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Do You Care About Lore?

So do you care about lore and continuity even in games that either you or other people would normally not care about?

I suppose I'm a bit alone but I'm a huge lore and I'm very hung up on continuity and separating canon from non-canon.

I'm pretty OCD about it and I know a lot of people give me shit and that's fine. I can understand why people don't want to focus on lore or continuity or don't care about it.

Personally, it's very important for me. I like a world that's really fleshed out with lots of details.

So a good case in point of why a Japanese role-playing game like Trails / Kiseki franchise appeals to me. I've been a fan for about 10 years or more I just love all the lore and detail in the kiseki series. To this day I can't even think of another Japanese video game that has gone on as long as Trails, which started about 15 years ago, and still has an overarching storyline that hasn't been finished yet. It's amazing.

And while this is a table top game, I would add Warhammer 40,000 because the video games are often connected and considered lore with some exceptions (original Space Marine) but otherwise most of the games do take place in the tabletop universe.

Dungeons & Dragons and even Pathfinder are a bit disconnected. There is some good lore, for instance in regards to forgotten Realms and whatever, but the Multiverse as a whole hasn't been consistent it seems. I still enjoy the games nonetheless.

Anyways, I'm not looking for arguments. I know 99% of you already disagree with me about that and I realize that and I also realize I'm pretty OCD in that regards. But I'm just wondering if there are a handful of people who feel like me here?
 

radewagon

Member
Anyways, I'm not looking for arguments. I know 99% of you already disagree with me about that and I realize that and I also realize I'm pretty OCD in that regards. But I'm just wondering if there are a handful of people who feel like me here?
neogaf GIF
 

somesang

Member
I like to think that lore is incredibly important for me, but in reality it's just a bonus. I play table top 40k with friends and the lore is what gives our games flavor. Otherwise it's just dice rolling, which still happens to be fun. The same translates to video games as well. The souls games comes to mind. Lore is always the bonus content for me. During play throughs, I may pick up on some details, but it's not until talking about it with friends or consuming content that I get the big picture.

All said, of course you're not alone in feeling this way. Have you been on the internet?
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
It really depends. There's some universes where they laid out a surprising amount of background and it's a joy to learn more about it. Like mentioned above, I'm really enjoying going through the Dead Space lore at the moment and it's fun to see where it went fairly sideways in 3.
 
If it's a sci-fi or fantasy game, I tend to care more about such things. I read every single lore book collectible in Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Cyberpunk 2077. I want to be engrossed in the world as much as possible, otherwise I have no purposes for doing anything of value in that world.
 
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I appreciate good lore told in an efficient manner, sure. But generally, no I don't care. Give me arcadey games without any of the modern bullshit.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I care to a point. It bothers me, for example, that MGS2 says Big Boss was in his late 50s (lets say 57) when the clones were created (1972). Peace Walker takes place in 1974 and I can tell you Big Boss does not look 59/60 years old. Big Boss sure as hell does not look 69/70 years old in Phantom Pain. That is a direct contradiction of the previously established lore.

It does not bother me that people in Mass Effect 2 use thermal clips while people in Mass Effect 1 use self-cooling weapons. That is clearly a concession for a videogame mechanic that only the most obnoxious people care about.
 

Laptop1991

Member
Yes i do until they don't stick to it, or a game made by a different team just makes their own version up, then it kind of ruins it.
 

Crayon

Member
Sure, yeah. Some of my favorite properties have a bunch of fluff that I like. 40k and Battletech come to mind. Shadowrun/cyberpunk. World of Darkness.

Seems like all tabletop games, huh? Never noticed that.
 
It depends. For something like Resident Evil, I don't give a shit about lore.
I enjoy the lore of souls games or Destiny, but I'm not crazy about it. I like it as a background thing.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Depends on how much the plot revolved around it.

In Elden Ring some bosses are presented as this big event when they turn up with "epic" boss music but most of the time I'm like "WTF are you?".
 
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If it's a sci-fi or fantasy game, I tend to care more about such things. I read every single lore book collectible in Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Cyberpunk 2077. I want to be engrossed in the world as much as possible, otherwise I have no purposes for doing anything of value in that world.
Oh I hear you, my guy. I'm actually a video game lore book collector so to speak. I have the Halo encyclopedias, Diablo books like the one written by Tyrael as an example. I have a few Trails books but they're all in Japanese. Etc.

I love lore books anytime I can get my grubby little hands on them. I even have a few of the Pokemon books and I don't really even play that game. Is there a Shin Megami Tensei lore book? I can't seem to find a decent one.
 
It depends. For something like Resident Evil, I don't give a shit about lore.
I enjoy the lore of souls games or Destiny, but I'm not crazy about it. I like it as a background thing.
Hello. I was talking about this the other day. I'm not a huge Resident Evil fan but I would like to delve more into the lore but it seems whenever I do, it's almost like there's a new zombie outbreak every 5 years and that just sounds so unbelievable to me. Can you imagine real life society if there was something as insane as a zombie outbreak every five or six years or so? I don't think people could sleep at night. The amount of government regulations would be insane and would make covid lockdowns look like play time.

