Fantasy/Scifi games with races or species with some diversity in them?

[Lieju]

I'm tired of humanoid aliens and elves and dwarves.

I want diverse, interesting creatures with well-developed biology and lore that isn't just 'a human but with different ears'.

Something that actually feels alien, and well-developed. Aliens and creatures that have different biology, and culture and views on sexuality or society or whatever.
And it'd be nice if there were different species interacting and the world felt alive.
(And you being able to play a non-human would be a plus obviously.)



So, what scifi/fantasy games you can recommend me?
I'm more into fantasy at the moment though, and would also like magic systems that follow rules and logic.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Argonians and Khajit in pre-Oblivion Elder Scrolls games come to mind. But as far as something like a D&D game where you play as blink hounds, I can't think of much.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Honestly, I'd be glad just to get a sci-fi/fantasy game that has like some fat people walking around. I know it's for the sake of convenience, but using the same fucking male/female body model for every character is really boring -- I'm looking at you Bioware.

As for non-humanoid aliens... Yeah, it'd be nice, but that would mean they couldn't use mo-cap, which would make for a lot of hassle for the developers. And obviously it's easier for the audience to empathize with beings similar to us.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Tall order unless you want to crank those character sheets for a good ole' Table Top session --- that or a stack of Sci-Fi books to reads.

Only thing that comes close in that realm is ME series.

 

[Lieju]

Tall order unless you want to crank those character sheets for a good ole' Table Top session --- that or a stack of Sci-Fi books to reads.

Only thing that comes close in that realm is ME series.

I assume you mean Mass effect?
Yeah, I did enjoy it, and also the lore in Dragon Age, even if it still had the dwarves and the elves.
At least the lore was nice and fleshed out.

EDIT: I mean, it doesn't have to be a AAA-game. A game with less advanced graphics could have more freedom with the designs.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Well the reason you pretty much see the same races is because most go off of the basic fantasy races. Even the Witcher that is fresh and new has elves and dwarfs. The treatment of elves and dwarfs however are different for instance, Elves are always viewed as these uppity high and mighty types that never age and never miss a shot --- whereas in Dragon Age, they are slum dwellers whom lost their magic because Humans seem to have an affect on them.

I think the most balanced elves I've ever read were from Elf Quest. * End side note


But to our discussion, unfortunately, most cases you are playing a human in a Sci Fi environment. In more annoying cases, its a first person shooter where you are nameless guy blasting creatures whom always have over the top guns and vicious moves. In the ancient DOS game world, you had Starflight --- where you generally picked your crew that ranged from plant-life beings, lizard beings, robots, humans, and I forgot the other race you could use. That was well ahead of its time by leaps and bounds because you got to explore thousands of worlds and also follow a pretty good galactic story.

I don't know if you can play the alien characters in " Defiance", may want to check that one out.

Honorable mention from the top of my head is a mixed bag: Star Craft 1/2, Sins of a Solar Empire Trinity/Rebellion, Dark Star One, Endless Space, Privateer, Freelancer.

Unfortunately, most of these are either RTS's without a real story to them or ship to ship combat with alien species as the many nations you would be going up against.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Now that I think about it, there is one instance where you play the role of a Dark Spawn in a Dragon Age DLC.

 

[Saetha]

I'm... pretty confused about what you want here. Uh... do you want a fantasy that's got something other than the typical elves/dwarves/orcs? A sci-fi with in-depth lore and world-building? A game where you play something so completely alien and different from humans?

If you're just looking for something with in-depth culture that's drastically different from humans, well, you're going to run into some problems with that. A, it's a pretty ambitious project to undertake, so you're unlikely to find much of it. And B, rendering it in a game engine would probably be pretty difficult, since, you know, we haven't got any reference point for it.

Of course, I'm kinda confused about what you want. You just said "something that feels alien." What do you define as alien, exactly?

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

I think what the OP is getting at is playing as the Alien itself and looking at the surrounding environment in a way the Alien would. How it would brush its own teeth. Manipulate objects made for its race. How it would react and speak towards its own kind --- that sort of thing. It would be like creating an entirely knew set of the five human senses.

 

[Jandau]

Look up Endless Space and Endless Legend, both 4X strategy games, the first one in a sci-fi space empire setting and the latter more of a fantasy-based cousin of the Civilization games. The playable races come in a variety of flavours in both games, some more vanilla, some various stages of weird.

EDIT: Also, if you're not opposed to going really old school, look up Star Control 2

 

[synobal]

You know why scifi aliens and fantasy races tend to all be humanoid with superficially difference features? Animators cost money, and being able to use or tweak a single set of animations for all your character models is a great way to make sure you don't go over budget and pull a double fine.

