I love Warhammer 40k. I know next to nothing about it, but the massive scale and the fanatical devotion to the Emperor is impressive. Not to mention giant, GMO guys that are beating (sometimes literally) aliens and traitors into the ground. There are weapons that destroy planets and there are hammers that can punch holes in tanks. There are flamethrowers, machine guns, plasma cannons, grenades that rip open realspace.
The Elder Scrolls. Don't even get me started. This game series has captivated me for thousands upon thousands of hours between the gameplay, story, modding, apocrypha, and chatting with developers. But the lore and world building done by Bethesda? I have yet to encounter a video game world more richly detailed, inspired, and beautiful than that found in the Aurbis. The entire world is the creation of a sleeping god, whose Dream begets further Dreams born of murder and marriage. Inside we have the conceptualization of the subgradiation of the divine "spheres" and the importance placed on mortality (the "letter written in uncertainty"), the notion of waking dreamers and erasure of those who realize the truth of their existence, the clash between order and chaos and their place in the "prison" of the Arena. It's Aladdin caves levels of nonsense that is just so wonderful to see and simultaneously frustrating to not see more emphasis placed on. I always find it difficult to explain my captivation with this series without coming off as a hyperventilating lunatic. You have the inversion of Tolkein's 4th Era with the decline of Man in place of the Elves, you have the concept of emulation of divinity leading to divine power ("walk like the gods until they walk like you"), you have the great tragedy of the pantheon both old and new (from Magnus' lost daughter to the hubris of the Tribunal). You're living in a world where a prostitute becomes advisor to a warchief and uses a divine understanding of the universe to rewrite hir history to the point where a hermaphroditic bug god gave birth to itself in the shell of a dwarven similacrum of his mother and created a bible with actual magic written into it. You have dancing apes breaking time to tear a god in half, to cats that can climb to the moons, to a nation of black imperialists who had a sword technique so potent it could split an atom and sink a continent. It's weird and vulgar and strange and brutal and wonderful and poetic and mundane all at once and I love it with every fiber of my being.
The point of the post is to get people like yourself started. I'm a lover of lore, a fan of The Elder Scrolls, and your writing is captivating. I, for one, would be delighted to read about your fascination with the series. I thought I had read through enough of the in-game books in Oblivion and Skyrim to understand some of the more abstract concepts, but from reading your piece, I can confidently say that I have no idea of what's actually going on. I never played any of the previous games, but my brother bought me the anthology for my birthday, so I think I'll go ahead and install all of them when I get home. In the meantime, if you'd like to share, I'm a sucker for a good story.
Okay, then let's go with probably my favorite story-that-needs-to-be-adapted-by-HBO present in the games: Potema the Wolf Queen and the War of the Red Diamond. Let's set the stage: We begin in 3E 63, with the future emperor Pelagius II. After being widowed and left with two children from his first marriage, the emperor travels to Camlorn in High Rock, and comes to court with the Princess Quintilla. He arrives to find the castle besieged by a werewolf, and aids the princess in defeating the beast. The princess soul traps the werewolf into a gemstone, which Pelagius later fashions into a ring. He proposes to Quintilla, who gives birth to Potema shortly thereafter. It is said, however, that the soul of the beast they slayed stayed with the couple, and made itself present in their firstborn daughter, a child who was described by her grandfather Uriel II as being "like a she-wolf about ready to pounce." Potema was eventually married off (at the age of 14) to the king of Solitude in Skyrim, where she grew and manipulated those in her husband's court. She staged circumstances so that the child of her husband's - Mantiarco's - previous marriage would be deemed an illegitimate bastard. After numerous miscarriages, Potema eventually gave birth to a child named Uriel, who was now perfectly positioned to become king of Solitude and eventually vy for the Ruby Throne in Cyrodiil. Years pass, Pelagius II and dies, and his children convene at the coronation of the new emperor, one of Pelagius' other children, Antiochus. Mantiarcho passed away shortly thereafter, and Uriel came to rule as King of Solitude alongside his mother. In the Imperial