Great games with poorly defined campaigns and minimal story

[Deleted]

I mostly have 2 games like that in mind but there are many others too, especially if they're more focused on multiplayer - Anno 2070 and Heroes 6. I absolutely love the gameplay in those but the campaigns are just too short and have very little cutscenes and few story elements. Anno 2070 campaign for example only had 3 missions although they were divided into a more parts but since they all happened on the same maps and there wasnt exactly a lot to do, that hardly counts.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's usually a flaw in games with more sandbox gameplay but it doesn't have to be. For example Tropico 4 which was similar to Anno 2070 in many ways had a long story mode and 20 missions, some of them even quite difficult. Then Skyrim, even though from different genre also had hundreds of quests and many 10s of hours of quests chains on top of the main ones. It wasn't just about roaming around.

I recently picked up Heroes 6 since they released an expansion for it and it seems to have the same problem. Only 2 campaigns, both having like 3-4 missions and then a bunch of optional ones but you only have to complete one faction campaign to progress to the final missions and thats pretty much that.

[Venziir]

Space Marine comes to mind.

[Dezerte]

Sins of a Solar Empire, great game but no story/campaign at all.

[7seti]

Original Alien vs Predator.

[Yunru]

Generals.....i dont think we could call camping a story.

[Bolson13]

All fighting games have pretty crappy stories and campaign boils down to beating everybody up. They have tried to spice it up but it simply isn't single player.

You could also say the civilisation games which have scenarios but most people I know like to just create their own history. It is kind of sandbox in that regards.

[Ravenblade]

Sins of a Solar Empire, great game but no story/campaign at all.

Oh it does have a story but it is rather shrouded and after playing a bit you kinda know what's all about. IIRC campaign was on the table but they never could pull something off they were happy with and they only are eight people after all and their focus is on Sins of a Dark Age. Anyhow Rebellion was their answer to lack of campaign. It's giving you a setting via the intro and the addition of divided factions.

[Duronos]

Minecraft, what else could possibly beat it in this category. It's a badass game with no story, I mean there is Enderdragon and Wither but we just fight and kill them.

[Sivick]

in what way are crappy campaigns and stories making a great game?

[Deleted]

Minecraft, what else could possibly beat it in this category. It's a badass game with no story, I mean there is Enderdragon and Wither but we just fight and kill them.

Don't know if a game with NO story at all can really be considered to have a "bad story". Otherwize i'd say that Tetris heads this list. Awesome game, but not a very great story, now is there?

[Meaux]

Red Faction: Armageddon comes to mind. I had a blast running through nearly the entire game using only the Magnet Gun to kill everything, it remains one of my favorite weapons of any shooter.

[Deleted]

in what way are crappy campaigns and stories making a great game?

a game can have a crappy campaign/story but still have a great gameplay or a great multiplayer experience

[Deleted]

Just Cause 2. The story is hilariously bad, but the game is -SO- fun.

[Dezerte]

Oh it does have a story but it is rather shrouded and after playing a bit you kinda know what's all about. IIRC campaign was on the table but they never could pull something off they were happy with and they only are eight people after all and their focus is on Sins of a Dark Age. Anyhow Rebellion was their answer to lack of campaign. It's giving you a setting via the intro and the addition of divided factions.

Yeah, the game does seem to have some great lore to it if you look hard enough. The more reason to craft a campaign for the game, imo.

[Sj]

Dungeon Defenders comes to mind. Such a fun game with a very rudimentary story. League of Legends falls into that category too (imo).

[Adam Jensen]

Dragon Age 2.

I love DA2's combat (other than mobs jumping off rooftops, or appearing out of thin air) and I love the Dragon Age setting. But that game itself was a disgrace to Dragon Age, a poor successor to DA:O, a weak story, copy pasta environments, and little to no exploration (you see everything there is to see by the end of Act I).

It's a fun game, I enjoy it, but its a C- where it had the potential to be a B+/A-. If it had a better story (more than BLARGH I'M A BLOOD MAGE) and better exploration (how about we not spend most the game in Kirkwall?) and better characters (Varric is the only interesting one.) So while I enjoyed it, it could have been MASSIVELY better.

Skyrim also comes to mind. The story of Skyrim is kinda meh, but the sandbox of the world almost makes up for it. I say almost because I still feel Skyrim would be improved if the story weren't so bad. But the backlore and the sandbox world was great.

[Fencers]

The Legend of Zelda.

[Sj]

The Legend of Zelda.

This is probably the perfect example. There is some decent story to Zelda games, but they're very simplistic and pretty predictable (not saying that's a bad thing).

[slagathor1995]

empire earth 3

[Venziir]

Dragon Age 2.

I love DA2's combat (other than mobs jumping off rooftops, or appearing out of thin air) and I love the Dragon Age setting. But that game itself was a disgrace to Dragon Age, a poor successor to DA:O, a weak story, copy pasta environments, and little to no exploration (you see everything there is to see by the end of Act I).

It's a fun game, I enjoy it, but its a C- where it had the potential to be a B+/A-. If it had a better story (more than BLARGH I'M A BLOOD MAGE) and better exploration (how about we not spend most the game in Kirkwall?) and better characters (Varric is the only interesting one.) So while I enjoyed it, it could have been MASSIVELY better.

Skyrim also comes to mind. The story of Skyrim is kinda meh, but the sandbox of the world almost makes up for it. I say almost because I still feel Skyrim would be improved if the story weren't so bad. But the backlore and the sandbox world was great.

Honestly, I find the DA2 story - much - better than the DA:O one. I'd rather have some copy paste (which makes sense honestly), a crazy couple of mages and Templars and the Qunari stirring shit inside of Kirkwall - then the über cliché of "OH NO! THE EVIL DRAGON AND ITS EVIL ARMY!".