I watched a YouTube video about this topic today and thought it was the perfect idea for a post here. It’s pretty straightforward, it’s games you played in the past that you’re still stuck thinking about, or games that taught you a lesson that you’ve held on to.
I’m going to start. For me, the two games that perfectly exemplify the idea of a game that sticks with you are Sekiro and BioShock. I have a feeling Dark Souls will be a popular choice but I think Sekiro did it more for me personally.
Starting with Sekiro, I honestly think it’s the closest to perfect I’ve ever seen in a video game, at least for a first playthrough. It’s fun, challenging, rewarding, thoughtfully made, beautiful to look at, it’s got great voice acting, memorable characters, and I honestly can only think of two mini bosses that bring the whole game very slightly down. Every other aspect is a 10/10 from me. Not to mention the combat is the best combat of any game I’ve ever played. Personally, this game is the purist example of a game that forces you to get good at it, and does the best job at teaching perseverance. In the rest of the Souls games, you can upgrade your weapon, get a new weapon, use buffs, summon NPCs or another player to help, if you’re getting stuck. With Sekiro on the other hand, you need to get good. Above any other game, this one showed me just how well hard work can pay off. I feel about this game the same way video essayists feel about Dark Souls. If you know, you know.
Moving on to BioShock, this one really taught me the value of a good story, and showed me that video games truly are art. It helped that the game itself is a ton of fun to play, but on top of that the writing is just phenomenal. I’m assuming most people on here have played this one so I won’t get too into it, and in case you haven’t, most of what I’d be gushing about would spoil the whole game anyway, so I’m just leaving it short, but yeah. This game is the finest example of video games being an art form.
What about you guys? What has stuck with you the hardest? I’ve got more games I could talk about but I’d love to see discussion from you.
SOMA. Duplicating consciousness across multiple bodies and the branching off of one particular conscious mind to carry the narrative while the others were left behind was a fascinating concept for a game to engage with. Plus the atmosphere was a sublime nightmare.
This game has lived rent-free in my brain ever since playing it. Not always in a good way either, it’s some genuine existential horror.
The ethical explorations are interesting too, such as the implications of repeatedly booting up a personality to extract information from it.
That’s what I came here to say as well. It’s so well done and it hits in such a profound way.
Have you read any of the short stories on the game’s website? I highly recommend it. Catherine’s is so sad and it really gives a ton of insight into what she went through.
The discussion between Catherine and Simon on the elevator is my favorite dialogue in any game. Not just are the voice actors amazing but a common sci-fi trope is presented from a much darker view than usual.
(Spoilers for SOMA ahead; go play the game, it only costs 5 bucks on sale)
No game has ever affected me as much as Outer Wilds. Out of every life changing piece of art I’ve ever experienced, whether it be film, television, music, literature, or videogames, this is the first and only time I’ve ever gotten chills by the end.
The story isn’t super deep and it isn’t necessarily profound – it’s not really a belief-changer, outside of, perhaps, your idea of what a videogame is – but the experience itself is beautiful and rewarding and I’m not sure it can be recaptured.
Also for anyone looking to play it, don’t read anything about it! Not even the Steam description! It’s best experienced completely blind.
Same.
The story isn’t super deep and it isn’t necessarily profound – it’s not really a belief-changer, outside of, perhaps, your idea of what a videogame is – but the experience itself is beautiful and rewarding and I’m not sure it can be recaptured.
Spoilers for Outer Wilds ahead
I had an interesting discussion about this game with a friend who didn’t feel anything after finishing Outer Wilds. We came to the conclusion that while the “concept” of Outer Wilds is incredibly sad/beautiful, not everyone feels something for concepts and ideas.
For example, my friend is a serious cry baby when characters he knows well die in games/shows/movies. We barely know anything about the Outer Wilds universe, its inhabitants or even our protagonist, so there’s nothing sad about individual characters perishing.
Yet you, I and many others deeply connected with a story about the volatility of the universe and life itself and how everything has to come to an end.