City, Potema meets with Quintilla, who gives a gift meant for Uriel when he comes of age: a necklace carrying the gemstone of the werewolf's soul, enchanted with Illusory magic to charm those the wearer speaks to. Potema meets with Antiochus in an attempt to blackmail him into abdicating his right to the throne. Though she failed to shake him, she spent the next several months manipulating the Mages Guild, Psijjic Order, and the Maomer of Pyandonea in an attempt to leverage a planned invasion to weasel millions in gold into her own coffers to finance a coup against her brother, who had already taken the throne as emperor. Antiochus was a debaucherous emperor, whose lust is perhaps only eclipsed by The Remanada in its perversity. The Empire was left with Kintyra II as a claim to the throne after Antiochus mysteriously died after a visitation by his nephew, Uriel. Potema visited the Elder Council and declared that Kintyra was, in fact, a bastard and attempted to leverage her charm to convince the Council to appoint her own son as emperor. Her efforts were in vain, and Kintyra II rose as Empress in 3E 120. In her years of planning and preparation, Potema had acquired allies in the many disgruntled nobles of Skyrim, Morrowind and High Rock. Raising and army on three of Cyrodiil, Potema made to declare war to unseat Kintyra as Empress and install her son in her place. Kintyra moved her army into position near Glenpoint Castle in High Rock, planning to oversee the destruction of her aunt's forces personally after the insulting testimony she gave to the Elder Council. Once again using her skill at blackmail and forgery, Potema convinced Kintyra's husband-to-be to evacuate the troops remaining in the Imperial City, ordering them to meet with Kintyra's forces in a week's time. Under cover of night, Potema's troops committed the mass assassination of Kintyra's forces, carving their way to her quarters where she was captured, presumably tortured, and summarily executed while Uriel's armies marched on the now-undefended Imperial City. With this brutal coup complete, the remainder of the Empire turned against Potema. Her two half-brothers Magnus and Cephorus gathered their own armies and spent the next few years waging war against Potema and Uriel, fracturing the continent in a civil conflict not seen since the Interregnum. Years pass, and Uriel is engaged in a battle with his uncle Cephorus in Hammerfell, while Potema staves off her half-brother Magnus' advances from Morrowind (which he has made by co-opting the Argonians into his cause). During the Battle of Ichidag in 3E 127, Uriel was captured by Cephorus' forces and transported to the city of Gilane, where he would await his eventual return to the Imperial City and supposed trial. However, as Potema stalled Magnus in the swamps in northern Morrowind, she hears word that Uriel's caravan was intercepted by an angry mob, and that he was burned alive. Cephorus was raised to the title of Emperor while Potema's army finished their rout of Magnus' forces. With Uriel dead, the nations of the continent struck deals with the Cephorus emperorship to attain greater autonomy than was had under previous rule. Skyrim, High Rock, Hammerfell, the Summerset Isle, Valenwood, Black Marsh, and Morrowind all gained sovereignty. The War of the Red Diamond had ended, but Potema continued to fight against the forces slowly closing around her sphere of influence in Solitude. With the death of her son, Potema fell into madness. The lands of Solitude became lands of death, as she summoned daedra to fight for her, reanimated the corpses of her enemies' soldiers to serve as her own army, and conversed with the wraiths, vampires, and other necromantic fiends. As Magnus' armies close around her, she escapes from her castle one last time and chances a meeting with her half-brother's son, Pelagius III. Her nephew does not recognize her, but she gives him a gift in the form of a necklace, one with the amber gemstone carrying the soul of a werewolf. However, the trinket no longer held its enchantment of charm. It had been replaced by Potema with an enchantment of poison, which would slowly sap the strength and wits of the wearer until they lost their minds. Returning to her castle, Potema waited out the remaining month-long siege before dying in her sleep. Magnus granted stewardship of Solitude to his son, Pelagius III. Years would pass as Cephorus and Magnus eventually died, and the "eccentric" Pelagius III would eventually rise to the throne of Emperor.
Well, now I know how Pelagius the Mad came to be. Very interesting read - thank you for taking the time to type it up!
Who would you nominate as the baddest of badasses? We'll say one diety and one mortal. I found myself fascinated by Hermaeus Mora, though I don't know how he'd stack up in a brawl.