I also kind of wish we could find out where some of these viruses came from and what not. My dear, the latest incarnation has a virus that pretty much consumes and stores your "soul" while turning you into some kind of zombie. It's like they keep getting weirder and weirder too the point of me asking if these actually are earthly viruses.
 
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Little Mac

Gold Member
Lore should be relegated to the opening sequence ... like a Star Wars movie's opening text crawl. Games should tell their narrative through gameplay and cinematic. Not through text logs. If I wanted to learn lore through text, I'd read a book.
 
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VN1X

Banned
So do you care about lore and continuity even in games that either you or other people would normally not care about?

I suppose I'm a bit alone but I'm a huge lore and I'm very hung up on continuity and separating canon from non-canon.

I'm pretty OCD about it and I know a lot of people give me shit and that's fine. I can understand why people don't want to focus on lore or continuity or don't care about it.

Personally, it's very important for me. I like a world that's really fleshed out with lots of details.

So a good case in point of why a Japanese role-playing game like Trails / Kiseki franchise appeals to me. I've been a fan for about 10 years or more I just love all the lore and detail in the kiseki series. To this day I can't even think of another Japanese video game that has gone on as long as Trails, which started about 15 years ago, and still has an overarching storyline that hasn't been finished yet. It's amazing.

And while this is a table top game, I would add Warhammer 40,000 because the video games are often connected and considered lore with some exceptions (original Space Marine) but otherwise most of the games do take place in the tabletop universe.

Dungeons & Dragons and even Pathfinder are a bit disconnected. There is some good lore, for instance in regards to forgotten Realms and whatever, but the Multiverse as a whole hasn't been consistent it seems. I still enjoy the games nonetheless.

Anyways, I'm not looking for arguments. I know 99% of you already disagree with me about that and I realize that and I also realize I'm pretty OCD in that regards. But I'm just wondering if there are a handful of people who feel like me here?
This is such a controversial opinion that I'm amazed you haven't been persecuted yet. Literally worse than Hitler.
 

Zeroing

Banned
I think lore depending on the games, are just a lame excuse to make some sense of the barebones/chaotic story... we always end up with people with different conspiracies about it on YouTube.
 
Depends on the game. Most of them get it completely wrong and select few (like From Software) get it right.

Warcraft for example has laughably bad lore (ruined by WoW) and most fantasy games fall into similar traps. Pillars of Eternity made me quit the game with how much bad exposition and lore dump there was in the game. Bethesda completely destroyed the lore in Fallout, congratulations. I was really into the Mass Effect lore then they produced a steaming pile of shit called Mass Effect 3. There is no lack of examples.
 
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JOEVIAL

Has a voluptuous plastic labia
Yes I am interested, but it should be delivered through a standard process of playing the game. Anything that could be considered a plot point or crucial should not be delivered via walls of text or in the background.

Anything that is delivered in the background should not be crucial or important to the plot.

DON'T DO what Destiny does. I do not want to read several paragraphs of plot/crucial lore in order to understand what is going on and why.

CONTROL, Fallout 3, 4, Oblivion, Skyrim are a few games that deliver their walls of text in a decent way, but still burn the retinas if you're screen brightness is too high 😂
 
Mostly no, but if a game has a great story and characters I'm interested in at least looking at some of the lore. Games like Soulsborne or other games where the lore is the primary form of storytelling then I won't care in the slightest. I need to be hooked into the narrative before I'm able to care about the world. It also depends on how easily accessed it is. If I have to dig through tons of menus or scour every inch for a random datapad that contains a small part of lore I won't touch it, and I'm never going to look up lore online. It also depends on how related the lore is, if it's about how an ancient race used to make pots or something I won't care, but if it's cool info or detail about a character's past then I'm more inclined to care. It's also a huge bonus if it's voice acted, like when a character might have 20 different dialogue options I usually exhaust all of them, but a long text box in the codex I'll probably skip.


TL/DR it depends on how engaging the story is, and how the lore is presented, but for me lore is at best a bonus for an engaging world, it's never going to be something that makes a game great imo
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
I don't think it's important, but it can help with immersion especially in games where you explore the world, the best use of a lore in a game to me is in the Witcher series.
 

Pejo

Member
If the game is good and I like the characters, yes.

If the writing and worldbuildling is good, yes.

If there is a lot of effort put into the lore and it is interesting, yes.

Otherwise, no.
 

Optimus Lime

(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
Carmack was right.

The 'lore' should be: See that demon? Go blow it's head off.

Anything else is a massively embarrassing waste of time, and the people who cry at video games should be chemically castrated.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Depends on the game.

For example I like reading the demon's descriptions in SMT games, lot's of cool interesting shit there.

You won't catch me reading a book in Skyrim tho. I'm sure they must add a lot to the game but man, I just don't care.

So yeah, I guess it depend's on how much I'm invested with the game in question.
 

Beechos

Member
Dont really care about lore while playing a game but i wouldnt mind being able to read up on codex's and shit on my phone while on the train or bus. Something like this should be inplemented on the xbox and playstation app for all games.
 
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laynelane

Member
Absolutely. Delving into the lore of games I like just increases my enjoyment of them. And there's so many places to look too besides the games - wikis, online discussions, forums, videos, etc.
 
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