(DLC spoilers ahead)
The same applies to the DLC, there is nothing inherently sad about either of us perishing. We barely know anything about the stranger, the owlks, the prisoner or our protagonist. But the idea of both of us being dead inside of a simulation, drifting through space on a dying vessel in a dying universe is a heart breaking thought to me.
As disappointed as I was that not everyone seems to experience these emotions, it for sure is interesting.
::spoiler
My game time is limited so I play what I hope to be most impactful. My list is chock full of unforgettable experiences:
- Control
- RDR2
- Uncharted
- Dead Space
- God of War
- Ori and The Will of the Wisps
- Disco Elysium
- The Artful Escape
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Gris
The first three I’d say there was life before and then life after. The rest, I wouldn’t want to miss if I had a redo in life.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 both could’ve made it for me too, but for the sake of the post I only wanted to do two games so other people could suggest some. I absolutely agree with your picks
Games that play with metanarratives stick with me:
- Beginner’s Guide
- The Stanley Parable (Ultra Deluxe especially)
- Break The Game really stuck with me the ending especially.
Damn! Your list made me remember that I missed Superliminal.
Which led me to Stanley’s Parable, which I hated. I maintain that I totally missed something despite a few playthroughs to “the end” but it seems to have just gone over my head.
*Break the Game is $2 during the Summer Sale. Definitely trying it.
Which end? The main story is just a narrative device, in fact you shouldn’t really obey the narrator at all. Calling any end “The End” doesn’t make sense in the context of the game, really. Unless you just broke out of the mind control facility three times then called it quits? That end is supposed to be non enticing so that you try literally anything else before putting it down. I think the going insane end sticks with me the most. Although the game dev commentary in the recent release is fun.
You should play Slay the Princess if you haven’t. It’ll be up your alley and it’s fucking good
Thanks for the rec. It’s on sale on GOG so I nabbed it!
I hope you thoroughly enjoy it like I did!
Rollercoaster Tycoon. What was a silly little game which we got for free out of a cereal box is now a main stay on any computer I own. Runs on everything and has aged incredibility well.
Shoutout to OpenRCT2 for modernizing it, even if the original games run fine as is
Nier Automata
The Last of Us
Undertale
Prey 2017
Heres a weirder one no one else has mentioned yet: I’ve heard art described as a way to express and emotion, and I really felt that with Hotline Miami. Its not done through the story or setting (in fact, the intentional ignorance there adds to it) but rather the contrest between the hyper-violent trance as you play through a level, and then the sudden cut of the music as you quietly walk past the mountains of bloodied corpses back to your car. I feel that shift, when you first notice it, really emphasises the pointless brutally of it far more so than many much more heavy-handed attempts in other games.
I think “What Remains of Edith Finch” traumatized me to this day.
That game was extremely relatable for people with mentall illness. The game essentially asks the question of whether you can escape your fate from genetic mental illness. In the game, most members of the Finch family suffered from “a curse.” But it was it fairly obvious that the curse was mentall illness.
God, that game is so good.
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Gris and Subnautica. For different reasons, they made me feel things I didn’t think I could feel while playing video games anymore.
For me it would have to be BioShock infinite the gameplay, story, characters everything about it was amazing to me.
I will forever rave about CrossCode, an indy game I found on gamejolt in 2016. It’s a top-down JRPG with great action, a cool parkour mechanic, and really pretty pixel art. It officially released in 2018, and it’s one of my favorite games of all time.
Added. This looks like it would be fun on the Deck and checks out at ProtonDB
It’s on sale right now, I’ve added it to my cart. Looks really interesting
I love this game. Number 1 game I’ve ever played. Sooooo good. I love thr characters so much
I’m really surprised that nobody’s mentioned The Last of Us yet. It really used the uncommon technique of changing POV to really suck me in to its storyline. Right from the start when Joel’s daughter dies in the tutorial it was a gut punch as I had ‘been’ her just a few minutes ago. But the whole story was so immersive I found by the end I was really engaged with the characters and their stories. Spoilers for the end of The Last of Us if you’ve not played or watched the series. In the last big action piece in the Fireflies Hospital on my first play through I shot both the nurses in cold blood because I was so upset about what was happening. I like to think of myself as a ok person, at least better then the kind of guy who’d do that but in the heat of the moment I was so angry I totally empathise with Joel and his desire to kill everyone threatening Elly.