If I had to choose? ... Hrm. As far as gods go, I'd probably have to give it to Talos as much as I'd like to say the Aka-Tusk. Simply put, Talos is the replacement of a dead god (see: Lorkhan) who achieved divinity through multiple pathways: he mantled the original enantiomorph between Tiber Septim, Zurin Arctus, and Wulfhearth and created a Tower to fortify the Mundus, he achieved CHIM (see: "From the Many Headed Talos", Heimskr), and united the Empire by reactivating Walk Brass, which I'll get to later. Discussing deities gets murky, because the Aedra - though diminished - had a great deal of impact on the Mundus. The different Daedric Princes all have constantly changing waters of Oblivion and none of them have been "removed" by the others yet, so I'd assume that within their own domain they're pretty much unstoppable barring an intervention from literally the entire Pantheon. The kalpic cycle further complicates this, as whenever Alduin eats the world, everything goes back to Convention (where Lorkhan gets killed by Auri-El and his heart is shot into Red Mountain) and the Aedra and Daedra all play musical chairs and switch places. It's easier to think of the divines as "ideas" or concepts that are preeminent in the Aurbis, and considering that they're all more or less equally powerful because A) if there's an "idea" that isn't represented in the Pantheon, it's probably not that important and B) in some way or another, the strength of a god is dependent on how fervently they are worshipped. This is where you see examples of "dead gods" like Alkosh springing to life to backslap the murderous Pelinal Whitestrake from continuing his pogroms into Elsweyr. But if I had to pick the most dangerous entity in TES? The Numidium. Hands down. The Dwemer saw the Aurbis for what it was: a prison. Same as Lorkhan, who saw the name of God - "I" - and tricked the Aedra into building the Mundus and subgradiate far enough down that someone might find a way to escape. Lorkhan's plan was to keep going further down (see: Anuiel -> Aka-Tusk -> Auri-El -> Alduin & Akatosh & Alkosh etc.), until mortals could find a way to reconcile the fact that they were part of the Godhead's dream and escape. His hope was that people would see the universe ("I AM"), renounce it ("I AM NOT"), and manage to not get zero-summed out of existence. Those who do achieve CHIM. Those willing to go the next step - becoming a new Dreamer - achieve Amaranth. But no, the Dwemer were not interested in this. Their plan was one of antegradience: unify the entirety of the Dwemer into one singular being, one God, and move back up the ladder until they reach the starting point. To do this, Kagrenac build a massive machine, Walk Brass, the golden-skinned golem that would serve as the ultimate World Refusal. The Numidium is the Anti-Metaphysic personified. He causes the Warp in the West and the Red Moment. His activation in Rimmen by Tiber Septim at the end of the Interregnum created a temporal distortion that destroyed the Halls of Colossus and irradiated the surrounding area for centuries. His fight with the Altmer is still going, as he fights their mathemagicians well into the Fifth Era in alternate dimensions. He is destruction incarnate and a weapon the likes of which has never existed on Nirn. You know how the Yokudans can blow up continents? Numidium can blow up planets. He exists to destroy the Aurbis, and thereby reject it entirely. He's the kind of crazy you just don't mess with.
Although I just recently got into it, the Witcher. I was honestly blown away by the depth of lore in these games, and I've been slowly working through Andrzej Sapkowski's short stories and novels. Even with all the material there is now, there is so much to be discovered. I mean the Conjunction of the Spheres is a crazy cataclysmic event that brought humanity to The Continent, but it also brought a whole threat of monsters from different worlds. The colonization of The Continent is actually a huge part of the lore because it plays a huge role in the political structure for the present day Continent. Humans arrived after most of the non-human races, but humanity still managed to dominate. Just the way the whole world is set up is brilliant. The Witchers, the Sorceresses, the Wild Hunt, the non-humans, etc. I could probably go on for awhile about it, but honestly there is still so much unwritten about the world. I think over time if this series was done correctly it could be among some of the great fantasy lores I would have to say among the numerous politics, and ambiguous morals my favorite part of the lore are the Witchers. They are just the most badass characters. They are usually talked about in the games as monsters or sell-swords, but they are so much more. They endure the Trial of the Grasses, and become so much more than human beings. If a person successfully lives through the trial they then spend the rest of their lives training in their respective styles (Wolf, Griffin, Cat, Bear, and Viper I think). Their knowledge of monsters is unmatched; from their weaknesses to the use of potions to further their advantage on a target. They are the perfect hunters. The politics of how Witchers are "chosen" is wrought with controversy as they usually just take children rather than ask for their permission. The entire witcher profession is one that is necessary(They are pretty much the only ones who can deal with monsters effectively), but at the very same time vilified by a majority of people on the continent. Plus, the wielding of the silver and steel swords is so awesome haha.
