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What is in your opinion the best story told in gaming?
- Thread starter Slushimi
- Start date
Trails on the Sky has probably left the biggest impression on me. Even in games that aren't the best written, I still find myself talking to NPCs all the time out of the sheer habit that game (and its sequels) formed. Admittedly, TitS is *mostly* a straightforward RPG in terms of storytelling, but giving NPCs characters and lives helps to flesh out the world. And it helps the games are, for the most part, well written.
The best I've experienced is Final Fantasy Tactics.
I first played it in 2018 (TWotL if it matters) and it managed to impress me even after years and years of built-up expectations. It's genuinely well-written, with a strong cast of interesting characters and a complex plot that does the unthinkable for JRPG's and doesn't devolve into pure nonsense by the end. It's quite the opposite, really; all of the most climactic moments in the story are built up to incredibly well, and one of the main characters has a truly fantastic arc over the course of the game. If you've played it, you know who I'm talking about. They are easily the best written video game character I've come across so far.
The only other real contenders for me would be NieR Automata, Shadow of the Colossus, Outer Wilds and Journey. It's no coincidence that most of those feature more abstract and experiential storytelling. There are very few games with more explicit narratives that I'd consider to actually be good. The Last of Us is pretty good though I guess; it definitely isn't very original, but there's some really great character work and performances going on there. Can't say I enjoyed the sequel's painfully unsubtle storytelling, though.
I first played it in 2018 (TWotL if it matters) and it managed to impress me even after years and years of built-up expectations. It's genuinely well-written, with a strong cast of interesting characters and a complex plot that does the unthinkable for JRPG's and doesn't devolve into pure nonsense by the end. It's quite the opposite, really; all of the most climactic moments in the story are built up to incredibly well, and one of the main characters has a truly fantastic arc over the course of the game. If you've played it, you know who I'm talking about. They are easily the best written video game character I've come across so far.
The only other real contenders for me would be NieR Automata, Shadow of the Colossus, Outer Wilds and Journey. It's no coincidence that most of those feature more abstract and experiential storytelling. There are very few games with more explicit narratives that I'd consider to actually be good. The Last of Us is pretty good though I guess; it definitely isn't very original, but there's some really great character work and performances going on there. Can't say I enjoyed the sequel's painfully unsubtle storytelling, though.
It's hard to pick just one but I think Trails in the Sky was the one I felt most satisfied with throughout.
For me, it's the wordless stories that communicate their meanings entirely visually or through the game mechanics.
A great example of the former is Gris. Ostensibly, it's about overcoming depression. But that theme is captured entirely through the areas, music, and scenarios you play through.
And Journey is the pinnacle of the latter. Sure, there's a "backstory," but the real story is the interactions you have with other players along the way. I remember making it to the end with another player and being driven to tears when we collapsed in the middle of a blizzard. I also remember losing my partner in the final descent to the bottom of the temple, then heading back up the passage to try to find them. It struck me in a way that plots and characters never have.
A great example of the former is Gris. Ostensibly, it's about overcoming depression. But that theme is captured entirely through the areas, music, and scenarios you play through.
And Journey is the pinnacle of the latter. Sure, there's a "backstory," but the real story is the interactions you have with other players along the way. I remember making it to the end with another player and being driven to tears when we collapsed in the middle of a blizzard. I also remember losing my partner in the final descent to the bottom of the temple, then heading back up the passage to try to find them. It struck me in a way that plots and characters never have.
I'm assuming you hadn't played 999 before VLR, which on one hand is a shame as you miss the backstory on several characters like Clover; the mindblowing reveals that Tenmyouji is Junpei and the old woman is Akane, or what happened to the latter after 999 have no significance to you; and the game doesn't spend nearly as much time foreshadowing the morphogenetic field shenanigans, but on the other hand these very shenanigans must be pretty freaking mindblowing if you hadn't experienced them in 999 and VLR was your first exposure. :)
I guess these two games will forever be the poster children for "whichever you play first will be your favorite". :)
I actually had played 999 before it, but the thing in VLR still completely shocked me because it happened incredibly early, at least in my playthrough!
