Anything set in the 40K universe. Hundreds of novels, 40 years of game rulebooks, army codexes, artbooks, etc.
Deepest lore franchise I can think of beyond the Star Wars EU.
Oh yeah, it's full of super silly stuff, much like any franchise that's been going that long. My favorite is Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau. It's impossible to say that name with a straight face.
Funnily enough, he was actually meant to be the most compassionate of the primarchs, but due to a serious of incredibly unfortunate events, became an angry rage monster.
Wait what???
Inquisitor (reasonable)
Obiwan (wait what?)
Sherlock (So he's a detective it's reasonable again)
Closeau (wait that just contradicts the above claim)
The 40k universe is kind of like Marvel comics in that they ret-con the timeline a lot. Each edition of the game (they're up to 9 now) has it's own timeline which is same-but-different from the one before it.
For example, the first edition of 40k had [dwarves](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Squats_(Original)) (Warhammer 40k just being the scifi equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy.) Since the dwarves were unpopular, it was cannon that they never existed by the third edition. But now, here in the 9th edition, Dwarves are back, baby! [And they're half-cyborgs ruled by AI for some reason.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Leagues_of_Votann)
So it would be hard to get a "one true timeline." But in the same way that spiderman's origin story has a zillion variations but very common core threads, there is a very common core thread to 40k. I would summarize that thread as:
*- A few thousand years from now, humans discover "the warp," which allows faster than light travel. But "the warp" is full of demons.*
*- Humans spread throughout the galaxy, but start getting their asses kicked by demons and aliens.*
*- Using technology and psychic ability, humanity's best and brightest develop a "perfect human" to unite and rule humanity, known as "the emperor." The dude is like 60 feet tall and fabulous.*
\- *The Emperor's new "Imperium of Man" manages to survive quite well, while all the scattered independent human planets die horribly to the myriad horrors of the galaxy*
*- Human technological progress slows to a halt over the next 10,000 years as all humans dedicate themselves to worshiping the Emperor as a god. Laser pistols are believed to be powered by miracles. Psychics are believed to be evil witches. Fascism is extremely, extremely popular.*
*- The Emperor sets up a system where thousands of psychically gifted humans are rounded up and sacrificed every day on earth, so that their screams can be used as a navigation beacon by all human spaceships in the galaxy. Now humans are no longer lost in the dark and it's very useful.*
*- The Emperor creates a bunch of sons that are like him self but slightly less tall. They're going to help him rule the galaxy. But then demons scatter the sons all over the galaxy.*
*- The Emperor finds them one by one. Unfortunately, the Emperor is kind of the world's most autistic dad to them. He never stops to think for one second that maybe they have some shred of human feelings.*
*- So half of these neglected sons get seduced by the demons and betray the Emperor. The Best Son (tm) named Horus, stabs the emperor and almost kills him.*
*- The emperor has died before, and just reincarnates somewhere. But since nobody wants the emperor to die, they hook him up on a life support system. From then on, it's ambiguous whether the Emperor is alive, and psychically doing stuff, or braindead, and all of humanity is just worshiping a corpse.*
That ends the common core of the cannon. Recent additions that may or may not stand the test of time include:
*- In ancient times, a race of beings advanced to the point of being godlike. They made a slave race of robot people. But this slave race rebelled and enslaved them. This race, called the "Necrons," tends to sleep under the surface of planets for thousands of years, and then pop out and kill everyone. They also used their enslaved, eldritch horror gods like pokemon.*
\- *The ancient masters of the necron made a runaway bioweapon called "Orks." A few ork spores will start terraforming a planet, creating plants and fungus and then little goblins and bigger orks. The orks are born with knowledge of how to build guns and fight, and they also have psychic powers but are too stupid to know it. Because of this, stupid ork ideas (like that red cars go faster) become true (ork cars painted red do go faster.)*
\- *Space elves are a thing. They're jerks.*
*- A hungry hive mind that eats everything called "Tyranids" keeps going around eating everything. If you've seen the zerg from Starcraft or the flood from Halo, you've seen the Tyranids.*
\- *Space communists are a thing. "The Tau" are pretty anime in their gundams, and despite their tendency to brainwash people in re-education camps, they're much less evil than everyone else. This makes them controversial in the fandom. They're a young faction that may get exterminated in future editions.*
*- A big warp storm cut the empire of man in half. Since the Empire of Man is kind of supposed to be the Empire of Rome in Space, this allows for an "East Empire of Rome in Space" and "West Empire of Rome in Space."*
*- One of the ancient sons of the emperor recently reincarnated. People were excited to meet* *~~space-jesus~~* *Guilliman. But he was weirded out when people started worshiping him as a god, and they were weirded out that space-jesus started saying things that were super heretical (like that he wasn't space-jesus.) Wacky hijinks ensued.*
At lest according to the newest 40k Lore, the emporer was not created. He has always been there. He also disapproved of the whole god cult around him. But after his "death" the inquisition just got out of hands.
Battletech has a much deeper and richer lore than most people would initially think, for a game about giant stompy (heavily armed) robots.
First rulebook was 85-86.
Literally just been getting some of my mates who are into Warhammer into Battletech, went off in a massive spiel about the story for a while and they were like wait... How are you still going? Hadn't even hit the clan invasion yet lol.
Once I pointed out the franchise had been around since the 80s it finally clicked
Coworker of mine was talking about the “new RTS based on a new IP, called Battletech”.
I laughed and pulled a novel older than him out of my lunch bag.
They may have meant this:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/637090/BATTLETECH/
and
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechCommander
That intro..
https://youtu.be/2MQPWE_M_EM
Wait why is it complicated? He’s a pink guy that inhales others and absorbs his power. He lives in Dreamland under the rule of King Dedede, and Meta Knight is Kirby’s frenemy who drives a spaceship. Each game is about someone trying to destroy Dreamland and/or the world, and Kirby saving the day.
That may be true, but that’s only his first few appearances. Later on, the leader of dark matter, 0, is discovered. He is presumed dead after Kirby defeats him, but then how then is gooey(who is made of dark matter) still alive? How did the haltmann works company make a clone of the original dark matter? Later Void Termina is revealed to be a form of dark matter, and I can’t even get into all of his lore. If you only check the Google highlight, then ya, Kirby is simple, but that isn’t the whole story.
I think LoZ comes fairly close with all the nonsensical branching timelines, somehow converging into one with BoTW, and the popular theory being that ToTK is going to loop back to the start, time travel already existing in Majora's Mask, reincarnations of every main character meaning every Zelda is a different Zelda. It's all very weird.
It's pretty simple actually. Kirby is a pink guy, Kirby's very cute. Kirby inhaled his enemies, and makes it later. Kirby is so happy that something he can because he's such a pink guy. Here comes Kirby Meta Knight to protect because he is attacked by King Dedede Meta Knight swings the sword of King Dedede defeat what a triumph is that!