The Mass Effect trilogy is one amazing ride from start to finish. It's like a novel, movie and game all rolled into one.
I would argue that it rivals sci-fi greats like "Star Wars". Nothing could have prepared me for the epic ride I was about to take through that amazing universe. I had never played a game that made me feel like I was part of it. The sense of awe and wonder as I explored new planets, made choices that changed the storyline was unparalleled. I have never, before or since, played a video game that put me on such an emotional roller coaster. I was so invested in the characters, so invested in the plot. A game never kindled that feeling in me before. It will always hold a special place with me.
I remember reading that Star Wars was one of the influences for Mass Effect when they wrote it. The effort and level of detail they put into the lore of the game made me want to live in it, LOL. I think the last time I felt that kind of attachment to a universe was Star Wars and it wasn't even on the same level. It was the only video game franchise where I read the novels and the comics written based in the universe. Hell, I'm even tempted to write stories that simply takes place in the universe (but it'd probably be labelled as fan-fic anyway). I haven't felt that desire since I was in high school. The trilogy has a special place in my heart and I have to say I'm relieved they're going to another galaxy with the next installment :)
And it's not just the planets or the story, either. I don't know about you, but those games make me really intrigued by the technology present in them, and what living in that universe would be like. Plus, Garrus is kinda the coolest..
I'm not familiar with the co-op classes, but that sounds awesome. However, I personally prefer playing as an Infiltrator (and a Renegade one at that). OK, he's definitely the coolest. Or, at least tied with Mordin.
The Fallout universe is pretty interesting imo. I really like how pre-war America was portrayed, and how it resonated in the wasteland societies after the bombs fell.
I love the fact that fallout is based on physical world locations. I live in Las Vegas and it's amazing to be able to see these locations in this game. It is a wonderful combination of realism and fantasy that actually makes the overall experience that much more worth it. I'm not just talking about the familiar landmarks that everyone knows. There is a particular desert stretch south from the starting area that is flat and barren. I used to drive by that area when I was younger and it really caught my attention. It's not just buildings but the geography as well. I really need to play this game again.
Fallout is my favorite game series in the universe. The lore and the gameplay is just so good. I've read all of Fallout Bible hahaha.
I love the lore of Warcraft. It's too expansive to adequately describe all of it, but my favorite section of the lore has to do with Draenor. Draenor is a separate planet from Azeroth, the main world of the story. It is the homeworld of the Orcs, who comprise the majority of the current day Horde. It is the homestead of the Draenei. It is also the staging ground of the Burning Legion's assault on Azeroth. The Burning Legion is pretty much the main antagonistic force in World of Warcraft, and is responsible for everything from the death of the World Tree to the rise of the Lich King. Sargeras, corrupted Titan (creators of the universe) and leader of the Legion, has his hands in almost everything bad that has happened to Azeroth. In its first iteration in World of Warcraft, Draenor was known as Outland. It was largely taken up by scorched wastelands where the Burning Legion had invaded and destroyed it, though there were a few undesecrated places. In the current expansion (Warlords of Draenor), players have been taken back in time to an alternate Draenor, not yet ravaged by the Legion. Here, they have been fighting the old Orcish leaders in order to stop a new invasion of Azeroth. Basically, Draenor is as much of a central location to the story of Warcraft as Azeroth itself.
Warcraft lore is my favorite too. I've read most of the books and spent countless hours skimming and going through linked wikis. However, I'm a bit old school and prefer the lore prior to these expansions and pandas etc. My favorite character has to be Illidan. I find his story incredibly tragic. Sure, he's meant to be evil and his brother is the goody-two-shoed savoir of the elves and who also gets the girl in the end, but come on, that's so boring. Illidan is the more 'real' character, who has a passion for magic and pursues it at whatever cost, thinking he can use it to save the elves. While his brother Mr. KnowItAll bans him from doing so and also gets the girl Illidan is in love with. And to top it all off, his bro buries him alive hundreds of feet in the ground for God knows how many years. What a douche! So of course Illidan if filled with so much hate from then on. Also, his is the most badass boss in the game with the most badass legendary drops. By far my favorite character storyline in any fantasy lore.
