Memes

Disco Elysium

‘Outer wilds’ don’t look it up. The most fun is play ing it for the first time. It doesn’t hold your hand though.

Spiritfarer, To the Moon, Gris (no words in this one but still a good story imo), anything SuperGiant has ever made with my favorite being Transistor.

Bastion will make you feel like you're reading a book. It's one of my all-time favorites, by the developers now best known for Hades.

Sea of Stars.

I'm listening to the soundtrack right now and it's awesome. The story is decent and the graphics and design are top notch. It was so captivating that I pretty much didn't play anything else while I was working through the game.

I absolutely adored a low budget game called Firewatch. It’s first person and your only contact with another human is through a radio. You’re running away from your life and work for a summer in a fire watch tower in a national park.

The story is nice and the characters are interesting and flawed and relatable.

Buy it on sale and have a fun evening or two with it.

Mostly in alphabetical order going down my steam list:

Great stories great games: Tales of Symphonia and Vesperia, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky trilogy, Metal Gear Solid, 2, and 3, Subnautica, Secret of Mana, Legend of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Hollow Knight, Spec Ops: The Line, A Hat in Time, Hades, Doom, Deus Ex, Eternal Sonata, F.E.A.R., FF6, FF13-2, Nier Replicant & Automata, Sleeping Dogs, Undertale, Valkyria Chronicles (admittedly haven't beaten it though).

Mindless fun simple stories: Ys (almost any of them), My Time at Portia or Sandrock, Resident Evil games, Rune Factory 4 and 5, Harvest Moon 64 and Friends of Mineral Town, Stray, Amnesia, Armored Core 6, Have a Nice Death, I am Setsuna, Life is Strange, Neon White, Cyberpunk 2077.

If you had to twist my arm I'd give you these variations of top recommendations.

Best typical JRPG: Tales of Symphonia

Best Metroidvania: Hollow Knight

Best where choices matter: Undertale

Best fps: Spec Ops: The Line

Best comfy story: My Time at Portia

Best environmental storytelling: Subnautica

Best simple stories in stories: A Hat in Time

Best story with a bajillion endings and things to keep playing for: Nier Automata (play Replicant too!)

Tales of Vesperia. I like the combat system most, but the story's pretty good, and there's a lot of optional content.

Oh sweet nobody's mentioned it yet! One of my personal favorite "book-feeling games" is an FPS series.

Linear, tightly focused, and feels like a novel because it's based on one:

Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light. (Haven't played Exodus yet)

You play a young fella named Artyom. Living in formerly-Russia's metro tunnels with other survivors after a nuclear apocalypse devastates the surface.

Your settlement comes under threat from seemingly psychic creatures called "the Dark Ones", and you're sent on a quest to go get help.

Across the way is a bit of a "coming of age" adventure. You run across really interesting and well-acted characters, sneak past hostile factions, contend with scary (and diversely behaviored) mutants, and risk dangerous excursions on the surface. This is a dark world where gasmask filters are precious and bullets are literally currency, but somehow it's still beautiful and fascinating.

(That intro guitar melody will stay with me forever.)

Like any good hero, Artyom finds himself in one bad situation after another, and along the way if you pick up on the hints, may even come to understand the world around him and the role he plays in it.

There's a morality system that's more subtle than "be boyscout or be a villain", and "ranger difficulty" is an amazing way to play because it makes gunfights feel tense and realistic.

You can only take a few hits in this mode, but unlike in most games, so can your enemies! It makes things feel much less "bullet spongey."

Everyone begged for an "open world" experience and we got Exodus which is supposed to be awesome, but something will always stay close to me about this post apocalypse story that takes you on a focused, well paced, and at times emotional ride to save a transformed world.

And that's just the first title mostly.

You won't be running between towns for hours or making rubber bands and glue into machineguns. You'll still feel like you're surviving, but know exactly where you're supposed to be going.

They go for super cheap on GoG and Steam all the time. Well worth the experience. :)

Story first games: Tacoma, What Remains of Edith Finch, Life Is Strange, Botany Manor(more puzzle than story), Open Roads, Lake, Deliver Us The Moon, Firewatch, Kona, Day of the Tentacle (The remaster is incredible)

For more standard shoot or action games with good writing/story I love the remedy games, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, Control.

I was never a huge fan of Telltale style story games that much, but I really enjoyed the Back to the Future one that came out years back. Not sure if that’s still available anywhere though.

Nier automata, nier replicant, Yakuza like a dragon, FF7R, Baldurs Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Control, star wars fallen order/survivor

The Blackwell series, West of Loathing, Talos Principle II, To The Moon series.

Star Wars Fallen Order has a great story and really fun gameplay.

I recently got "Yakuza Like a Dragon" from my Humble Choice bundle and it's so good it's made me want to check the rest of the series.

Pillars of Eternity. I've owned the game for 8 years but finally sat down recently to learn how to play a classic CRPG. I haven't been this engrossed in a game since Mass Effect 2 or Skyrim.

Witcher 3. The story is insanely good, just remember: your decisions matter (but don't look anything up).

Some people say it's hard to get into it and to be fair it is a bit complicated first but you don't have to use all mechanics, and it's well worth getting into it.

It just got an official mod creator (yes, that game from... 2015? (graphics from 2022 since there was a huge graphics update) still got a new update in 2024) and the community still is strong so it'll get even better over the next years.

Favorite point and click adventure: Sam and Max. They recently remastered the first season. Funny/silly game.

I have played "The Invincibles" recently. It's a beautiful walking sim.

In Stars and Time is especially appropriate for Pride Month!

Disco Elysium is phenomenal as well.

"To the moon", it will take you 4h to finish and the story is awesome, it's worth playing in a single playthrough. I wish I could forget and play it again.

You got a lot of great recommendations already, but I want to add one more indie game: Lost Words Beyond the Page. Gameplay is simple and it’s not very long, but the writing is excellent.

Don't know that they'll all be ported to PC but the Supermassive standalones (Until Dawn, The Quarry) and Dark Pictures Anthology are great, if you like horror movies. I prefer to watch my wife play them. They're literally like interactive/choose your own adventure films.

The Sea Will Claim Everything

https://store.steampowered.com/app/337720/The_Sea_Will_Claim_Everything/

Disco Elysium. Its an RPG, but most skills have an application both in the world but also in conversations (of which there are a lot, and very well written). Its got a very bitter-sweet vibe to it.

Just looking through my HLTB at things I've done recently:

The Ace Attorney series Sucker for Love Coffee Talk Haven (good for co-op)

If you want a bit more gameplay, but still chill:

Paradise Killer Braid Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

More gameplay focused:

Control Portal Wargroove Cat Quest Knack (I know it's a meme, but the games are actually pretty fun)

Martha is Dead. A tragic and frightening story. Heed to the warnings they give at the start, tho. My wife literally got sick from playing it. No other game or movie has touched me that deep.

Steins;Gate. It starts slow, but once it picks up it's amazing and puts all that slow build up to good use. Not sure if it technically counts though. Visual novels are a weird middle ground that aren't really book or game, but there are some really good ones. Definitely the way to go if you're in more of a reading mood but want some art and music to go with it.