Narrative Where?: You Really Need To Search For The Main Story In These 10 Video Games

30 June 2025

7

narrative-where?:-you-really-need-to-search-for-the-main-story-in-these-10-video-games — Narrative Where?: You Really Need To Search For The Main Story In These 10 Video Games

Some video games like to keep things simple: hero, villain, save the world, roll credits. They hand you the plot on a silver platter, complete with dramatic cutscenes and a handy quest log. It’s neat, clean, and great for players who like their storytelling with a side of breadcrumbs and glowing objective markers.

Games With Great Attention To Detail Featured Image A clean shaven Arthur and bearded Arthur infront of sunset background

These games have developers that care about the little details.

But other games? They like to play hard to get. These stories are tucked away in item descriptions, cryptic NPC mumblings, or buried so deep in environmental clues you might need a conspiracy board to piece it all together. It might take extra effort to uncover, but the thrill isn’t in being told the story, it’s in discovering it, one vague hint at a time.

Beware story spoilers ahead.

10 Dredge

Hazard Pay Is Harder To Find Than The Story

Dredge starts out simply enough. You’re a fisherman, hired to work in a quiet, remote archipelago. The goal? Catch fish, sell them for cash, and upgrade your boat… so you can catch more fish. Aside from a few eccentric locals and the slightly eerie vibes, it all seems like a peaceful gig. Just one warning: don’t fish at night.

Of course, the moment you ignore that advice (and you will), you begin to uncover a creeping Lovecraftian nightmare told through scattered journal entries, half-mad NPCs, and the ever-looming fog. The more you uncover, the more you realize something ancient is stirring beneath the waves. And if you’re not careful, you might accidentally help end the world. Oops.

9 Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion

Follow The Notes, Dodge The Monsters

ESRB: e
Engine: unity
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4
How Long To Beat: 4 hours
Developer: lag studios
Publisher: lag studios

Who doesn’t love a good haunted mansion? Cozy cobwebs, ominous hallways, and the lingering threat of certain doom – it’s practically a vacation! But Spooky’s mansion might be a bit more than you bargained for. Spooky herself is a chipper little ghost who invites you to explore her humble abode of 1,000 rooms. Sounds cute, right? Just keep walking…

At first, the scares are harmless: cardboard cutouts and cheap tricks. But as you delve deeper, things get darker, and the jump scares become full-blown nightmares. Suddenly, you’re not just exploring; you’re running for your life. And if you manage to read the scattered notes while dodging monsters, you’ll start uncovering a grim story involving shady experiments, psychological horror, and a lot of bodies. Spooky’s mansion is less ‘haunted house attraction’ and more ‘ethically questionable science facility with extra ghosts.’

8 Aetheris

May The Dice Be Ever In Your Favor

Released: November 7, 2023
Platforms: Steam
Genre: Adventure, Tactical

Aetheris starts with a bare-bones premise set in stained-glass graphics: a mysterious Shade is creeping across the land, and you’ve been sent to figure out why. Sounds simple enough, until you realize the game’s not handing you a story on a silver platter. Instead, it drops you into a world of Dungeons & Dragons-style battles and exploration with only your wits (and maybe a few lucky dice rolls) to guide you.

Split images of Dragon Age The Veilguard, Neverwinter, and Sekiro.

D&D is a fantastic tabletop RPG, one that has inspired many video games over the years. These video games are perfect for D&D fans.

There’s no neat quest log spelling everything out. Instead, the narrative unfolds through cryptic NPCs, unsettling monsters, and item descriptions that seem just a little too ominous. And here’s the kicker: your choices matter. Different paths, different outcomes. To truly understand what’s happening, you’ll need to dive back in again and again, piecing together the lore like a conspiracy theorist with a corkboard.

7 Return Of The Obra Dinn

The Mary Celeste Has Nothing On The Obra Dinn

Return of the Obra Dinn

Released: October 18, 2018

ESRB: Mature 17+ // Blood, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity
Developer(s): Lucas Pope
Publisher(s): 3909
Engine: Unity
Number of Players: 1
Steam Deck Compatibility: Verified
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty
How Long To Beat: 8 hours
How Long To Beat (Completionist Runs): 10.5 hours
File Size Xbox Series: 2.02 GB
Publisher: 3909

Few things beat a good ghost ship tale, and Return of the Obra Dinn delivers one with eerie precision. You’re an insurance investigator (yes, really) sent to uncover the fate of the long-lost merchant ship, the Obra Dinn, which has mysteriously drifted back to port completely empty. Well, mostly empty. Your job? Figure out what happened to all 60 crew members.

Armed with a magical pocket watch that lets you witness the exact moment of someone’s death, you explore the ship scene by scene, slowly untangling a web of mutiny, monsters, and maritime mayhem. The plot doesn’t unfold through cutscenes; it unfolds through corpses, clues, and a lot of deduction. The answers are all there… if you’re clever enough to find them. Just be warned: the truth behind the Obra Dinn is far stranger than a simple ghost story.

6 The Isle

Life Found A Way

The Isle

Systems

Released: December 1, 2015

ESRB: t
Developer(s): Afterthought LLC
Publisher(s): Afterthought LLC
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Early Access Release: December 1, 2015
Platform(s): PC
Developer: The Isle Development Team
Publisher: The Isle Development Team
Steam User Rating: 83% (October 26, 2023)

Have you ever wanted to run around as a dinosaur? Well, now’s your chance! The Isle is a survival game that lets you take control of your favorite prehistoric beast and throw you into a vast, unforgiving landscape. Your main goal? Don’t die. Easier said than done.

Dinosaurs in Ark Survival Evolved, Banjo-Tooie, and Horizon Zero Dawn

Love dinosaurs? Games like Horizon Zero Dawn or The Isle are for you. Find out which games allow you to walk with the legendary prehistoric creatures.

At first glance, there’s not much story beyond “eat or be eaten.” But as you roam the islands, you’ll stumble across strange, decaying human structures: abandoned compounds, busted dams, and eerie research outposts. Humans in a dinosaur world? Something doesn’t add up. Keep exploring, and a deeper, more unsettling narrative begins to unfold, one involving rogue science, broken containment, and worlds that were never meant to collide. It’s not just a dino free-for-all, it’s a cautionary tale with teeth.

5 Raft

Debris And Sharks: A Winning Combination

ESRB: t
Developer(s): Redbeet Interactive
Publisher(s): Axolot Games
Engine: Unity
Multiplayer: Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
Platform(s): PC
How Long To Beat: 31 Hours
Steam User Rating: 93% (October 25, 2023)

Raft throws you in the deep end… literally. You start on a tiny wooden platform in the middle of an endless ocean, armed with nothing but a hook, your wits, and a growing sense of thirst. Your main goal is survival: catch debris, expand your raft, fend off hungry sharks, and try not to fall in. It’s like Castaway meets IKEA, but with more splinters and fewer volleyballs.

But if you’re the curious type (and not too busy getting eaten), you’ll find there’s more beneath the surface. By scavenging wreckage and building a radio receiver, you can start picking up strange signals and piecing together a larger mystery. Turns out, the world didn’t flood by accident, and your floating lumber pile may be humanity’s last hope.

4 Hollow Knight

Choose A Direction And Hope For The Best

Hollow Knight

Released: February 24, 2017

ESRB: E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
Developer(s): Team Cherry
Publisher(s): Team Cherry
Engine: Unity
Franchise: Hollow Knight
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Linux
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty
How Long To Beat: 27 Hours
X|S Optimized: No
File Size Xbox Series: 7 GB (November 2023)
PS Plus Availability: Extra & Premium

Hollow Knight throws you straight into the crumbling ruins of Hallownest, a once-great kingdom now ravaged by a mysterious Infection and overrun with dangerous bugs. You play the silent Knight, setting off to… well, that part’s a bit unclear. The game doesn’t offer a quest log or exposition dump, just an open world full of winding tunnels, deadly creatures, and a map that grows only if you find someone to draw it for you.