Think I'm gonna nominate Metal Gear Solid 3. I haven't played it for ages and it might be nostalgia talking but it sucked me in and had me on the edge of my seat for every second of the story.
Grim Fandango (1998)
Planescape: Torment (1999)
The Longest Journey (2000)
No One Lives Forever (2000)
KOTOR (2003)
Gone Home (2013)
Disco Elysium (2019)
Looking back, the window around 2000 is when things really started popping off for stories in gaming that were dramatically more human than anything we'd seen before. The settings may have been fantastical, but the sense of intimacy & authenticity felt very real for the first time.
Planescape: Torment (1999)
The Longest Journey (2000)
No One Lives Forever (2000)
KOTOR (2003)
Gone Home (2013)
Disco Elysium (2019)
Looking back, the window around 2000 is when things really started popping off for stories in gaming that were dramatically more human than anything we'd seen before. The settings may have been fantastical, but the sense of intimacy & authenticity felt very real for the first time.
It's really nice to see something other than a flood of The Last of Us, which I find highly overrated as far as storytelling goes.
i had no idea KotOR was so highly regarded, I will have to add that to my backlog.
i had no idea KotOR was so highly regarded, I will have to add that to my backlog.
it's certainly the best MMORPG expansion story by a long stretch
Most recent: Disco Elysium.
The writing is just outstanding. It incorporates so much random stuff and yet it all acts as a coherent whole.
My favourite: Kotor 2
The writing is just outstanding. It is a demythologization of the Force and it does a damn good job of it. Kreia is one of the most interesting characters written, the villains are intimidating and interesting, and your companions themselves are interesting. The worldbuilding is interesting. It is all the best parts of Star Wars.
hard Agree with all of these. Kotor 1&2 for the first time was an oustanding moment for me of 'Wow videogame stories can be amazing, and voice acting can be so professional!'
I'd also add Mass Effect & Metal Gear Solid Franchises as well
EDIT: Oh and Red Dead 2
Disco Elysium.
You unpack the story of yourself (which is fluid), the history of your society/setting, the story of the various npcs and factions, while creating and driving the story of you and your partner, and various npcs, depending on your choices.
It is a really well layered narrative sandbox.
You unpack the story of yourself (which is fluid), the history of your society/setting, the story of the various npcs and factions, while creating and driving the story of you and your partner, and various npcs, depending on your choices.
It is a really well layered narrative sandbox.
Completely agree. I would also argue in a general sense that story telling in games have been getting worse/stale/stagnant because more emphasis is on graphics/art/voice acting/presentation than actual story telling.
It's hard to come up with the best, obviously, and sometimes I give credit to games that do something so exceptionally well but might miss the mark in other areas.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is up there for me, and there's a reason ... it's basically a mishmash of other similar stories from Boyz in Da Hood and Menace 2 Society. The writing is great, the voice acting is among the best of any game ever, the cast is amazing, and because the core story doesn't stray far from its inspiration -- movies -- it ends up being much better than most other videogame stories that try to get original and are ultimately let downs. Criticism of GTA:SA and other Rockstar games from that era is that "the story goes off the rails," but if you keep to the core narrative, not the sub-missions and side-missions (CJ working for the FBI, CJ owning a casino, CJ infiltrating a CIA blacksite to steal a hovercraft and harriet jet...), then you have this core narrative around 4-5 characters, the police, and gangs/drugs in L.A. in the early 90s, and it's a story that just works. I think the criticism of "well those are part of the game so you can't ignore them..." are valid and it's probably just a mental exercise I make willfully ignoring them and sticking to the core narrative... I kind of dismiss those as "gamified" elements of the game.
