What are your favorite games from a worldbuilding standpoint?

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨tal@lemmy.today⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

What games have what you’d call really good worldbuilding, and what in particular do you like about them?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding* is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology, and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called conlangs) for the world.

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SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Underrated because the game itself was often kind of lacking in terms of solid foundational TPG systems…

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Pretty good attempt at putting a Middle Earth type world ahead a few hundred years in the midst of an Industrial Revolution.

Really thoughtful stuff like the labor exploitation of certain races like orcs, with quests like a half-orc you can help start a labor union or help the shop boss shut down the nascent union.

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rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Mass Effect completely blew me away when it came out. Loved the overall lore about the Reaper threat and how the different species were connected to each other.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was also great in that regard, and the world felt really well out together, even though the lore wasn’t quite as deep.

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Supervisor194@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Cyberpunk has a city that actually feels like a real city to me.

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- ICCrawler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  After playing the story through a few times, it’s hard to actually stay invested in it anymore, I also did all side quests one run two, and I’m not keen on repeating that. However, 2077 is the only game where I will start it up just to drive around and listen to some music, whether in game or something I pick myself, and then just turn it off. Usuallt for 30-45 minutes. And I played many of the GTAs and all but the first Saints Rows. But only 2077 will I drive around just for the hell of it.
  
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  - itkovian@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I strongly agree. Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City feels amazing to explore.
    
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VaalaVasaVarde@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Half-Life 2

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- FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, that is a great classic example. There’s a lot of environmental storytelling so you can get an idea of what’s going on, and what it is is very interesting, but it doesn’t get in the way of the game or its story.
  
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EgoNo4@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Deus Ex, anyone?

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- ICCrawler@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, I go back and replay the game every few years. Its grittiness is definitely a bit silly to me now, but when I was a kid, I was enchanted by it. While the Jensen games did not have the charm of the OG, the first was still decent, and it’s a shame Square Enix drove it into the ground with the second Jensen title.
  
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  - deranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    DX:MD is one of the most fun stealth games, it’s just unfortunate they put vent shafts everywhere
    
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- chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This one is it for me. The game really does so much with so little. The reality of the game is that it is a roughly linear sequence of closed levels (with some hub levels thrown in) that feels like a cohesive, connected world. It’s absolutely incredible!
  
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SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Elden Ring has the deepest, most complex worldbuilding of any game ever made, and it’s not even close. For anyone interested in worldbuilding I strongly urge you to watch some Elden Ring lore videos from The Tarnished Archaeologist to learn about the incredible techniques that the Elden Ring devs use to put incredibly deep and subtle worldbuilding into their games:

www.youtube.com/@tarnishedarchaeologist

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- itkovian@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  As deep as Elden Ring is, I hate how hopeless The Lands Between feels.
  
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  - SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah the bleakness of From’s settings is definitely an inherent part of their worldbuilding.
    
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- FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Zanzibart forgive me
  
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  - drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The person that came up with that phrase is in charge of a game series with dialogue that makes your skull physically reform into a fedora.
    
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e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Gothic one and two are really good. In the first game you are dropped into a prison colony and very soon a guard will try to extract protection money from you. In any other game the guard would just kill you, instead you will meet another guy asking you for help. He then lures you to a secluded space reveals that he was sent by the corrupt guard and beats you unconscious to steal your money.

Another game I will never stop recommending because of its worldbuilding is the excellent Enderal: Forgotten Stories. I really like how it depicts the theocratic society of the continent the story plays out in. The story about what initially seems like a standard fantasy thieves guild but is actually a cult that shuns emotion and try to transcend the physical body, is also really good and ties in with the overarching plot of the game.

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homoludens@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Shadowrun - it had a tremendous effect on my actual worldview (as did other cyberpunk works). The near-future cyberpunk setting offers plenty of opportunity for satire, being rooted in this world makes some geography and history relatable and mixing it with fantasy elements does not only make it more colorful and varied, but also prevents unrealistic stuff from breaking my immersion, because it does not pretend to be realistic.

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- Flagstaff@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  it had a tremendous effect on my actual worldview
  
  How so?
  
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  - homoludens@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hard to describe. I started to feel the same way about the real world as I did about the world described in the books. Like the high tech, low life concept - just because we have shiny things does not mean we have a good life. And developing a tendency for rather diverse and/or weird friend groups who band together to fight for our place in this world. I mean, the books obviously crank everything up to 11, but the prower structures seem very similar.
    