Split image featuring the Git Gud patch, invicibility mod, and mantis gods in Hollow Knight

These mods will help take your Hollow Knight experience to the next level.

If you rush through, it’s easy to miss the story entirely. But for those who take the time to explore, chat with quirky NPCs, and piece together cryptic clues, a rich and tragic tale begins to unfold. Hidden behind boss battles and beneath ancient cities is the slow unraveling of a kingdom’s fall and your role in either ending or continuing the cycle.

3 Dark Souls

Hope You Live Long Enough To Find The Story

Dark Souls

Released: September 22, 2011

ESRB: M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Violence
Developer(s): From Software
Publisher(s): Namco Bandai
Engine: Havok
Multiplayer: Online Multiplayer
Cross-Platform Play: No, Dark Souls 3 is not cross-platform between PS4 and PC
Cross Save: Dark Souls always save your game data using steam cloud
Franchise: Dark Souls
Steam Deck Compatibility: yes
PC Release Date: August 24, 2012
Platform(s): Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty
How Long To Beat: 100 hours
X|S Optimized: no

When you think of difficult video games, Dark Souls is probably one of the first to come to mind. Known for its brutal combat and relentless bosses, the game doesn’t just make you fight tooth and nail in its dungeons; it makes you work just as hard to uncover the story.

Forget cutscenes and exposition dumps. In Dark Souls, the lore is buried in item descriptions, cryptic NPC dialogue, and the architecture itself. If you want to know what’s going on, you’ll need a sharp eye, a long attention span, and probably a YouTube lore deep dive. It’s less “tell me a story” and more “assemble the plot from cursed breadcrumbs while dodging a flaming demon goat.” Good luck!

2 Myst

The Mission: Find The Plot

Myst

Released: September 24, 1993
ESRB: E For Everyone
Developer(s): Cyan Worlds Inc

Publisher(s): Broderbund
Engine: unreal engine 4, hypercard
Franchise: Myst
Platform(s): macOS, PC, PS1, PSP, Sega Saturn, Nintendo DS, 3DS, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
OpenCritic Rating: Fair

Myst is one of the original hidden story video games, a masterclass in making you work for every scrap of narrative. You’re transported to a remote island via a magical book (as one does), and from there, the game gives you exactly zero instructions. Your objective? Solve puzzles, interact with odd contraptions, and most importantly, figure out why you’re even there.

The story doesn’t exactly reveal itself; it waits for you to dig it out, slowly and often confusingly. Only by the end of the game do things begin to make sense if you’ve been paying attention. Of course, if you’ve just been flipping switches at random and hoping for the best, you might still technically finish… just not with the ending you were hoping for.

1 Five Nights At Freddy’s

Go Down The List: Rotating Set Pieces? Check. Source Code? Check….

ESRB: m
Developer(s): Scott Cawthon
Publisher(s): Scott Cawthon, Clickteam LLC USA
Engine: multimedia fusion
Franchise: Five Nights at Freddy’s
Platform(s): Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
OpenCritic Rating: Strong

Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is the internet’s favorite animatronic fever dream. It kick-started the mascot horror genre with a deceptively simple setup: you’re a night security guard trying to survive five nights in a pizzeria. Sounds easy, until you realize you’re trapped in a tiny office with haunted animatronics, limited power, and no hazard pay.

At first glance, it’s just jump scares and creepy robots. But peel back the layers, and you’ll find a labyrinth of lore hiding behind flickering monitors, cryptic newspaper clippings, and the occasional haunted cupcake. As the series evolved, so did the mystery, fueling an army of fan theorists armed with pause buttons and red string. What began as a spooky night shift turned into an elaborate puzzle box of tragic backstories, sinister corporations, and an ever-growing number of missing children.

Game art from Baldur's Gate, Metal Gear Solid, Destiny and Borderlands.

Some stories are exceptional, and many will be much more hidden or deeper than you think. Here are the games with the best lore.