"Crooked cops frame Carl 'CJ' Johnson for a murder that they committed in order to perpetuate institutional racism, gang violence, and police power in 90s Los Angeles. While trying to discover who really murdered his mother, CJ must upend this crooked cartel, find out who his real friends are, and discover his place in the world."
It's a simple story told well, there are a few twists, the bad guy is the best bad guy in any videogame ever, and it has an almost entirely minority cast that works. 15 years after GTA:SA we're still having a "Ugh, why are there no minority leads in videogames?" and "ugh, another one-note female sidekick..." while GTA:SA did it better than every other game since 15 years ago.
I think that RDR2 has one of the best narratives of any game ever made, like it's a story that is told so fucking well, and it's also so unique for a videogame ... to have characters with realistic motivations that aren't around the core videogame tropes (Save the girl, save the world, save your dad, save your kid) is refreshing. It's challenging in action videogames that don't fall into those motivation tropes, and even GTA:SA falls into those tropes for the motivation of a lot of missions ("Gotta save Kendyl," "Gotta save my brother," "Gotta save my friend," "Gotta kill this gang banger" [save the world]...). RDR2 doesn't do that and most of the motivations of the characters are legitimate motivations that we all feel: being pulled into something by someone who is important to you but you don't really want to go along with it... And just when you think that RDR2 might go down an obvious path -- Arthur meets his old love, Arthur protects John/Abigail's child son, etc -- it doesn't. His lost love *stays* his lost love, they don't rekindle their relationship and his love doesn't become the motivation for him to be better or do good things or save the world... Arthur stays Arthur because that is who he is, and she stays who she is (this is a very minor spoiler). There's a lot of TV shows that do that, from The Office to The Wire, characters have flaws and can't work through them, but there's almost no videogames that do that. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a story about the death of the American west told through the character of Arthur Morgan, it's as much about the world as it is about Arthur himself. For Arthur, it's a redemption story, from beginning to end the question is: Can Arthur be redeemed? Telling a story like that without falling into videogame story tropes is really difficult, and Rockstar deserves credit.
There's other games that tell tighter, more well constructed stories -- Gone Home and Grim Fandango for instance -- but I'm kind of filtering my "best stories" to genres of videogames that traditionally tell bad or cliched stories. Most action games fall into tropes for motivation: Zombies are destroying the world, monsters are taking over the world, your love is being threatened, your child is being threatened, your father/mother needs protection. I think they do this because videogames have trouble creating motivations for the player that can also be motivations for the character. It's hard to make you -- the player -- care about a dear friend in a game because, as the player, you can't really understand why they're important to the character and to you. Games usually do this lazily: "He's your brother, you have to care about him," "She's your girlfriend, you have to care about her." But it's hard to make you care about characters who have no natural relationship to the player. I haven't played Last of Us 2 yet, but the reason why TLOU1 doesn't really chart for me is because the motivations are pure trope: Zombie apocalpyse, end of the world, save the world, save the child; like those are the plainest motivations for moving through a story in videogames. The acting and writing is great in the game, same with the character animations, but I ding it down because the tropes are too obvious, too weathered ... "Oh, another story where a regular guy has to save a child and save the world from the apocalypse." The most interesting aspects of TLOU are, unsurprisingly, those that involve Ellie's growth and development as a character, because that's a little less explored.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is up there for me, and there's a reason ... it's basically a mishmash of other similar stories from Boyz in Da Hood and Menace 2 Society. The writing is great, the voice acting is among the best of any game ever, the cast is amazing, and because the core story doesn't stray far from its inspiration -- movies -- it ends up being much better than most other videogame stories that try to get original and are ultimately let downs. Criticism of GTA:SA and other Rockstar games from that era is that "the story goes off the rails," but if you keep to the core narrative, not the sub-missions and side-missions (CJ working for the FBI, CJ owning a casino, CJ infiltrating a CIA blacksite to steal a hovercraft and harriet jet...), then you have this core narrative around 4-5 characters, the police, and gangs/drugs in L.A. in the early 90s, and it's a story that just works. I think the criticism of "well those are part of the game so you can't ignore them..." are valid and it's probably just a mental exercise I make willfully ignoring them and sticking to the core narrative... I kind of dismiss those as "gamified" elements of the game.