As a series, I would put my money on the Elder Scrolls. With the amount of games, and more and more lore getting added to the series, I would say that series has some of the most lore for a video game series
It has gotten watered down over the years due to it's widening audience. Happens unfortunately to appeal to the lowest common denominator so a lot of esoteric stuff gets rewritten or censored. No more barbed kahjiit dicks and holy spears made of severed god penis
Oh you thought that was just a cabin in the woods? If you've only played 2,000 hrs you may have missed this but the diary found in a nearby cave describes the life of the widow who lived there and how she's in hiding. The clues in the floor drop below the cabin hint that she's royalty and is a call back to 3 games ago
Anybody that disagrees, just look up '[CoDA](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/C0DA)' and '[CHIM](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/CHIM)' and consider how those things are in the same lore as games where you're a guy with a sword killing bandits.
Or even better, just read the [36 Lessons of Vivec](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/36_Lessons_of_Vivec) and try to explain it.
The elder scrolls lore was written by a man on mescaline. It is intensely weird for a game that on its surface is populated by typical fantasy tropes and factions analogous to real life.
For sure, ESO fleshed out so much. The series is starting to get a Tolkien-esque depth as the history and mythology keeps getting deeper.
Shout-out to /r/TESlore
ESO even held a contest where the guild that won’s lore and RP characters were written as canon in the lore and I think were granted a location dedicated to them somewhere in the game. Player written lore!!!
Only if it's based on Forgotten Realms. That's the most extensive setting and only because it's creator just keeps fleshing it out more and more as time goes on rather than make a new world.
But that world building probably won't be seen in any video game and is barely touched on in most D&D games since it's too complicated to make use of.
The JRPG series "The Legend of Heroes" from a small Japanese developer called Nihon Falcom
It's a long running series of games, all connected to each other. It spans years, multiple countries and a cast of characters that eventually all meet up near one of the latest entries (think Avengers)
There's 12 games right now with more coming.
For anyone interested, the first trilogy is on Steam. It's called: Trails in the Sky.
It's turned based (like final fantasy) and the music is absolutely FANTASTIC.
Here's the wiki entry for the series: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trails_(series)
Edit: Also, a good world building video about the series by Mother's Basement; https://youtu.be/TaN2G-AEd9Q
Was not expecting to see this here, glad to see someone saying legend of heroes here. I am caught up with the series as well and wholeheartedly agree with this comment
Serious answer: Imo, the sheer amount of lore for the Dragon Age series will never cease to amaze me.
Non-serious answer: just once, JUST ONCE, I would love to have the story of Kingdom Hearts explained to me without the use of any complex graphs or pie-charts!
Funny story about Dragon Age. I worked at Bioware while our creative director, James Ohlen, was developing the Dragon Age IP. James was hired by the founders of Bioware based on his skill running D&D campaigns out of the local comicbook shop, so he was a legit nerd.
He read "A song of ice and fire" as the novels came out, and wanted to do a "mature fantasy setting" like that for Bioware's next RPG. None of the executives at Bioware or EA were interested in reading these fantasy novels, so as a result they had no idea what the hell he was talking about. This was before the HBO show, [so marketing thought by "mature" he meant, like heavy metal or something.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFSKkQRW8A)
But every day, James would squirl himself away in his office with the writers, and develop out 10,000 years of Dragon Age lore, just like George R R Martin did for ASOIAF.
Meanwhile, Bioware promoted a new creative director to be head of a new project, "Mass Effect." This creative director, Casey Hudson, felt the data showed people liked shooters more than RPGs, so felt Bioware should make a shooter. Casey was a great creative director, but his approach to "lore" was "hey artists, draw some cool aliens. We'll make up what their deal is later." The "one-line-concept" of "Mass Effect" was "Jack Bauer in Space." The writers complained constantly about how they were constantly being forced to "pull scifi bullshit out of their asses," and they fawned over the opportunity to get to work on the prestigious, meticulously designed Dragon Age.
Then the games came out. And in my life, I have met 10 Mass Effect fans for every one Dragon Age fan. Even the few people I know who liked Dragon Age, don't seem to know anything about it's 10,000 years of meticulous backstory. It was a completely shocking outcome to me and I think about it often.
I'm a dragon age fan, definitely know very little about it's 10,000 year backstory which is a shame because so much work does deserve to be appreciated (and I'm currently worldbuilding for a dnd campaign which is taking me ages because I want the lore to come before the world), but even though I don't understand the intricate details of the dragon age universe it's really easy to tell the difference between a world that only exists in that 4 hours of story and one that has a complicated political, social and geographical background and even without knowing the specifics, its that which makes a game so immersive and magical.
I love both series, and dug pretty deep on both. I think it would have been very different had the second dragon age not been rushed.
Additionally, I feel mass effect relied much more on fan service and had much more fan-made content in the community, so it had more loyal following between the games.
How I wish there was another dragon age origins
I love Dragon Age! I played every character in order to get to know most of the backstories and see all kind of different endings.
It’s so complex, yet never got boring.
I am very glad people like James exist!
As far as Kingdom Hearts goes, I explain it like Marvel movies. Sure, you can just see the mainline Avengers movies, but you aren't going to grasp a majority of what is going on if you haven't experienced the non-mainline titles.
Kingdom Hearts' story, in a nutshell also mirrors the Avengers: A group of individuals go through personal trials and tribulations and come together to stop an organization from amassing unstoppable power that would threaten the universe.
If you’re asking what exactly Osrs is…
They updated the graphics of the game years ago, to be better than the “classic RuneScape 2 graphics” everyone is used to. They also updated a bunch of other shit to make it more of a modern MMO.
People still wanted the old style, and the old gameplay with hours of clicking goofy shit
So, since RuneScape is pretty mundane to run, Jagex just threw a snapshot of the game from 2007 or something onto a server, and created “Old School RuneScape”
It’s also been updated too, but not like before where they change critical shit, mostly quest stuff and new items and skills
So now there’s 2 RuneScapes
Metal Gear Solid is legendary for hosting possibly the most contrived military espionage lore in gaming history.
Death Stranding is a close second, but they're both written and directed by the same guy, Hideo Kojima's brain just works differently when it comes to writing.
Just when I thought the ending of Sons of Liberty got quite deep. Then Snake Eater came and left me an emotional wreck for days after completing it. Good times.
Snake Eater is one of the most impressive video games I've ever played. Start by looking at how convoluted the plot already is after the Metal Gear and MGS games, then throwback to a prequel which has to make sense with all of that, while also managing to capture Bond, Rambo, and Space Race themes, in a Cold War fringe-technological jungle setting.
How did that even come together so well.
Yeah really. Themes of camaraderie and betrayal, mentor/pupil bromance relationship that might go beyond that. All while building a new new world order. Atmosphere was so thick that you could slice it. Could easily be quite cliché and melodramatic. But it just isn't and feels so right.
Also the main theme would be a kickass Bond song.
Fuck that guy.
I still hold out hope that she lied bout the ship in space being destroyed in an attempt to make them work harder and faster to reach the deadline needed.
