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Comment by silveroriole | Hacker News Reader

The older I get the more I find all games to have horrible writing. Even games I used to love like ME are painful on replay. Most conversations boil down to “I don’t want to do a thing.” “But I’m Commander Shepard and I’m picking the blue option.” “OK, I will do the thing now!” Recent games with ‘good writing’ (pillars of eternity, divinity, MGS5) have all left me completely cold and wondering if I’m even playing the same game as reviewers are.

Maybe I can recommend games with a strong atmosphere instead. Like Morrowind, Deadly Premonition, Sleeping Dogs, Kentucky Route Zero, Silent Hill 2/3. Nier Automata if you like anime (which I don’t, so I didn’t find it as thrilling as many game reviewers seemed to).

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Have you tried Planescape: Torment? The original Deus Ex (the prequels are definitely lackluster)? VtM: Bloodlines? Life is Strange? Dishonored?

What can change the nature of a man?

+1 for VtM: Bloodlines. There is a review by a dude who goes by sseth (that's with 2 x s) that does a good job explaining why it's great.

The higher the agency the less need for a plot. If you are looking for strong writing then you'll need to play games that are mostly based on a linear story with less agency. By linear story I don't just mean a half hearted chain of quests. Plot heavy games are almost indistinguishable from books. Sometimes you spend 10 minutes doing nothing but reading.

There is still some good writing out there for sure. Check out Spider-man on PS4 - it's a linear game so there aren't conversation options to choose, but the writing is up there with anything else in the spider-man/marvel universe in any format in my opinion.

The games you mention all seem to be games with options for dialog which if you think about it is hard to write for, games are the only medium where you're essentially choosing your own adventure and the writing has to be able to account for any/all choices and still end up leading you towards some kind of conclusion that makes some sense.

Hmm, I agree the writing in games can be on par with the writing in comic books and superhero movies, but I’m not sure that’s a compliment :)

Have you tried Disco Elysium?

Waiting for the switch version! I have a strange feeling I won’t like it though. All the dialogue I’ve seen is too self-consciously ‘wacky’. Although I don’t know to what extent that’s influenced by the fact that I see it via youtubers playing it and they’re picking the stupid options.

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