"Crooked cops frame Carl 'CJ' Johnson for a murder that they committed in order to perpetuate institutional racism, gang violence, and police power in 90s Los Angeles. While trying to discover who really murdered his mother, CJ must upend this crooked cartel, find out who his real friends are, and discover his place in the world."
It's a simple story told well, there are a few twists, the bad guy is the best bad guy in any videogame ever, and it has an almost entirely minority cast that works. 15 years after GTA:SA we're still having a "Ugh, why are there no minority leads in videogames?" and "ugh, another one-note female sidekick..." while GTA:SA did it better than every other game since 15 years ago.
I think that RDR2 has one of the best narratives of any game ever made, like it's a story that is told so fucking well, and it's also so unique for a videogame ... to have characters with realistic motivations that aren't around the core videogame tropes (Save the girl, save the world, save your dad, save your kid) is refreshing. It's challenging in action videogames that don't fall into those motivation tropes, and even GTA:SA falls into those tropes for the motivation of a lot of missions ("Gotta save Kendyl," "Gotta save my brother," "Gotta save my friend," "Gotta kill this gang banger" [save the world]...). RDR2 doesn't do that and most of the motivations of the characters are legitimate motivations that we all feel: being pulled into something by someone who is important to you but you don't really want to go along with it... And just when you think that RDR2 might go down an obvious path -- Arthur meets his old love, Arthur protects John/Abigail's child son, etc -- it doesn't. His lost love *stays* his lost love, they don't rekindle their relationship and his love doesn't become the motivation for him to be better or do good things or save the world... Arthur stays Arthur because that is who he is, and she stays who she is (this is a very minor spoiler). There's a lot of TV shows that do that, from The Office to The Wire, characters have flaws and can't work through them, but there's almost no videogames that do that. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a story about the death of the American west told through the character of Arthur Morgan, it's as much about the world as it is about Arthur himself. For Arthur, it's a redemption story, from beginning to end the question is: Can Arthur be redeemed? Telling a story like that without falling into videogame story tropes is really difficult, and Rockstar deserves credit.
There's other games that tell tighter, more well constructed stories -- Gone Home and Grim Fandango for instance -- but I'm kind of filtering my "best stories" to genres of videogames that traditionally tell bad or cliched stories. Most action games fall into tropes for motivation: Zombies are destroying the world, monsters are taking over the world, your love is being threatened, your child is being threatened, your father/mother needs protection. I think they do this because videogames have trouble creating motivations for the player that can also be motivations for the character. It's hard to make you -- the player -- care about a dear friend in a game because, as the player, you can't really understand why they're important to the character and to you. Games usually do this lazily: "He's your brother, you have to care about him," "She's your girlfriend, you have to care about her." But it's hard to make you care about characters who have no natural relationship to the player. I haven't played Last of Us 2 yet, but the reason why TLOU1 doesn't really chart for me is because the motivations are pure trope: Zombie apocalpyse, end of the world, save the world, save the child; like those are the plainest motivations for moving through a story in videogames. The acting and writing is great in the game, same with the character animations, but I ding it down because the tropes are too obvious, too weathered ... "Oh, another story where a regular guy has to save a child and save the world from the apocalypse." The most interesting aspects of TLOU are, unsurprisingly, those that involve Ellie's growth and development as a character, because that's a little less explored.
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Brothers: A Tale of two Sons.
I adore how control, gameplay, and narrative come together in that game.
I adore how control, gameplay, and narrative come together in that game.
As much as I love my Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy craziness/epicness, TLOU2 for sure is a perfectly executed story that hits all the right marks and makes you feel in ways that no other game does. It will take a while to top this one. I can't even see how they will improve on that with Part III. But I thought the same after the ending of the first game and I was actively against a sequel.
