These games are perfect for days when storytelling sets the pace for playthroughs instead of button-mashing. They’re to test mental reflexes where decisions can either have minimal impact or have exponential changes over the narrative.
The worlds are both familiar and distant, yet what remains are the choices that reveal the very human nature of existential dilemma. To choose or not to choose. Push for change, or stay within the status quo. Rummage through your own discretion to allow paths to open. Live life, chase romance, and know that one choice could be as difficult as the other. Just don’t stay stuck in a place where you’re meant to move.
Here’s a list of 10 immersive, story-rich games that might tip you into your own existential breakthrough.
No Case Should Remain Unsolved
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, Switch 1/2); Mobile (none)
A case gone cold. A former member of the Missing Persons Team, Jeon Gyeong, is inconsolable, her life consumed by grief. She first appears sitting on the floor, head between her knees, wearing a long, dark dress.
Parse through the narrative with conversations like Ms. Gyeong’s mind: a library with a messed-up index that has to be realigned, recategorized, and rearranged to try to find the facts again, 12 years after the case closes. That exact process begins when a young detective visits her.
Just like that, the case is reopened.
The story isn’t as cold as Ms. Gyeong remembers. Beneath the rubble are hidden turns. The characters aren’t as honest as they first seemed. This time, the truth must be found.
Everything here is monochrome, except for the bright colored lines reconnecting once fragmented chat logs, pulling the case toward its final resting place.
1000xRESIST
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, Switch 1/2)
Poetry permeates the dialogue, echoing the intricate balance of life 1,000 years into the future, where humanity, as we know it, now ceases to exist.
The characters are a mirror of each other because they are clones. This was how the world’s new leader made it so, herself named the ALLMOTHER, but once in her lifetime named Iris. The protagonist is the Watcher. Same, but different. There are others as well who have different names based on the roles they play. All are sisters.
Will the Watcher be a faithful sister who walks the path as it has always been? Or will bonds be broken, moving forward?
This piece was created by an independent studio based in Vancouver, composed of mostly Asian-Canadian diaspora backed by a decade of eclectic creative foundations. Perhaps this became an inspiration for the story’s interest in transcendence that feels more tangible than just a metaphor.
Until Then
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, PS5, Switch 1/2)
The uphill cycling overlooking a landscape, tangled up with a musically inclined maybe-lover, where the mundane becomes magical? That’s pure Whisper of the Heart energy. Add fish ball (a beloved Filipino street food) within a narrative mystery, and you get the gem that is Until Then.
The story centers on Mark, a high school student going through the motions of life: school projects, discovering hobbies, spending time with friends, and navigating family relationships. Woven into that is the choices that seem routine yet reverberate in unexpected ways.
It’s easy to forget that the rest of the characters have their own struggles and desires. But here the entanglement is all too real, and Mark’s journey is irrevocably shaped by everyone around him.
It’s a heartfelt display of impeccable writing. Light moments are punctuated by a deep chasm of emotional weight. It is a marvel to unravel. To rephrase an iconic quote: the personal is, truly, profound.
Vampire Therapist
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, Switch 1/2)
Take a seat next to the fireplace. There’s no need for warmth. After all, as vampires, the bodies are already dead in the human sense. But still, their cold heart needs thawing from the weariness of a drawn-out, eternal life that inevitably becomes convoluted.
The doctor’s in, and he’s taking patients from as far back as the Bronze Age, when the closest thing to an inkblot test was a cave painting in the flickering darkness.
Sam, the therapist, talks to clients, guiding them using real psychotherapy techniques, specifically CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Within its amusing vampire-themed premise lies a healing journey where cognitive distortions have had many, many lifetimes to take hold.
It’s a hopeful outlook: eventually, rebirth comes for those who seek it. One session at a time. Even if it takes an eternity.
The Operator
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, Switch 1/2)
Ever wish to be smack dab in the middle of gun-slinging action, staring down the bad guy eye-to-eye? If not, then take a seat. Leave it to the action heroes. Take a chance to be the guy in the chair.
As an Operator, there’s no reason to strap on your combat boots, but you’ll be in for mind games that need your best research and reasoning skills. Gather evidence to help agents in the field. Call the shots equipped with a computer with a powerful database and breakthrough tech.