I have played Warcraft since it was a generic fantasy RTS. Medivh is probably one of my favourite characters. He was decieved by Sargeras and Kiljaedan (i believe this has been retconned into possession) into conspiring with Guldan, an Orcish Warlock, and building the Dark Portal, and creating the modern day World of Warcraft.
Oh man there are a few, mostly all scifi. I have to say recently I've been getting into the Halo lore and I'm so surprised at how rich and full of depth it is. I've played all the main games - the original trilogy, Reach, and 4 - and maybe I just wasn't focusing on the story enough, because I didn't know more than the Master Chief's story pretty much. The universe was seeded for life by the Precursors, who held the Mantle of Responsibility for the galaxy and they created the Forerunners and the humans (ancient humans). The Precursors decided humans would take the mantle instead of the forerunners, and the Forerunners eventually revolted and killed the Precursors. Or they thought they did, because basically the Precursors are space gods and can't really die. The Precursor's physical remains become a sort of dust which ancient humans discover on a derelict ship or something, and over thousands of years they discover that the dust has a calming effect on their pets (think space dogs). This messes with the space dog's genome and thousands of years after that, some of the space dogs start exhibiting a sickness that mutates them, and this sickness jumps to humans and all other living creatures, and bam that's The Flood. So the Flood is a mutated form of the Precursors, and the humans start a scorched earth campaign to eliminate The Flood. Big war, lots of people die. The forerunners get pissed because they don't know about The Flood, and think the humans are just attacking and killing planets (some of which are forerunner colonies). So, now the humans are fighting a war on two fronts, with the flood and the forerunners. Yeah the humans lose. The Forerunners de-evolve the remnants of humanity and send them back to earth, and these are the hominids. Millions of years down the line we re-evolve to the point the ancient humans were at, and then the Master Chief is born. Also the ancient humans had an alliance with the beings who would become the Covenant's prophets, and the prophets betray them at some point. It's all very complicated, and I didn't know any of this from the games and don't have a 100% clear picture of it yet. But it really makes me interested in reading up on the Extended Universe.
Diablo (studio: Blizzard). I started with Diablo 2 and fell in love with the eerie, dark fantasy feel of the game. Each main level was a different city and had its unique theme. I got into the lore once I read my first Diablo book: Legacy of Blood (Richard Knaack). He managed to capture the dark essence of the Diablo world in vivid detail. After this book, I dove headfirst into all the remaining works, including other authors. The Diablo trilogy is really good if you want to learn about the overall lore and main conflicts. It's basically about heaven and hell warring over control of the mortals, and ironically in the process they are invading and destroying the mortal realm. In Diablo, the heavens are just as bad as the hells. The nephalim (mortals) must fight both to save themselves. If you like dark fantasy, Diablo lore is definitely worth checking out. And I am still waiting for a game that can so accurately and vividly portray a dark eerie setting like Diablo 2 did so well.
That's where my name came from. Deckard Cain is awesome. Shame that there will never be a sequel to Diablo II to continue his story. Damn shame.
Destiny. I'd be even more interested if there were a way to read it other than going to bungie.net.