It's difficult to answer. So I will give what games has the biggest emotional impact :
- MGS 3 : a very meaty one.
- RDR : The best game and story made by Rockstar by far (the other one is GTA IV).
- TLoU : everything is build for the last 10 minutes of gameplay. What a game. The rest of it is still great of course.
- The Last Guardian : wow, wow, wow. There are 5 words in the entire game before the last cinematic. What.a.game. won't spoiled it, but for people that played it, the last input required in the game is the best scene in a game ever.
SOMA
The events of that game, the things that have already happened, the choices you can make, still haunt me to this day.
The Last Guardian is also fantastic with barely using any words.
The events of that game, the things that have already happened, the choices you can make, still haunt me to this day.
The Last Guardian is also fantastic with barely using any words.
Hard to say which is truly the best, but at the top for me: FF6, Suikoden 5, Nier:A, Witcher 3. All of these games have interesting characters embroiled in serious world situations, and they all take the time to let the stakes and the effect of those stakes on the characters grow and mature naturally.
Interesting, I stand corrected! To be frank, I also found it to be a very neat development; I guess because it's the first time in the series that you experience someone else accessing the morphogenetic field, and it's cool to see how they experience the timelines in a different order than you do. :)
Xenoblade Chronicles, I loved every monent of the game and it's one of the few video games that's ever brought me to tears with its memorable and fun cast. Its distinctly excellent British dub really makes the game all the more enjoyable.
The absolute best is Red Dead 2, absolutely. Its storytelling is stellar, moving and delivered with confidence and commitment.
However I feel other games manage to have amazing stories as well. TLOU2 may be good but TLOU1 tells its story better. Bioshock 1s world building and audio tapes are perfect at conveying its message if it does falter in the final boss. And the Walking Dead 1 still holds a place in my heart.
My personal favourites as well: Mass Effect 2's tv episodic level style storytelling, Assassins creed 2's journey following a man from birth to adulthood, tales of the borderlands, life is strange series and Wolfenstein The New Order.
However I feel other games manage to have amazing stories as well. TLOU2 may be good but TLOU1 tells its story better. Bioshock 1s world building and audio tapes are perfect at conveying its message if it does falter in the final boss. And the Walking Dead 1 still holds a place in my heart.
My personal favourites as well: Mass Effect 2's tv episodic level style storytelling, Assassins creed 2's journey following a man from birth to adulthood, tales of the borderlands, life is strange series and Wolfenstein The New Order.
How many times can Nintendo tell the story of good vs evil? I think Zelda games easily tell the best story and now they're legit open world action rpg games.
Ocarina of Time:
I was invested enough in the story of "the boy with no fairy" and the perfection that is the gameplay that no other games story resonated as much.
I was invested enough in the story of "the boy with no fairy" and the perfection that is the gameplay that no other games story resonated as much.
Twists that are intentionally foreshadowed hit home harder than twists out of the left field.
I totally agree about Mother 3 btw. It has tremendous range. It has moments of comedy and tragedy and both aspects are just so consummately and unpretentiously done. It puts me in mind of Kurt Vonnegut's writing.
I'm totally with you on the sincerity observation also. Despite being as goofy as it is, there's a charming lack of irony. Shigesato Itoi is an absolute gem.
Thinking about other writers: I enjoy Matsuno's work but it's a little too straight faced for me. Yoko Taro has his moments but he's also prone to unearned and over-egged drama. Chris Avellone can be great in bringing together complicated worlds with strong dialogue, he's a bit comic book esque for my tastes though. Kojima's work has some inimitable and sublime qualities but unfortunately the man has no filter. Naughty Dog has a very professional blockbuster execution but I find it strangely unfulfilling. I think Tim Schafer might come close to Itoi - Grim Fandango in particular. I really want to check out Disco Elysium but I haven't had the time yet.