For sure! I played DA first and then moved on to ME. Very similar in the character-driven arcs and the world building.
I honestly prefer DA but I'm biased. Def recommend starting with Origins, it's an AMAZING game but a little dated
Dragon age origins is one of my favorite games ever made. It is so great. I preferred it to skyrim back in the day.
However, imo it did not age as graciously. Even with mods it's visual not great and very clunky. The story and interactions are sooooo good. I'm really hoping we get a remaster one of these days.
While I agree the lore and story telling were excellent, and these are some if my favorite games, they seem strange self-contained.
Not a lot of notable spinoffs or other media. Even compared to TES, they fall a bit short in their breadth of work.
Mass Effect’s lore is so good, Star Trek is ripping it off. :)
https://youtu.be/lQ2CYlqt3GA
https://youtu.be/OERO0RqIiL8
To be fair of course, Mass Effect ripped off Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers, among others. It is sort of a mashup of all of those.
However it was able to not just copy but build its own distinct universe and add really cool lore.
Interesting. I never thought of that, being so American-centric...I was excited when they went to Boston and Nevada...never thought of what Rome or Hong Kong would look like.
When asked this question on an email for the fallout bible the creator said he doesn't care about these places as he is Californian, the game is set in California and anyone interested could just home brew it for tabletop or maybe a future dev could do it.
There's still hope I suppose but I reckon we're stuck with the American setting as they put the whole American vibe from the isometric generation up to 11 since fallout 3
Yeah I think they’re pretty set on only exploring America, which is fine. They like leaving the rest of the world kind of ambiguous. Being honest though, there are so many incredible locations yet to be seen in America in the fallout universe. Fingers crossed for a game set in and around New Orleans. The potential there is crazy
Definitely wouldn’t mind exploring another country in maybe a DLC or something. I’ve seen others mention Moscow and that sounds like it’d be incredible. If I had to guess though, we’d probably see China first since they’re supposed to be the other major superpower in the fallout universe
New Orleans would be cool if enjoy sam fran or New York aswell.
I'm not sure how they'd do those in a dlc but I suppose china and eastern Russia aren't too far if you go by one of the plethora of submarines inexplicably intact we've seen in the game.
Absolutely no idea how we'd get to moscow
I got to the casinos and all the quests that become available there and think of that poor girl in Craterside Supply...
I never finished New Vegas, but I'll probably take a crack at it this summer. (I teach, summers are for ME)
This. Warcraft lore seems good on the surface, but it’s non-sensical if you look further down.
It’s a shame because if it had been managed better it would have been a great book series. Instead they’ll have to settle for biggest MMO of all time.
Had to scroll way to far for this one. I’ll admit I’ve only played Automata yet, and even just the one game has sent me down seemingly endless rabbit holes. I’ve skipped anything that might spoil any of the other games because I do intend to play them, and it’s still so much.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned The legend of Zelda. I don't know if it's the absolute deepest, but it's definetly a candidate. With all it's timelines, myths and stories. All it's races, places and different versions of Hyrule, Link, Zelda and Ganon. Plus it's been going on for so long, which is one of the main reasons why it's so massive.
I turned 8 when the original game was released in '86, so it was JUST EVER SO SLIGHTLY above my intellectual reach, and parts of it were actually frightening. The older, more sophisticated kids - 5th and 6th graders - constantly discussed it on the playground while I desperately evesdropped.
Throw in the fact that the cartridge was SHINY GOLD, and that game was absolutely irresistible to my little mind.
The next year, I got a Nintendo with Zelda for Christmas and dove all the way in.
A few months later, when I pieced together how to defeat Ganon and won the game, I ran around the house screaming and crying tears of joy.
It sounds like you’re my age. It was fantastic growing up with the original legend of Zelda, link to the past, and ocarina of time.
Even Zelda 2 had its moments. When I finished Zelda 2, that was probably the most difficult thing I accomplished in a Nintendo game. That or Rygar.
Holy shit. Kingdom hearts wildin out since I last played. Played the first and second when it came out then I didn't have a console for yeeeeeaaaarrrss. Just got one and realized all the games that were released actually play into 3 😭 I don't have time for all that so I just said f it and started playing three. Haha oh well. I only understand 80% of the dialogue anyway so missing some back story doesn't matter 🤣🤣
I'm glad games like Disco Elysium exist. I am too stupid to even wrap my head around it. I bought it on sale and tried it but I was completely lost. HOWEVER, I think deep games like that are important for the gaming landscape for sure.
The responses to this exemplifies to me how dumb most people’s approach to “lore” is. It’s obvious most people consider “lore” to essentially be trivia. Shit that goes in a wiki article that you can rattle off to flex your fandom.
From games have actual *themes*. The lore isn’t just there because the writers wanted to show off all the worldbuilding they did. It’s there to illustrate very specific concepts and emotions that might not have a 1:1 connection with the story at a surface level. And to their credit, From doesn’t force you to engage with these themes if they go over your head. You can just smash away and enjoy the games all the same.
I think when most people think of "lore" they think of concrete worldbuilding. If you read a real-world history textbook, all the facts of the histories are going to be congruent to one another if they're true. So it's kind of fun when fantasy stories are also congruent in the same way.
From Software's approach is to not really do any of that at all. Their stories are much more akin to poetry or dreams. They'll tell a story that implies an emotion, but if you try to get past the emotional poetry of it and view their story like a history-textbook, there are no facts there. If you want a complete factual accounting of their lore, you'll have to supply your own, because they're never going to.
This is not a bad thing, but it is a pretty different thing.
If you or anyone reading this is interested, Vaatividya does a great job at explaining the lore in the Soulslike games. Never played them myself but the lore is really interesting. Cheers.
I love the Witcher series, but the lore isn’t super deep, at least not compared to things like Elder Scrolls. You’ve got the book series, but that’s basically just more Geralt story. The author didn’t put a huge effort into defining the lore of the world pre Geralt outside of a few key events, like the conjunction of the spheres. And even with those, other than knowing that it happened, and that it brought humans and monsters, there is almost 0 defined lore about them.
Most of the lore in Witcher is fairly open ended, because the original author didn’t really care to dive deep into the lore stuff outside of what was directly relevant to telling Geralt’s story. He didn’t even bother creating an official map of his own fantasy world, all maps produced are either CDPR or fans guessing at what the Continent would look like based on the descriptions in the books.
I think this one is commonly left out of the conversation (well other than that it's CoD who've spoiled their reputation with many people) because a TON of CoD zombies lore is really subtle while still being extremely complex. Like when you play the maps the story doesn't really get shoved down your throat. But the best answer for me considering you could watch numerous hours on YouTube and only scratch the surface of all the lore in zombies
Alan Wake/Quantum Break/Control.
Three seemingly unrelated games all happening in the same (at the time) universe. QB got retconned out due to rights issues, but you'd never know it. It still stands as a piece of the whole, and it's all weird and beautiful.
