5: Sekiro - One of the best modern works of gothic horror in any medium (yes better than Bloodborne and Souls). A tight central narrative tied into a much deeper lore than is apparent at first glance. Also informed by Buddhist morality, which is pretty cool.
4: Ark - You can shoot a rocket launcher at robots from the back of a Giganotosaurus. What's not to love?
3: Spec Ops: The Line - A controversial game, but one of the only shooters in existence to actually critique the bloody imperialist power fantasy that all modern shooter games inherently are. It spat on Call of Duty and gave the finger to every ooh-rah Marine dipshit who thought they were buying another game to fellate themselves with.
2: Disco Elysium - self explanatory
1: Journey - Less a game and more an interactive therapy tool. Helped bring me out of a major depressive spiral way back when. Play it on mescaline and it becomes a spiritual experience. Also a playable deconstruction of The Hero's Journey story framework, which I just enjoyed aesthetically.
Knights of the Old Republic 2: if there was a game that helped break me from America's predisposition to install ethical dualism into it's citizens it was this game and it's exploration of the morality of Star Wars through the lens of existential nihilism. I probably wouldn't have broken from my proto-altright worldview if it wasn't for this game provoking me to look into philosophical existentialism and move beyond my comfort zone of brain-dead chuddery. It's intricate storytelling and web of characters in how they tell a star wars story outside of the status quo really set a high bar for me in contrast to all the other contributions to the starwars universe. It also contributed to me never watching a star wars movie or playing a star wars game again since they were so one-dimensional in contrast to the dynamic story of KOTOR 2
Persona 4 Golden: if there was a game that embodies the phrase "You'll learn more - about yourself and others - if you'll open your ear to a stranger", I would say it's this game. Prior to playing this game I'd say I was a bit of a narrow-minded little shit that couldn't - even if you put a shotgun to his head - understand the concept of "put yourself in the other guy's shoes" Empathy was a foreign concept and the suffering of others would be the cream of comedy to me. I was a piece of shit, plain and simple. Yet playing this game first time around really didn't change things for me. I used a guide to get through the game, generally ignored making social connections in favor of doing my own thing, and generally min-maxing everything like a proper gamer. Now when I finished it the first time around I enjoyed the story and thought why not give it a second run to get all of the social connections I missed or got story-locked out of. Turns out this was a good idea, since I had decided to spend more time trying to actually listen to these people go through their life problems, face hardships that comes from their specific circumstances, work through and overcome whatever's tormenting them and emerge out of them a little better than they were before. I think one of the stories from those characters that sticks with me today is the story of Kanji Tatsumi, the town punk that grew up in a fatherless household and developed a warped sense of masculinity from growing up believing a man had to look and act tough even though he enjoyed needlecrafts and cute things. He went from thrashing biker gangs because their noisy hogs would keep his mother up at night and getting arrested constantly to understanding that manliness is having confidence in and accepting all facets of yourself regardless of the opinions of others and teaching knitting classes to the youth and elderly. Watching that kind of shit helps you gain perspective on life if you didn't have it before. To also not take up any more spots on the list, Persona 3 and 5 also fit in with what I've said, but in the context that I played them after P4G.
Nier Automata - If you aren't planning on playing the game, or have already finished it (and seen the credits, you'll know what I mean if you've seen those credits) click ahead.
Nier Automata as a game didn't really catch my attention in any similar ways to the previous two games. The story was generic but just interesting enough to keep me trodding through it. Playing through it the first time as 2B would've been enough for me to put down the game and say it was a pleasant time-burner and that I got my money's worth out of it. But the prompt that I only completed one of the endings and that 9S's storyline was unlocked caught my attention enough to pick it up and keep going. Of course when I realized I was literally replaying the story but from 9S' perspective I almost put it down since I wouldn't have been bothered to replay it again if there weren't any different stories or endings available. But of course the steady drip of lore, examinations into the psyche of the androids and the robots, and the small changes in the playstyle and combat got me intrigued enough to go through the slog again. By the time the option to play A2 came around and we got to see literally everything that got built up in the first two stories get flipped on it's head I said fuck it lets see this dumb shit through lmao. Now imagine my surprise when I finally beat the game and choose to take either 9S's or A2's side to yeet the other that there's a subtle prompt telling you to redo that ending and chose the other side to see what happens and you get the true end credits turning into a fucking bullet hell manic shooters game. That sequence was fucking A+ right there. Getting monkeystomped by the end credits and then egged on by the game to keep trying to beat it would normally just get me to shut off the game and wave the middle finger to the developer but every time you get stomped on by the game you start getting these one-liners from across the globe telling you to keep going, which is pretty fucking weird but encouraging. And eventually getting the option to call in help and having other players ships pop in and basically turn your peashooter into a death cannon that melts the gamedevs names off the screen fills you with satisfaction, yet at the same time it doesn't provide you with invulnerability. Every time you get hit and should die a line on the side of the screen says "X player's data has been lost" and one of the ships helping you pops, only to be replaced by another ship shortly after. What I found truly mindblowing about the game was the realization after you finish the credits and go to the end screen proper is that every one of those ships that helped you came from another person from somewhere around the world, and that every time you should've died one of those person's save data was permanently deleted to help you make it across the finish line. And that after learning all of that - the game asks if you want to make the same choice as all those people did and give up your save file data - the effort and hours you put into the game - and delete everything. In my honest opinion this single game design choice alone made Nier stand heads and shoulders above the rest. And later reading that the ending was the goal and the starting point of the game for the creator the entire time and that the rest of the game was worked from that point backwards made me say this guy's a fucking master and a madlad. If you want a better explanation of what the fuck I just wrote, give this comrade's vid on the game a listen.
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To the Moon: Same vein as Persona 4 G in terms of helping me grow empathy and perspective. This game made me break down and cry.
Crusader Kings 2: Really helped me gain perspective on the histories, cultures, and religions of the game. Sure everything starts delineating with history the moment you hit the start button, but being able to gain an inkling of the sheer complexity of the world at the time gave me greater appreciation and understanding of the world we know today. From watching the rise of the Shi'a in schism to the Sunni, to seeing the terror the creeping death of the black plague move across the globe and how devastating it was to everyone across the board, to even things like feudal politics and the disgusting intricacies of weaving alliances among disparate groups of waring lords to maneuver and maintain a semblance of a kingdom. Also 10/10 would name my horse Lord Regent of the Empire while I go running through the woods naked while my family plots to murder me to split my holdings among themselves as the Golden Horde, Turkish invaders, Viking raiders, and bloodthirsty Aztecs that want to sacrifice the pope to Quezacotl run amok across the lands.