r/gamingsuggestions • u/IntelligentBid3120 • 15h ago
Looking for deep lore games
As the title suggests, first of all, sorry for my bad English. I'm looking for games where, beyond the main story, the world has a lot of history and lore, like in The Witcher or The Elder Scrolls games.
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u/Offal 14h ago
Get Rogue Trader - you can dive deep into the lore, and it is not 'just' the human race that the story covers.
Excellent writing on top of the extensive 40k backstory.
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u/Duun_Hlava 11h ago
the writing really does carry it, the xenos factions especially have so much going on
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u/Throwawaybabe2005 14h ago
Try Mass Effect. You'll spend more time reading the codex than shooting lol.
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u/RheimsNZ 14h ago
Mass Effect for sure. Full codex, great game and a hugely interesting universe it's a great choice here
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u/Drafonni 14h ago
Dark Souls and Hollow Knight have a lot of that.
You could also give real life lore (history books) a shot!
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u/Asshai 14h ago
The easy answer would be pre-existing universes/lore that got adapted into a video game. Out of these, 3.5 stand out for the sheer quantity of novels and fan content produced over decades:
- Star Wars (e.g. The Old Republic)
- Dungeons & Dragons (e.g. Baldur's Gate 3)
- Warhammer (e.g. Total War:Warhammer) // Warhammer 40000 (e.g. Space Marine 2)
IF we exclude any adaptation, then we still got a few obvious candidates:
- Elder Ring (and any From Software game, but ER stands out)
- Mass Effect
- Dragon Age
IF we go deeper, here are two that really surprised me because I didn't start playing expecting the lore to be so deep:
Genshin Impact (the lore gave birth to quite a lot of fan theories regarding the main character and the game universe)
Warframe (seems like a standard sci-fi setting until you dig deeper, unfortunately it's though to follow the lore from in-game quests only, I think quite a lot of info was only given during special operations that accompany the release of new content, but it's still there on the Wiki)
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u/PvtSherlockObvious 14h ago
Pillars of Eternity 1/2 and their spinoff title Avowed. There's so much lore to that setting. Factions and the nature of the setting's gods and the cycle that souls follow... If anything, some people find the sheer amount of lore to be a bit of a sticking point given how much of it ties into the main plot, and they find it a little overwhelming.
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u/LupusLycas 14h ago
The Xeno games - Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade. They all have deep lore, enough for fans to argue back and forth if they are all connected.
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u/letsplay_l33t 13h ago
If you want the lore to feel like actual history rather than a wiki dump, I’d recommend Pillars of Eternity. Eora has religions, empires, colonial politics, reincarnation, and centuries of conflicts that show up in quests, books, dialogue, and character reactions. The White March and Deadfire expand it further, so there’s a lot to dig into beyond the main plot.
Enderal: Forgotten Stories is also a great fit if you want first-person exploration. It’s a total-conversion RPG set in its own world, with its own history, cultures, and factions, rather than just another Skyrim quest pack. Pathologic 2 is much stranger and more oppressive, but nearly every place and person is tied to the history of its town, so exploring optional conversations and locations gradually reveals the world.
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u/Ostseemann7949 14h ago
Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne, Elden Ring and the king of lore Pillars of Eternity 1(!). Most people who stop the game early do so because it's sooo heavy on world building and lore
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u/Nikos_Pyrrha 14h ago
I would argue that Outer Wilds fits the bill.
People have made entire relationship diagrams of all the [redacted] you read about. Some people can NAME any [redacted] you come across even if all that's left of them is their bones and spacesuit...
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u/Realshow 13h ago
The Control and Alan Wake games have some of the best worldbuilding I’ve seen in a game.
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u/justthankyous 13h ago
Total War Warhammer sucked me into the lore to the point that I ended up buying dozens and dozens of novels and short story collections. So I'd say that.
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u/shistain69 12h ago
Disco Elysium, the lore book is Sacred and Terrible Air
Metro games, books are called the same
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u/han-tyumi23 12h ago
Fromsoft's are the easy and best answer. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring. Deep deep lore, from the in-your-face exposition to the dialogue, the items' description and placement, architecture, hidden interactions and everything that slowly paint a picture of a rich world.
Now for a obscure suggestion: Tales of Maj'Eyal. It's a simple looking roguelike (but you can also play adventure mode with respawn) with a full open world and tons, I mean TONS, of lore to find out. Years and years of worldbuilding to uncover. Fine shit.
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u/Crowhaven_Inc 11h ago
I'm currently playing Spellforce: Conquest of Eo. Not super familiar with it yet, but from what I gather the Spellforce games really thrive on their lore.
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u/mrmiffmiff 8h ago
Metal Gear if you look (and I say start from the MSX and play in release order)
Strangely, Kingdom Hearts
Second Dread Delusion
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u/GolbatDanceFloor 6h ago
The Colorgrave games, starting with Prodigal, have a mountain of lore to uncover! Strongly recommend.
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u/boondiggle_III 5h ago
Caves of Qud has some of the most developed lore in gaming. It can't compare with something like Warhammer 40k with its 100+ novels and decades of additions, but for a single title, the world building in Qud is novelist-tier.
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u/Nelorfin 15h ago
Well - Warhammer and Warhammer 40K games)
Pathfinder is another example
Kingdom Come Deliverance)