Summary
One of the greatest things aboutopen-worldgames is how versatile they are in terms of genre, game mechanics, side quests, and whether they have lore. There are many open-world games out there that are designed to provide players with as much fun as possible without delving too much (or at all) into the lore and background stories of the main character and their companions.
And while these titles seem to work very well in most cases, sometimes players also want to have tons of lore to read into and understand, in more depth, the world they’re exploring. In those cases, there are luckily many titles offeringextensive background lore. Here are some of thebest open-world games for players who love reading lore.
Players who’ve already completed the game likely know that the main political conflict inTheElder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis an ongoing civil war between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks. However, there are thousands of years of history behind the game’s story, and it borrows a great deal from previous installments of the franchise. The conflict between the Nords and the ancient race of Dragons is also well documented, as players, taking on the role of the Dragonborn, will have to set out on a journey to defeat Alduin, the dragon lord.
Skyrimnot only draws a ton of its lore from this longstanding conflict but also touches on other, more obscure aspects of deities and religion, with Deadric princes, such as Azura, Molag Bal, Sanguine, and Sheogorath interfering in many of the game’s side quests and world events.
Cyberpunk 2077’s timeline is very similar to that of the real world until the 1990s. However, after that decade, there are many events that affect how the world evolves in the following decades of history. With the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War and the distribution of nuclear weapons on the black market, along with the worrying control of the US by the Gang of Four (NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA), the world faces total economic and societal collapse.
Amid all this trouble, nuclear exchanges and biological warfare all around the world eventually led to the decline of Western civilization. As governments fell and society faced extinction as everyone knew it, evil corporations like Arasaka took over and started rising to eventually become the behemoths they are in 2077.Regardless of which ending players chooseinCyberpunk 2077, knowing the backstory of the dystopian society players get to explore and experience will certainly enrich their playthroughs the next time they pick up the game.
Players who have wondered whether the world ofThe Witcher 3was always plagued by monsters or if there was ever a certain degree of normalcy to it need to look no further than the Conjunction of the Spheres. This was a cataclysmic event that affected the universe in whichThe Witcheris set and led to several non-human, dangerous creatures being trapped on The Continent (where humans live). Some of the creatures that humanity was unfortunately invaded by were ghouls, vampires, and graveirs, as well as other, more reasonable beings, including gnomes and dwarves.
The Conjunction of the Spheres also led to there being magic in the world, which made it possible for sorcerers and sorceresses to exist. In a way, while the Conjunction of the Spheres was clearly a terrible thing for humanity, it also set the stage forThe Witchergames. After all, without monsters to hunt, Geralt, Vesemir, and Ciri would never have undergone the Trial of the Grasses and would have been out of a job before their career as Witchers ever began. For better or worse, the Conjunction of the Spheres opened upa whole world of possibilities inThe Witcheruniverse.
In addition to being a great game,Horizon: Zero Dawnis a strong cautionary tale about humanity’s hubris and the danger it poses to the species' survival. The game’s story begins about 1,000 years before players get to explore the world as Aloy. In the early 2020s, humanity faced a strong problem involving climate change, ocean pollution levels, and the mass extinction of species around the globe. Scientists worldwide tried to come up with a solution for decades, eventually inventing mechanical animals to terraform Earth, which, by that point, was almost devoid of all life that wasn’t human.
In the following centuries, human colonies were struck time and time again by massive earthquakes, famine, and political conflicts, which slowly but surely, led to mass extinction and the formation of clans made up by the survivors of such events. Humanity was forced to return to a near-primal state where trade, hunting and gathering, and other primitive survival activities became society’s main focus. WhileHorizon: Zero Dawnis a work of fiction, its resemblance to the threat humanity currently faces as a species in real life is enough to make players uncomfortable andgive them something to think aboutas they explore the game’s open world.
The lore behindElden Ringis so extensive, that it requires a full article dedicated to it to explain it in detail. To summarize, the game is set in the Lands Between, which are blessed and supposedly under the protection ofthe Greater Will, a sort of deity which ensures the prevalence of order over chaos. Through the Erdtree, a massive golden tree that sees all and protects all, the Greater Will makes its commands known in many different ways. Acting as a vessel of the Greater Will, Queen Marika the Eternal, among many other things, made death impossible in her realm—and while this was thought of as a blessing, it ended up being a curse.
Marika’s first marriage to Godfrey, the First Elden Lord, flourished and crumbled, spawning many children in the process. Her second union with Radagon also resulted in the birth of other candidates to eventually replace her. These children, known as Empyreans, were carefully chosen by the Greater Will, with some embracing their destiny, and others rejecting it.
