The Top Ten Best Deep Story-Driven Games I Have Played In the Last Five Years

The Game Room
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So I’m bored. And I was playing a game earlier (I’ll name what one down below, in the list) that made me really enjoy what an interactive, deep, rich, great story it told…

…and that made me think of other games that have really wow’d me in terms of being so incredibly story-rich in the last few years. I figured I’d make a list where I’d try to remember all of them that I’ve played and that–IMO–really went above and beyond the call of duty to tell the story that it did. IMO, these games listed here are games you want to play or try if you have not yet played them if you are one of those who LOVES a very engaging, drawn out story that is amazing, fascinating, or extraordinary.

And this is a ranked list, so yes, it will go in order from “Great game” to “IMO, BEST game OF ALL TIME, that does this”

All of these games are available on PC, by the way…on Steam, even, although they are all probably also on consoles as well.
Most of these games, if you check them on Steam, you’ll usually find have the review of “Overwhelmingly Positive”. Yeah…it has that for a reason and if you play these games, it will become quickly apparently as to why.

Feel free to either mention any that are not on this list…or even give your thoughts and opinions on the games already on this one, even if it wasn’t as good as you thought.

Before I get on with the list, though, some honorable mentions have to go to: Thomas Was Alone, The 39 Steps, Killing Time At Light Speed, Papo & Yo, and Sometimes, Always Monsters. All of these are pretty great games that you should try if you haven’t yet… they’re just not AS great (IMO) as the ones that happened to make the top ten, though.

Let’s start with number 10: Lisa
An RPG that doesn’t pull any punches. It’s brutal. It’s harsh. It’s pretty profane and violent. And yet, it tells a wonderful and oddly deep and moving story over the course of the game.

Number 9: Contrast
Extremely interesting and engaging game that tells a very interesting story and follows a little girl into a world of light and shadow as it reveals the story of her current life.

Number 8: Bastion
Great narrative in this one…all throughout it, actually. Such an original, unique, clever, and oftentimes funny way of telling a story. Does everything it does wonderfully.

Number 7: Child of Light
An RPG done wonderfully and that has a story that just gets better and better and characters you wind up really caring about.

Number 6: Gone Home
You come home on a rainy night after being away to college for awhile. The house is empty, though. You slowly go through the entire thing, searching for what happened, where your family might be, and uncover a long series of story and secrets along the way. One of those games where the setting is just…incredible. It sets the whole game up. It’s actually a bit creepy and scary at times (I thought, anyway), but without meaning to be. I mean, it’s not a horror game or anything like that… but…dark, deserted, big house…yeah, it can get creepy at times. The story you uncover over time, though, is really well told.

Number 5: Firewatch
This is the game I’m playing through right now…the one that prompted me to make this topic and that I mention in the second sentence above. It is NOT AT ALL like you would expect it to be. Looking at the screenshots on Steam, I thought this game was going to be boring. Survival Exploring ones like the game Miasmata is (which, I did not like. Not at all). But this one is much more story based rather than “explore and solve stuff” based. It’s actually much more linear than I thought it was going to be and it is DEFINITELY much more fun and humorous than I thought it was going to be. It is a very, very well told story that unfolds over the course of the game.

Number 4: Orwell
95 percent of this game is reading. But it’s not just reading, there is a very strong element of choice-making and decisions too. And this is one where your choices matter and they WILL effect outcomes, how things play out, and the ending. There are many ways this game can end based on the choices you make in it. It’s a superb story all round and very, very chilling at times too.

Number 3: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
This game has everything. It’s very charming, it’s very stylish, it’s very thoughtful and beautiful. It has great puzzles and a unique game play style… and the story will keep you drawn in and going too and really get to you.

Number 2: To The Moon
Great, great, GREAT game. Mostly just an interactive story, although you do move around and interact with some stuff. The story here, however, will hit you in all the most sensitive areas.

Number 1: Valiant Hearts: The Great War
It’s hard to put into words just how great this game is. You have to play it, IMO, in order to really experience it. But it’s a really epic, moving, well-told, sensational game and story all in one.
Anyway, that’s it. Hopefully it will give some suggestions or recommendations to people if they’re looking for a game to play that they might not have tried yet…if you’re a fan of the deep or well told story type.

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Thanks. This: “Valiant Hearts: The Great War” looks great and I’m a gonna buy it.

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Thanks for that list! I was literally coming into the games thread to ask for rich story games. Maybe asking for the best infocom game besides zorks, planetfall, hitchiker’s serieseses. (Though everyone is still free to make suggestions)

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I would add “The Last of Us” to this list. Console only but amazing characters, voice acting and story.

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I’ll second Valiant Hearts. I cried at the end. Very much wish they’d come out with another in the same style.

Brothers, Firewatch, Gone Home are also good. Of the three I like Brother the best, Firewatch was great but the ending sucked. Gone Home comes in third, but still very much worth playing.

Putting the others on my wishlist. Thanks!

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Yeah, I also cried at the end of Valiant Hearts. I’ve watched playthroughs of it on Youtube, too,…most people seem to.
Same with To The Moon. Those two games it’s very hard to keep a dry eye all the way through.

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I really enjoyed Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture, walking simulator criticism be damned. And to my knowledge, the main code still hasn’t been cracked.

Firewatch and Last of Us would be on my list too.

8

I’ll have to try Valiant Hearts.

