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Games with the worst lore?

Betty

Banned
Metal Gear Solid just mixes real world history with behind the scenes events that influenced things. Nothing overarchingly bad, detail wise... that's another story.

Gears of War is the real answer.

These creatures called Locust come out from the earth and no one had any idea they were there?

Then humanity reaches a point where they expect to lose, so they try to destroy their planet with satellite lasers... and they fail at doing that.

After trying to seppuku they then decide to fight back? And one of their best ideas was to sink the last intact city on the planet, which ended up mutating their enemy because goo.
 

Tingle

Member
I think Pokemon is a great contender. It has an amazing setting and great potential, but they never really do anything with it. Doesn't hurt the games at all to me, but it can make the games feel a bit flat at times.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.
Quite the opposite. AC's animus contextualizes a ton of gameplay elements compared to a the sheer amount of IPs in gaming. Also is brilliant as a framing device. And they've gone full meta with it becoming an entertainment device.
 
I am referring to what's in the game. I'm not counting websites.

But that is the lore, whether it's in the game or not. That's like saying the TF2 comics don't count because they're comics, or discounting the Halo novels. That's the extended universe/backstory/lore, it doesn't matter where it is.

Destiny's in-game use of its own writing sucks, yeah.
 
I don't, lol. That's why I dislike that the series went in the direction it did of being too lore-heavy. SF64 as it is was fine, it's everything since that bugs me.

0's lack of lore isn't an issue, it's being too similar to 64 that's the issue.
Ah, fair enough. I honestly didn't even know Star Fox had actual lore until I read your post.
 

Feltrol

Banned
Metal Gear Solid.

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Dunkley

Member
I think Pokemon is a great contender. It has an amazing setting and great potential, but they never really do anything with it. Doesn't hurt the games at all to me, but it can make the games feel a bit flat at times.

Pokémon's lore isn't outstanding, I agree, but I wouldn't consider it amongst the worst.

Final Fantasy 13 Not enough and poor plot, felt like i had to fight myself to finish that game.

I didn't like the story of 13 but I found the lore to its' world actually kinda nice.
 

moojito

Member
I don't fully appreciate pac man's motivation to get all the dots. I'm sure the dots wronged him in some way, maybe pac man sr was killed by a rogue gang of dots? They just don't say.
 

Tingle

Member
Pokémon's lore isn't outstanding, I agree, but I wouldn't consider it amongst the worst.

Yeah, I suppose I agree. Honestly, nothing listed in this thread is all that bad. Pokemon is just somewhat of a letdown based on its potential.
 

Creaking

He touched the black heart of a mod
Killzone apparently has a decent universe, but the game plots dumb everything down to space Nazis vs. space Americans.
 

Griss

Member
Halo.

Even setting aside the shitty ancient human with absurd technology bullshit, the way the novels have degenerated since Eric Nylund left is super depressing. The Catherine Halsey character assassination is the worst, especially since it comes hand in hand with wanking out the stupid evil group known as ONI.

This was going to be my answer. Whenever you have fully spoken 'alien councils' you've utterly fucking lost me. Making your main character the most generic space marine possible and his love interest a fucking Mary Sue AI - an AI! - and it's a shitshow all around.

The mutliplayer's great, though.
 

Warxard

Banned
Street Fighter.

A great way to establish character personality through the comics but otherwise it's borderline nonsense. :/
 

Tingle

Member
Street Fighter.

A great way to establish character personality through the comics but otherwise it's borderline nonsense. :/

Yeah, this is a good choice. In the games, they basically just make vague references that there is lore. I really couldn't tell you what is supposed to be happening in it.
 
You know that is fully explained in MGS4, right? The explanation is not exactly grounded in reality, but it's far more plausible than "nanomachines, son".

MGS fans are the best when it comes to justifying bullshit.

Mass Effect. So many Sci-Fi tropes told via bland dialogue.

That was the entire point of the first one, though.

Mass Effect didn't get up its own ass until 3.

The fact that everybody hated the Reaper Baby proves it just went over people's heads.
 
I can't wait until SE releases FF's official timeline. That'll be fun!

