[Discussion] Atmospheric Games

[Lotus Victoria]

Greetings, champions! Good to see you all, as always.

I'm a big fan of atmospheric games - If a game can paint a virtual world where I can feel like it exists, I'll be showering the developers with ma money! There is nothing like being immersed in a video-game, so that's what I'll be discussing today with you guys:

What are some of your favourite atmospheric games? What makes them atmospheric to you?

Here's a list of my favourite atmospheric games:

• Silent Hill 2 - The absolute best atmosphere that I've ever seen in a video-game. SH2 proves that horror games can be more than jumpscares.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R - All three games represent a world after a nuclear disaster in a very realistic way. Play at night, with headphones, and go hunt for artifacts during nighttime.
• Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines: Incredible "city at night" atmosphere. The dialog and music work beautifully towards presenting a very believable vampire society.
• Deus Ex: The first game was incredible in its atmosphere and believability - I've never seen a cyberpunk game so grounded in its themes and world.
• Dark Souls - The world is brutal and incredible, and it also makes sense geographically speaking. The sequels aren't as good (IMO) in presenting such a believable place like the first game.

So, those are some of my picks for most atmospheric games ever. Your turn!

[I Push Buttons]

Halo 3: ODST

[Deleted]

Shadow of the Colossus. The sense of desolation, loneliness. The enormity of the colossi. The graphic style and the music fit amazingly well.

[dope_danny]

I think in a lot of ways this is a far bigger selling point in games for me than the majority. Autumnal settings, urban decay, abandoned buildings and lonely ruins really have the appeal of a good adventure or horror story for me. A few that spring to mind for me:

-Nier: The sequel does it in a different way but in the original Nier you play in a Shinjuku buried in salt that they want you to think is snow. Its a town mid apocalypse and a father and daughter huddle in a bombed out convenience store from the shades stalking the ruins. But then it cuts to thousands of years in the future and its so far beyond the apocalypse people have forgotten and the semi medieval setting just views the rusted out suspension bridges and skeletal structures of rebar and concrete as mysteries of the past that dot the landscape and until the endgame its never even really touched on that this entire apparent fantasy world is the area around the Tokyo Bay just outside the main city which is still maintained to the point its still standing in Nier Automata. Its that 'humanity lost so much knowledge its looking at proof of its former height and doesnt even understand what it is' vibe that i find so appealing for a setting even if the concept is a hell of a downer.

-Bloodborne: Fog wreathing around wrought iron gates and lamposts and wagons and prams lie abandoned on cobbled streets. Crazed townsfolk wander the maze of alleys and main streets seeking to hunt out any victims of a 'beastblood curse' that lurk in the shadows of this metropolis of gothic design. Leading down into woodlands full of thatched huts, scarecrows and pitch black lake and upwards into a vast array of cathedrals and galleries built to honour and call down boons from something far from the traditional religions of the real world that inspire the architecture. Its basically whats called 'Cthulu by Gaslight'. The beginnings of the modern era aren't quite here yet and things like minimalism and uniformity of design have yet to show up. Its a setting where from any angle the city of Yarn'ham is screenshot fuel.

-Forbidden Siren 2: Take an island off the Japanese coast where in the 1970's the main power was cut and overnight all inhabitants disappeared. Not some shitty little hamlet but a developed mining town with tower blocks, paved streets, cars, boats, phonelines, playgrounds and schools built for a few thousand people that vanished. Now 30 years later you arrive in a shipwreck and those tower blocks are a collapsing ruin. The cars are rusted out junkers, phone lines hang from leading poles and years of coastal weather and typhoons have turned the buildings into water damaged skeletons. You explore this on a dark and stormy night with low visibility, less light and grey skinned, malformed echoes of the former islanders shamble around looking for victims. But these Shibito aren't ghosts but something much more tangible and threatening. Its oppressive and tense as fuck but god you can cut the atmosphere with a knife.

