Lore and World Building

[Moonface]

I was playing some Horizon Zero Dawn last night and remembered how awesome the lore and world building of that game is. I just loved how you could find out what was happening in areas before the events of the game and how everything came to be. If nothing else, that aspect of the game was a true highlight for me.

What games have lore or world building that really stood out to you?

[queenzelda]

For me the lore building & world building would have to be Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. More so for Midna & her people, what she goes through & everything that leads up to her being basically cast out by some one in her own court.

[Maniakkid25]

For me, my mind immediately says "Mass Effect, Mass Effect, Mass Effect." Bioware painstakingly wrote an entire galaxy of lore for all sorts of random things, and it's an amazing amount of fluff. Shame the ending was so crap (Nope, never letting that go).

[Nemomon]

Maybe not exactly world lore, but I remember two games that I really liked the story they tried to tell. I played them centuries long ago, so I might not remember everything or make some mistakes, but I will try describing them.

First game I will mention is Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor for NDS. In this game you are locked in a certain area of Tokyo and know that everybody inside will die within a few days. You play a character that tries with his friends escape that lockdown. In the meantime you learn that the lockdown was ordered by YHWH who wants to kill everybody because humans disobeyed his will. Then you learn that in this area some demons fight over a throne of Bel to become a new demon king, an entity that fights YHWH the most. You also learn that in fact you are a reincarnation of Abel, the son of Adam and Eve that YHWH beloved so much. In fact Cain kinda reincarnated as well (as your cousin), but you learn that almost at the end of the game. Kinda, because YHWH decided that the punishment for the crime Cain commited will be that he will never forget what he did and he will remember all of his lives he lived so far. For that reason Cain had a really lot of time to come up with a revenge plan against YHWH. And he did come with one. He wants you to become the new king of Bel, the new demon king. He wants the person YHWH loved the most to become the new demon lord that will endlessly oppose and fight YHWH. What can be worse that the person you love becoming your greatest enemy?

Maybe the storyline doesn't sound a great one, but when you will think it over once or two times, it really becomes a nice one.

===

The other game is Radiant Historia for NDS. In this game you play a soldier during a war that lost his crew and is given a magical book that allows him to go back in time to prevent some accidents. During the game he moves back and forth in time and two timelines changing the history. At some point he notices that he isn't the only one that moves through the time, and later on he learns that his best friend that gave him tthe book to revent the death of his crew is in fact the other book user. He learns that he is meant to be sacrificed by his best friend for a some ritual, but the ritual can be started only under certain circumstances, and that's why he got that book. It is also stated that our hero already died thousands of times and each time that happened the other book owner went back in time to start the ritual again and again...

Again, this plot might not sound too amazing, but it's a really nice when you start playing the game and will take a part in that war.

===

It's also worth mentioning both Golden Sun games for GBA. In the first game you play a party that tries their best to prevent igniting the lighthouses, but you fail doing so. In the second game (that starts where you ended the first game) you learn that the enemies from the first game actually were the good guys, and the world can only survive if all lighthouses will ignite (meaning you played the bad guys, and killed the good guys).

[Karo]

So I love world and lore building it definitely one of my favorite parts of gaming in general. Like Moral COmpass Cricket Thingy Mass Effect and Dragon Age and basically any Bioware property has had amazing world building and a lot of attention to detail and lore put into each and every game. I'm not sure about Andromeda cause I haven't played it and that game was kinda rushed out before they even perfected it cause they had to learn the new engine.

Overwatch actually does some world building in small ways. Mainly with it animations and the character interactions before each match starts. There are actually lots of little details hidden throughout the map that you could possibly not know of. I believe in Hanamura you can find Genji's old room or something if I am recalling correctly.

[Moonface]

So I made a new thread for this a week or so ago without noticing this exists, so I'll share what I wrote in there in here.

A favourite of mine is from The Last of Us where a set of collectibles paints the story of Ish. There's a lot of notes in TLoU about things going badly and people dying, but this one (Cornered Note) is one of the few involving kids, and also one of the few from my memory that can be found in a room that shows the situation to you visually. This note (Survivors Note) is also a notable one for Ish's tale. Ish's whole back story is one of my favourite background stories in TLoU just because there's so much to read about it compared to most of the other things in the game.

