Open-world games with good writing/narrative

GTA and Bethesda games need not apply.

What are some open-world games with solid writing and or narrative? Many of us think open-world games are boring as sin. One thing that can mitigate that is a compelling story and quests. These elements actually make you want to discover the world and its secrets.

-Fallout New Vegas

-The Witcher 3

These are open-world games that have suspect mechanics/gameplay but a very solid to very good writing.

When you say 'many' how many are we talking?

Mario and Luigi: SuperStar Saga

Horizon Zero Dawn.

TLHBO

You've already listed the only two examples I know lol


Though I did find GTAV's dialogue to be some hilarious B-movie grade shit. Well, maybe more like D-movie. Too bad Trevor was so incredibly unlikable and the overall story was so predictable.

10's of thousands at the very least.

I actually agree with that.

The Witcher, Shenmue, Yakuza (sort of), and Sleeping Dogs.

Forgot about Sleeping Dogs which wasn't bad but left a lot to be desired. The whole undercover cop thing made no sense at all lol.

Well considering GTAV has sold 265 Billion copies I would hardly call that many. Plus The Witcher many have great writing but the gameplay makes it boring in my opinion. I gave up after the bloody baron. GTAV on the other hand play it nearly every week.

Each to there own though and all that jazz!

I didn't have any problem with the mechanics of The Witcher 3 using mouse and keyboard. It's a solid game. What bored me were swords (I like guns) and the third-person perspective, which means I'll eventually get bored with the new Zelda game as well.

That is why I had a long break from RPGs. I got tired of the same medieval setting with swords and magic. I want RPGs with a modern setting....something I can relate to.

The closest were the Fallout games. I recently bought Fallout 3 GOTY Edition and Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition on Steam. I just started Fallout 3. I can't comment much on the story because I haven't gotten far in Megaton.

The only Fallout game I've finished is Fallout 4. I think it has the weakest story. But, it has other aspects I like such as settlement building/supply which adds a strategic/management aspect to the game.

As for open world, I like Far Cry 4 a lot, but not because of its singleplayer campaign. It sucks. The singleplayer story imposes too many limitations on exploiting the game world. But, once I'm free to do exploration with all restrictions removed (Reset Outpost mode), I love it.

Never denied The Witcher 3 has suspect gameplay but we're strictly talking writing/story here.

Yeah, it's just a cheesy b-movie plot, but it's still enjoyable enough in a microwavable pizza kind of way, lol.

Do you play games for story or gameplay. A good story is nice but not overly important to me. I read a lot so get my story fix in books. Games I play.

Not really but it's no excuse. A good story can't be a bad thing. Open-world games by virtue of their nature seldom have a good story/narrative because the pacing is left to the player and if you read a lot you know how pacing can absolutely destroy an otherwise great story. The mere fact they often try to do the classic of protagonist vs antagonist entangled in a conflict kills any sense of urgency. Can you imagine if in your favorite adventure book, instead of doing his job the hero spent his time interacting with people and exploring caves or other useless things? You'd be wondering WTF is the antagonist doing in the mean time.

After spending 80hrs doing various things I wondered if Alduin would still be waiting for me at the Throat of the World lol.

I liked the Infamous games quite a bit. Second Son was a bit weaker imo. Assassin's Creed 2, to me, was pretty good as well.

Metal Gear Solid V

The Witcher 3 is probably the best I can think of, especially Blood and Wine; that ending brought up a few tears.

Although, I do love the gameplay in The Witcher 3. But I know some people hate it. It's about as close to Dark Souls as you can get, without just copying the direct Dark Souls formula kind of like Nioh did, while still having an open world with a quest system.

Was Kingdom's of Amalur story any good? I only played a bit, and seemed a bit cheesy, but I never did make it very far. Got kind of bored partway through.

The Witcher 1 and 2 had great stories, but they weren't really open world, so not sure if those count. I also did enjoy Fallout New Vegas quite a bit. Also, does Fallout 1 and 2 count? Because those both had good stories.

