Favorite Piece of Gaming Background Lore Building

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I really struggled with that title.

So, As much as I like the gameplay, I like the lore. I'm the type of person that if you give me something that's meaningless other than it builds up world view of the game I'm in, I'll appreicate it all the more. I was thinking about one of my favorite instances of this, and my mind instantly went to Mass Effect 2: The Salarian Bachelor Party.


If you know my love of Silent Hill, you might get why I love this. There are so many things that can be read from this. It could be just a simple matter finding similar pleasing shapes in Asari... But we've seen a female turian in Nyreen Kandros [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Nyreen_Kandros] who has NONE of the of the traits that the male Turian described in the Asari dancer.

Which makes the mind control theory that more plausible. Given their unique ability to mind and reproduce with every species in the galaxy, it begs a question if the Asari's intentions are more sinister than they let on.

I know it's old, but my mind thought about it and I wanted to share.

Any good piece of Lore Building background that always stuck with you?

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'm partial to the lore surrounding Artorias of Dark Souls, a tragic hero, exhaled by all, but unbeknownst, fallen to the corruption he fought against. I also love that he protected Sif to the end, even as the abyss consumed him, and that Sif remains ever vigilant by his grave. Also that he is such a badass, weilding his huge sword in his off hand as his other hangs broken from his shoulder. Dont get me wrong, he's a DICK when you're fighting him, and kinda pathetic losing to someone like me who died hundreds of times to lesser bosses, but otherwise, one of my favorite videogame characters. Cheers, mate; hate that i had to kill your dog.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Does it really count as lore building if its not clear, and it just leads to fan theories? Like I was all set to say Bloodborne, 'cause I'm loving it, but then I remembered my thread on how BB doesn't tell you shit and almost all lore is guessed at.

And to me that's the distinct lack of lore, where the writers give you the words 'left' 'blue' and 'pancake' and you're left to interpret how a entire civilization collapsed.

As for the Asari, I've seen the theory that each species sees them differently, but there are lots of points in the ME series where different raced characters refer to how humans see Asari. One of the Asari keeps referring to other asari having great tits and ass, and another when went green and couldn't change back, an hanar called them bipedal, Volus look up at them(implying they see them as tall), and on and on. For all the theories, it's pretty clear other species see the Asari as how they look in the game.

In terms of world building, I like the way Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite do it. You're in this world, seeing how people lived their lives before the game started, so you get a sense of what it was like. Especially the audio recordings, like the one where the mother is shocked her daughter was afraid of trees because she had never seen one before, or the two corpses found cuddled together with a bottle of pills and a recording on how their presumed-dead daughter was seen as a little sister mutilating a corpse and they couldn't take it.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

The Foefire from Guild Wars 2. An insanely powerful spell that destroyed a human outpost and made them all, men and women, into immortal vengeful ghosts, insane and working together to oppose and wreck anyone that dares try to go into their territory. (Well, hopefully they can be cured but that front ain't looking too hot.)

 

[Tanis]

The Elder Scrolls series has all these BOOKS you can read.

Sure, most are only a few pages long, but they help to really bring alive this world you're exploring.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ish in The Last of Us.

That whole section was brilliant, and those final two notes you find of Kyle and Ish in the suburbs really makes it hit hard.

 

[Kyrian007]

I good one I remember is the lore behind the most powerful weapon in Ultima 7. A warrior went to a wizard to have his sword made into the "Sword of Death." At the time the wizard had been repairing a gardening tool for a peasant. The wizard got a little mixed up. Days later the warrior left with a sword good for killing weeds and the farmer now wielded the devastating Hoe of Destruction, which is why the most powerful melee weapon in the game (without the add-on) is a garden hoe.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

There's two things in ME2 and ME3 respectively that do an excellent job at conveying how sinister the Reapers are. In ME2 in the mission on the derelict Reaper there are the logs of crewmembers talking, and the most unnerving concept is how the crewmembers start getting their memories mixed: two crew talk to each other about their wife, only to realize they're talking about the same person. And this is happening merely by spending time close to the thing.

