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[Fury451]

I was having a discussion with a friend recently, talking about games that are really good at lore, world building, and generally creating a sense of background and immersing the player. Dark Souls was of course the one that came up is probably one of the most creative examples, as it tends to leave breadcrumbs for you to find and piece things together.

Got me thinking though, what games have squandered their lore, or are otherwise really bad at building a universe to invest in? What are the anti-Dark Souls?

 

[Blobbers]

Metal Gear Solid.

 

[bobbychalkers]

The overarching Kingdom Hears lore kills whatever interest I have whenever a new trailer for KH3 comes out.

 

[tensuke]

Metal Gear Solid.

Wrongest first post in the history of wrong first posts.

 

[koryuken]

Destiny.

I should have been the first post.

 

[Trickster]

Wrongest first post in the history of wrong first posts.

"haha brother! I survived in this arm because nanobots!"

Or something, who even knows.

 

[oti]

The overarching Kingdom Hears lore kills whatever interest I have whenever a new trailer for KH3 comes out.

You're too street you just not getting it.

Spoiler

I don't get it either. Screw Riku that whiny twat.

And

His arm is his wife.

 

[Jerm411]

To me, Gears' lore has always been lacking and I think there was a huge missed opportunity there...

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

Metal Gear Solid.

The overarching Kingdom Hears lore kills whatever interest I have whenever a new trailer for KH3 comes out.

Saying they are the worst is harsh, but the first two posts are right in sating they are quite bad.

 

[djplaeskool]

Destiny.

I should have been the first post.

Destiny's lore is actually really interesting, so this definitely fall in the squandered territory.
The exposition of said lore is so sadly lacking.

The book of sorrows (built with the calcified fragments) almost deserves its own story.
It's kind of annoying that so much good stuff is buried behind cards you have to read on a website.

 

[BiggNife]

KH lore was okay at first but from 2 onwards it became a confusing, convoluted mess to the point where even fans of the series admit it's pretty intimidating.

Metal Gear Solid.

I think MGS wins for most inconsistent quality of lore, not worst. MGS3 still holds up. MGSV...nah.

 

[Joey Ravn]

"haha brother! I survived in this arm because nanobots!"

Or something, who even knows.

Spoiler

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".

 

[Syril]

In my opinion Kingdom Hearts gets actively worse the more attention it tries to give to its universe.

 

[James Scott]

5 nights at Freddy's is pretty bad.

 

[Acquiescence]

Sega Bass Fishing for sure. Couldn't catch a damn thing in that game.

 

[NotLiquid]

Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.

 

[DNAbro]

Destiny.

I should have been the first post.

it's not really. It's just that all the lore is in the grimoire and not accessible in game.

 

[JoseLopez]

5 nights at Freddy's is pretty bad.

Yep

 

[kavanf1]

Mario Bros. All this time and I still know so little about him.

 

[BiggNife]

Spoiler

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".

To be fair the MGS4 explanation was clearly a retcon and not Kojima's original rationale in MGS2 because people called him out on nanomachine arm being nonsensical.

And even then I think the MGS4 is really silly too and doesn't really sound that much better.

 

[koryuken]

Destiny's lore is actually really interesting.
The exposition of said lore is lacking.

I am referring to what's in the game. I'm not counting websites.

 

[KaoticBlaze]

As amazing and fun as the Metal Gear Solid series is to play, I have to agree that the lore is probably one of the worst, weirdest, and most confusing to follow.

 

[- J - D -]

Kojima couldn't help himself and muddied the waters post-MGS2 by trying to connect every single character, past and future, together in a tangled mess of mythology through retcons and more retcons.

So, MGS.

Moment-to-moment, the story thrills, but you can't really think about it too much.

 

[Stallion Dan]

I would have said Dark Souls.

I find lore in games only good if it expands the main story, not tries to make up for lack of it.

 

[MrBadger]

Kingdom Hearts often feels made up as it goes along.

Also, I think Five Nights at Freddy's had a good thing going, but was eventually taken too far by the creator and the fans. The series didn't get a proper ending and now people just argue about what they think happened forever.

 

[Retromelon]

The new dante is just grateful his character was not as assassinated as samus in metroid other m

 

[captainpat]

5 nights at Freddy's is pretty bad.

Yep, what pisses me off the most of the creator had the audacity to come out and say nobody's figured out his stupid game's story that he clearly has been making up on the spot.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.

AC's framing device is legit amazing. The story has gone off the rails, but the whole "modern day conflict conducted through diving into history in VR" thing is great.

 

[Akuun]

I was having a discussion with a friend recently, talking about games that are really good at lore, world building, and generally creating a sense of background and immersing the player. Dark Souls was of course the one that came up is probably one of the most creative examples, as it tends to leave breadcrumbs for you to find and piece things together.