Resident Evil 2 Remake also has some great ones, such as the story made up of Tom's Diary, ____'s Diary, Letter from the Director, and Research Diary. I didn't realise until I saw someone else pointing it out that the subjects 628 and 639 in the Research Diary are likely Tom's friend and Tom himself after the incident of 628 returning to the orphanage after being tested on by Umbrella. It made reading that last note far better because it paints Umbrella is a far worse light than it does when you don't realise it has connections to other notes.

[WR91]

For me it's the Grand Theft Auto series as a whole. The way the world in that game just seems so real and alive keeps me coming back for more.

Same goes for the Mafia series. The world just seems so alive. Those are the types of games and worlds I enjoy the most.

[WR91]

Cyberpunk 2077 and Mass Effect: Andromeda have some pretty good lore and world building I enjoyed. Most other people didn't care for those games but I did.

[Moonface]

Got reminded of this thread from my recent discussion with @Maniakkid25 in their Start Screen thread about games that don't do a good job with delivering lore to the player, and while I'm not here to share another game that doesn't do lore well (because I can't think of one right now) I did want to share a few games that I'm honestly surprised I never mentioned in this thread before:

Dead Space 1 + 2
I love how in both of these games you can find notes from NPC's who are commenting on developments of things before a necromorph outbreak occurs or how they're trying to survive within one, sorta like how The Last of Us handles its notes which I mentioned before. I think the best one out of the two games is the trail of notes you find from Jacob Temple as he tries to find his girlfriend, and what I really like about it is how it closely resembles Isaac's own journey on the Ishimura. Both characters go through the same decks, and notable events in their journeys happen on the same decks too.
Also I liked how Dead Space 2 had a whole area of the game for the Church of Unitology and absolutely packed it with lore to give a ton of context for that religion since the first game didn't touch on it too much and that religion ends up playing a huge part in the series.

Prey (2016)
One of my favourite games when it comes to building a world, because the world just feels so lived in. There are passwords under desks, some characters have a DnD campaign going on that you can find notes about and even the character sheets, and just so much other stuff that builds up the world. The games ending also really benefits from how well the world is built up through all of the stuff you can see/read about the crew of the station.

[Maniakkid25]

I've already mentioned Mass Effect, but I'm just thinking about it again because I've been on the "Humans are Space Australians" section of Tumblr, and it reminded me of how Mass Effect Humans introduced carriers to the Galaxy. See, there was a treaty called the Treaty of Farixen which limited the number of dreadnoughts each race could have. Humanity, having gone through this song and dance before with the Washington Naval Treaty, immediately said "so, we can't build Dreadnoughts...but there's nothing saying we can't build carriers THE SIZE OF DREADNOUGHTS, and use those!" And the rest of the races responded with something like this:

Galaxy: "'Carriers'? The hell are those?"
Humans: "You know! They carry smaller craft to extend our fighter's ranges!"
Galaxy: "But any dreadnought would shred apart a squadron of fighters in no-time flat!"
Humans: "Who said anything about a squadron?"

So, the carriers would be use in swarm tactics; massive numbers of drone fighters would be sent, completely overwhelming the point defenses of any ship they came across. And the rest of the galaxy IMMEDIATELY hopped on the idea as soon as it showed its use.

Simply put, humanity introduced a revolution to galactic warfare because NO OTHER RACE WAS INSANE ENOUGH TO TRY THIS!

[Moonface]

I've already mentioned Mass Effect, but I'm just thinking about it again because I've been on the "Humans are Space Australians" section of Tumblr, and it reminded me of how Mass Effect Humans introduced carriers to the Galaxy. See, there was a treaty called the Treaty of Farixen which limited the number of dreadnoughts each race could have. Humanity, having gone through this song and dance before with the Washington Naval Treaty, immediately said "so, we can't build Dreadnoughts...but there's nothing saying we can't build carriers THE SIZE OF DREADNOUGHTS, and use those!" And the rest of the races responded with something like this:

Galaxy: "'Carriers'? The hell are those?"
Humans: "You know! They carry smaller craft to extend our fighter's ranges!"
Galaxy: "But any dreadnought would shred apart a squadron of fighters in no-time flat!"
Humans: "Who said anything about a squadron?"

So, the carriers would be use in swarm tactics; massive numbers of drone fighters would be sent, completely overwhelming the point defenses of any ship they came across. And the rest of the galaxy IMMEDIATELY hopped on the idea as soon as it showed its use.

Simply put, humanity introduced a revolution to galactic warfare because NO OTHER RACE WAS INSANE ENOUGH TO TRY THIS!