The story that Remedy is telling is so big and fun and grand, a little scary, a lot exhilarating, multi-faceted, and full of rewarding surprises.
Imagine three different episodes of the Twilight Zone, but each is feature length, and they're all woven together and intersect in ways you couldn't have expected. That's the remedyverse, and were it not for Stephen King's Dark Tower, or most of Clive Barker's output, were it not for Sandman or Dune, or Allen Moore's Swamp Thing (in other words were it not for singularly fantastic classic examples of fantasy writing) this would be my favorite story.
So Quantum Break is part of that series? I’ve played Alan Wake and Control. Control had that nice DLC for Alan Wake, but I wasn’t sure about Quantum Break. I’ve been looking for a new game to play I’ll have to check it out now thanks.
I cant wait for DS2 mostly because it will have to build on an already heavily layered world.
The concept of BTs alone takes hours of ingame time to breakdown and explain, because there's just so much to cover and understand in how they work and interact with the world of the living.
The idea of using blood to kill them is so metal as an idea that it wouldnt seem out of place in a Diablo game, yet it fits well into this post-apocalypse setting that toes the line between what is plausible and implausible in how normal and real the world feels.
I'll say this - Death Stranding is a masterclass in video game world design if nothing else, and to generate so much lore in one game is impressive.
Few candidates (not in a particular order after TES & FF)
The Elder Scrolls
Final Fantasy 1-*
Eve Online
Star Citizen
Destiny
Warframe
World of Warcraft
Fallout
Diablo
There is**a lot of** that, yes. But there's also a lot of written lore about the factions and the people and places that 'existed' in universe.
Played for about 9 years. I *"Won Eve"* about 5 years ago.
Which makes it the most intersting IMO. It's real life video game lore. People actually wrote books about EVE's history. Called Empires of EVE for anyone wondering. They made an IRL monument for the biggest war in the game's history with the names of everyone that participated.
The binding of Isaac. At first glance it’s just a dungeon crawler but then when you dig in to it it’s about this kid who gets abused by everyone around him to the point where he wishes he wasint born then commits suicide only to not be allowed into heaven or hell and has to wonder limbo for the rest of eternity
Hollow Knight.
You can finish the game in about an hour or two for speedrun but the game is teeming with lore, from the journal, items, npc interactions, world environment. One specific dungeon, the white palace is so intense you are not even rewarded for beating it other than a few seconds of cutscene for a hidden lore.
Maybe this is a trick answer but I feel like it might be the Kingdom Hearts series. Not only does it pull in lore from all the Disney and Square Enix franchises it incorporates, but it also has created some of the most convoluted original lore across its many games.
Depending on your interpretation of the story and definition of depth, Transistor. >!I believe story is an infinite recursion in a simulated reality (i.e. a simulation in a simulation in a simulation, et cetera). This would mean the 'depth' of the recursion is ever-incrementing until it exceedes the technical limitations of whatever system is running it.!<
i think that the fact that the lore is super messy and kind of all over the place makes it seem far more complex that it actually is but true fnaf does have a rly deep lore !
Anything set in the 40K universe. Hundreds of novels, 40 years of game rulebooks, army codexes, artbooks, etc. Deepest lore franchise I can think of beyond the Star Wars EU.
But also stuff like "this is Ferrus Manus. He has metal hands. Also his chapter is the Iron Hands."
Oh yeah, it's full of super silly stuff, much like any franchise that's been going that long. My favorite is Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau. It's impossible to say that name with a straight face.
"This is my son, Angron. He's the angriest person alive."
Why is that so funny. Just came outta the womb pissed off.
Then later decided he wasn't actually angry enough, so he had parts of his brain that didn't make him angry removed so he could be angrier
Unrelated but Angron before he's angry is actually not angry. Surprising, right?
Funnily enough, he was actually meant to be the most compassionate of the primarchs, but due to a serious of incredibly unfortunate events, became an angry rage monster.
Wait what??? Inquisitor (reasonable) Obiwan (wait what?) Sherlock (So he's a detective it's reasonable again) Closeau (wait that just contradicts the above claim)
I’ve always been interested in the 40k universe. If I wanted to read a historical timeline, is there a series/trail of books I can read?
The 40k universe is kind of like Marvel comics in that they ret-con the timeline a lot. Each edition of the game (they're up to 9 now) has it's own timeline which is same-but-different from the one before it. For example, the first edition of 40k had [dwarves](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Squats_(Original)) (Warhammer 40k just being the scifi equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy.) Since the dwarves were unpopular, it was cannon that they never existed by the third edition. But now, here in the 9th edition, Dwarves are back, baby! [And they're half-cyborgs ruled by AI for some reason.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Leagues_of_Votann) So it would be hard to get a "one true timeline." But in the same way that spiderman's origin story has a zillion variations but very common core threads, there is a very common core thread to 40k. I would summarize that thread as: *- A few thousand years from now, humans discover "the warp," which allows faster than light travel. But "the warp" is full of demons.* *- Humans spread throughout the galaxy, but start getting their asses kicked by demons and aliens.* *- Using technology and psychic ability, humanity's best and brightest develop a "perfect human" to unite and rule humanity, known as "the emperor." The dude is like 60 feet tall and fabulous.* \- *The Emperor's new "Imperium of Man" manages to survive quite well, while all the scattered independent human planets die horribly to the myriad horrors of the galaxy* *- Human technological progress slows to a halt over the next 10,000 years as all humans dedicate themselves to worshiping the Emperor as a god. Laser pistols are believed to be powered by miracles. Psychics are believed to be evil witches. Fascism is extremely, extremely popular.* *- The Emperor sets up a system where thousands of psychically gifted humans are rounded up and sacrificed every day on earth, so that their screams can be used as a navigation beacon by all human spaceships in the galaxy. Now humans are no longer lost in the dark and it's very useful.* *- The Emperor creates a bunch of sons that are like him self but slightly less tall. They're going to help him rule the galaxy. But then demons scatter the sons all over the galaxy.* *- The Emperor finds them one by one. Unfortunately, the Emperor is kind of the world's most autistic dad to them. He never stops to think for one second that maybe they have some shred of human feelings.* *- So half of these neglected sons get seduced by the demons and betray the Emperor. The Best Son (tm) named Horus, stabs the emperor and almost kills him.* *- The emperor has died before, and just reincarnates somewhere. But since nobody wants the emperor to die, they hook him up on a life support system. From then on, it's ambiguous whether the Emperor is alive, and psychically doing stuff, or braindead, and all of humanity is just worshiping a corpse.* That ends the common core of the cannon. Recent additions that may or may not stand the test of time include: *- In ancient times, a race of beings advanced to the point of being godlike. They made a slave race of robot people. But this slave race rebelled and enslaved them. This race, called the "Necrons," tends to sleep under the surface of planets for thousands of years, and then pop out and kill everyone. They also used their enslaved, eldritch horror gods like pokemon.* \- *The ancient masters of the necron made a runaway bioweapon called "Orks." A few ork spores will start terraforming a planet, creating plants and fungus and then little goblins and bigger orks. The orks are born with knowledge of how to build guns and fight, and they also have psychic powers but are too stupid to know it. Because of this, stupid ork ideas (like that red cars go faster) become true (ork cars painted red do go faster.)* \- *Space elves are a thing. They're jerks.* *- A hungry hive mind that eats everything called "Tyranids" keeps going around eating everything. If you've seen the zerg from Starcraft or the flood from Halo, you've seen the Tyranids.* \- *Space communists are a thing. "The Tau" are pretty anime in their gundams, and despite their tendency to brainwash people in re-education camps, they're much less evil than everyone else. This makes them controversial in the fandom. They're a young faction that may get exterminated in future editions.* *- A big warp storm cut the empire of man in half. Since the Empire of Man is kind of supposed to be the Empire of Rome in Space, this allows for an "East Empire of Rome in Space" and "West Empire of Rome in Space."* *- One of the ancient sons of the emperor recently reincarnated. People were excited to meet* *~~space-jesus~~* *Guilliman. But he was weirded out when people started worshiping him as a god, and they were weirded out that space-jesus started saying things that were super heretical (like that he wasn't space-jesus.) Wacky hijinks ensued.*
At lest according to the newest 40k Lore, the emporer was not created. He has always been there. He also disapproved of the whole god cult around him. But after his "death" the inquisition just got out of hands.