There is a website that has all of the existing grimoires up so you can read them. I have a love/hate relationship with Destiny, because I can tell that there is a ton of story there that they are REFUSING TO TELL US. One of my favorite side-story's is this one ESI: Maya, I need your help. I don't know how to fix this. SUNDARESH: What is it? Chioma. Sit. Tell me. ESI: I've figured out what's happening inside the specimen. SUNDARESH: Twelve? The operational Vex platform? That's incredible! You must know what this means - ah, so. It's not good, or you'd be on my side of the desk. And it's not urgent, or you'd already have evacuated the site. Which means... ESI: I have a working interface with the specimen's internal environment. I can see what it's thinking. SUNDARESH: In metaphorical terms, of course. The cognitive architectures are so - ESI: No. I don't need any kind of epistemology bridge. SUNDARESH: Are you telling me it's human? A human merkwelt? Human qualia? ESI: I'm telling you it's full of humans. It's thinking about us. SUNDARESH: About - oh no. ESI: It's simulating us. Vividly. Elaborately. It's running a spectacularly high-fidelity model of a Collective research team studying a captive Vex entity. SUNDARESH:...how deep does it go? ESI: Right now the simulated Maya Sundaresh is meeting with the simulated Chioma Esi to discuss an unexpected problem. [indistinct sounds] SUNDARESH: There's no divergence? That's impossible. It doesn't have enough information. ESI: It inferred. It works from what it sees and it infers the rest. I know that feels unlikely. But it obviously has capabilities we don't. It may have breached our shared virtual workspace...the neural links could have given it data... SUNDARESH: The simulations have interiority? Subjectivity? ESI: I can't know that until I look more closely. But they act like us. SUNDARESH: We're inside it. By any reasonable philosophical standard, we are inside that Vex. ESI: Unless you take a particularly ruthless approach to the problem of causal forks: yes. They are us. SUNDARESH: Call a team meeting. ESI: The other you has too. SUNDARESH: So that's the situation as we know it. ESI: To the best of my understanding. SHIM: Well I'll be a [profane] [profanity]. This is extremely [profane]. That thing has us over a barrel. SUNDARESH: Yeah. We're in a difficult position. DUANE-MCNIADH: I don't understand. So it's simulating us? It made virtual copies of us? How does that give it power? ESI: It controls the simulation. It can hurt our simulated selves. We wouldn't feel that pain, but rationally speaking, we have to treat an identical copy's agony as identical to our own. SUNDARESH: It's god in there. It can simulate our torment. Forever. If we don't let it go, it'll put us through hell. DUANE-MCNIADH: We have no causal connection to the mind state of those sims. They aren't us. Just copies. We have no obligation to them. ESI: You can't seriously - your OWN SELF - SHIM: [profane] idiot. Think. Think. If it can run one simulation, maybe it can run more than one. And there will only ever be one reality. Play the odds. DUANE-MCNIADH: Oh...uh oh. SHIM: Odds are that we aren't our own originals. Odds are that we exist in one of the Vex simulations right now. ESI: I didn't think of that. SUNDARESH: [indistinct percussive sound] SUNDARESH: I have a plan. ESI: If you have a plan, then so does your sim, and the Vex knows about it. DUANE-MCNIADH: Does it matter? If we're in Vex hell right now, there's nothing we can - SHIM: Stop talking about 'real' and 'unreal.' All realities are programs executing laws. Subjectivity is all that matters. SUNDARESH: We have to act as if we're in the real universe, not one simulated by the specimen. Otherwise we might as well give up. ESI: Your sim self is saying the same thing. SUNDARESH: Chioma, love, please hush. It doesn't help. DUANE-MCNIADH: Maybe the simulations are just billboards! Maybe they don't have interiority! It's bluffing! SHIM: I wish someone would simulate you shutting up. SUNDARESH: If we're sims, we exist in the pocket of the universe that the Vex specimen is able to simulate with its onboard brainpower. If we're real, we need to get outside that bubble. ESI: ...we call for help. SUNDARESH: That's right. We bring in someone smarter than the specimen. Someone too big to simulate and predict. A warmind. SHIM: In the real world, the warmind will be able to behave in ways the Vex can't simulate. It's too smart. The warmind may be able to get into the Vex and rescue - us. DUANE-MCNIADH: If we try, won't the Vex torture us for eternity? Or just erase us? SUNDARESH: It may simply erase us. But I feel that's preferable to...the alternatives. ESI: I agree. SHIM: Once we try to make the call, the Vex may...react. So let's all savor this last moment of stability. SUNDARESH: [indistinct sounds] SHIM: You two are adorable. DUANE-MCNIADH: I wish I'd taken that job at Clovis.From the Records of the Ishtar Collective
From the Records of the Ishtar Collective
From the Records of the Ishtar Collective
Yeah I never really read the Grimoire. It's very disappointing considering how much potential it had. I've heard The Taken King has a better story than the base game, but at this point I don't think they're going to do anything good with the overall story of Darkness vs. Traveller until the full fledged sequel. But the game is still pretty fun and addicting as hell.
I hear from everyone who read them the Grimoire cards are great, but no way I'm doing it. Yeah, if it turns out to be good I may re-purchase Destiny with the Legendary Edition for Taken King.
For me the story behind Gears of War is fantastic. I haven't been able to read the books yet but I know a good deal of the history of the series E-Day (When the Locust emerged from their underground tunnels). I started GoW with the second installment and fell in love with the story. There was just so much emotion going on with the characters that I couldn't put it down. Now with a new installment on the horizon there is going to be even more story to follow, with different characters to enjoy. I don't think explaining the lore behind the series because I may spoil it for people who have not played it, even though the last of the main trilogy was released four years ago.