-METRO 2033: (since stalkers already mentioned) made by most of the same team as stalker but with an even bleaker take on the setting. Mankind destroyed the world in nuclear fire. To a degree many assume even the afterlife itself was destroyed in the annihilation. Now what human life remains is born of the few people that managed to get into the Russian Metro before the bulkheads sealed. stations became towns. Lines were drawn. Neo Nazis fight Communists for control of the north, the core stations of Polis form the closest thing to a governing body and around that traders keep the more 'rural' towns alive with trade of meat from the animals brought down into the metro that feed on the mushrooms grown as the second biggest export. For most life goes on with brick and iron plated skies and every station adrift in a void with only dark tunnels leading into the abyss between stations to connect anywhere else.
But its not the only life left in the world. The radiation has twisted and mutated all animal life on the surface and sometimes these monstrous creatures delve down into the metro seeking warmth or food. By 2033 something new has appeared. Something that walks on two legs, can talk directly to your mind and turn a man into a cabbage with a thought. Some call them Undead, others call them Homo Novus, humanities replacements and they are starting to get into the dark lines and one by one stations are going dark.
So already its got its hooks as a sci-fi but part of the allure of METRO is that those theories about the afterlife being gone might be true. You live in the metro, you die in the metro. With multiple sections of the game and the novels showing outright supernatural events where ghosts roam the dark tunnels between stations and only wisened guides can escort stationfolk through certain areas because lights and compasses dont work and people swear the shadowy outlines of people can be seem in the dark, reaching after the small hand operated trams that speed through these as fast as possible when urgent needs require passage through them. You want atmosphere then a game mostly set in a run down and haunted metro system after a nuclear war is pretty up there.

-Dark Souls 2: one of the weaker entries in the series -not as bad as DS3 total reliance on references to DS1 mind you- but still not the best game. But some of its locations really drip with atmosphere. Like ruins half buried in autumn leaves, or a forest full of old gaols where mad hunters and feral undead chase prey towards a hilltop colosseum dyed red with years of bloodshed or a fortress gone to ruin for so long trees have started to overtake its foundations. its story and boss variety might be lacking -and the connections between some of the locations are batshit logic wise- but the game has this strange sense of 'fantasy in autumn' that it feels like a game i want to revisit every September as the leaves start to change. I get a similar vibe from the ACT 1 areas of diablo 3. Again a weak sequel but that doesnt mean the art team didnt make some great areas to explore.

-Fragile Dreams, Farewell Ruins of the Moon: a post apocalyptic tokyo suburb area with only a few living children left fight off ghosts and explore the ruins looking for other humans. By the numbers but the art direction is sound.

-Digimon World/Digimon World Next Order: Theres something i always liked about the setting of the 'digital world' from digimon games. Born from old, outdated computer hardware and using rough ideas of the real world to shape itself the setting is half idyllic countrysides and half computers. You could walk through a field and giant capacitors pop out the ground or network connections spring out the ground like sewer drains. Or be walking through a forest and see just 30 meters of rusted old train track with an equally rusty and abandoned tram sitting there idle. It takes the pokemon idea of a kids adventure with monster friends and adds this element of the world blending the fantasy and reality in a world using technology as its medium over another tolkein clone and i think it never gets the recognition it deserves.

-Wild Arms 3: "What if an rpg world reached a Wild West level of technological development before its crisis began?" thats basically the setting for wild arms. There are magic spells and summons but the people casting them are in ten gallon hats or southern bell dresses and using revolvers and rifles instead of swords and staves. Sure theres still horses to ride like its LOTR but theres also steam trains chugging along across planes and savanas between dusty towns where people long to escape their life and become famous 'drifters' that use magic and magical weapons called ARMS to find fame and fortune. In WA3 the world of Filgaia is starting to die and for very different reasons 4 very different people form a party to track down the source of the environments decline. Its all sun bleached colours and wide open skies dotted with mesas and the rusted and run down towns lit by an orange sky and a soundtrack thats more spaghetti western than final fantasy

-Night in the Woods: similar to many of my other games listen but more modern. Its whats been called "Rust Belt Gothic" and its an emerging sub genre of art and fiction based on areas like the states around michigan and detroit. Former boom towns gone bust where the industry pulled out and not much beyond franchise megastores moved in. The internet killed the malls. The corporate franchise killed the mom and pop stores and the only thing in town thats doing good business is the pawn shop. The old people are hopeless and can only tell the kids how better things used to be and the kids sick of hearing this turn in the opposite direction seeking any way out of a town that seems caught in a whirlpool cycle down to becoming another former population center turned ghost town. Being set in Autumn and having an amazing soundtrack helps but its a really interesting setting even if the story shits the bed by the end.

i could go on but i'll stop at this wall of text

[endersblade]

Shadow of the Colossus. The sense of desolation, loneliness. The enormity of the colossi. The graphic style and the music fit amazingly well.