Sounds about right really. If Dreadnoughts are viewed as ME's equivalent to a nuke, something which countries are either limited on or strongly scrutinized over if they start trying to make a lot of them, then Carrier's are whatever a country now would come up with as an alternative weapon in response to the limitations of nukes imposed upon them.

[Maniakkid25]

Actually, you don't even have to get that modern for comparisons. Like I said, the Washington Naval Treaty shows we've done this before. It was designed to keep the balance of power after WWI by limiting what could be built between the 5 victorious powers of WWI (US, UK, France, Italy, and Japan). They limited things like Battleships and Battlecruisers in size, and also limited Destroyers and Cruisers in total tonnage and tonnage per ship. To get around this, they did simple things like "lying about the total tonnage" or "converting planned Battleships to Aircraft Carriers", assuming they weren't just ignored entirely. It also didn't help that technology marched on to make the spirit of the treaty completely worthless. It's actually pretty hilarious in hindsight. And this is also in the history of Mass Effect, so when I say humanity has done this song and dance, they literally have gone through this before, and knew exactly how to break the treaty without breaking it lol.

[Moonface]

Actually, you don't even have to get that modern for comparisons. Like I said, the Washington Naval Treaty shows we've done this before. It was designed to keep the balance of power after WWI by limiting what could be built between the 5 victorious powers of WWI (US, UK, France, Italy, and Japan). They limited things like Battleships and Battlecruisers in size, and also limited Destroyers and Cruisers in total tonnage and tonnage per ship. To get around this, they did simple things like "lying about the total tonnage" or "converting planned Battleships to Aircraft Carriers", assuming they weren't just ignored entirely. It also didn't help that technology marched on to make the spirit of the treaty completely worthless. It's actually pretty hilarious in hindsight. And this is also in the history of Mass Effect, so when I say humanity has done this song and dance, they literally have gone through this before, and knew exactly how to break the treaty without breaking it lol.

Oh, that was actually a real treaty. I thought it was just something in the ME universe.
Now I'm wondering what other games (that aren't outright based on actual history like WW2 games and such) use existing events and tactics in history to build a fictional narrative series of actions like ME does with the MNT?

[Maniakkid25]

Pretty much if it's a universe with our earth in it, it's going to use our history unless otherwise specified. What immediately comes to mind is Black Ops 2, where one of the missions takes place in the 80's where you escort a guy named Manuel Noriega. While the specific event is fabricated, Manuel Noriega was a real person; a dictator of Panama that the US helped out before we ousted him. In fact, he had a lawsuit filed against Activision for his depiction in the game; the lawsuit was thrown out. So, whenever you have a universe that features our Earth, assume that our history applies unless otherwise specified, and you'll understand A LOT MORE about things that happen.

[Moonface]

Man, so I said in my first post in this thread how much I love the lore in Horizon Zero Dawn, but this one piece of lore in Forbidden West might be one of the best when it comes to just a random entry about life in the old world: https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/20_Years_After_GG/EZ

The excerpt for anyone who doesn't want to deal with the garbage that is the fandom website:

SAN FRANCISCO - January 3, 2060 - Timothy Hirsch leans demonstratively into the railing of the Grand Gate's pedestrian strait. Within a minute, a hovering prev-drone closes to gauge whether he is experiencing any form of anxiety. After receiving a negative answer, the drone continues down the one-mile path.

"There are certain 'tells' that prev-drones react to," Tommy says, "like gazing out at the Bay for too long, or leaning into the fence. If it picks up on such a tell, it'll come to strike up a conversation and if need be, try to talk you out of jumping. But sentient or not, a prev-drone can't look you in the eye and say that they're here for you. That everything will be all right. That you'd be missed. They can't hold your hand to make you remember what it's like to connect to someone. Only a human can do that with sincerity."

Today, it's precisely twenty years ago since Project GG/EZ. Timothy was one of many attendees at the infamous holovent that saw more than two hundred people leap to their deaths. "It shook me to my core. Everybody thought it was a joke, you know - one of those things that gains momentum on the holonet but never takes off. Until the first one went over."

Hirsch has been an active volunteer with the Humane Suicide Intervention Collective (HSIC) ever since. He devotes most of his free time to dissuading "potentials" from jumping off the Grand gate. "I do this not only because of GG/EZ, but because I've been in that place too, mentally. The 2030s were supposed to be the end of humankind. But they weren't, right?"

When I first started reading this entry upon finding it in-game I didn't expect it to be about a mass suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge.