Cinematic and cutscenes are often used as narrative vehicles in games, often to convey the spectacle behind special emotions and epic moments that simple gameplay cannot. However, some games do not use cutscenes at all, relying exclusively on environmental narratives instead.
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Carvings on walls, audio logs in abandoned facilities, long-forgotten plots in caves and other hand-placed objects in the world tell the stories the developers want to convey in an immersive, non-intrusive way. Players feel like they are unearthing a story through their own efforts, one discovery at a time.
Subnautica
Stories buried in the deep sea
Subnautica is an underwater survival base-building game that relies almost entirely on environmental narratives to gradually reveal the hidden depths of the ocean, without relying on cutscenes at all. As a result, players are free to explore the depths of the oceans to slowly uncover the truth about the new world they find themselves in, the dangers it holds and the opportunities that lie deep beneath the waves.
After the opening sequence, there are no exposition cutscenes. The entire story is told through lost recordings and journal entries found in abandoned life pods, crashed ships and secret underground facilities scattered across the ocean floor.
Outwards
Lore earned through exploration
Outwards is an open-world indie game with rich lore, an expansive setting, and not a single cutscene to its name. The main story is mostly experienced through dialogue with NPCs in the major hubs such as Cierzo, Berg, Levant, Monsoon and New Sirocco.
There is lore about enemies, factions, magic, and politics for players to discover if they look hard enough, but it's not force-fed to them through linear narrative sequences. However, the lack of traditional quest markers encourages exploration and is what makes discovering new things so rewarding in Outwards.
Project Zomboid
A world that ends quietly in the background
Project Zomboid is an isometric open world game where players are tasked with surviving a zombie apocalypse by any means necessary. There are no quests or quests in the game that directly deal with the story; the players' primary concern is ensuring their own survival, and finding out tidbits about how the rest of the world is doing is completely optional. As a result, most people don't pay attention to the hints the game gives about what's going on outside the Exclusion Zone.
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For players who like to decipher a story for themselves, these open-world games keep their stories ambiguous, providing only cryptic clues for guidance.
However, players who are curious can discover what happens to the rest of the world as the zombie apocalypse spreads. With scattered information in the form of radio logs, television programs and old newspapers, it is possible to piece together part of the story. The environmental narrative is masterfully done, and without a single cutscene to boot.
Valheim
Nordic myths etched in stone
Valheim drops players into a harsh, unforgiving procedurally generated land inspired by Norse mythology, where almost all storytelling is mediated through the world itself. After a small introductory sequence where players are told that they are warriors from Midgard who have been given a life in Valheim To defeat Odin's enemies, The Forsaken, no more information is given, leaving players to piece together the rest themselves.
Valheims deeper knowledge is told through runestones, large magical stones scattered about Valheim of Odin to guide his fighters against the Forsaken. The engravings on the runestones tell the story of past warriors sent by Odin to slay the Forsaken, clues to treasure, descriptions of vague dreams, folktales, declarations of heroism and much more.
Kenshi
A world that changes with every choice
Kenshi is an open-world RPG with deep lore that isn't explained through cutscenes or traditional narrative elements, but rather through exploration and environmental narratives. Players uncover the truth about the world around them by talking to NPCs, exploring abandoned cities, liberating slave camps, and discovering forgotten places.
What does KenshiThe story that stands out is that it's not just about the past; it also evolves during a playthrough. As players side with factions to help them claim a region of their own, the location changes, new forces move in, new conflicts arise, and new stories unfold in real-time.
The Nordic country holds many secrets
Skyrim tells its story through NPC dialogue, books, and the physical layout of the world itself rather than grand cinematic cutscenes. From ancient Norse ruins to dwemer caves to dragon mounds, the world of Skyrim is not just an empty expanse of snow and tundra, but a living, breathing land that bears the footprints of those who came before, proudly displaying it to all who care to go looking.
Hundreds of books, letters, journals and notes are scattered across the libraries in Skyrimtells the past and present reality of Tamriel in bits and pieces that players can put together to make sense of the whole picture. Players interested in learning more about the deep lore of The Elder Scrolls franchise can spend hundreds of hours exploring the world of Skyrim and still find new things to find.
While there are scripted sequences in the Skyrimlike the chariot ride at the beginning of the game and the dialogue with Jarl Balgruuf when the dragon attacks the western watchtower, they are not strictly cutscenes.
Elite dangerous
A living Milky Way shaped by players
Elite dangerous offers players a 1:1 procedurally generated recreation of the Milky Way galaxy, complete with deep background information on humanity's expansion into the cosmos, the conflicts between various political entities such as the Federation and the Alliance, and major alien threats such as the Thargoids. Elite dangerous is a sandbox game that has no quests or quests, giving players the freedom to choose their path and what they want to do instead of giving them a linear plot to follow that dictates what they do. Those who want to discover its lore must go looking.
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Besides the bigger events happening in the Milky Way, the world of Elite dangerous evolve in real time. Every action a player takes affects something or someone in a meaningful way. Attacking a faction's facility in a star system reduces the amount of influence the faction has in that system, and if that influence gets low enough, it's quite possible that the faction will be kicked out of the system entirely. Similarly, each mission completed for a faction increases that faction's influence, meaning players can (and do) help factions become the ruling force of a star system with their actions.
Outer Wilds
A solar system built on questions
Outer Wilds is a rare example of a game where the entire narrative is told through its surroundings. There are no cutscenes explaining what's going on, nor any handholding or quest markers telling players where to go and what to look for. Outer Wilds throws players into a solar system caught in a 22-minute time loop, where players must use the limited time they have before the world ends to explore the system and discover its secrets one step at a time to uncover the full mystery and reach the finish line.
Each time the time loop ends, players end up right back at the start, the world resets itself, and the only thing that changes is what the players discovered in their previous loops. Piecing together clues from several loops slowly reveals the whole picture. Since the clues can be obtained in any order, each playthrough is unique to each player, depending on the order in which they found the clues.
Fire Ring
A master class in environmental stories
Fire Rings lore was created with the help of legendary writer George RR Martin, and the majority of it is told through the fragmented storytelling method. Bits and pieces of lore are found throughout the massive open world seemingly without rhyme or reason. Crucial information that is hugely important to get an overall picture of Fire RingMythos is hidden in item descriptions, cryptic NPC dialogue, and environmental details that are so easy to miss that it has taken the collective efforts of the entire community to uncover any secrets.
It is up to the players to piece together this information one fragment at a time, and slowly but surely gain an understanding of what is really going on in the Lands Between, the truth behind the struggle to become the Fire Lord, the connection between the NPCs scattered across the world, and the motivations of the various factions and religious orders that call the place home. Trying to understand the knowledge of Fire Ring can be an exercise in frustration, but the reward when it all comes together, and players finally understand the connection between seemingly random events and bits of dialogue heard in different corners of the world, is truly exquisite.
Most major managers in Fire Ring have a minor interlude attached to them. However, since 99% of the storytelling is done through environmental narratives, we've decided that the game deserves a spot on this list.
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For gamers who love to get into the history, stories, and world-building of their video games, these RPGs have tons of lore to analyze.