Brothers struck me less as “deep” and more as “blatantly manipulative” to the point where it had the opposite effect on me.

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I liked Firewatch, but more for the dialogue than the story itself (though I liked the story well enough). What interests me most about it, though, is watching other people play it, and seeing the wildly different reactions people have. (Most notably, the different attitudes male and female players have toward Delilah.) Not saying anything further because I don’t want to spoil anything for Idle Thoughts.

Bastion has a great story, well told, supported by a beautiful style and fantastic music. No argument on this one.

I haven’t played the others, though I’ve watched playthroughs of some of them; I’ll forebear to comment on them.

Now, for my own contribution: Undertale

Don’t be fooled by its appearance. Undertale is a very, very deep game with some serious story cosplaying as a cute retro RPG. It’s quirky, charming, funny, and will subvert nearly everything you know about RPGs. It messes with your mind. It rewards you for paying attention–there’s story everywhere. Random monsters have their own lives and problems. It’s a master-class in decisions that matter. I’ve seen it take gamers from helpless laughter to tears more than once.

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The fact that Undertale is missing from this list means one of two things:

  1. You have really poor taste
  2. You missed one of the greatest story-driven games in the history of the medium

Given that I quite like all the games on your list I actually played (god damn, Bastion was awesome) and that I’m also not a dick, I’m going to hazard a guess that the answer is #2.

Go play Undertale. That point above was not exaggeration, this game really is something truly special, the kind of thing you don’t get very often. Some of the best characters, storytelling, and worldbuilding I’ve ever seen in a game. Go get this game. It’s awesome.

Also, another contribution in the last 5 years: Spec Ops: The Line. This one’s actually not an indie title, but talk about going “Above and beyond the Call of Duty”, eh? It’s a first person shooter examining PTSD and the horrors of war, with some really incredible story moments. It’s definitely worth picking up, whether you like modern military shooters or think they’re fucking awful - either position will have you loving this one. :smiley:

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Also going to give votes to Undertale, but with a caveat: Don’t spoiler yourself to it. Go through clean without expectations. It makes the game even more amazing / better.

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I just finished a great little indie throwback text game called Stories Untold. Full of great 80’s visual references (you’re “playing” the game, in-game, on a cassette drive!), it’s a take on the old-OLD-school-style text adventure, with four separate but linked stories.

For those of you not old enough to know what a “text adventure” is, it’s basically an interactive book or short story. The gameplay is essentially a puzzle game; you are presented with a paragraph or two of text, this text contains clues as to what you should type (you type commands into a prompt, e.g. “open door,” “look around,” “pick up [object],” etc.), and typing the correct response will access new or changed text, and this is how you progress the story and the game.

Anyways, good little game, good stories, and a great trip down to the far end of memory lane (for me, at least; I primarily dealt with floppy disks growing up, but there was a tape involved occasionally).

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I must have really poor taste then. I didn’t like Undertale.

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You’re right about this, though. I totally forgot about this one, even though I loved it so much I played through it twice.

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I can see how it’s not for everyone.

I will go against the grain a little bit, though, and say that I love the game because I knew something about it already when I played, and therefore (spoilers for those who haven’t played)

I knew at the start that it was possible to play through without killing anything, and that a ‘pacifist’ run was desirable, and so that’s what I did first up. If I’d played through fighting stuff as I would other games, I think I’d have bounced off it.

So, I would suggest that, although the general advice is not to read anything about it and come in clean, it’s not necessarily good advice.

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The best advice comes from frogs. Listen to the frogs, and you won’t have a bad time in the Underground. :smiley:

Seriously, the worst screwups I’ve seen people make in the game–in most games, for that matter–have come from not actually reading tutorial stuff as it comes up. Everyone seems to scan them for mechanics at most, and they miss or forget important details. YouTubers are particularly bad about it, probably because they’re afraid they’ll lose viewers if they take too long reading stuff, but lots of regular gamers do it. “Yeah, yeah, RPG mechanics, blah blah, let me click through this already.” Undertale plays fair; it lays out everything you need to know without outside spoilers, as long as you pay attention.

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I watched a stream of Night in the Woods from beginning to end a while back and it was highly compelling, so much so that I’ll have to play the game myself some day even though I already know what happens.

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I watched enough to get interested; now I’m avoiding any more until I finish the game myself. It’s very promising on the story front, but it’s the characters that drew me in more than the story so far. (Mae gets such good lines.) It’s probably worth a thread of its own, but I’m holding off until I get to the end.

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The real question is how much effort did you put into liking it? The game seems really simple at first, and along with the graphics level and cheesy jokes makes you think there’s not much going on. If I had played it not knowing that it was one of the best games of the year, I don’t think I would I have finished it once, not to mention the fact that you need to “beat the game” at least twice to get the actual end of the story.

The only thing I was disappointed in about it was how much of the game content was basically just in replaying the main story multiple times. I thought that the actual “end of the game” was a start to a longer quest; I didn’t think I had actually completed the entirety of the basic story. Of course, it’s not really until you do that that the real interesting parts of the full story actually start. Most of the game content cannot be experienced until playing through the second time, and even then you have to take to heart the hints you get the first play-through to be able to experience it, so those who have some sort of idea that they’ll only play a game through once and then move on are definitely not going to like it simply because they’re missing practically the whole story.

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Have you tried Trails in the Sky?