You’ve only just begun working as an Operator when a mysterious pop-up threatens your ultimate weapon. A cyberattack? You will have to learn the ropes as you go along. Dire consequences come for the uninformed.
Minds Beneath Us
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck)
A cyberpunk atmosphere where the depth of the story goes as far as the choices made. It’s a bleak dystopian setting in which artificial intelligence has progressed to the point of irony: disadvantaged humans become fodder for this world’s tech.
The dialogue is where the drama lies. There’s a lot to unpack in its themes of AI ethics, working environments, and surviving the big city without sacrificing values. The turmoil is palpably thick, even in the midst of all the advancements.
It takes time to appreciate the extensive, well-thought-out world presented. The more the character hangs around, watching the news or listening in on NPCs, the more everything comes alive.
There’s no game over screen. Only the ripple effects of choices made. Discernment is critical.
This may also interest fans of Disco Elysium, with its tendency for moral upheaval and dialogue-heavy storytelling.
Homicipher
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck)
A blend of escape-horror and language-deciphering, set in a dark realm where the doors only lead to more unsettling rooms. The memories of the female protagonist become murky, and the figures haunting the hallways seem just as disoriented as she is.
In her attempts to escape, she is confronted by a new language that relies on facial expressions, gestures, or objects.
This genre hybrid thrives on tension that brilliantly melds with trial and error, which can result in an instant death that doesn’t mean the end of the story. Return to the moments before the fallout to choose differently. Still, the paths seem to separate endlessly, with 37 possible conclusions.
Discovering new words unlocks interactions that deserve several dozen playthroughs. She has to keep facing the shadows to piece together a fragile vocabulary, which is enough to string together rudimentary phrases towards… a possible romance? Surprises await in the darkest corners.
OBSCURA
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck)
Other story-driven titles in this list dip their toes into romance as part of a larger narrative. OBSCURA plunges deeper.
This dark fantasy romance offers four possible love interests, each carrying their own secrets, agendas, and weight of longing.
OBSCURA follows the protagonist into a sprawling marketplace where anything can be bought and sold. The only rule is that everyone must wear a mask. Anything beyond that is a gamble. Every exchange comes with a cost, and anonymity only makes it more uncertain, or more alluring. Behind shadowy eyes and painted faces, bargains are made in which both danger and desire become interlaced. Kindle relationships, while steering them into murkier, more forbidden waters.
While most of the spice remains suggestive, the emotional intensity and themes are enough to earn it a mature audience tag on Steam and itch.io.
Currently, the first chapter is available as a demo, while half of the second chapter is in early access.
The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, Switch 1/2)
This period drama is an epic tale that follows a bandit tasked with accompanying four girls to a prosperous city. This tumultuous journey set within ancient China shows a collapsing society where some form of brutality prevails even in the wealthier areas.
The bandit Liang must rely on quick thinking and decision-making skills to keep the expedition safe and moving at all times. They tread through entire villages that have nothing to their name but the bones on their backs. Rebellion is on the rise. Everyone has survival on their minds, even if it means putting a stranger, or the mission itself, in harm’s way.
A visual novel through and through, with an expansive story that shows the extent of human madness that can occur when an entire kingdom struggles to stay alive.
Harold Halibut
Available on PC (Windows, macOS); Consoles (Steam Deck, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)
Explore the depths in this story-driven chronicle handcrafted with a great deal of care and stop-motion expertise. Playable moments are woven between cinematic storytelling, set in an environment that is lived-in and detail-packed.
You are Harold Halibut, a young lab assistant aboard a spaceship the size of a city, long sunken beneath an alien ocean. Citizens of the Fedora, their ark-home, are descendants of Earth who escaped the Cold War. To the stars they set, and they arrived in a new galaxy 200 years after launch.
It is refreshing to see a cast of distinctive, unmistakably quirky characters despite the strange circumstances of their existence. Harold and the rest of the ensemble are memorable and endearing, as they grind away with menial tasks, wondering if there’s more to the watery world beyond.
Check it out if you want to immerse yourself in a slow-paced, visually arresting stop-motion film with simple game mechanics. Charming and well done.
These games can spiral into branching storylines or stay steady on a linear path. Some moments feel like they’re leading you somewhere concrete, only to drift into something harder to define. Sometimes they remain shapeless and open-ended even after the credits.
Between pressing Start and The End is a pause, detour, and stumble that exists only because you wandered through it.