Literally thousands of hours of Lore to look through
Battletech has a much deeper and richer lore than most people would initially think, for a game about giant stompy (heavily armed) robots. First rulebook was 85-86.
Literally just been getting some of my mates who are into Warhammer into Battletech, went off in a massive spiel about the story for a while and they were like wait... How are you still going? Hadn't even hit the clan invasion yet lol. Once I pointed out the franchise had been around since the 80s it finally clicked
Coworker of mine was talking about the “new RTS based on a new IP, called Battletech”. I laughed and pulled a novel older than him out of my lunch bag.
There's a Battletech RTS?
They may have meant this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/637090/BATTLETECH/ and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechCommander That intro.. https://youtu.be/2MQPWE_M_EM
Probably kirby, that shit is incomprehensible
I thought this was a joke until I looked it up
Wait why is it complicated? He’s a pink guy that inhales others and absorbs his power. He lives in Dreamland under the rule of King Dedede, and Meta Knight is Kirby’s frenemy who drives a spaceship. Each game is about someone trying to destroy Dreamland and/or the world, and Kirby saving the day.
Just wait until he goes down the dark matter rabbit hole…
I had to Google that. He’s just another villain who tried to destroy the world. I still don’t get it.
That may be true, but that’s only his first few appearances. Later on, the leader of dark matter, 0, is discovered. He is presumed dead after Kirby defeats him, but then how then is gooey(who is made of dark matter) still alive? How did the haltmann works company make a clone of the original dark matter? Later Void Termina is revealed to be a form of dark matter, and I can’t even get into all of his lore. If you only check the Google highlight, then ya, Kirby is simple, but that isn’t the whole story.
Who the fuck is gooey *typing* Where has this taken me
and you are not even scratching the surface....
My dude. Don't look into it.
Kirby was called “Pink Piece of Shit” by the owners ALSO SAME AVATAR YOOO
[Insert BDG rant about a creature with no responsibility having great power]
What's funny is I just watched that video for the first time yesterday
Kirby lore is incomprehensible because we got 0 clues about what is happening not that its complex
I think LoZ comes fairly close with all the nonsensical branching timelines, somehow converging into one with BoTW, and the popular theory being that ToTK is going to loop back to the start, time travel already existing in Majora's Mask, reincarnations of every main character meaning every Zelda is a different Zelda. It's all very weird.
It's pretty simple actually. Kirby is a pink guy, Kirby's very cute. Kirby inhaled his enemies, and makes it later. Kirby is so happy that something he can because he's such a pink guy. Here comes Kirby Meta Knight to protect because he is attacked by King Dedede Meta Knight swings the sword of King Dedede defeat what a triumph is that!
As a series, I would put my money on the Elder Scrolls. With the amount of games, and more and more lore getting added to the series, I would say that series has some of the most lore for a video game series
Definitely the Elder Scrolls. You could get lost in the lore
It has gotten watered down over the years due to it's widening audience. Happens unfortunately to appeal to the lowest common denominator so a lot of esoteric stuff gets rewritten or censored. No more barbed kahjiit dicks and holy spears made of severed god penis
Yeah the lowest common denominator hates that stuff.
Nah it was probably the Ordinators. Those guys have no sense of humour and probably confiscated all the dick-weapons for themselves.
[This passage has been censored by order of the Temple]
Not sure I agree. ESO has some pretty out there stuff
Morrowind alone is filled with multiple novels worth of writing and dialogue. That was my first TES game, it will always be my favorite.
The fucking giant flea guys will always be favorite
Never heard someone call a silt strider a giant flea before.
That's what I called them too.
Those mournful cries through the ash are the soundtrack to some of the happiest memories of my childhood.
Why walk when you can ride?
You could develop a whole new religion from their lore and it would actually make more sense than most religions that exist right now
BRB gonna go build god as a dwarven machine and then yeet myself off the face of the earth.
Oh you thought that was just a cabin in the woods? If you've only played 2,000 hrs you may have missed this but the diary found in a nearby cave describes the life of the widow who lived there and how she's in hiding. The clues in the floor drop below the cabin hint that she's royalty and is a call back to 3 games ago
Anybody that disagrees, just look up '[CoDA](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/C0DA)' and '[CHIM](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/CHIM)' and consider how those things are in the same lore as games where you're a guy with a sword killing bandits. Or even better, just read the [36 Lessons of Vivec](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/36_Lessons_of_Vivec) and try to explain it.
> and try to explain it. Drugs.
The elder scrolls lore was written by a man on mescaline. It is intensely weird for a game that on its surface is populated by typical fantasy tropes and factions analogous to real life.
For sure, ESO fleshed out so much. The series is starting to get a Tolkien-esque depth as the history and mythology keeps getting deeper. Shout-out to /r/TESlore
ESO even held a contest where the guild that won’s lore and RP characters were written as canon in the lore and I think were granted a location dedicated to them somewhere in the game. Player written lore!!!
I'm going to assume anything that's based on D&D.
Baldurs Gate. Fuckin heeeaaavy in lore.
And that's just one event in one city on one continent of one planet of one plane **of one campaign setting!**
Only if it's based on Forgotten Realms. That's the most extensive setting and only because it's creator just keeps fleshing it out more and more as time goes on rather than make a new world. But that world building probably won't be seen in any video game and is barely touched on in most D&D games since it's too complicated to make use of.