In ME3 there's the Leviathan DLC, specifically the mission on the asteroid station. You find some Reaper troops there and deal with them. When you reach the staff of the station, they don't seem bothered by it at all. They mostly ignore you in passive-aggressive ways, and don't seem all there. It's perhaps the only time the series feels genuinely unnerving and scary for an extended period of time: nothing is happening, no danger is present, and you're armed to the teeth. And yet there's a constant, oppressive feeling at the back of your neck that something can go horribly wrong any second.

The Yahar'Gul village in Bloodborne is one of my favorites. It's the only non-boss area of the game to have background music... or is it background music at all? It stops when you defeat Rom the Vacuous Spider and when you enter the gates that were previously locked, you're greeted with images straight out of the Holocaust: countless people embedded in the walls, mummified faces frozen in screams of terror, clawing their way up the walls. Previously you've been told that the snatchers patrolling the streets of Yharnam captured and carried people to the village, but no reason is given why. When you encounter the One Reborn the implications are beyond nightmarish.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Don't forget that Leviathan mission ends with the crew being under the Reapers control and you free them, and they have no idea what a Reaper is or whats going on. Turns out they found a Reaper artifact and have been under its control for like 20 years.

As for the One Reborn, based on the name I'm assuming its the Cult's attempt to bring a slain old-one infant back? I always suspected the Hunt was cyclical, and the other graves are those of hunters who 'woke up' after their hunt was finished. That the Old Ones are always trying to get a woman pregnant and an infant born, and Hunters are always entering the nightmares to stop them.
And the One Reborn is the cult taking a more hands-on approach to it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I've always been impressed by all the effort that the devs of The Elder Scrolls put into building the lore of the series.

 

[Vanilla ISIS]

I like the literal BACKGROUND lore in Final Fantasy 7.
You can tell a lot about the world of FF7 just by looking at all the backgrounds.
The civilization in that game is one that's just getting out of the post apocalyptic phase. The new cities are often built on the ruins of the old ones and the backgrounds tell many stories, without the game explicitly telling you anything.
I remember spending hours just walking around and looking for signs of a previous civilization.

 

[CaitSeith]

There! I fixed it fo you!

I've always been impressed by all the effort that the devs of The Elder Scrolls put into building the lore of the series.

I agree.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The Elder Scrolls series has all these BOOKS you can read.

Sure, most are only a few pages long, but they help to really bring alive this world you're exploring.

But most of them are pretty poorly written.

When I played Skyrim I decided I was going to read all the books, so I gathered as many as I could for a while and sat down to start reading. I made it though about 10 before I concluded that I might as well be reading fan fiction.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

SNIP

Don't forget that Leviathan mission ends with the crew being under the Reapers control and you free them, and they have no idea what a Reaper is or whats going on. Turns out they found a Reaper artifact and have been under its control for like 20 years.

I left that part out because I was already stretching the term "background lore building" a bit, and what you mention is presented in a cutscene.

 

[Dr.Susse]

There's this tiny bit of world building in Dark Souls that blew my mind when Alex from Loading Ready Run talked about it.

Just after undead burg, on the way to the Capra Demon, you find a bunch of the hollows with torches standing around a killed hollow who looks to be slumped protecting her gut.
It's fairly implied but it can be read that the hollows chased and killed a woman who was pregnant, leaving behind two humanities.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Valley of Defilement in Demon's Souls.
I'm still not 100% sure what exactly was going on in that world or the game for that matter. Somebody scoured the wikia and tried to explain it to me but that somehow made it less interesting. I just know what I saw: I've been wading my way through this shitty swamp where everything's gross and dark and trying to kill me because they're bored or hungry, there's some arcane religion going on what with the shrines and shamans and such that suggests a civilization that has dived into the dark ages, and after fighing some gross excrement monsters and running the gamut of filth, poison, toxicity and parasitic foodchains I finally make my way to the final boss... this impeccable Virgin Mary type sitting on a throne at the bottom of a chasm, surrounded by the same enemies that for the first time ever completely ignore me because they're too busy worshipping her.
Props for presentation, whatever the hell it meant.

 

[dscross]

I love the lore in the original Thief games. Hammerites, mechanists, pagans, trickster, keepers. The world is so good.

Also love the Castlevania lore. It's simple, but there's a lot of it. It goes from 1000AD to the future. Can't beat the Belmonts.