FFXIV Shadowbringers is a real strong contender, IMO. Calling it "the best MMO expansion story" is cutting it short because it's an amazing story in its own right, that's made even stronger by wrapping up stories from previous expansions and the base game. It's absolutely incredible.
Nier Automata and Virtue's Last Reward are other strong contenders, for reasons other posters have called out. I went into 999 completely blank and had my mind blown by it by the end, and somehow VLR, even knowing it was a sequel to 999, STILL managed to blow my mind like 40 ways from Sunday.
Nier Automata and Virtue's Last Reward are other strong contenders, for reasons other posters have called out. I went into 999 completely blank and had my mind blown by it by the end, and somehow VLR, even knowing it was a sequel to 999, STILL managed to blow my mind like 40 ways from Sunday.
It's hard to choose between Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part II, so I'll say both! I think a good story is something that will make you feel and think, and few games have made me feel as much as those two games.
Honorable mentions:
BioShock
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
God of War (2018)
The Last of Us
Honorable mentions:
BioShock
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
God of War (2018)
The Last of Us
Red Dead Redemption 2, because Arthur Morgan is probably the best character in the entire medium.
The Last of Us and Left Behind both stuck with me for a long time.
I think Majora's Mask is a great example of a story that works so well because it's a game. It couldn't be told as effectively with another medium, in my opinion.
The Last of Us and Left Behind both stuck with me for a long time.
I think Majora's Mask is a great example of a story that works so well because it's a game. It couldn't be told as effectively with another medium, in my opinion.
Most recent: Disco Elysium.
The writing is just outstanding. It incorporates so much random stuff and yet it all acts as a coherent whole.
My favourite: Kotor 2
The writing is just outstanding. It is a demythologization of the Force and it does a damn good job of it. Kreia is one of the most interesting characters written, the villains are intimidating and interesting, and your companions themselves are interesting. The worldbuilding is interesting. It is all the best parts of Star Wars.
Came in to this thread to post about these 2 games, but this post does it better than I would have.
I'd like to add one thing about Disco Elysium that I loved: there's an IMMENSELY important and world-shattering revelation about the state of the world that other characters who learn about your character's condition actively try to hide from you. You can go through the entire game in a satisfactory way without ever learning about this phenomenon. But if you do...it changes everything. Discovering this important information about the world, as well as that unrelated surprise at the end of the game, are two of my favorite moments in gaming. The sheer horror, gravitas, and eventually wonder just floored me.
The Mass Effect 1-2 combo towers over everything else, IMHO. A great, ambitious story, inspired by the best of science fiction, and which is also very well suited for this medium. The cast of characters is simply unmatched. There are even choices for the players to make and impact the outcome.
I loved ME3 from a gameplay perspective but the ending destroyed that perfect potential.
Honorable mention:
-Red Dead Redemtpion 2.
I loved ME3 from a gameplay perspective but the ending destroyed that perfect potential.
Honorable mention:
-Red Dead Redemtpion 2.
They need to remake this game with a modern engine, and tweak the gameplay a bit, so that it doesn't take so many posts to get mentioned in a "best gaming story" thread.
RDR 2 for me.
It meshes traditional storytelling with opportunities only provided by videogames as a medium to tell its story. The 2nd part is especially true if you take your time with the game.
It's obvious that the plot in RDR 2 is secondary to the character development and drama. While most of the story is told through traditional cutscenes, there is so much more hidden away in Arthur's journal which dynamically updates as you go through the story - but more than that, it also updates as you explore the open world. This includes side missions, random encounters, an interesting place, npc, a beautiful vista, animal... anything. Arthur will draw it, and provide a few short thoughts.
Looking through the journal after you beat the game, well, it's quite something. It feels incredibly melancholic, as you go back to the start of the journal and start recalling those little moments that you would otherwise not ever think about.
The game's brilliant contrast of Dutch and Arthur is something that I didn't even notice on my first playthrough.
