Games With A Much Bigger Lore Than What You Initially Thought

You don’t expect much from some games in the story department, especially when they’ve been shown to emphasize gameplay only. I mean, you take a close look at a title like Subnautica, and go, “Oh. This seems like a nice survival title,” but no, there’s a lot more to it than you thought. If you have an inquiring mind and would love to get into games whose lore does not surface until you really start digging, you’re in the right place.

I’ve decided to put together a list of such games that pack a lot of content beyond what the regular eye can see, including the Mega Man franchise, Portal, and surprising even to me, Powerwash Simulator. I had to play that last one to believe it, trust me. 

Put Time And Effort Into These Games And Witness What Unfolds 

If you have more like-minded suggestions, feel free to drop them down in the comments section ahead. I’ll keep the descriptions for each game fairly simple, so I don’t end up spoiling any part of their lore for you. Make sure to do your due digging to make the best of the forthcoming titles. 

1. Warframe 

Proudly belonging to the free-to-play genre, Warframe is a third-person live service shooter that’s been around since 2013, undergoing massive improvements and content additions over time, essentially becoming one of the best free games on the planet right now with heaps of content to plow through. What sets Warframe apart from its competitors despite its wicked combat, is how deep its lore truly goes. 

For starters, playlists on YouTube curated to explain Warframe lore extend up to several hours, with each Warframe, the special suit that your character wears, having its own backstory, among other significant plot points.  

eXputer also spoke to Warframe’s Creative Director, Rebecca Ford, going over some of the burning questions the community had about the game. Rebecca doubled down on the importance of the game’s narrative, ascertaining that the team intends to work more on that front down the road. 

Let’s say that any loose ends in the overall narrative are in our sights, and we plan to try to wrap up the ones that feel relevant to current events in-game. I may have already said too much, so I’ll leave that there!”

2. Mega Man 

Capcom’s Mega Man franchise’s origins date back to 1987, where the very first title in this long-running franchise was released for the NES. Sporting a fairly straightforward plotline at the time, newer iterations brought more complications to the story, not to mention timeline switches and multiple renditions of the protagonist itself, including X, Zero, and ZX. 

The following explainer by Ben Saint is a colossal 8-hour long video that does exactly what it says in the headline, and that’s going through Mega Man’s entire lore in “obsessive detail.” 

3. Powerwash Simulator 

FuturLab’s PowerWash Simulator is an instance where you really have to sit someone down and convince them that this game has actual lore before they start listening to you. What seems utterly monotonous on paper is more deep-dyed than you think, and that’s no joke. This game is genuinely bananas when it comes to the lore, and here’s some food for thought. 

The game has ties to a franchise as serious, gritty, and gory as Warhammer: 40K, but that’s not it. PowerWash Simulator has you cleaning up everything between rhinos and flying alien saucers and just the beginning. I won’t get into the spoilers any further here—you’ll need to have a go at the title to understand it.  

4. The Portal Series

Valve’s Portal series belongs to a time when the famous industry tycoon relentlessly made great games as well, with Portal and Portal 2 being no different. Both of these platformers start out as uncomplicated puzzle games, but within the blink of an eye, the player gets to realize that there’s a lot more than what meets the eye at play here. 

Even more so, the major antagonist in the first Portal, GLaDOS happens to be one of the most iconic villains of all time, so you have that as well. 

5. Stray

What fares like a simpleton animal platformer ends up coming off as a dystopian, heartrending adventure in the heart of an unknown city. It’s a lot more than just a cat sim, with the player gathering collectibles scattered all around the in-game world to understand what happened to Stray’s world and all of its inhabitants. 

eXputer reviewed Stray and rated it 4/5, calling it “one of the most immersive games” out there. 

6. Subnautica 

Talk about an experience that’s as immersive as it gets, really. When you pour a couple of hours into Subnautica, you finally feel as if you’re getting somewhere, but take it from someone who’s played the game, that’s when you’re barely even scratching the surface. Not only do you get to unfold lore about the humans of the world, but about its history and life before the mass population took over.