This is for best ORIGINAL lore..........that means no Forgotten realms, no Planescape, no Star Wars, no Witcher, no Vampire the Masquerade, no Lord of the Rings etc. Games like Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and Planescape Torment are adapted, not original. My runners up would be... Mass Effect - Bioware has crafted through other scifi influences, a unique universe that can stand on its own. Fallout - Nothing like the retro future of the Fallout universe, and is still interesting especially with New Vegas Final Fantasy VI - more so than any other game in the series, the lore involves the human element...it is also grounded and not convoluted. Simple and effective. Deus Ex - while the plot suffered in the first game, the setting and world were excellent and has remained strong and interesting throughout the series. Might and Magic (before Ubisoft) - the worlds of might and magic and the stories that brought may not be well known, but they were effective. Heroes II, III, and IV had strong storytelling and so did many of th emain M&M games. Ubi's world of Ashan is a step back from Enroth and Erathia however. The winner however is a no brainer... Ultima This franchise still amazes me to this day. No other original fantasy gaming universe has as much substance as this one. Britannia is hands down the best original setting in any RPG and is still amazing to visit it in every Ultima game. From IV-VII part I and IX, the land of Britannia never gets stale. The main reason is that the world is not revolved around stopping the evil bad guy (except IX) but to follow, uphold, and defend the virtues. The three principles (Truth, Love, and Courage) and the eight virtues (Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility) not only define its morality system, but its setting and characters as well. Each principle got a castle and each virtue got a city which defines those settings daily life. For example, the nature town of Yew embodied Justice and the courts were located there, while the mage town of Moonglow embodied Honesty. They also defined the characters and classes. Each virtue has a long running companion of the avatar and each has a class. Not only was Britannia strong, but so was the lore of Pagan and especially the Serpent's Isle with its unique virtue system. However, disregard of the lore in the extremely rushed Ultima IX led to one factor that made the game be a disaster (and bugs bigtime as well). But thankfullly there is an original story the game was supposed to have being revealed as well as a fan dialogue patch that made the games writing more consistant with the lore of the past games. Its too bad U9 killed the series. If you think DAII was a mess, Ultima IX was 1000x worse. That game was EA's biggest disaster and it was all EA's fault with its blantant disregard for Garriots development team. However Bioware (through EA) now has control of the franchise...an alliance between Bioware and Richard Garriot for a remake or a reboot would be awesome. I would love to see the Eight Companions of the Avatar be handled Bioware style.
Bastion. I've never been as interested in finding out more about a game's world and backstory than I was with this game. The amount of ambiguity has a lot to do with it, but at the same time there are enough details included to make it seem like a real place.
Dark Souls. To a lot of people, the lore might look shallow and will not really interest them. But for those who are keen on knowing more about the world of Dark Souls, the developers have placed little bits of details here and there to create something which is really unique. The bits of dialogues from the NPCs and item descriptions are so carefully written in the game which helps to present the setting/background of the game.
More on the virtues of Ultima.... The main ones: http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/The_Eight_Virtues Other ones: http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/The_Gargoyle_Virtues http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Ophidian_Virtues
Winner for me would be Fallout. as I really enjoyed the mix of post apocalyptic future setting and 50's Retro vibe, with all sorts of little side joke references to modern culture (most prominent in Fallout2) . Runners up: Deus Ex series- loved the cool cyberpunk + gov't conspiracy stuff Diablo series - its gothic tone and holy war premise were very unique System Shock 2 - little details here and there added quite a bit of depth and made that lonely spaceship seem like a huge, previously populated world. and it had SHODAN.
[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"]Arx Fatalis A post-apocalyptic fantasy world where the Sun dies and everyone has to eke out an existence underground. This. Wish there was a sequel as I would love to know more about the world in Arx. The world of Ivalice (Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story) would probably have to be my favorite though. The setting, races, geography, and history all pulled me in like no other.
Ultima and Fallout are the first and best that come to mind (even if Fallout might technically count as an adaptation of Wasteland). I couldn't pick between them. Mass Effect's lore always struck me as being too flexible and inconsistent to be enjoyable ('they use these type of guns...but now they don't, for gameplay reasons', 'the ship can't do this...but now it can, for gameplay reasons', 'this race was dead/interesting/evil/whatever, but now they aren't, because we couldn't think of anything else to do with this plot') - but that might just be the result of my dislike of generic alien-y sci-fi. Meanwhile, Dragon Age's lore was kind of crap - richly detailed, but dead boring. I did have a soft spot for Jade Empire's lore though - if only because there simply aren't enough (Western) games set in that sort of background. Beyond that...it's difficult to think of other candidates... Arcanum? Eh, the setting was fantastic, but the lore was a tad shallow. The Elder Scrolls? Sure, the lore is dense, but not particularly thrilling. Arx Fatalis? Gosh, I barely remember that game...
Warcraft.. Sort of. Basically all the lore I really liked was from Warcraft 3, but a lot of it was present at the start of WoW, which is an (MMO)RPG. I like the background from NIER also.
I consider Ultima to unarguably, have the best, and most detailed lore ever weaved for a RPG. Fallout is one of my favorite RPG series that i have ever played (Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas), but i don't consider the lore itself, neither the stories in this series anything more than decent; The settings, atmosphere, some of the characters and the gameplay in each is what propelled them to be amongst my favorite.
FF7 , 8 , 9 ... Also Deus Ex, and Disgea. In regards to those who say Dark Souls. While the lore itself is interesting, it is so utterly scarce that it doesnt deserve a mention imho. The game pushes you along with no narrative at all, leaving you to try and make sense of the little lore on offer. Its poor in that sense. Hell, I didnt even know WHY my character was running arround killing things and dieing untill I looked it up online. The game tells you hardly anything.
Heck, just the difference between U4 and U5 in terms of atmosphere and overall feel were huge, and made you think.
In Ultima 4, you learned the values of the virtues, and mastered them. In Ultima 5, the very virtues that you mastered, which ideal. Were misused and taken to their very extremes. "Thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt lose thy tounge".
Hmmm this is a tough one. I feel like The Elder Scrolls (only played Oblivion and SKyrim, SKyrim is awesome, Oblivion is decent) is probably one of the most complex and believable worlds. Mass Effect also hooked me, despite its many issues, it has great lore and feel to it. 1 was better though. Diablo is another good one. Oh and Baten Kaitos :P.
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