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

[The Madman]

Character customization that has an effect of character dialogue is one of my favourite features in rpg, but unfortunately it's also a pretty rare one to find done well. The added time and cost of adding extra dialogue, especially if it's voiced, for all the various races/classes/choices tends to be an understandable deterrent in making things too diverse. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is probably the game I've played that did it best, but since you're looking for a bit more variety than different flavours of human vampire (As distinct as they might be), that's probably not what you're hoping for.

Strategy games, grand strategy especially, tend to be pretty good in this regard. Galactic Civilizations 2 lets you play all sorts of weird races and the race editor gives even more variety to the point where you can play as a villainous race of evil squirrels (Actually one of the sub-species in the game) and in the Age of Wonders series you can play as all sorts of fun fantasy tropes. AoW3 even has a race editor where your hero changes the nature of your faction, meaning you can play as a faction of pure good religious zealot goblins or steampunk tank-driving Elves, which is nifty.

Solium Infernum is a fun little indie strategy game where you play as a lord of hell, recruiting the various forces of the abyss to your service which can be everything from your usual legions of minor demonlings and elite corrupt angels to mountains of gnashing teeth or monstrosity that defy easy explanation. Your character themself can also be everything from a lord of Gluttony, a fat smooth talking monster, to the red-horned buff half-goat you'd expect.

 

[Flatfrog]

Has no one mentioned Abe's Odyssee yet? It's the most obvious example I can think of, and it's great - not only do you get to play as the mostly humanoid Abe, but through his Possession ability you can control all kinds of other creatures, all with their own idiosyncracies. If you haven't played it yet, you're in for a treat with the new re-release.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

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.

Planescape: Torment comes to mind. It's a fantasy game, but there are no Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, etc.

Are you only talking about RPGs? If not, StarCraft or Universe at War: Earth Assault work well too.

 

[Mikejames]

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.

To be fair, the Rachni, Elcor, Volus, and Hanar didn't really match the same template.

None of them have really gotten the main-character treatment though.

 

[Jaegerbombastic]

Star Control 2. They have DOZENS of races. Each with a unique appearance and personality. A lot of them go well beyond the "humans with makeup and funny stuff on their head" convention.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Perfect Dark has Maians, who are basically greys, but also the Skedar, who are alien snakes who pilot mecha bodies. (However, the Skedar spend a fair bit of the game disguised as humans. And you mostly play as a human.)

The Dig is about an alien race who are not humanoid, but they spend 99% of the game super dead while your team pokes around their planet.

The Ceph in the first Crysis are squidlike. Later games have them adopting human-like form. (But they don't have much story in the first game, so probably not what you're looking for.)

Advent Rising's aliens are... mostly human-esque. But some might fit the bill, since their designs go beyond rubber forehead stuff.

Deep Labyrinth has no aliens, but it has animal NPCs.

What about stuff like Star Fox Adventures? No humans in makeup designs there. JUST PURE FURRY GOODNESS. :b

 

[hermes]

Kind of hard, really. The reason why most games with science fiction/fantasy settings have mostly humanoid aliens is because we are not familiar with non-humanoid sentient species.

That has two unwanted characteristics:
- People tend to have problems empathizing with creatures that are truly alien. If the specie is some sort of space algae, everyone involved in the game would have a hard time trying to convey when they are angry, anxious or happy. That is the reason behind the genius of the Elcors in Mass Effect, since (animation wise), they are all rather stiff.

- Truly alien creatures would have truly alien culture and architecture. I am not talking about simple things like they being some space version of human culture (Turians could be argued to be space samurais and Quarians are space gypsies); but fully alien differences. It was always disappointing in Mass Effect that when we went to different alien environments, they looked pretty much like human settings with different decoration.

For example, if they were simply humanoids whose knees bent the other way, things like desks and chairs would have to be different for them. If they have different hand shapes, consoles and switches should be different. And those are just for the examples of "humans with pointy ears". If we could visit a Hanar ship, elements like corridors and doors should be significantly different or not even exist (certainly not in the human sense). Colored coded interfaces would be entirely different. Guns, screwdrivers, forks and many other tools would be entirely different; and a long list of et cetera... That puts a lot of pressure in the arts team, that not only has to create and animate truly alien creatures, but everything around them should be just as alien. It also puts a lot of extra effort on the side of the player because he has to relearn conventions that are pretty ingrained in us.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Mass Effect as of yet. There all kinds of little details showing how the various races are genetically different (a bar tender in the second game serves you a drink for Krogans that would kill just about any human, the player only survives because s/he isn't fully human anymore, there are no half human hybrids, the Volus wear their suits because the atmospheric pressure of their methane home world is so great that without the suits they would EXPLODE). Sure, most of the races you encounter are humanoid to some degree, but there are still races like the Elcor (which looks closer to a Rhino) or the Hanar (which is basically a walking jellyfish).

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Well, GoD Factory has VASTLY different species, and the devs said they did that because they're sick of seeing "blue girl aliens" and want to see ACTUALLY ALIEN ALIENS.

...Sadly, they didn't have the resources to make the single player game they wanted (yet), it's a PVP space dogfighting game with no narrative at the moment, so you can only see holograms of these aliens in the menus, since the actual gameplay has them never leave their cockpits.

I mean, It's still a great game with awesome alien races, but there's no story to speak of, so we don't really get to see them much.

 

[Da Orky Man]

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.