GTA series

I'll add Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Divinity Original Sin to the list

Agreed on The Witcher 3, it's a good story and well told through the game. I do think that the Wedding in Hearts of Stone is by far the best quest line in the entire game though.

Can't even remember what the story in Amalur was tbh but just like you, I got bored and never finished it. I've even tried playing through it several times.

@KungfuKitten: Just added them as food for thought :)

@GarGx1: I never did play through Planescape Torment. Always meant to but never got around to it. Heard great things about it. I'd add Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 to the list? It's been so long since I played them, I don't remember the details, but I did love those games.

Not sure I would say Divinity 2 had a great storyline, as I don't remember the details and it just seems forgettable, but I loved the actual writing itself; especially those tombstones in that graveyard. Lots of fun stuff in there.

Well that worked. I think if we were to count them in, we'd be stretching the definition of the open world genre, though. When people talk open world they mean more loosely programmed games. A.I. that roams around 'freely' and having more freedom in actions than in your usual game. I wouldn't count the crpg's as open world the same reason I wouldn't count World of Warcraft as an open world game. It has an open world, very much so, but everything in it is more confined than a true open world game. If they would count, the games you mentioned would handily beat any open world game story that I know of.

Though I have to say to look at them as games with kind of an open world design is very interesting because it does show how different open world games get with a bit of restriction. You can have a very good story in an open world game, it just doesn't normally happen. Morrowind may have a good story. I've heard it praised before, but I have never played it.

@DragonfireXZ95:With Baldur's Gate and Divinity I was thinking more of the writing and narratives of the games, more so than the actual stories themselves. Planescape Torment, though, has stuck in my head since the first time I played it. It's full of humour, it's compelling and different to any other game of its' age. Absolutely, in my view, one of the best games ever made.

@KungfuKitten: I guess it does come down to how someone perceives the open worldyness (I know it's not a word but it fits :) ) of a game. All three of them are more open area than open world but with in those expanded areas you can proceed in any way you see fit to achieve your objective. You can interact with many of the NPC's in multiple ways giving you choice in how to deal with situations, ok mostly it's buy a sword, talk about a quest or kill them but you can kill them it lots of different ways ;)

An open world game like The Witcher 3 or even Farcry 4 and GTAV is only really an evolution of what can be loaded into a game. Streaming the programme wasn't something that could done when Baldur's gate or Torment were created (or the developers didn't have the budget, money and hardware, to do it), so should they be discounted because technology advanced? Divinity OS is a design choice to give an old school feel, moving between areas is pretty much seamless, I think it's as good as open world without having a single large map.

Does lore count as story? Probably not, but Bethesda games typically have a lot of history and event lore that you just don't see unless you're willing to dig. Read the books, computer logs, etc.... It really fills out the world and makes exploration much more interesting - which is the point of an open world game IMO.

If you want good writing/narrative and story, you're best bet are CRPGs. Planescape: Torment, Pillars of Eternity, anything by Spiderweb Software, etc... They read like a book and play like a strategy game, it's great.

I like the story in the Saint's Rows.

I like the Far Cry games.... Primal was pretty good. They don't have the best stories, but they are super fun

Along with Baldur's Gate, even though it's not technically open world, you can still go back to most if not all areas after the fact. Also, the choices were just insane. Like, there would be a locked chest, and you could pick lock it, but you can also bash the chest open if you have enough strength, or use an open lock spell with a wizard. So it wasn't just this one dimensional thing you get in many games, like, oh, this fence door is locked, but for some reason, our character can't climb over it or shoot the lock or break the lock. In those old games, they gave you alternative routes to get things done with other characters.

Fallout 3 and 4 do that a ton. Oh look, this door is locked, but why can't we just break open the door or climb through the window or something? Extremely limited choices.

But these have good writing.

All hail the king, Witcher 3!

The former does, can't say the same about the latter.

@uninspiredcup: Be serious.

?

Eh? Vice City is a masterful parody the 1980's pop culture, no game even comes close.
Scarface, Miami Vice, Ferris Bueller's day Out, utterly fantastic pulp comic representation both in writing and visuals.