My Final Fantasy knowledge is almost non-existent, I've only played( and loved) FFX...but are you saying all of the FF games are in the same universe? If that's the case, it surely must be done in some convoluted Zelda-esque way?
 
Metal Gear Solid just mixes real world history with behind the scenes events that influenced things. Nothing overarchingly bad, detail wise... that's another story.

Gears of War is the real answer.

These creatures called Locust come out from the earth and no one had any idea they were there?

Then humanity reaches a point where they expect to lose, so they try to destroy their planet with satellite lasers... and they fail at doing that.

After trying to seppuku they then decide to fight back? And one of their best ideas was to sink the last intact city on the planet, which ended up mutating their enemy because goo.

Hmmm, you know I think Gears might be the best answer I have seen to this topic. It's really fucking bad.
 

Ezalc

Member
Kingdom Hearts is definitely up there.

It was sort of interesting in the first, then it just went to shit because of how stupid and convoluted it got.

I haven't played MGS, aside from Rising, but after seeing all the posts about it and the jokes throughout the years it comes across to me as just as if not more stupid and convoluted as KH, which is a pretty big feat in and of itself.
 
While I love the lore of FF XIII and found it far more interesting than the main storyline I gotta say that XIII-2 and LR have awful lore. Stupid shit like "time paradoxes" , "unseen realms", and "hearts of chaos" made things super dumb. It's almost so bad I practically refuse to consider it canon.
 
I think Pokemon is a great contender. It has an amazing setting and great potential, but they never really do anything with it. Doesn't hurt the games at all to me, but it can make the games feel a bit flat at times.
I don't know man. The story is always pretty bland, but the lore and detail behind the individual Pokemon kind of takes it out of the "Worst lore" contender for me. There is a lot of cool thought and detail put into those things.
 

gdt

Member
Gears is a great answer. There is nothing there. The snapshot you get is interesting and you figure there is cool shit to find out....but there is literally nothing haha.



Destiny's lore is amazing. Some of the coolest shit around. Hopefully they can one day really start bringing in game.
 

Breads

Banned
Wrongest first post in the history of wrong first posts.

I disagree. Volumes upon volumes of backstory can be summed up with Nuclear Deterrance, Parasites, Nanomachines, and PMCs.

Except, you know, the explanation of the magic, psychic powers, tornado shooting guns, infinite ammo bandanas, and what not.

Quite the opposite. AC's animus contextualizes a ton of gameplay elements compared to a the sheer amount of IPs in gaming. Also is brilliant as a framing device. And they've gone full meta with it becoming an entertainment device.

It pretended to be interesting and then they changed direction with it and it's true colors of being the shallow excuse to throw in game mechanics into random settings were exposed. The game you're playing being set up as a game the main character is playing is not a brilliant anything.
 

jelly

Member
If you get rid of the last part, it is actually somewhat interesting IMO

Yeah, there is something there for sure, it's just lost in the extra layers. I feel it gets instantly worse the more they reveal and maybe just me but tone down the military, it's Saturday Morning Adventures of The UNSC. 343 need to mix that up. Hopefully the struggle in Halo 6 turns it down a notch.
 

jelly

Member
Gears is a great answer. There is nothing there. The snapshot you get is interesting and you figure there is cool shit to find out....but there is literally nothing

Yeah, totally. It's going to interesting to see how Black Tusk fill that void.
 
Mass Effect. So many Sci-Fi tropes told via bland dialogue.

I wouldn't class dialogue as "lore" really. While the main story told through the games may have been lacking, especially in 3, the overall background and lore of the universe was really interesting.
 
Halo's lore and story is incredibly stupid right now. Used to be something I was interested in until they started explaining the Foreruners. Uck
 
If you get rid of the last part, it is actually somewhat interesting IMO
Halo's lore and story is incredibly stupid right now. Used to be something I was interested in until they started explaining the Foreruners. Uck

Greg Bear's Forerunner Saga, which established all that, is pretty much the best material in the Halo series by far, so nah.

Gears is a great answer. There is nothing there. The snapshot you get is interesting and you figure there is cool shit to find out....but there is literally nothing haha.

All the backstory and lore that has been filled out in the books is just plain awful too. People would be genuinely better off knowing as little of Gears' lore as possible.
 
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