Muh Atmosphere

What are your favorite games with good atmosphere & why?

To my understanding "atmosphere" is a vague term referring to feelings the game conveys with it's world (world being an amalgam of sound, music, environment, characters, etc.) There are game worlds that feel comfy, game worlds that feel like a dreamlike fantasy, game worlds that are spooky & put you on-edge, game worlds that feel depressing, lonely or desolate, so on & so forth.

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But user, the only thing that matters about a game is gameplay!

You mean story, right? :^)

this. atmosphere is just a buzzword to try and justify your shitty walking simulator's existence

Stalker-, mainly because of how bleak everything is. I also find the metroid Prime and Thief games to have really good atmosphere-, Thief especially due to being set at night for pretty much all the game.

Breath of Fire 3.

First RPG to ever make me feel like I was in a really distinct world. The jazz soundtrack, the various beast-races you encounter everywhere, the emphasis on past events that visibly shaped the current, and the lack of an earth-shattering sequence of events to impel the plot forward all combined to give me a sense of content fulfillment in the games setting and atmosphere.

All of it is great. The further along I get in years, the more I come to realize just how utterly grand that game is.

Video games are full of shit buzzwords.

The most atmospheric games I've played were Gothic I and II

Please tell me you didn't take me seriously.

>level design, sound design, texture work, art style, and gameplay mechanics working together is overrated, man!

When I played Shadow of Chernobyl it didn't really grab me, I didn't get it & just thought "wow, this is depressing", however the game really stuck in my head. I couldn't put my finger on it, then I played Call of Pripyat. By then, the bleak atmosphere had grown on me & I loved it. The atmosphere in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is fucking great & it's even better with weather mods.

Stalker is a game with its unique mix of strange and wonderful wilderness that has loose ties to reality. Had a sort of 'woah' moment in CS after climbing a tower-like structure at sunset. Leaves and wind sound effects set the mood as I scanned the map.

that game is straight up garbage

don't mind him, that guy fell for the gameplay is everything meme

IMO Alan Wake felt exactly like a Stephen King miniseries. It succeeded in being what it was trying to be.

Quantum Break, on the other hand, took the idea too far in the wrong direction & fucking failed miserably at being an appealing game or miniseries.

wew lad

Well, yeah, that's true. But it could've been a better game while doing that.

There are some trivial interactions with the game world that help make the player feel they are in that world thus improving atmosphere. Gameplay & Atmosphere are related in that sense. More interaction with world = greater sense that you are in that world.

Like in Max Payne & many older games you can interact with light switches, sinks, stoves, refrigerators, televisions, phones, radiators, etc. Most game developers nowadays believe these minor interactions with the game world are too trivial to bother with & as a result their games are less interactive & feel more synthetic. You don't feel like you're really in these environments when you can't actually interact with so many things around you.

Never read Stephen King. Is he about burning angry tractors with light beams?

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The Witcher 1, Metroid Prime, E.Y.E, Deus Ex, Hotel Dusk, Chrono Trigger


I like it, and atmosphere is what it does right. It's main problem is that there's so little enemy variety and weapon variety. Combat gets boring too quickly.

It's fun.


Nah, he wouldn't think of something as cool.


All those improve the gameplay when they're good and don't when they're bad

Morrowind absolutely nails the "stranger in a strange land" atmosphere. Everything feels incredibly alien but you don't expect that because it's fantasy instead of sci-fi. It's all based off a culture that is very underrepresented in fantasy settings too (heavy Mayan/SA influence). It also has the nice advantage of older RPGs in that it doesn't hold your hand and give you garbage like quest markers like shit games such as Witcher meaning that you have to really take in the environment and pay attention to NPCs if you want to get anywhere.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are the kings of atmosphere for me. They can be dripping with terror when you're hunting at night or exploring an underground complex, and they can give you a feeling of safety and comfort when you're sitting round a campfire as someone plays the harmonica.
Artifact hunting also makes you feel like a badass, dodging horrific death by inches.

Pretty sure the first Witcher game didn't have quest makers.

Fair enough, it was just a shit game for other reasons and I'll admit it did have some nice celtic atmosphere going on that got trashed for the sequel in favor of "we want the Game of Thrones audience"

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GTA 3. It was so dark and urban, I loved it. They don't make them like that any more. Closest thing was GTA 4, but still not grim and urban and crazy enough. Saints Row had some potential to be that, but instead it was stupid consolish pew-pew.

GTA 4 was pretty dark, but in a much more subtle way. Defintely in a way that normalfags couldn't pick up on consciously and don't like it for a reason they can't explain.