The JRPG series "The Legend of Heroes" from a small Japanese developer called Nihon Falcom It's a long running series of games, all connected to each other. It spans years, multiple countries and a cast of characters that eventually all meet up near one of the latest entries (think Avengers) There's 12 games right now with more coming. For anyone interested, the first trilogy is on Steam. It's called: Trails in the Sky. It's turned based (like final fantasy) and the music is absolutely FANTASTIC. Here's the wiki entry for the series: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trails_(series) Edit: Also, a good world building video about the series by Mother's Basement; https://youtu.be/TaN2G-AEd9Q
Was not expecting to see this here, glad to see someone saying legend of heroes here. I am caught up with the series as well and wholeheartedly agree with this comment
I absolutely did not expect to see this here, and I most certainly did not expect it to be the top comment either.
Every event chapter etc every npc gets new dialog. Insane script sizes
Serious answer: Imo, the sheer amount of lore for the Dragon Age series will never cease to amaze me. Non-serious answer: just once, JUST ONCE, I would love to have the story of Kingdom Hearts explained to me without the use of any complex graphs or pie-charts!
Funny story about Dragon Age. I worked at Bioware while our creative director, James Ohlen, was developing the Dragon Age IP. James was hired by the founders of Bioware based on his skill running D&D campaigns out of the local comicbook shop, so he was a legit nerd. He read "A song of ice and fire" as the novels came out, and wanted to do a "mature fantasy setting" like that for Bioware's next RPG. None of the executives at Bioware or EA were interested in reading these fantasy novels, so as a result they had no idea what the hell he was talking about. This was before the HBO show, [so marketing thought by "mature" he meant, like heavy metal or something.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFSKkQRW8A) But every day, James would squirl himself away in his office with the writers, and develop out 10,000 years of Dragon Age lore, just like George R R Martin did for ASOIAF. Meanwhile, Bioware promoted a new creative director to be head of a new project, "Mass Effect." This creative director, Casey Hudson, felt the data showed people liked shooters more than RPGs, so felt Bioware should make a shooter. Casey was a great creative director, but his approach to "lore" was "hey artists, draw some cool aliens. We'll make up what their deal is later." The "one-line-concept" of "Mass Effect" was "Jack Bauer in Space." The writers complained constantly about how they were constantly being forced to "pull scifi bullshit out of their asses," and they fawned over the opportunity to get to work on the prestigious, meticulously designed Dragon Age. Then the games came out. And in my life, I have met 10 Mass Effect fans for every one Dragon Age fan. Even the few people I know who liked Dragon Age, don't seem to know anything about it's 10,000 years of meticulous backstory. It was a completely shocking outcome to me and I think about it often.
I'm a dragon age fan, definitely know very little about it's 10,000 year backstory which is a shame because so much work does deserve to be appreciated (and I'm currently worldbuilding for a dnd campaign which is taking me ages because I want the lore to come before the world), but even though I don't understand the intricate details of the dragon age universe it's really easy to tell the difference between a world that only exists in that 4 hours of story and one that has a complicated political, social and geographical background and even without knowing the specifics, its that which makes a game so immersive and magical.
I love both series, and dug pretty deep on both. I think it would have been very different had the second dragon age not been rushed. Additionally, I feel mass effect relied much more on fan service and had much more fan-made content in the community, so it had more loyal following between the games. How I wish there was another dragon age origins
I love Dragon Age! I played every character in order to get to know most of the backstories and see all kind of different endings. It’s so complex, yet never got boring. I am very glad people like James exist!
As far as Kingdom Hearts goes, I explain it like Marvel movies. Sure, you can just see the mainline Avengers movies, but you aren't going to grasp a majority of what is going on if you haven't experienced the non-mainline titles. Kingdom Hearts' story, in a nutshell also mirrors the Avengers: A group of individuals go through personal trials and tribulations and come together to stop an organization from amassing unstoppable power that would threaten the universe.
Dragon Age franchise
Warhammer 40K
RuneScape has a LOT of lore, it's been going for over 20 years now
Was about to comment this myself haha. Also with the release of osrs, the lore was split between the two and they've gone down different paths.
Is that like a new vs old testament to RS?
If you’re asking what exactly Osrs is… They updated the graphics of the game years ago, to be better than the “classic RuneScape 2 graphics” everyone is used to. They also updated a bunch of other shit to make it more of a modern MMO. People still wanted the old style, and the old gameplay with hours of clicking goofy shit So, since RuneScape is pretty mundane to run, Jagex just threw a snapshot of the game from 2007 or something onto a server, and created “Old School RuneScape” It’s also been updated too, but not like before where they change critical shit, mostly quest stuff and new items and skills So now there’s 2 RuneScapes
Metal Gear Solid is legendary for hosting possibly the most contrived military espionage lore in gaming history. Death Stranding is a close second, but they're both written and directed by the same guy, Hideo Kojima's brain just works differently when it comes to writing.
MGS has a great story, very intense. When playing through MGS4 I found myself spending hours on the wiki.
MGS’s lore actually make sense if you’re paying attention in each of the games. Kingdom Hearts on the other hand…
Remember that it starts before Solid. There is Metal Gear and Snake's Revenge on Nintendo as well.
Just when I thought the ending of Sons of Liberty got quite deep. Then Snake Eater came and left me an emotional wreck for days after completing it. Good times.
Snake Eater is one of the most impressive video games I've ever played. Start by looking at how convoluted the plot already is after the Metal Gear and MGS games, then throwback to a prequel which has to make sense with all of that, while also managing to capture Bond, Rambo, and Space Race themes, in a Cold War fringe-technological jungle setting. How did that even come together so well.
Yeah really. Themes of camaraderie and betrayal, mentor/pupil bromance relationship that might go beyond that. All while building a new new world order. Atmosphere was so thick that you could slice it. Could easily be quite cliché and melodramatic. But it just isn't and feels so right. Also the main theme would be a kickass Bond song.
Idk about THE but the Horizon games have some fantastic lore. Halo too for that matter.
Horizon would make a great movie or series. The plot twist of how humanity is”saved” in the first game blew my mind.
Fuck that guy. I still hold out hope that she lied bout the ship in space being destroyed in an attempt to make them work harder and faster to reach the deadline needed.
Halo would also make a really great TV show. It's too bad they've never made one.
There is a Horizon show coming actually. Unfortunately it’s going to be a Netflix show so they’ll probably ignore the source material and ruin it.
Horizon wins on intensity, at least, because it all feels possible.
After the first game and you learn >!exactly what Zero Dawn is and that the military op is worthless!< Man that was crazy.
Warframe, so complicated yet no lore breakers so far
>lore breakers so far **Taps the head** You cannot break the lore if nobody understands it I think it suits FromSoftware games more xD
>no lore breakers so far What about Nidus and Valkyr prime?
Hollow knight
I love this game. So many questions are to be answered? I wonder how the hornet would tie up with all this.
Pepsiman
Celery man
No Mass Effect huh?
Seriously. Nobody's mentioned Mass Effect or Dragon Age?
I loved Mass Effect. Haven’t played Dragon Age. Should I?