Got me thinking though, what games have squandered their lore, or are otherwise really bad at building a universe to invest in? What are the anti-Dark Souls?

I think Starcraft squandered its lore. Starcraft 1 and Brood War had a great world and a lot of buildup, and then Starcraft II retconned pretty much all of it with as many shitty cliches and cop-outs you could possibly come up with.


The Crysis series lore was pretty much garbage from front to back. Its lore goes pretty much "Look, a cool mechanical suit! > Look, aliens! > yatta yatta yatta > You win!".

 

[TC McQueen]

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.

 

[Dunkley]

Kingdom Hearts lore is a disaster.

The games themselves are pretty fun and not bad alone, but holy crap can I not even make remote sense of the overarching lore and story.

 

[sn00zer]

The overarching Kingdom Hears lore kills whatever interest I have whenever a new trailer for KH3 comes out.

It kind of sucks, because there are some really interesting threads of a story, it the random bits that over complicate it that fuck everything up.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

I wouldn't say worst, but I think Starfox really got too bloated as it moved along.

I have mixed thoughts on Zero being a prequel because on one hand it means they can get rid of the extra baggage introduced by the GCN and DS ones, but at the same time I want the series to move forward in a meaningful way because what they tried with Command and Assault wasn't inherently bad, just somewhat mishandled (and having to deal with the after-effects of Adventures being forced into the canon was probably the main catalyst of that). Hmm.

 

[SinShep]

Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.

It's become one of the worst, and most disappointing. Started off as something really interesting before Ubisoft ran up to a wall so tough they've pretty much given up on it now.

 

[KaoticBlaze]

Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.

I only really enjoyed the story and gameplay of the Ezio trilogy, with Brotherhood being my favorite. I hate all the other ones.

 

[Joey Ravn]

To be fair the MGS4 explanation was clearly a retcon and not Kojima's original rationale in MGS2 because people called him out on nanomachine arm being nonsensical.

And even then I think the MGS4 is really silly too and doesn't really sound that much better.

Sure. But MGS is a pretty long-winded series and you have to look at it in retrospective. It's not fair to cherry-pick what parts of the overall plot we keep and which ones we discard. Retcon or not, for better or worse, that's the final explanation.

 

[EpitaphUnmei]

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

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

The overarching Kingdom Hears lore kills whatever interest I have whenever a new trailer for KH3 comes out.

When you waste a bunch of time and understand the story, it's actually pretty nice.


Except for the fucking

Spoiler

time traveling, fuck DDD.

 

[Poodlestrike]

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.

Nah son

Nah

Halsey hate goes overboard in the Kilo-Five books, but a course correction was necessary from her borderline mary sue status in Nylund's works. And ONI is not getting wanked in any sort of sense, listen to HtT.

 

[zsynqx]

Qwop

Just didn't do it for me.

Also I agree with the poster who mentioned Destiny, at least in how it's lore is presented.

 

[Sapiens]

Final Fantasy's constant never ending apocalypses of boredom involving attractive teens with angst.

 

[BiggNife]

Assassin's Creed has at the very least the worst framing device.

oh yeah all of the modern day stuff in AC is awful

I still don't know what the fuck they were thinking with AC3, especially since AC4 basically retcons the ending.

 

[Strangelove77]

Kingdom Hearts. Its almost impressive how fucked up it is.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

I wouldn't say worst, but I think Starfox really got too bloated as it moved along.

I have mixed thoughts on Zero being a prequel because on one hand it means they can get rid of the extra baggage introduced by the GCN and DS ones, but at the same time I want the series to move forward in a meaningful way because what they tried with Command and Assault wasn't inherently bad, just somewhat mishandled (and having to deal with the after-effects of Adventures being forced into the canon was probably the main catalyst of that). Hmm.

I can't believe you care about Star Fox's lore. I didn't think anyone did.

 

[James Scott]

Yeah, time travel was the last thing KH needed.
I like the first two despite already being a bit weird.

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

Final Fantasy's constant never ending apocalypses of boredom involving attractive teens with angst.

I can't wait until SE releases FF's official timeline. That'll be fun!

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

I can't believe you care about Star Fox's lore. I didn't think anyone did.

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.

 

[Auctopus]

I would have said Dark Souls.

I find lore in games only good if it expands the main story, not tries to make up for lack of it.

lol, it's there.

 

[KaoticBlaze]

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.

As one of my all time favorite games, I have to admit that Halo's story is pretty tough to follow if you only play the games without reading any of the books or checking out the expanded lore on Waypoint. But the books I've read thus far have been pretty amazing and help to understand the games more.

 

[Zombegoast]

Dark Souls 2.