Summary
Environmental storytellingis a key part of any game, as players love to explore and pick up parts of the story without having it directly told to them. This is especially important for open-world games, as there is so much to explore that it would become tedious quickly if every single story aspect were explained to the player without them getting the chance to figure it out for themselves.
InRPGs,this becomes even more important, as players invest hundreds or sometimes even thousands of hours into these worlds. The grind can become boring without fun details or stories included in the world itself to make it feel a bit more real. With this in mind, these open-world RPGs have the best environmental storytelling in the medium.
Cyberpunk 2077is an open-world game that allows players to explore Night City and find out more information about the world through its design. The city itself looks vibrant and beautiful when players first load in, but as they continue on with the story, they discover that parts of it feel positively run down, offering insight into the fact that not everything is all about the bright lights. Similarly, in true RPG fashion, random corpses litter certain areas, proving that the world existed before the player was in it.
Night City truly feels alive inCyberpunk 2077, in part thanks to the environmental storytelling throughout the world. There are hints of it everywhere if players stray from the main path and don’t get too drawn in by the beautiful lights around the city. However, there are not as many instances of it as there are in other games.
Horizon: Zero Dawninvites players to control Aloy and explore a sprawling world, and as they do so, they will discover many things that hint at a wider story at play. From the very first moments of the game, players can tell thatsomething terrible has happened to the world they’re exploring, as cities are covered with snow, vegetation, and debris, and huge robot dinosaurs roam the land. From this alone, players pick up that something must have happened to humanity for this to be the state of the world.
Horizon: Zero Dawnoffers players the chance to explore and piece together what happened to humanity for it to end up like this. The world is sometimes almost eerily peaceful in a way that only a place that has been completely abandoned by people could ever be. Earth is completely changed, and this is communicated through the world itself.
InRed Dead Redemption 2, the situation is bleak from the first second of the game. Players are thrust into a world of hardship, where their campmates are sick and dying, and must go to battle straight away to set things right. However, the vibe seems to be better once they are in the Heartlands. The player sees things as immediately better because of the stark change in environment. As the game progresses, each main location gets darker and darker until the story’s miserable end.
The environment reflects the general mood of the camp inRed Dead Redemption 2, as the players experience major shifts in the tone of the game as they move from light into darkness.The final locations in the game are upsetting in both the story and the environment. The mood reflects how the area looks and vice versa, making for some great, if heavy-handed, environmental storytelling.
The world ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntis so vast and varied that players who have been in the world for a long time are still discovering new small quirks about the world and the story as they continue to explore. There are all the typical hallmarks of great environmental storytelling, such as ruins around the world and corpses in certain areas, but the attention to detail is extremely high in this game. Players will sometimes have to break down walls and explore entire buildings just to see some bodies placed in a particular manner to represent their own little story.
The Witcher 3: Wild Huntinvites players to explorea huge worldand use their imagination to decipher what could have happened in many different situations, with some being more clear than others. Geralt is part investigator after all, so observing the environment is part of the job. There are snippets of stories around every corner, but not much that seems wildly out of place in the world. However, for players looking to stay on the main route, there is not too much external storytelling available here.
Fallout 4is another vast open-world game that invites players to explore and learn details about the world from the environment alone. While players can check terminals for more detailed explanations of events, the world itself holds many secrets about the people who inhabit it, even without further investigation. For example, as players traverse the Commonwealth, they might find evidence of failed settlements or pre-war life to show that the world is not static as players experience it, but existed well before they arrived, and will continue after they leave.
Fallout 4puts players in the position of having missed out on many years of life (due to being trapped in a Vault underground), and for that reason, it can sprinkle details about that time gap throughout the world. Whether that’s on the outside or in different vaults around the Commonwealth, there is so much story told just through how things look and how they’re placed.
Skyrimtakes place in a living, breathing world that players still keep coming back to over a decade after the game’s release, and part of the reason for this is the fantastic use of environmental storytelling in the game. For example, there are specific items locked in specific chests that will tell players details about the person who owns them. Elsewhere in the world, there are skeletons set up in specific areas that may have letters in their loot briefly explaining the situation these people were in that resulted in their deaths.
The world ofSkyrimholds so much intrigue and tragedy just within the environment. The dialogue can help add context to some of these stories, but it’s not a necessary aspect of this type of storytelling that the game does so well. Players can explore for hours andstill find out snippets of stories from the world itself, and even veteran players can find new details on occasion.
Finally,Ghost Of Tsushimais the open-world RPG with the best environmental storytelling available today. The devastation that the world has experienced is clear enough from just exploring and looking around at the environment, as there are buildings still burning and piles of corpses in some locations. All of this destruction is surrounded by beautiful forests and natural environments, creating an uneasy contrast without even getting into the main themes of the game.
Ghost Of Tsushimais a beautiful game in its own right, but the environmental storytelling included elevates it to a whole new level. Players can tell so much just from experiencing the locations of the game without digging through chests or terminals for further information. The devastation of war is clear, and the heartbreak it causes is fully visible.