The number 1 thing I loved about this game is the superb animation of such large creatures. Even in WoW, and more modern games, large creatures are just kinda shown as sliding when they walk, even more noticeable when they turn, it just looks like they have a stick up their ass and are spinning around on that. But not the Collosi in that game. It was breathtaking watching those massive things walk (and fly) around in such a perfect way.

[Lotus Victoria]

-Bloodborne: Fog wreathing around wrought iron gates and lamposts and wagons and prams lie abandoned on cobbled streets. Crazed townsfolk wander the maze of alleys and main streets seeking to hunt out any victims of a 'beastblood curse' that lurk in the shadows of this metropolis of gothic design. Leading down into woodlands full of thatched huts, scarecrows and pitch black lake and upwards into a vast array of cathedrals and galleries built to honour and call down boons from something far from the traditional religions of the real world that inspire the architecture. Its basically whats called 'Cthulu by Gaslight'. The beginnings of the modern era aren't quite here yet and things like minimalism and uniformity of design have yet to show up. Its a setting where from any angle the city of Yarn'ham is screenshot fuel.

I fucking hate the fact that BB is exclusive to PS4. So many good games locked behind consoles. BB reminds me a lot of Spawn and Berserk, even more than the original Dark Souls. I'd love to play it but I'm not buying a console just for that =(

-METRO 2033: (since stalkers already mentioned) made by most of the same team as stalker but with an even bleaker take on the setting. Mankind destroyed the world in nuclear fire. To a degree many assume even the afterlife itself was destroyed in the annihilation. Now what human life remains is born of the few people that managed to get into the Russian Metro before the bulkheads sealed. stations became towns. Lines were drawn. Neo Nazis fight Communists for control of the north, the core stations of Polis form the closest thing to a governing body and around that traders keep the more 'rural' towns alive with trade of meat from the animals brought down into the metro that feed on the mushrooms grown as the second biggest export. For most life goes on with brick and iron plated skies and every station adrift in a void with only dark tunnels leading into the abyss between stations to connect anywhere else.
But its not the only life left in the world. The radiation has twisted and mutated all animal life on the surface and sometimes these monstrous creatures delve down into the metro seeking warmth or food. By 2033 something new has appeared. Something that walks on two legs, can talk directly to your mind and turn a man into a cabbage with a thought. Some call them Undead, others call them Homo Novus, humanities replacements and they are starting to get into the dark lines and one by one stations are going dark.
So already its got its hooks as a sci-fi but part of the allure of METRO is that those theories about the afterlife being gone might be true. You live in the metro, you die in the metro. With multiple sections of the game and the novels showing outright supernatural events where ghosts roam the dark tunnels between stations and only wisened guides can escort stationfolk through certain areas because lights and compasses dont work and people swear the shadowy outlines of people can be seem in the dark, reaching after the small hand operated trams that speed through these as fast as possible when urgent needs require passage through them. You want atmosphere then a game mostly set in a run down and haunted metro system after a nuclear war is pretty up there.

Metro is incredible, the first game was good but kinda clunky, but the sequel was superb in every sense of the word. The atmosphere was just as good as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games, but it lacked the open world freedom and the "naturality" of the original games, as most of the encounters are either scripted or positioned in a very "game-y" way. Still incredible, and a must play for any FPS fan.

-Dark Souls 2: one of the weaker entries in the series -not as bad as DS3 total reliance on references to DS1 mind you- but still not the best game. But some of its locations really drip with atmosphere. Like ruins half buried in autumn leaves, or a forest full of old gaols where mad hunters and feral undead chase prey towards a hilltop colosseum dyed red with years of bloodshed or a fortress gone to ruin for so long trees have started to overtake its foundations. its story and boss variety might be lacking -and the connections between some of the locations are batshit logic wise- but the game has this strange sense of 'fantasy in autumn' that it feels like a game i want to revisit every September as the leaves start to change. I get a similar vibe from the ACT 1 areas of diablo 3. Again a weak sequel but that doesnt mean the art team didnt make some great areas to explore.

Haven't played the DLC's yet but one of the reasons I dislike DS2 (aside from a million other things) is it lack of atmosphere in the world, but there are some good areas. I really like the Dragon Shrine area - It's small, but the atmosphere there was great - having knights watching you while you duel with the big dudes gave me a real sense of "this might be a real place in the virtual world of Dark Souls", something that most of the areas didn't have.

[ParanoiD84]

Alien Isolation, best movie to game adaptation imo they really nailed the atmosphere.