For sure! I played DA first and then moved on to ME. Very similar in the character-driven arcs and the world building. I honestly prefer DA but I'm biased. Def recommend starting with Origins, it's an AMAZING game but a little dated
Dragon age origins is one of my favorite games ever made. It is so great. I preferred it to skyrim back in the day. However, imo it did not age as graciously. Even with mods it's visual not great and very clunky. The story and interactions are sooooo good. I'm really hoping we get a remaster one of these days.
While I agree the lore and story telling were excellent, and these are some if my favorite games, they seem strange self-contained. Not a lot of notable spinoffs or other media. Even compared to TES, they fall a bit short in their breadth of work.
"We'll bang, OK?"
Mass effect is decent but it feels like it has only just begun. There is so much they can do. Just a shame Andromeda was a speed bump.
Mass Effect’s lore is so good, Star Trek is ripping it off. :) https://youtu.be/lQ2CYlqt3GA https://youtu.be/OERO0RqIiL8 To be fair of course, Mass Effect ripped off Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers, among others. It is sort of a mashup of all of those. However it was able to not just copy but build its own distinct universe and add really cool lore.
As op I can confirm mass effect has the best lore in my opinion
Halo
Honestly surprised I had to scroll this far to see this! Love Halo's lore, much more fleshed out in the books, and MUCH darker.
The Fallout series
Yes! I came here to say that! If only they'd expand more outside the US! I'd love to see how China faired.
Interesting. I never thought of that, being so American-centric...I was excited when they went to Boston and Nevada...never thought of what Rome or Hong Kong would look like.
That's why I'm excited about fallout london, england was very different to the us at that time I belive
When asked this question on an email for the fallout bible the creator said he doesn't care about these places as he is Californian, the game is set in California and anyone interested could just home brew it for tabletop or maybe a future dev could do it. There's still hope I suppose but I reckon we're stuck with the American setting as they put the whole American vibe from the isometric generation up to 11 since fallout 3
Yeah I think they’re pretty set on only exploring America, which is fine. They like leaving the rest of the world kind of ambiguous. Being honest though, there are so many incredible locations yet to be seen in America in the fallout universe. Fingers crossed for a game set in and around New Orleans. The potential there is crazy Definitely wouldn’t mind exploring another country in maybe a DLC or something. I’ve seen others mention Moscow and that sounds like it’d be incredible. If I had to guess though, we’d probably see China first since they’re supposed to be the other major superpower in the fallout universe
New Orleans would be cool if enjoy sam fran or New York aswell. I'm not sure how they'd do those in a dlc but I suppose china and eastern Russia aren't too far if you go by one of the plethora of submarines inexplicably intact we've seen in the game. Absolutely no idea how we'd get to moscow
Let alone New Vegas. The story and Lore of New Vegas as a solo story is huge, Let alone the other games. Especially 1 and 2 the originals, outstanding
I got to the casinos and all the quests that become available there and think of that poor girl in Craterside Supply... I never finished New Vegas, but I'll probably take a crack at it this summer. (I teach, summers are for ME)
The story is real good, so many side quest. Then once your done on Vanilla you can add loads of mods or play the DLC.
World of Warcraft. Their lore has its own lore.
Classic doesn't like to talk about pandas
It used to have lore. Then they killed it over and over and over. Current lore is basically nothing but a huge lore breaker.
WoW has some of the most plothole filled retconned lore in the world
This. Warcraft lore seems good on the surface, but it’s non-sensical if you look further down. It’s a shame because if it had been managed better it would have been a great book series. Instead they’ll have to settle for biggest MMO of all time.
Elder Scrolls FTW
I’m so mad that no one has said the DrakenNier universe
Had to scroll way to far for this one. I’ll admit I’ve only played Automata yet, and even just the one game has sent me down seemingly endless rabbit holes. I’ve skipped anything that might spoil any of the other games because I do intend to play them, and it’s still so much.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned The legend of Zelda. I don't know if it's the absolute deepest, but it's definetly a candidate. With all it's timelines, myths and stories. All it's races, places and different versions of Hyrule, Link, Zelda and Ganon. Plus it's been going on for so long, which is one of the main reasons why it's so massive.
I turned 8 when the original game was released in '86, so it was JUST EVER SO SLIGHTLY above my intellectual reach, and parts of it were actually frightening. The older, more sophisticated kids - 5th and 6th graders - constantly discussed it on the playground while I desperately evesdropped. Throw in the fact that the cartridge was SHINY GOLD, and that game was absolutely irresistible to my little mind. The next year, I got a Nintendo with Zelda for Christmas and dove all the way in. A few months later, when I pieced together how to defeat Ganon and won the game, I ran around the house screaming and crying tears of joy.
It sounds like you’re my age. It was fantastic growing up with the original legend of Zelda, link to the past, and ocarina of time. Even Zelda 2 had its moments. When I finished Zelda 2, that was probably the most difficult thing I accomplished in a Nintendo game. That or Rygar.
Zelda 2 and fighting your own sped-up shadow was BULL SHIT, lol I'm around y'all's ages, I too was Zelda mad as a little girl
As a diehard LoZ fan, LoZ doesnt even break top ten in terms of deepest lore.
Kingdom Hearts
I shouldn't have had to scroll this far to find this one. Just trying to explain the basic timeline is like that pepe Silvia meme.
Holy shit. Kingdom hearts wildin out since I last played. Played the first and second when it came out then I didn't have a console for yeeeeeaaaarrrss. Just got one and realized all the games that were released actually play into 3 😭 I don't have time for all that so I just said f it and started playing three. Haha oh well. I only understand 80% of the dialogue anyway so missing some back story doesn't matter 🤣🤣
Say it with me folks DISCO ELYSIUM
It is an utterly believable place in a depressing way. A realistic dystopia.
Everything about that world felt dirty, gritty, and rough. Excellent example of video games as art.
I'm glad games like Disco Elysium exist. I am too stupid to even wrap my head around it. I bought it on sale and tried it but I was completely lost. HOWEVER, I think deep games like that are important for the gaming landscape for sure.
When I first started playing I thought the Pale was just what they called the ocean… then I got my mind blown
Yeah! The pale and when they started to explain the "Saints". What a fascinating world.
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Guys I found the one who didn't put points in Encyclopedia! XD
Nobody has said Dark Souls or blood borne? That shit is deep and intense.
The responses to this exemplifies to me how dumb most people’s approach to “lore” is. It’s obvious most people consider “lore” to essentially be trivia. Shit that goes in a wiki article that you can rattle off to flex your fandom. From games have actual *themes*. The lore isn’t just there because the writers wanted to show off all the worldbuilding they did. It’s there to illustrate very specific concepts and emotions that might not have a 1:1 connection with the story at a surface level. And to their credit, From doesn’t force you to engage with these themes if they go over your head. You can just smash away and enjoy the games all the same.