Just Cause?

"This door is locked and requires a key". You can have the lockpicking skill at a 100 but some random doors were just made by the greatest locksmith in history. Tough luck.

True Vice City and SA were pretty good at that. The recent entries were/are awful.

All excellent games but I wouldn't call any top down RPG open world, that's quite a stretch lol.

I can confirm what someone alluded to earlier, Morrowind had a fantastic story and narrative and really deep lore all throughout its entire world.

None of it was voiced which I suppose helped account for the massive amount of written content, similar to Planescape in that respect though Morrowind was definitely a true open world RPG.

@jg4xchamp this one's all you, bro

NIER: Dull world but some pretty interesting meta commentary on videogames.

Pathologic: Also more meta commentary on videogames.

Both have quirky and eccentric characters that present the commentary, so it's not just hollow/blunt exposition.

Yakuza 0 is surprisingly well written for what it is

I thought so too and I was shocked by a video game story being actually good. I've never played the other Yakuza games before.

@blueinheaven: The thing is here is perspective. For 1998 and 1999, respectively, top down RPG's were as close to open world as we could really get (with a couple of exceptions like Daggerfall). Linked open areas, that could be revisited, was just an early step in the evolution of open world games.

Morrowind was a fantastic game, no disagreement there, but it still had loading screens when you traversed from outdoor to indoor and vice versa and you couldn't really go absolutely anywhere you could see. Shouldn't that be discounted as well? After all we can now do most of that, due to modern advances in code streaming.

The witcher 3

I mean I guess, I would lean towards The Witcher 3, because it's the most consistently enjoyable, the framework gets around a pretty obvious hurdle of doing an open world game story, and the moment to moment writing is really good in terms of having dialogue exchanges that don't come off clunky (sans some animation stuff and Geralt's voice actor), to some just memorable exchanges that are fun n snappy, and all around the characters are layered and hold under scrutiny.

New Vegas is special, for a lot of the reasons the best written crpgs are written, especially Avallone stuff, and that's the part where because he has a table-top back ground, he knows how to write a game. Not a story, but a game, he knows how to write quests, he knows how to take into account systems, and that's where the genius of a lot of the writing is in New Vegas in how it makes the choices feel impactful. Both through the mechanics in the game and because of the context of the quest. My largest beef with the guy, and I'd say it even shows up in something as fucking deified as Planescape, is that he writes in a robotic fashion. It can be emotionless at times, straight lacking any Pathos.

Bioware in contrast rightfully does get some shit for how formulaic their stories are, but Bioware made their hey day on their characters. And that says more about their best writers back then (haven't played Inquisition, so can't speak to what present day massive makeover Bioware is now) being able to give their characters a sense of humanity.

Rockstar's too inconsistent for my liking, and have never really found an answer for dodging the part where the middle of an open world game inherently means the plot comes to a stand still. Especially because you can tell they have a deep love for cinema and how it influences their games, so even when they had a plot as simple as the one in Red Dead, and a character as well done as John Marston, they still have Mexico, which in any other form of writing would have been ripped a new one for making everyone to wait for the plot to get back to it.

Which brings us back to The Witcher 3, I think the beauty of that is that it's more like a string of short stories or kind of like a TV show. Over arching plot, but a lot of monster of the week stuff in between. Like if Kevin Sorbo's Hercules show had some weird marriage with Game of Thrones. Which probably works best for an open world game, a genre inherently built around doing errands in a big, living setting you want to explore in.

Gravity Rush

Haven't played 2 though.

Skyrim

Trolling much?

Witcher 2(the writing was better than Witcher 3 imo the whole political assassination plot was very well done)

Witcher 3 (especially side quests writing)

Ezio trilogy

Black flag

Arkham city

There are more but right now these are the ones that comes to my mind.

@Juub1990: better than Witcher 3

One day a game will get this truly right with interlocking,real consequences of all your actions and that will be the best game ever. Until then, there have been plenty which were perfectly enjoyable.

I love open world, from Elite on the BBC onwards.