Games with the Most Intricate Narratives

The Evolution of Game Narratives

Games have always started with concepts that were more about stories than complex branching narratives. For instance, the goal in Super Mario Bros. was to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, although those names weren’t official yet. After the NES era, stories became more intricate in positive ways, and even the best ones can be challenging to understand on their own.

These narratives often involve complex themes or take place in different parts of the world where certain cultural aspects may not be familiar to everyone. It's also enjoyable to call a friend or join a message board to discuss these games because they often have wild endings.

There will be spoilers.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Nothing Is Real

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s story focuses on the titular Expedition 33, which travels across the sea to face a magical being known as The Paintress, who has been erasing people from existence based on age for years. Once players destroy the boss, the victory is fleeting as people start to disappear, leading to a big illumination about the very nature of the world and the people in it. One of the party members, Maelle, is actually from the real world, Paris to be exact, unbeknownst to her, and this entire world that players tried to save was all fake, and that’s just a basic summary.

Silent Hill f

Must Replay

Silent Hill f begins with Hinako leaving her family to meet her friends in town when the whole place starts to get eaten by a flowery menace, including one friend, Sakuko, who dies. While Hinako manages to meet up with other friends, Shu and Rinko, a few times, they disappear eventually, and there’s also the matter of the other world with the fox spirit. Almost nothing is explained the first time around, but players can piece things together from notes left behind and continue their save file, since it’s actually impossible to finish the story the first time through, as there are multiple endings and branching paths. That said, it can still be confusing after replaying it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

What’s With The Wisps?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes place entirely in Midgar, which is only a small fraction of the original game, and while most of the core story remains intact, the new content is where fans may start to add speculative theories. New to the story are the ghost-like wisps that interfere with Cloud and the others from changing anything from the original story. Also, the final boss features Sephiroth in many forms, way ahead and when he is supposed to meet the party. Even fans who have absorbed every piece of Final Fantasy 7 content out there may find the finale hard to analyze on how this game fits into the overall series, as it technically isn’t a remake at all.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Hearts Into Darkness

Kingdom Hearts 3 has a lot of baggage attached to it, specifically, eight Kingdom Hearts games filled with lore that this sequel tries to address in some form or another. Even though it’s a daunting task, the story manages to give little moments of clarity to the plots of past games, like rectifying what happened to Aqua and her crew at the end of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. The game even manages to incorporate the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Union X, into the penultimate battle. It’s a great fan letter and an end to a saga, but as good a job as Square Enix did, the story isn’t perfect, and there are many loose ends that even the DLC doesn’t answer, like who Xigbar really is and where Sora is currently.

BioShock Infinite

Your Owen Villain

BioShock Infinite seems like a simple story of a private detective, Booker, hired to save a girl, Elizabeth, in a floating city, Columbia, but it gets so much more complex once rifts and time travel are involved. The overarching villain of the game is the ruler of Columbia, Comstock, who players later find out is just another version of Booker, and Elizabeth is actually another version of his daughter, Anna. The world has been off balance ever since Booker was baptized to become a new man, Comstock, so in order to right the wrongs of history, this current Booker essentially has to let a multiverse of Elizabeths and Annas drown him to stop the cycle, and that is really only the tip of things.

Death Stranding

Entering The Kojimaverse

Death Stranding is one of the hardest Hideo Kojima games to parse through because it’s set in a new world, and there are so many characters and terms to remember that players practically need a dictionary alongside a translation guide. The basic plot is a trip across a destroyed version of the United States wherein the courier hero, Sam, has to reconnect the country on an Internet-like structure. This plot also includes babies that can detect invisible monsters, another world held deep beneath the tar, characters with magical abilities like being reborn, beaches that represent life and death, and so on. Thankfully, the sequel is an easier story to follow, as bonkers as it is.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Needs Another Game

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is another Hideo Kojima game, specifically the last Metal Gear he worked on before leaving Konami, which was meant to finish the Big Boss prequel saga. Due to budget and time constraints, not everything was connected, leaving a lot of weird holes in the plot, which is well documented in a special version of the game that showcases one of the proposed final missions in the epilogue. Beyond cut content, events just sort of happen without much background given to the context, as fans are seemingly supposed to figure things out for themselves, like the nature of Quiet, the flaming man, and who Venom Snake really is.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Time Is A Loop

Up until Xenoblade Chronicles 3, every entry in the Xenoblade series was seemingly supposed to be standalone, like the mainline Final Fantasy entries. However, based on the game’s ending, it implies that the world within the game was a combined version of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which takes a huge amount of knowledge to understand how that’s possible. Between these three games, that’s about 180 hours worth of content, and that’s being generous. Beyond worlds colliding, the main plot before the grand finale uses time travel and rebirth to tell its story, and everyone knows that using time travel can often be confusing, especially when the two main characters, Noah and Mio, have to face themselves in battle.

The Evil Within

Inception: The Game

The Evil Within begins normally as police arrive at a hospital wherein some murders have happened, but that’s when things start to get twisted as the lead detective, Castellanos, soon finds himself in a medieval-like world within the hospital. Based on the set design, it can start to feel like a spinoff of Inception or The Matrix, because it is later revealed that characters are hooked into pods, which is how everyone is connected within the other world. The sequel dives into the nature of the tech more, but there’s not much to go on in the original game, forcing players to come up with their own interpretations by analyzing in-game notes.

Deadly Premonition

Get A Load Of These Scars

Deadly Premonition is one of the weirdest horror games ever made, as it takes place within a small town, Greenvale, wherein a series of murders have occurred. An FBI Agent is brought in, Francis York Morgan, who constantly introduces himself as such and talks to himself by referring to a man named Zach, much to the confusion of everyone around. That’s because his badge says his name is Zach, but in the game, he takes on the protective persona of York after a childhood incident. As for the town, the mysterious rain and other world were all caused by a war experiment, but that’s just barely scraping the barrel.