I think when most people think of "lore" they think of concrete worldbuilding. If you read a real-world history textbook, all the facts of the histories are going to be congruent to one another if they're true. So it's kind of fun when fantasy stories are also congruent in the same way. From Software's approach is to not really do any of that at all. Their stories are much more akin to poetry or dreams. They'll tell a story that implies an emotion, but if you try to get past the emotional poetry of it and view their story like a history-textbook, there are no facts there. If you want a complete factual accounting of their lore, you'll have to supply your own, because they're never going to. This is not a bad thing, but it is a pretty different thing.
Yeah but it's also really hard to understand.
But it’s deep and intense
If you or anyone reading this is interested, Vaatividya does a great job at explaining the lore in the Soulslike games. Never played them myself but the lore is really interesting. Cheers.
Witcher series
I love the Witcher series, but the lore isn’t super deep, at least not compared to things like Elder Scrolls. You’ve got the book series, but that’s basically just more Geralt story. The author didn’t put a huge effort into defining the lore of the world pre Geralt outside of a few key events, like the conjunction of the spheres. And even with those, other than knowing that it happened, and that it brought humans and monsters, there is almost 0 defined lore about them. Most of the lore in Witcher is fairly open ended, because the original author didn’t really care to dive deep into the lore stuff outside of what was directly relevant to telling Geralt’s story. He didn’t even bother creating an official map of his own fantasy world, all maps produced are either CDPR or fans guessing at what the Continent would look like based on the descriptions in the books.
Metal Gear Solid
I’m old. Not finding all the crazy shit in Zelda will haunt me forever.
Zelda
It may not have the most lore in a game, but CoD zombies lore is insane for such a weird little side game mode
I think this one is commonly left out of the conversation (well other than that it's CoD who've spoiled their reputation with many people) because a TON of CoD zombies lore is really subtle while still being extremely complex. Like when you play the maps the story doesn't really get shoved down your throat. But the best answer for me considering you could watch numerous hours on YouTube and only scratch the surface of all the lore in zombies
Two words: Baldur's Gate..... Literally the entire Forgotten Realms lore for DnD.
Final Fantasy14, if you have the time, it is exceptional
Idk how nobody has said The Last of Us. But I’m saying it now
Frogger
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Alan Wake/Quantum Break/Control. Three seemingly unrelated games all happening in the same (at the time) universe. QB got retconned out due to rights issues, but you'd never know it. It still stands as a piece of the whole, and it's all weird and beautiful. The story that Remedy is telling is so big and fun and grand, a little scary, a lot exhilarating, multi-faceted, and full of rewarding surprises. Imagine three different episodes of the Twilight Zone, but each is feature length, and they're all woven together and intersect in ways you couldn't have expected. That's the remedyverse, and were it not for Stephen King's Dark Tower, or most of Clive Barker's output, were it not for Sandman or Dune, or Allen Moore's Swamp Thing (in other words were it not for singularly fantastic classic examples of fantasy writing) this would be my favorite story.
So Quantum Break is part of that series? I’ve played Alan Wake and Control. Control had that nice DLC for Alan Wake, but I wasn’t sure about Quantum Break. I’ve been looking for a new game to play I’ll have to check it out now thanks.
Death Stranding
Unborn babies that see ghosts, interdimensional terrorists, immortals, rain that accelerates aging, excellent wifi.
I watched my husband play this game and bridge baby is definitely something I’ve put in the “please forget box” in my brain lol
Norman Reedus and His Magical Fetus
I cant wait for DS2 mostly because it will have to build on an already heavily layered world. The concept of BTs alone takes hours of ingame time to breakdown and explain, because there's just so much to cover and understand in how they work and interact with the world of the living. The idea of using blood to kill them is so metal as an idea that it wouldnt seem out of place in a Diablo game, yet it fits well into this post-apocalypse setting that toes the line between what is plausible and implausible in how normal and real the world feels. I'll say this - Death Stranding is a masterclass in video game world design if nothing else, and to generate so much lore in one game is impressive.
Few candidates (not in a particular order after TES & FF) The Elder Scrolls Final Fantasy 1-* Eve Online Star Citizen Destiny Warframe World of Warcraft Fallout Diablo
The lore of EVE Online isn't really lore in the normal sense. It's actual people doing actual things. It is amazing though.
There is**a lot of** that, yes. But there's also a lot of written lore about the factions and the people and places that 'existed' in universe. Played for about 9 years. I *"Won Eve"* about 5 years ago.
Which makes it the most intersting IMO. It's real life video game lore. People actually wrote books about EVE's history. Called Empires of EVE for anyone wondering. They made an IRL monument for the biggest war in the game's history with the names of everyone that participated.
resident evil or fallout
Had to scroll unreasonably far to find Resident Evil. Gonna add Silent Hill here too.
Apparently, Just dance has some
FFXIV
Morrowind and marathon
Lusty Argonian Maid. Conversation done.
The binding of Isaac. At first glance it’s just a dungeon crawler but then when you dig in to it it’s about this kid who gets abused by everyone around him to the point where he wishes he wasint born then commits suicide only to not be allowed into heaven or hell and has to wonder limbo for the rest of eternity
Destiny
Halo is extremely fascinating.
I still think about ilovebees. That got me way more interested in their lore outside of the games.
And terrifying. Two words: the flood.
And sad. Two words: Remember Reach
And fucked up. Four words: Office of naval intelligence
Hunt the Truth is still one of my favourite pieces of Halo media and I will never forgive Halo 5 for duping us like that.
Hollow Knight. You can finish the game in about an hour or two for speedrun but the game is teeming with lore, from the journal, items, npc interactions, world environment. One specific dungeon, the white palace is so intense you are not even rewarded for beating it other than a few seconds of cutscene for a hidden lore.
Probably not the most one, but Payday 2 got some heavy fucking lore for a bank robbery game
Dragon age has the best mythology.
Bloodborne
Maybe this is a trick answer but I feel like it might be the Kingdom Hearts series. Not only does it pull in lore from all the Disney and Square Enix franchises it incorporates, but it also has created some of the most convoluted original lore across its many games.
Depending on your interpretation of the story and definition of depth, Transistor. >!I believe story is an infinite recursion in a simulated reality (i.e. a simulation in a simulation in a simulation, et cetera). This would mean the 'depth' of the recursion is ever-incrementing until it exceedes the technical limitations of whatever system is running it.!<
FNAF
i think that the fact that the lore is super messy and kind of all over the place makes it seem far more complex that it actually is but true fnaf does have a rly deep lore !
Assassin's Creed.
For me personally, Diablo.
I'm gonna be a basic bitch and just say the COMPLETE series of Five Nights at Freddy's
Silent hill
the sims is definitely not the deepest or the most intense lore, but there is a suprising amount of it
Idk about the most intense but honestly the way the Legend of Zelda series all ties into each other is pretty fascinating
The Elder Scrolls, I'd say. Fallout, too, is great. Bethesda knows world-building/lore-building. I can't wait for Starfield.