It's not the graphics that are the issue, it's modelling a full set of animations and movements for an utterly non-human creature. The way we do animation now usually involves filming an actor or a reference animal moving while wearing clothing with IR parches to make the digital translation easier. While this is easy to do with humans, dogs, cats, and most other animals on Earth, modelling how a 5-legged creature moves would be far more difficult.

 

[Walter44]

Oddworld. Just...just Oddworld. The name says it all, really. The games are no RPGs, if that's what you want (first two are cinematic platformers a la Out Of This World, Prince of Persia, Blackthorn, Flashback etc, third one 3D Platformer, fourth is a 1st/3rd Person Shooter with an...interesting ammo system and the most recent game is a remake of the first one which plays more like a traditional side-scroller) but if you want diverse races, well...look at

Sligs [http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130522200449/oddworld/de/images/0/0f/Slig_10.jpg] and Glukkons [http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060909030350/oddworld/images/a/ac/Pop_left.jpg] and Gloktigi [http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090223225059/oddworld/images/b/b0/Sqiud.jpg] and Vykkers [http://xboxmedia.ign.com/media/previews/image/oddworld/irwinhumphrey.jpg] and Gabbits [http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100412030911/oddworld/images/8/88/Gabbit01.jpg] and Scrabs [http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120403084121/oddworld/de/images/3/3f/Scrabs_1.jpg] and Paramites [http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2972/paramite01.jpg] and know that there's more where that came from!

And there's also our lovable "hero" Abe [https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2463/4026780435_8f900b114e_b.jpg]...who looks humanoid, but more for "identify with your main character"-reasons. The games do have a rich backstory and the creators (well, mostly Lorne Lanning) did think about things like biology etc. The games themselves don't really delve that much into, but there's a nice, detailed Artbook you can buy if you're interested in that thought process.

The first four games are available on Steam and also (minus the third one) on GOG. The remake is currently only out for download on PS4, but they're working on releasing it on as many platforms as possible. Not the TurbografX 16, though...

Now, I don't know if the setting really is what you're looking for. It's more Industrial/Dieselpunk than SciFi (though with some SciFi-Tech like teleporters and robotic pants) with some mysticism thrown in. It's a rather dark, dystopian setting, but it's regularly lightened with some quirky humor and slapstick. I personally love these games to death and the fact that they're straying from the path of "Elves, Orcs and Dwarves" and "Humans with blue skin and antennae on their heads" is one big reason for that.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Well, I'm thinking Final Fantasy.

More specifically, FF IX and XII.

FF IX has tons of amazing entities: from racing hippos to blue feathered, upper class, anthropomorphic parrots. However, if you're looking for extensive lore behind these races, you'll probably be disappointed. Apart from the Cleyrans/Burmecians, all the races live together in a very homogenous society. There's no racism or difference in nobility based on your species. It's rather refreshing, really.

FF XII, on the other hand, does have a selection of unique races each with their own lore. No dwarves, no elves, no orcs. Sure, you've got the humes (which are basically humans) and the viera, which are women with white hair, long nails, some strange subtle facial features and rabbit ears who tend to keep to themselves - maybe a bit elf-like. But then there's still the Bangaa, Moogles, Seeq, Garif, Nu Mou, Urutan-Yensa, Baknamy, Occuria and Helgas.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I can't remember where precisely, but I think I read an interesting idea about this sort of thing in a book (I'm almost positive it was in a Mass Effect novel). In it, the protagonist wondered about how the dominant species in the galaxy were bipeds and opined that most likely evolution always led to bipedal, humanoid species as the superior/apex predator on their respective home worlds. I thought it was a very interesting idea.

It also helps us as the viewer or gamer to have something to which we can relate. Elves are "like humans" but different enough to feel alien, as are orcs, dwarves and other fantasy mainstays. Games I can think of in which we don't play as a humanoid:

Goat Simulator
Anything [http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Games_with_Robot_Protagonists] where we play a robot (transformers games)
Hard Truck Apocalypse (terrible game and technically we're a human, but we never are, we're a truck)
X2/X3/Darkstar One (again, while technically human, we're really a spaceship the entire time)
Destroy All Humans!
Any of these games [http://www.giantbomb.com/animal-protagonists/3015-4878/games/] where we play as an animal
Here's another list of games [http://www.giantbomb.com/non-humanoid-protagonist/3015-2036/games/] with non-humanoid protagonists
Games [http://www.giantbomb.com/alien-protagonist/3015-7965/games/] with Alien protagonists (AvP)

 

[Asita]

Well there is Guild Wars 2, which shied away - at least partially - from the stock races.

There's the feline Charr with a military and technologically heavy culture.

The arboreal Sylvari with a chivalrous and purpose driven culture.

The implike Asura with a very intellectual and magiscience based culture.

The Humans who actually hold the traditional role of Elves in fantasy (beautiful, magical, highly civilized, have an ancient civilization, very loud about those facts, and are in severe decline as the younger, more energetic races begin to dominate the world)

The Norn, who are essentially tall humans with a special connection to the Spirits of the Wild and a heroics-based culture.

And then in the nonplayable races you have the Skritt, Hylek, Quaggan, Krait, Centaurs, Tengu, Kodan, Largos...

 

[DeimosMasque]

Star Control 2. They have DOZENS of races. Each with a unique appearance and personality. A lot of them go well beyond the "humans with makeup and funny stuff on their head" convention.

WOOO for Star Control 2. Seriously I get way to excited when other people bring that game up. For anyone interested a port of the 3D0 version of Star Control 2 with remixed soundtrack and full voice acting can be found here: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php