The story can be a very important part of a game's identity, whether that's a grand and glorious fantasy epic or a shooter set in the midst of a dystopian future. But while many of gaming's best narratives bare all their heart, soul, and character before the credits roll, there are still those games that leave it up to the player to figure out the entirety of the narrative.
Not all games tell players everything. Sometimes it's left up to their discovery, details in the background, or even something as abstract as the player's own interpretation. With all that in mind, it's enough to make many players want to do multiple playthroughs, each with a little more attention than the last.
Dark Souls
infamously brutal Dark Souls boss battles, but it's all told through the visuals and environment.
In a way, this is sort of an unfair combination of difficulty and storytelling. There's so much to be seen, so much to be explored, and so many things to fight, that it acts like a dangling carrot over a cavernous pit. Still, the game does have its audience, and more diligent players are rewarded with a rich dark fantasy.
P.T.
What would have been a rebirth of the iconic Silent Hill series ended up being lost to development hell and then oblivion. The playable trailer for the unrealized collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro managed to scare hundreds of players with subtle storytelling and one endless hallway.
The story is told through the changing environment of the house, newspaper clippings, and reflection of the protagonist's psyche. In the grand scheme of things, it's more about what the player isn't told than what they are. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.
Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
While there's a definite plot made prominent at the start of the game, it's up to Link/the player to explore Zelda series follows essentially the same plot that it has since the '80s. Zelda is captured by Ganon, the kingdom is in peril, and Link has to save the day.
Where Breath of the Wild differs is the size, scale, and scope of the adventure. There is so much to be discovered that paints a bigger picture than the standard save-the-princess ordeal. Fragmented memories, environmental storytelling, and visuals provide more than the preset narrative does. A fitting aspect for an open-world game.
Bioshock
When it was first released, Bioshock was a sci-fi/steam-punk nightmare that had twists, turns, and Splicers around every corner. But instead of being the typical guts-and-gore horror-shooter, the game proved to have a very compelling and slow-burning story that pulled the rug out from under the sweater-wearing protagonist.
The player is sent careening into an underwater dystopia after a plane crash, guided by the voice of Atlas over a radio, and sent on a journey to escape the murky ruins of Rapture. But as the player dives further and further into Andrew Ryan's failed city, more and more secrets come to light. The truth of the matter starts to conflict itself, but it's the scenery and environment that reveal things first.
Hollow Knight
This gothic Metroidvania, the best available on the Switch, has no traditional narration, nor does it have a linear method of gameplay. Rather, it relies on the various worlds, ruins, and characters to tell the tale of Hollownest. It's up to the player to put the pieces together themselves. Similar to Dark Souls, the world is the real narrative force in this game.
Bits of lore and story are collected through the shrines, ruins, and characters the Knight meets along the way, and it's non-linear storytelling at its finest. It's certainly a game that's more complex than it looks.
Skyrim
A game like Skyrim already comes with a certain reputation. With so much to do in the core game alone, it can be easy to forget that there is a story mode buried in the extensive amount of content the game offers. Other than the resurrection of dragons, there's a war of Stormcloaks and Imperials, an order of vampire hunters, and tomes and tomes of lore to find in the hidden areas of Tamriel.
At some point in the game, the main plot of the game becomes more of a suggestion than anything else. There are simply so many branching paths the Dragonborn can take that one simple narrative can't contain it all.
Cuphead
In the case of Cuphead, the real narrative is more about what the player isn't seeing than what they're actually doing. To clear their debt to the Devil, Cuphead and Mugman must run and gun their way across Inkwell Isle as they lock horns with the Devil's monstrous debtors and battle in the best Cuphead boss fights. That's only on the surface, but there's an unshakable feeling of something extra seedy going on in the background.
The grainy, vintage motifs of the game's visuals, the strange scenes happening behind the action in the painted backgrounds, and the often-forgotten fact that the game's heroes are doing a devil's errand are often lost in the hypnotic gameplay or the game's colorful cartoony world. Despite its bright and cheery coating, something sinister is definitely afoot.
Journey
Journey isn't a game, it's an experience. It's an epic adventure told entirely through visuals and imagery, without the aid of narration, dialogue, language, or regular verbal communication. There's something almost biblical about the idea of a robed character making a pilgrimage across deserts and ruins, yet the story is all brought to life through the Traveler and what he sees.
There is a story here, but it's never made 100% clear as to what is actually happening in a narrative sense, but there's enough there that the player can piece together some form of structure. It's the air of mystery that helps aid the game's overall mystical quality.
Hyper Light Drifter
Similar to Journey, The Zelda-like title has a story, but not one that's immediately known to the player, causing them to theorize and make their own interpretation of this post-apocalyptic fantasy.
There's definitely a lot going on in this 16-bit adventure, but it never comes right out and says exactly what that is. The result is an enigmatic and neon-lit saga that will keep players coming back to experience the story again and again.