And honestly, that could have been more than enough, but the game went the extra mile...
This game grabbed me like no other game. Is it perfect? No. The gameplay is still inconsistent with the narrative tone at times, and there are some repetative story beats that can be a little annoying. However, for me, the ambition, the character work, and the perfect (slow) pacing more than makes up for the blemishes. It's fitting that it was Dan Houser's final game, because honestly, I don't think he could top it.
It meshes traditional storytelling with opportunities only provided by videogames as a medium to tell its story. The 2nd part is especially true if you take your time with the game.
It's obvious that the plot in RDR 2 is secondary to the character development and drama. While most of the story is told through traditional cutscenes, there is so much more hidden away in Arthur's journal which dynamically updates as you go through the story - but more than that, it also updates as you explore the open world. This includes side missions, random encounters, an interesting place, npc, a beautiful vista, animal... anything. Arthur will draw it, and provide a few short thoughts.
Looking through the journal after you beat the game, well, it's quite something. It feels incredibly melancholic, as you go back to the start of the journal and start recalling those little moments that you would otherwise not ever think about.
But it goes further than just the journal. Once Arthur gets TB, it's not just the narrative that shifts. The gameplay does too. The "power curve" of Arthur is really weird, where you are at "max power" in the middle. A well maintained Arthur will always be at their absolute peak at the end of CH3/ beginning of CH4. This, for me, added an extra layer of connection to Arthur's struggle, as even the "gamey" parts of the game started feeling affected by Arthur's condition. And losing your horse at the end? I cried like a baby. I named that horse after the pet I have lost not too long before the game came out, and man... it ripped 2 bandaids at once.
The game's brilliant contrast of Dutch and Arthur is something that I didn't even notice on my first playthrough.
Both men end up fighting a fight they know full well deep down they'll lose. Dutch however is willing to go against his own moral code and trade his humanity in just for a sliver of chance of proving that "his way" works. Chapter 5 should've been more than enough proof for Dutch that it does not. But he continued to degrade further. Meanwhile, when Arthur faces TB, instead of getting angry or trying a bazillion things to make himself feel better, he accepts his fate right away. Instead, he re-evalutes his life, his friends, what's important.. and tries to leave a positive mark on the world.
And honestly, that could have been more than enough, but the game went the extra mile...
when you started playing as John. I fucking LOVE what rockstar did with epilogue 1. Farming was boring as shit, I think almost everyone will agree on that. Milking cows, picking up shit, fixing fences... not exactly my idea of fun when it comes to a wild west game. But here lays the brilliance of the whole thing: It IS meant to be boring. Rockstar delibarately made this section boring because, yes, you could just go grab a gun, shoot up the place and rob it clean, and then ride away far and start again. However, John made a promise to Arthur and his family to try, and try is what he does. Again, I feel like this is an amazing utilization of videogame as a medium. Instead of turning farming into a cutscene, you get to play it out. Because you, as the player, coming off a bunch of epic, emotionally charged shootouts, now can empathize with John's situation first hand. The player and John both want to go and grab that gun.. but that would be breaking a promise to a beloved character
This game grabbed me like no other game. Is it perfect? No. The gameplay is still inconsistent with the narrative tone at times, and there are some repetative story beats that can be a little annoying. However, for me, the ambition, the character work, and the perfect (slow) pacing more than makes up for the blemishes. It's fitting that it was Dan Houser's final game, because honestly, I don't think he could top it.
Make sure you look into the mods, specifically TSLRCM which fixes lots of bugs and adds some cut content. Also bear in mind it is by no means a complete game (it was rushed out in a year!), but it manages to be a great experience despite everything going against it.
Are you talking about
The Pale?? What a weird thing, I don't quite know what to make of it tbh. Like places are separated and fragmented by some ominous dimension where you can lose yourself. Is it a metaphor? Is it just a neat setting? Idk if I got all the info about it though I did the church.