it will be on steam in a few weeks.

TL;DR: Pyre and Divinity Original Sin 2

---

Disclaimer: I'm not a person to dwell too much in the specific wordings in games, mostly valuing worldbuilding and the immersive aspects of storytelling, but I do pay some attention to it.

Divinity Original Sin 2 has some excellent world building, and while the overarching story might be a bit cliché "chosen one"/"zero to hero" type deal, the moment to moment narratives are pretty well made, and the quest lines are very well tied, not only giving you stuff to do, but giving opportunities to learn more about the world.

And also perhaps anything made by Supergiant is a good pick, in your case I would specially recommend giving Pyre a try. I held from playing it for the longest time because I was skeptical about the in-story "sport" gameplay, but it is very well made and perfectly enhances the narrative.

What can change the nature of a man?

20 years later we finally got the answer. Drinking yourself half to death and losing most of your memory in the process can change the nature of a man.