I have never actually played it, but I am fascinated by the lore of DUST. Imagine the bombs never drop. The war in the Pacific continues. The Axis and Western Allies fight across Europe. The Russians and Chinese fracture and create a third faction. There is a new mineral discovered that unlocks laser weapons, mechwarriors and reanimated dead (apparently the result of medical experiments and the dwindling numbers to defend the fatherland). Anyway its a super interesting alternate timeline. Something that I think is very cool even if they have to gracefully skirt the "you're playing the Nazis" part of it. I would love to hear from someone that plays.
Legacy of Kain set in the land of Nosgoth. It was 1996 before Vampires became sparkling and cliched, the world was dark and complicated. I never understood it completely. Of course the games themselves were great fun too, which helps, Soul Reaver in particular stands of for me.
Dota 2 and, earlier, Warframe. The mystique around the world the action is set in makes for curiosity and unsettling interest. Very few stories are able to preserve that feeling while satisfying the storyhearer. So far, Warframe has failed, for they have not only announced the livinghood of the ancient nation behind most of the advanced technology in the galaxy but have also shown the nation to the player, killing the mystery with a single shot to the head. It is after that that I stopped paying any attention to the game's world. Dota 2, however, manages to tell a character's story without either revealing much (in fact, they reveal painfully little) or making the character bland - and since most of what the players see are characters they fight as, it makes for the most impression of the game. There are also glimpses of the world itself - again, very little and far apart, but preserving the interest. Mass Effect's, though impressive, still feels lacking in some way - mostly in size, for such a massive, even epic story. It may be that the memories have faded, but I don't remember the series for its lore.
My favorite has always been the Half-Life universe. A post apocalyptic world where aliens are able to invade and take over Earth in just 7 hours. They shuttle people into large cities as a work for and then start draining earth resources. They also add even more species of aliens from different dimensions that fight you or fight along side you, depending on the game. Something I think is especially cool is that the Half-Life universe also includes the Portal universe. Black Mesa and Aperture science are competing research facilities and the Borealis ends up in both games. For me, it goes a step further when you start researching the beta version of the game. It was like a whole different universe. They had this tall monster things that breathed like Darth Vader and burnt corpses. The beta also had children, working in factories and buildings that sucked oxygen from the air. It was a much grimmer dystopia then the actual release.
BattleTech/ MechWarrior all the way! There are tons of novels written about the book and there is just so much to immerse yourself in. We're a small community, but we will always survive!
My youth transpired prior to the advent of inexpensive computer technology but I did learn to play and love the lore of chess - though I was never able to become a master level player. I still regularly log in to chessgames.com just for the pleasure of seeing the achievements of Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Rubinstein, Pillsbury, Tarrasch, Capablanca, Alekhine and many others of the past as well as to keep up with the evolving chess of the present day. Theoretically a perfectly played game of chess should always end in a draw. The interest is in the inherent imperfection of both man and machine and the struggle to identify and correct these imperfections.
I love the lore of Guild Wars. There are still so many mysteries and questions I have about the world of Tyria and its inhabitants. I guess that's what keeps me playing the game and looking for new things. The awesome community involved is a plus as well.
Guild Wars lore is awesome. I read the books, even though they weren't the best books ever written, just to learn more of the lore. I love seeing characters from pre-Searing Ascalon re-appearing after the fact or being referenced in GW2. I love exploring old familiar places when GW2 came out. I really hope they continue the lore, history, and future of the series either through more games or more media. I wouldn't say no to some single-player or non-MMO games in the series.
I have warhammer 40k but have never played it. I think it was in a Humble Bundle with something else that I wanted. Maybe I'll install it and give it a go.
What game did you pick up? I have every W40K game on Steam save for Soulstorm, because it's not as cool as Dark Crusade. Except the Sisters of Battle are badass.
Dawn of War. Maybe I'll install it and take a gander.
I have read about shadowrun, but I've never gotten into playing it. The idea for the world that's in, with such a fleshed out history is really amazing. The do a great job making a little bit of magic mix with a cyberpunk world.
It has a videogame adaptation, which includes amazing campaings and an editor. Available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and not only on Steam.