Games that are masterclasses in world-building

When it comes to world-building in games, RPGs lead the pack, which is a bit unfair because they have the advantage. RPGs are longer, more open and have different characters to help fill out the lore. There are excellent non-RPGs that have managed to fill their words as well.

The following are great blueprints for how to create living and breathing worlds, across all video game consoles and genres. A modern horror would be an example Resident Evil VillageWhile a more classic example would be silence Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Let's take a look at how well these games build their worlds alongside others.

blood borne

A gothic horror story

Of all the Soulslike games made by FromSoftware, blood borne That's who does their world building best. The setting of Yharnam is a gothic city straight out of one Castlevania Game if they were much darker and more eccentric. Players must fill in what happened from NPCs who only appear as voices behind cracked doors and piece together reference clues based on environmental damage and what certain bosses mutter.

The best part of the game is a mechanic called Insight. Once the stats are raised enough, players will open their third eye to see the world in a new context. Without spoiling anything, let's just say it changes the game in significant and even more awesome ways.

Halo: Combat Evolved

You won't believe your eyes

Halo: Combat Evolved It managed to do so much in its first game to set up a universe that would dominate Xbox consoles for over a decade. There was Master Chief, the hero, who was a super soldier and the last of his kind, fighting an alliance of alien races known as The Covenant. They were all fighting for dominance in a ring world called Halo, which was incredibly imaginative.

Even on the original Xbox hardware, it created a sense of awe every time players saw the other side of Halo from where they were. Since then, the hello The lore has only grown and become more complex, but this first game is pure, simple perfection.

Mass Effect

Star Trek meets Star Wars

Mass Effect BioWare's Last Space RPG was like a spiritual successor, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. There was an attempt to reconcile Star Wars and Star TrekAnd it worked. It took place in a galaxy where many diverse races found peace and ruled the universe as a council, a council that sent spaceships to keep the peace and detect anomalies, where this first game picks up.

The hero, Commander Shepard, receives a devastating vision of the future with warnings of betrayal, all of which make for an incredibly good trilogy. With many codex entries and dialog options, the world Mass Effect It was as filling for players as they wanted, but if they preferred cover-based action, that was also an option.

Resident Evil Village

Universal Monsters: The Video Game

Resident Evil Village It is the eighth mainline game in the series and the second since Ethan Winters, who returned to an undisclosed European country with his wife Mia and daughter Rose after the last game. After Mia is killed and Rose is kidnapped, Ethan must search for them, which leads him to a nearby village where something is not quite right. It is infested with werewolves, but not only that.

A local cult watches over the area, and each of the four lords has a unique attribute, from a vampire mistress to a ghostly puppet. While the themes are very different, Resident Evil Village It manages to make sense of it all in a larger context, almost like an homage to Universal's monster films. Overall, exploring the village and surrounding areas is fascinating as players never know what they will discover in this survival horror game.

Final Fantasy 9

PS1's swan song

Final Fantasy 9 PS1 was like the swan song for RPGs and final fantasy Overall, feeling like the culmination of over a decade of fantasy adventure. The world was populated with different races which wasn't detailed, but that was okay because it still made the world feel bigger.

As players explored the world map, they saw airships flying overhead like traffic in modern open-world games, and this was on the PS1. The dangers of the mists, how each state fits into the global economy, the designs and secrets behind black magicians, and more. All these things were made Final Fantasy 9 The gold standard in RPG creation, it's turn-based or action, and one of the best entries final fantasy suffrage

God of War (2018)

Two legends in one

When mythologies are presented in a video game or other piece of media, the focus tends to be on one, because combining mythologies into a common universe doesn't make sense. However, the 2018 reboot/continuation of god of war The franchise managed to do it efficiently.

Kratos came from a Greek background, but he buried his past to share a new life in lands rich in Norse mythology. The reboot managed to twist the familiar tropes of Norse mythology with Greek mythology as if they all existed on the same plane, from giant serpents to grotesque blacksmiths to hate-filled gods.

The last of us

Reimagining the Apocalypse

in some ways, The last of us A cliché example of a post-apocalyptic game that follows too many tropes. A zombie outbreak has led to the downfall of the United States, where a shell of the government clings to power while its citizens languish. Also, there are roving bands of bandits, not to mention undead. What sets The last of us There are distinct twists.

These zombies are created by an infectious fungus, making them behave and appear different from normal zombies. Also, instead of a bleak end-of-the-world scenario, The Last of Us reclaims the earth from society, pushing vines to grow from tall skyscrapers, which are both beautiful and terrifying at the same time, in a harrowing journey to survive in a broken America.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Teddy Bear Panic

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a visual novel/adventure game that at its core is about a group of students all suffering from collective amnesia. Inside, they learn from a robot bear, Monokuma, that they must kill each other if they want to escape, but there is a catch. When a body is found, an investigation period begins, followed by an inquest. If the culprit is not caught, they are free to go, and all are executed, but if the culprit is found, only the guilty party dies.

It's a clear set of rules, and each chapter will find students getting closer before the next mystery is revealed. Also, Monokuma gives insight into the rest of the world, indicating that it is in a post-apocalyptic state. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Similar to Schrödinger's cat experiment. Should the players believe what Monokuma is saying is true, or should they hesitate? For a simple but dark visual novel, it's intensely profound.

A Cold War epic

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a prequel and the furthest back of the series, which focuses on one of the oldest villains, Bigg Boss, while he was still a rookie. In some ways, it's a period set during the Cold War with appropriate era clothing and technology.

However, it's also a heightened universe as Big Boss, aka Naked Snake, has to face super soldiers with unique powers like The Pen, who can control hornets like an extension of his body. As wild as some of these characters are, no one bats an eye at their powers, leading players to believe that what they see is possible. This level of immersion is why stealth fans love it so much.

bioshock

A decadent utopia

There have been underwater games before bioshock And after that, and still it is one of the greatest environments ever created on land, air, or sea. This first-person shooter takes place in the ruins of an underwater utopia called Rapture, where its citizens became too transfixed with ADAM, a formula that enhanced the body but also warped the mind.

Players discover the Rapture after their plane crashes at sea, and then they will slowly unpack what happened through radio transmissions and pick up audio diaries. Apart from the sequels, there is nothing quite like the sheer horror that Rapture can create bioshock.