Doom64 and Quake I suppose, the music alone gets my balls all fuzzy.

Go read The Dark Tower series.

I pirated The Long Dark and I fucking love it. It’s so damn comfy. The creaking of buildings, the sound of wind, the foley, and I even like the art style–it’s not overly pretentious.

I don’t really even care if the story will be shit (It probably will be; it’s an indie game), because the survival gameplay they’ve already built is so great. I just wish there was some sort of win condition for Sandbox, because eventually you WILL die once you’ve cleaned the entire world out of supplies.

this nigga knows his shit. Spyro has maximum comfy atmosphere

Mass Effect. All those different planets you can ride around on have different atmospheres. It provides a variety that few other games can :^)

GTA 4 had better plot, but GTA 3 atmosphere was fucking magical. Music is brutal technoshit, city is multi-level as fuck and consists of ugly blocks, there isn't many cars but they all have character, way less cutscenes and scripted bullshit than now. Too bad it's so short and you can beat it in few hours. I'd love some remake with modern physics, expanded city and more missions.

Half-Life 2 has awesome atmosphere that still holds up today. I would describe it better if I wasn't so drunk right now

Reminds me of gmod

*read the first 3 dark tower books
4 is ok, but it's the start of the fall

Nice dubs

Lad is this sarcasm?

The Ecco series is one of the most atmsopheric video game series ever created.

Prove me wrong.

I liked the feel of GTAIV.
The city felt dirty, ugly and lonely. Everywhere you went you saw the same faces, nobody cared about you, nobody gives a shit about the dirt.
Say what you want about the game, but it feels like a big city does.

Homeworld. desolate, quiet, cold space.
and Tiberian Sun. both making RTS games bleed atmosphere is impressive and rare.

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Stalker, cyka blyat nigger

cheeki.violates.me

sure is atmospheric alright

Vampire the masquerade had amazing atmosphere. With Deb on the radio, and your little room with the rain pouring down on your windows like a storm all night was so comfy. And just the entire game, each city had an amazing amount of atmosphere, like Downtown & Hollywood. I absolutely loved that desolate, middle of the night when everything is sleeping feel to the game, where you sneak around and deal with vampire politics.

It wouldn't be the same without its music.

Don't, actually; King is a massive SJW.

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God tier atmosphere

Nothing like relaxing by the fire after shitting your pants in the labs

Too true, rik really nailed it for vtmb. The music really brought it all together. This track is personally my favorite.

Demon's Souls and Bloodborne are both fantastic in terms of atmosphere.

This right here. The game needs more maps filled with neat stuff to explore

Win conditions could be something like:

Most "dark" games on PSX, Shadow Tower, Quake, certain parts of EYE, Thief, System Shock 2, but most importantly: Max Payne 1.

I have yet to find a single game that can replicate the feelings I get from A Cold Day in Hell.

The first Soul Reaver, portraying an almost dead world inhabited almost exclusively by undead abominations.

Checkout their feature roadmap. They are planing a lot of cool shit for the sandbox including seasons and planting, so I doubt there will ever be a win condition since you will eventually be able to store food for the winter.

hinterlandgames.com/the-long-dark/roadmap/

I'm just a bit apprehensive about the NPC's in snadbox shit.
I don't want this game to turn into some rpg and I bet they won't put in cannibalism.
Otherwise I really wish this game success.

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You can have FUN with a video game, but if the game is shit and the only way you describe the video game is "I think it's fun!", then it's simply a buzzword.
It's just denial for simply having shit taste, as shit is what the person would describe as "fun".
Now can you please go into detail for what makes this "Alan Wake", fun?

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great music and nice artstyle is all it needs for atmosphere

You sound like a fucking fag.

Come at me.

SMT Imagine (R.I.P.)

Most of the Warhammer 40,000 games managed to nail the over-the-top atmosphere successfully. I'm not sure if it's because it's just really easy, or because it had a good streak of developers, but damned if I always felt like I was fighting xenos out of some shithole planets a lot of the time.

This is true. Chess doesn't need atmosphere or a story and it's still one of the greatest games.
But this thread is about atmosphere.

Mein negger.

Nigger, chess can have more story packed with non-linearity and mattering choices than all telltale garbage combined.

Both highly underrated by Holla Forums. I have yet to see a thread on either of these gems.

Reread what I said.
>"Chess doesn't need atmosphere or a story and it's still one of the greatest games.

Probably because gameplay wise they're quite shallow as SRPG's.

What the fuck is it with Blizzard games, they're a shit company now but there's some sort of "magic goo" that comes with their games minus Overwatch.