Games with the most complex stories

Games started with concepts like stories and not branching stories that took hours to complete. For example, the objective in Super Mario Bros. to save Princess Peach from Bowser, although those names weren't official yet. After the NES, stories started to get more complex in a positive way, and even the best ones can be hard to figure out on your own.

They may have complex themes or take place in other parts of the world where certain cultural aspects are not normal for everyone. It can also just be fun to call a friend or go on a message board to discuss the following games because they get wild at the end.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Nothing is real

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's the story focuses on the titular Expedition 33, which travels across the ocean to encounter a magical being known as The Paintress, who has been erasing people from existence based on age for years.

As players destroy the boss, victory will be fleeting as people begin to disappear, leading to a great revelation about the very nature of the world and the people in it. One of the party members, Maelle, is actually from the real world, Paris to be exact, unbeknownst to her, and this whole world that players were trying to save was completely fake, and that's just a basic summary.

Silent Hill b

Must replay

Silent Hill b begins with Hinako leaving her family to meet her friends in town when the whole place begins to be consumed by a floral menace, including a friend, Sakuko, who dies. While Hinako manages to meet other friends, Shu and Rinko, a few times, they eventually disappear, and there's also the matter of the other world with the fox spirit.

Almost nothing is explained the first time, but players can piece things together from notes left behind and continue their save, as it's actually impossible to finish the story the first time, as there are multiple endings and branching paths. That said, it can still be confusing after replaying it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

What is it with Wisps?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes place entirely in Midgar, which is only a small fraction of the original game, and while most of the core story remains intact, the new content is where fans can start adding speculative theories. New to the story are the ghostly beaters that keep Cloud and the others from changing anything from the original story.

The final boss also has Sephiroth in many forms, far ahead and when he's about to hit the party. Even fans who have absorbed every bit of Final Fantasy 7 content out there might have a hard time analyzing the finale of how this game fits into the overall series, since it's technically not a remake at all.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Hearts into the dark

Kingdom Hearts 3 has a lot of baggage attached to it, specifically eight Kingdom Hearts games filled with lore that this sequel attempts to address in some form or another. Although a daunting task, the story manages to bring small moments of clarity to the plots of previous games, such as correcting what happened to Aqua and her crew at the end of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

The game even manages to integrate the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Union Xinto the penultimate battle. It's a big fan letter and the end of a saga, but as good a job as Square Enix did, the story isn't perfect, and there are a lot of loose ends that even the DLC doesn't answer, like who Xigbar really is and where Sora is right now.

BioShock Infinite

Your Owen villain

BioShock Infinite seems like a simple story about a private detective, Booker, hired to save a girl, Elizabeth, in a floating city, Columbia, but it becomes so much more complicated when rifts and time travel are involved. The overall villain of the game is the ruler of Columbia, Comstock, who players later find out is just another version of Booker, and Elizabeth is actually another version of his daughter, Anna.

The world has been out of balance ever since Booker was christened to be a new man, Comstock, so to right the wrongs of history, this current Booker basically has to let a multiverse of Elizabeths and Annas drown him to stop the cycle, and that's really just the top of things.

Death Stranding

Entering the Kojimaverse

Death Stranding is one of the most difficult Hideo Kojima games to analyze because it takes place in a new world, and there are so many characters and terms to remember that players practically need a dictionary along with a translation guide. The basic plot is a journey through a destroyed version of the United States where the courier hero, Sam, must reconnect the country to an internet-like structure.

This plot also includes babies that can detect invisible monsters, another world held deep under the tar, characters with magical abilities such as being reborn, beaches that represent life and death, and so on. Thankfully, the sequel is an easier story to follow, as corny as it is.

Need another game

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is another Hideo Kojima game, specifically the last one Metal Gear he worked on before leaving Konami, which was supposed to end the Big Boss prequel saga.

Due to budget and time constraints, not everything connected, leaving many strange plot holes, which is well documented in a special version of the game that showcases one of the proposed final missions in the epilogue. Outside of cut content, events just happen without much background to the context, as fans are seemingly left to figure things out for themselves, such as the nature of Quiet, the Flaming Man, and who Venom Snake really is.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Time is a loop

Up to Xenoblade Chronicles 3each item i Xenoblade the series was ostensibly intended to be standalone, like the most common Final Fantasy entries. However, based on the ending of the game, it implies that the world in the game was a combined version of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2which requires an enormous amount of knowledge to understand how it is possible.

Between these three games, that's about 180 hours of content, and that's being generous. Beyond Worlds Collide, the main plot before the grand finale uses time travel and rebirth to tell its story, and everyone knows that the use of time travel can often be confusing, especially when the two main characters, Noah and Mio, have to face each other in battle.

The evil within

Start: The Game

The evil within begins normally when the police arrive at a hospital where some murders have occurred, but that's when things start to go awry when the lead detective, Castellanos, soon finds himself in a medieval world at the hospital.

Based on the set design, it might start to feel like a spinoff of Start or The matrixas it is later revealed that characters are hooked into pods, which is how everyone is connected within the other world. The sequel delves more into the nature of the technology, but there isn't much to go on in the original game, forcing players to come up with their own interpretations by analyzing in-game notes.

Deadly premonition

Get a lot of these scars

Deadly premonition is one of the weirdest horror games ever made, as it takes place in a small town, Greenvale, where a series of murders have occurred. An FBI agent is brought in, Francis York Morgan, who constantly introduces himself as such and talks to himself by referring to a man named Zach, much to the confusion of everyone around.

That's because his badge says his name is Zach, but in the game he takes on York's protective persona after a childhood incident. As for the city, the mysterious rain and other world were caused by a war experiment, but that's just scratching the surface.