A lot of games try to open with a character death and fail because they don’t really give you a reason to care about the character. The perspective swap in The Last Of Us’s intro is absolutely amazing for that exact reason- it’s hard not to empathize with someone when you’ve literally been in their shoes for a bit.
My big three are Outer Wilds which at this point barely needs mentioning, Disco Elysium which seems to be getting more famous by the day, and Hollow Knight.
Outer wilds is an exploration game, and if the other comments haven’t been clear, that’s all I’m saying.
Disco Elysium is an unbelievably dense police procedural set in a unique setting, it can also be fantastic to explore without hearing much beforehand but unlike outer wilds, you don’t really need to beat yourself up for looking up the occasional piece of lore.
Hollow Knight is a souls-like metroidvania, so it’s ticking the Sekiro / Dark Souls box well.
I got about 90% through the game with only a rough understanding of the lore before ending up watching video essays about it and I was absolutely blown away. I don’t think the lore is overly difficult to find, and isn’t that complicated, but like FromSoft’s games, it’s not always delivered in a way that you naturally pick it up.
I play a lot of games with the “media literacy” part of my brain firmly switched off, because often games handhold you through the storytelling. With Disco Elysium, you know from the getgo that it’s a pay attention kind of game, but Hollow Knight, it sort of feels like a storyless flash game, and sometimes key lore is delivered in a beautiful set piece or creature design, so I only realised I should have been paying attention when it was too late to catch up.
I got no less enjoyment from it by catching up on the lore later though, these three games are absolutely my top three.
My final bonus suggestion is to bash out all the supergiant games in order, Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades all hit the marks for me to sometimes just stop in awe and let myself get chills, although less tban the three above. I also think Pyre is one of the most overlooked games of all time.
I never played Outer Wilds and I don’t know anything about it, but I absolutely love Disco Elysium and Hollow Knight. I might check out Outer Wilds since I agree with your write ups with the other 2.
Thanks for the rec.
I was enthralled by almost every part of my Disco Elysium experience, but it was the main character’s past trauma that sticks with me. The phone call, the nap dream–both hit me hard. I’m also gutted that we’re probably never going to see another game set in that world again. The global setting concept of Elysium is a stroke of genius as far as I’m concerned.
Hades 2 is excellent so far, by the by.
Hollow Knight had me excited for the world like I was a kid. It shows the devs had an artistic vision.
For me its Subnautica because the progression works so well. I’ve tried lots of survival games and sandbox games with similar progression afterwards, but none of them had the same impact on me. It’s also because of the genre - Sci-fi on an alien planet, discovering what actually happened, and all that baked into some real satisfying gaming loop. Also, without spoilers, the end sequence always makes me emotional, regardless of how many times I’ve played it. It just speaks to me on a personal level.
There was so much thought put into that game. While I couldn’t work it out for myself, with the help of guides I worked it out. The sense of peril and discovery was wonderful.
Subnautica is the perfect mesh of several things that work fantastically. It is a good survival game but with it’s upgrade and discovery based exploration limitations, it’s closer to a metroidvania than it is to Minecraft. The thing it does so well is sneak this past you, it’s a mystery driven metroidvania where the downtime is a resource gathering, based building game.
The closest game I can think of of that tried the same mystery metroidvania approach is The Forest, but this feels like one of the many many games from the post Minecraft and DayZ boom that has a certain scrappiness to it that somehow Subnautica absolutely sidesteps, and it’s all from just being a really well made game. The vibrant and often tranquil art style that lends itself to awe inspiring locations, and the level design and overall plot support eachother so well.
That said, I’m not in love with the amount of resources. A 4*8 gridded inventory puts me off a game from a worry of it to getting too grindy, and subnautica is a “I need to build another storeroom” kind of game. With a full survival game like Minecraft, which is endless and about exploration and progress alone, I know my storage will be unweildy and I can forgive it, but I’d have appreciated Subnautica finding a way to require less mindless resource hunting / busywork unless itnwas optional base cosmetics or the like.