    I was reading Shadowrun books about evil megacorporations who are mightier than nation states and indigenous liberation movements against them, so I paid a lot of attention to real world politics when I read the news about stuff like NAFTA and the EZLN or the MAI agreement.
    
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- SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  As a young nerd obsessed with RPGs and William Gibson’s work I was outraged at the idea of putting Fantasy into cyberpunk. But then I picked up a damaged copy of the Shadowrun rules from a bargain bin and was blown away by the worldbuilding, they really found a way to make it all fit thematically and logically and I ended up running the game for years.
  
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deranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
STALKER. The Zone is amazing.

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- Flagstaff@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Dang. I wish I could enjoy replaying it, but nothing will capture the magic of the first time. I always love watching others experience my enjoyed titles live for their first time, though.
  
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Agent_Karyo@piefed.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - probably the most cliche answer possible, but Troika really did build a game that took you to the world of vampires in LA in the early 2000s.

Arcanum - a fantasy world undergoing industrialization with technology being in direct conflict with magic.

UnderRail - A society stuck underground connected by tunnels between towns/cities and nodes. The writing (quests/characters) is not that great, but the world-building is top notch.

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Sybilvane@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Outer Wilds, especially with the DLC.

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severalkittens@ani.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Dragon age

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- who@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Too bad they never made a sequel to Origins. ;)
  
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  - njm1314@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    2 was better. Fight me.
    
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AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Pillars of Eternity. I really appreciate that they must have had some Anthropology majors on the team, especially for II, because the worlds feel much more exotic than other RPGs. It shows up just how generic Medieval Fantasy most RPGs are.
The tropical Roparu (?) society with its caste system is particularly interesting. The interaction of the various factions is believable. And of course the pantheon is well though out.
The downside is that they can be clumsy about exposition of the world - especially in the first one, you get these enormous lore-dumps.

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- zerofk@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I also love how reincarnation is a fact of life in that world, and souls are a real, almost physical, thing that can be manipulated and used.
  
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- seat6@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I couldn’t agree more! It’s a fantasy game but it explores some really cool concepts; like colonialism and freedom vs order.
  
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- Agent_Karyo@piefed.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I can't wait till they add true turn based combat to Pillars of Eternity.
  
  I played avout 3-4 hours and the setting and world, but the real time combat did not work for me.
  
  I don't mind real-time combat, but it has been in third person.
  
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nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
NetHack

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- FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Eh?
  
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- i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  @
  
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QuantumTickle@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Rimworld

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blave@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Fallout

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hydrashok@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Dave the Diver

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TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The TES series in general for its massive, expansive lore.

But Morrowind in particular has absolutely incredible world-building with incredible creativity and originality. There is a reason why so many people keep going back to the n’wah simulator and it’s because the world is so rich and incredible. So much of the following games was built off Morrowind’s incredible work.

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- rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  As someone whose first TES was Morrowind, it set the bar so high in terms of worldbuilding, I was honestly a bit disappointed with the later entries into the series. Oblivion (more generic fantasy setting) and Skyrim (nordic with dragons) definitely played better, but the worlds were much less unique and memorable.
  
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- SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Underrated because the game itself was often kind of lacking in terms of solid foundational TPG systems…
  
  Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
  
  Pretty good attempt at putting a Middle Earth type world ahead a few hundred years in the midst of an Industrial Revolution.
  
  Really thoughtful stuff like the labor exploitation of certain races like orcs, with quests like a half-orc you can help start a labor union or help the shop boss shut down the nascent union.
  
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  - FishFace@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah. And Skyrim really needed better VAs. That one guy who voiced Farengar just did not properly understand some of his lines and consequently butchered them.
    
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Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Subnautica and Raft

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- Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Having played a lot of raft with my kids, I can say I never would have thought of it for this. But looking back, yeah, there is a good deal of world building going on.
  
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BroBot9000@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hollow Knight.

Absolutely can’t get enough of the world and all the interesting characters and hidden lore.

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- Auster@thebrainbin.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  One detail that held to me the strongest is the characters' talking patterns. It feels like dialogues were written in another language and then converted to English. The strongest example I think was the lady that gives the Knight flowers for delivering, which also is added to, iirc, being at least implied she is one of the oldest creatures in Hallownest.
  
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