 

[DataSnake]

That's one thing I really like about Mass Effect: the only traditional "rubber forehead alien" race is the Asari, and it's actually explained in the third game:

Spoiler

The Protheans engineered them to appeal to all other sentient races (their body shape attracts humans, their head tentacles appeal to Turians, their skin color attracts Salarians, their combat abilities appeal to Krogan, and so on) so that they could unite them against the Reapers. That's also why all Asari have biotic powers and the ability to mate with members of any race.

Many of (though not all) of the other races follow the basic four-limbs-and-a-head layout, but that's hardly unique to humans. Then there are other differences: the Elcor emote in a way no other species can read and have to state their emotions aloud to be understood, the Geth don't follow the one-individual-one-body rule, and Turians and Quarians are based on dextro-amino acids instead of regular DNA! Also, it brought us this guy:

Spoiler: the first Hanar spectre

 

[Lieju]

You know why scifi aliens and fantasy races tend to all be humanoid with superficially difference features? Animators cost money, and being able to use or tweak a single set of animations for all your character models is a great way to make sure you don't go over budget and pull a double fine.

Yes, but with less advanced graphics, I imagine this would not be the case.
I'm not necessarily looking for a AAA-game, or even something recent.

Just good and interesting world-building with alien creatures that aren't the exact same thing I've seen thousand times.

 

[Eddie the head]

Honestly, I'd be glad just to get a sci-fi/fantasy game that has like some fat people walking around. I know it's for the sake of convenience, but using the same fucking male/female body model for every character is really boring -- I'm looking at you Bioware.

Why are you looking at Bioware? In SWTOR there is options to be anything form a 5 foot tall guy to basically a hutt. If you didn't play SWTOR far enough but that's hardly Bioware's fault.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Honestly, I'd be glad just to get a sci-fi/fantasy game that has like some fat people walking around. I know it's for the sake of convenience, but using the same fucking male/female body model for every character is really boring -- I'm looking at you Bioware.

Why are you looking at Bioware? In SWTOR there is options to be anything form a 5 foot tall guy to basically a hutt. If you didn't play SWTOR far enough but that's hardly Bioware's fault.

I'm looking at Bioware mostly because of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, where each individual species feels like they were made from the exact same mold.

 

[Tyran107]

Honestly, I'd be glad just to get a sci-fi/fantasy game that has like some fat people walking around. I know it's for the sake of convenience, but using the same fucking male/female body model for every character is really boring -- I'm looking at you Bioware.

Why are you looking at Bioware? In SWTOR there is options to be anything form a 5 foot tall guy to basically a hutt. If you didn't play SWTOR far enough but that's hardly Bioware's fault.

I'm sorry but what on earth are you talking about?? All the playable races in SWTOR are variations of different colored humans. None of them are remotely different from one another besides color and head ornaments (horns, lekku, cybernetic implants, etc.)

 

[AdamG3691]

well, there's the chua in wildstar, asexual* sociopathic space hamsters who literally worship Science and "talk in very efficient way, less words, same meaning, much better, waste less time, better spent making guns"

*well not really, it's just that nobody has yet managed to identify their gender and lived to tell the tale, they tend not to bother with gender anyway, it gets in the way of doing mad science

sadly, the rest of the playable races are pretty bland design-wise: southern USA humans, british humans, psychic anime rabbit people, mercenary rock people, space-zombies, spy robots, and feral lizard people. (the lore behind them is great however)

 

[Lieju]

they tend not to bother with gender anyway, it gets in the way of doing mad science

I can get behind that.

It's an MMO though? I tend to shy away from those, but I'll keep it in mind.

 

[Eddie the head]

I'm sorry but what on earth are you talking about??

Body shape. I know your question was rhetorical but you appear to have missed the whole point. Were not talking about that we are talking about "fat people walking around."

I'm looking at Bioware mostly because of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, where each individual species feels like they were made from the exact same mold.

Like I said it's fair enough if you haven't played SWTOR, but that is a game in witch they do the exact thing you where complaining they didn't do. If you mean a game then name the game. Not the developer. It's casting an overly wide net.

 

[xPixelatedx]

I can't really recommend any games, sorry.

What your asking for is something the general public doesn't seem very interested in for the most part, at least that's the belief of the people making all our entertainment. Unless they're the monsters to be killed, in-human aliens are rarely even used in movies because everyone is so terrified something horrible will happen if there is a character that's not 100% relatable. And movies are a spectator sport, so as expected it's 10x worse in videogames, that's why most protags today are grizzly, 30somthing brown-haired men.

The only place that produces good xeno stuff at all would probably be books and also user-made things on the internet. I hear the xeno communities on tumblr are pretty active, though I haven't checked this out myself.