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.

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But other games? They like to play hard to get. These stories are tucked away in item descriptions, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:cryptic NPC mumblings, or buried so deep in environmental clues you might need a cons💦piracy 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 disc🌌overing it, one vague hint at a time.

Beware story spoilers ahead.

10 Dredge

Hazard Pay Is Harder To Find Than The Story

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Dredge
3.0/5
Released
March 31, 2023

WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
PHYSICAL

ESRB
E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Animated Blood, Fantasy Viol𝕴ence, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco
Developer(s)
൲ Black Salt Games
Publisher(s)
Team17
Engine
Unity
OpenCritic Rating
Strong
How Long To Beat
10 Hours
PS Plus Availability
Extra & Premium 🃏
Metascore
81

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 vi♋bes, 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, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:you might accidentally helpℱ end the💯 world. Oops.

9 Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion

Follow The Notes, Dodge The Monsters

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion
Indie Games
Action
Free-to-Play
Adventure
Systems
Released
October 24, 2014

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
e
Engine
unity
Platform(s)
Microsoft Windows, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 4
How Long To Beat
4 hours
Developer
lag studios ꧋ 🧸
Publisher
💞 lag studios ဣ

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 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a chipper little ghost who invites you to explore her humble abode of 1,000 rooms. Sounds cute, ri💧ght? 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 liಞfe. 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 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: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 & D🔴ragons-style battles and exploration with only your wits (and maybe a few lucky dice rolls) to guide you.

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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. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: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

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Return of the Obra Dinn
Adventure
Puzzle
Horror
Systems
Released
October 18, 2018

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
Mature 17+ // Blood, Int🌼ense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity
Developer(s)
Lucas Pope ꦆ 🌠
Publisher(s)
3909
Engine
Unity
Number of Players
1
Steam Deck Compatibility
Verified
OpenCritic Rating
Mighty
How Long To Beat
8 hours
How Long To Beat (Completionist Runs)
𒊎 ✤ 10.5 hours
File Size Xbox Series
2.02 GB
Publisher
3909

Few things beat a good ghost ship tale, and R๊eturn of the Obra Dinn delivers one with eerie precision. You’re an insurance ꦬinvestigator (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… 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:if you’re clever enough to find them. Just be warned: the trut🐓h behind the Obra Dinn is far stranger than a simple ghost story.

6 The Isle

Life Found A Way

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The Isle
Open-World
Survival
Systems
Released
December 1, 2015

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
t
Developer(s)
Afterthought L🤪LC ಞ
Publisher(s)
෴ Afterthought LLC
Engine
🍰 Unreal Engine 4
Early Access Release
December 1, 2015 ꦏ
Platform(s)
PC
Developer
The Isle Development Team ꧅ ⛄
Publisher
The Isle Development Team ✤
Steam User Rating
🅰 83% (October 26, 2023) ♌

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Have you ever wanted to r🐟un 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 𓃲into a vast, unforgiving landscape. Your main goal? Don’t die. Easier said than done.

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At first glance, there’s not much story beyond “eat or be eaten.” But as you roam the islaဣnds, you’ll stumble across strange, decaying human structures: abandoned compound🃏s, 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

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Raft
Released
June 20, 2022

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
t
Developer(s)
ꦡ 🉐 Redbeet Interactive
Publisher(s)
Axolot Games ♍
Engine
Unity
Multiplayer
Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer ൩
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, a𒆙nd a growing sense of thirst. Your main goal is survival: catch debris, expand your raft, fend off hungry sharks, and try 𒉰not 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 getti൩ng 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

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Hollow Knight
10.0/10
Released
February 24, 2017

WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
PHYSICAL

ESRB
E10+ for Everyone 💦10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
Developer(s)
ཧ 🐽 Team Cherry
Publisher(s)
🃏 Team Cherry
Engine
Unity
OpenCritic Rating
Mighty
How Long To Beat
27 Hours
X|S Optimized
No
File Size Xbox Series
7 GB (November 20🤡23♐)
PS Plus Availability
😼 Extra & Premium
Wiki

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, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:deadly creatures, and a map that grows only if you find s📖omeone to draw it for you.

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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 slไow 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

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Dark Souls
Released
September 22, 2011

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
ꦯ M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Violence ꦡ
Developer(s)
From Software ♉
Publisher(s)
ౠ Namco Bandai
Engine
Havok
Multiplayer
🃏 Online Multi💃player
Cross-Platform Play
No, Dark Souls 3 is not ▨cross-platform between PS4 and PC 🅺
Cross Save
Dar🅘k Souls alwayไs save your game data using steam cloud
Steam Deck Compatibility
yes
PC Release Date
August 24, 2012 💜
OpenCritic Rating
Mighty
How Long To Beat
100 hours
X|S Optimized
no
Wiki

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:When you think of difficult video♊ games, D🃏ark 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, y🐼ou’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 “assemb🌌le the plot from cursed breadcrumbs while dodging a flaming demon goat.” Good luck!

2 Myst

The Mission: Find The Plot

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Myst
Puzzle
Systems
Released
September 24, 1993
ESRB
E For Everyone
Developer(s)
𝄹 Cyan Worlds Inc

Publisher(s)
🔯 Broderbund
Engine
unreal engine 4, 🐭hypercard
Franchise
Myst
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 ꦦhoping for the best, you might still technically finish… ﷽ꦓjust 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....

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Five Nights at Freddy's
Survival Horror
Systems
Released
August 8, 2014

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

ESRB
m
Developer(s)
♈ Scott Cawthon
Publisher(s)
Scott Cawthon, Clickteam L🌟LC 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 Fre💧ddy’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 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an ever-growing 🔯number of missing children.

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 28 Game Fraജnchises With The Best Lore

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