Truths about video game stories
I have not played <i>any</i> computer game in over more than a decade, but I played a lot earlier.<p>Anyway, what I did for a while - not recently due to a lack of good targets - is watch Youtube &quot;playthrough no commentary&quot; videos (and with story-less gameplay parts heavily cut out). That&#x27;s usually 4-6 hours of <i>game movie</i>.<p>The Last of Us was good, but the very top #1 for me as far as story goes - ignoring the game play completely - was Horizon Zero Dawn. One of many such game movies for this game: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;W6jbYfmQAG4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;W6jbYfmQAG4</a><p>That story seemed to be good but kind of stupid and the same as always, completely predictable, you already know what happened when you see the start and it&#x27;s a bit stupid and too far-fetched - that kind. Until it wasn&#x27;t. Turned out it wasn&#x27;t just well-made, when you find out what was really going on it was THE BEST.<p>Not only does it have two very different stories layered (three, if you count the present time story): One about what happened to earth and its people and one layered inside of two people, the MC and a woman in the past, with seemingly no connection, until we find out the opposite is the case.<p>Both story-parts actually had me crying. When I found out after about four hours what had <i>actually</i> happened on earth, it was a great emotional shock. Same with the ending, that used the connection between the MC and that person from the past.<p>Even the machines and their (animal) forms make sense, there is a good and IMO satisfying explanation.<p>The stories in this game and in a handful of others are <i>much</i> better than most movies.<p>If you are in the mood for something really dark, watch a game movie of &quot;SOMA&quot;. Underwater survival. Earth is gone - a giant meteor made the surface into a fiery hell, the only survivors are some researchers in a deep ocean facility. Best  small detail: They get the &quot;uploading your brain into a computer simulation&quot; right, see the very ending of that game which shows it one last time (TL;DW: As someone who knows neuroscience, the idea makes no sense anyway, but let&#x27;s forget that and assume it makes sense. What will happen is you still stand there in front of the computer, wandering what happened, after the &quot;upload&quot;. Because you still exist, and the copy is <i>not you</i>. It&#x27;s a copy. You still die, there is no magical connection between you and your copy.)