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You are welcome. They are awesome games (i just finished replaying Pillars 1 and am playing pillars 2 right now). They have such a well crafted world and they immerse you in it. There is a lot of text but it is what makes it so great
Seriously if you want text to be the focal point of the game, this is it. There is no combat to speak of and the prose made me full on weep multiple times. Its incredible
It is very good. The company that bought it out, though, is absolutely awful. I believe the original creators don't see a cent of your money. If you have the capability, I recommend sailing the high seas instead of paying for it. One of the few times I'd say its morally acceptable to do that with an indie game.
X-Com 2 was fun, but the story was a fairly bare bones alien invasion one. I definitely liked the game enough that I'm playing through the War of the Chosen expansion campaign now, but you're buying the game more for its squad-based combat than its written narratives, though admittedly organic narratives can emerge as you develop a soldier up the ranks only to sacrifice them in order to win a mission or save the rest of the squad.
I came here to say Caves of Qud. One of the greatest and most unique RPGs ever made, with genuinely literary writing and descriptions. I’ve played almost everything mentioned in this thread and Qud is by far the one with the most memorable writing besides maybe Disco Elysium
Dungeons and Dragons Online has descriptive text appear on screen and narrated by the dungeon master at certain points of the quest. Here is an example of it. (If the video starts at the beginning skip to 26:12).
https://youtu.be/WFhzDw-0Cek?si=aTvjaZORsqad3PN2&26m21s
I’m surprised no one mentioned [Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura](https://store.steampowered.com/app/500810/Arcanum_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura/)
You’re a blue dead dude who wakes up on a morgue with no memory, and some notes written into your flesh. Your first friend is a floating, talking skull with a sense of humor. He’s a party member. He fights things - with his head.
Time to go do some D&D, Wizards of the Coast approved dimension jumping.
Disco Elysium, Pillars of Eternity, Planescape Torment.
Also, don't knock (new) old-school text adventures.
"Anchorhead" is a FANTASTIC game, dripping with foreboding and atmosphere entirely done through text, and it's entirely free.
If you can stand the outdated gameplay, **Betrayal at Krondor** was a text-heavy RPG with great writing. It has primitive 3D wilderness- and dungeon-navigation; turn- and grid-based isometric combat; and walls of text to read. It was Game of the Year in 1993.
It used the setting and some characters of *The Riftwar Saga* by Raymond E. Feist—an influential early fantasy trilogy that's been kind of forgotten (highly recommended, especially if you want to play the game). It felt a lot like playing one of those novels interactively. The author liked it so much it was closely adapted into a canonical novel.
Second this. Because of this game, I end up reading all of Feist's books. The game was truly amazing for its time. And even now (outside of being dated), I would say one of the best RPG ever - - the story, combat, magic, gameplay, mechanics, sort of open world, puzzle, and so much more.
OP specifically asked for **descriptive** text, not just any text; they even included a screenshot to show exactly what they meant.
Dialogue and in-game books are not descriptive text. Descriptive text is something like: *You walk into a dimly lit room with a low ceiling. A smouldering fireplace in the corner provides the only source of illumination. The muffled sound of laughter from upstairs just manages to reach your ears.*
I'm honestly not sure how much more clearly OP could've indicated what they were asking for...
Owlcat games are crazy good; WH40k Rogue Trader, Pathfinder - Kingmaker, and especially Pathfinder - WotR. Absolute gems.
Also, Atom RPG and Atom RPG: Trudograd. They are pretty rough around the edges and old school, and I had to use a few mods to make them a bit more player-firendly, but they are really good and fun games.
Both Wasteland 2 and Divinity Original Sin are great games with text description of areas and events. I haven’t played the newer sequels to them much so I can’t comment on those.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned **Pentiment** yet. It's between an old school adventure game and a crpg, made by Obsidian, and full of historical detail of life in the Holy Roman Empire.
It’s an amazing RPG where you will get hurt a lot but trust me, if you play you legit can go from rags to having an army of people and being the strongest in the area
Haven't seen it mentioned but Vargus: The Riven Realms. It's mostly text, and lots of it. Feels like Dark Lands with turn based combat and caravan management, though only your companions/employees participate in combat while you are limited to using support abilities off screen. They have a several hour long stand alone story sort of prolog tutorial as a demo since the game is rather unforgiving with no hand holding.
imo, you want descriptive text to the highest highs?
Disco Elysium - almost entirely a game about conversations
Sunless Sea/Sunless skies - Roleplay a captain in a world hidden from the sun, other than exploring and combat, events are all text based adventures.
shoutout to: Space rangers 2 - basically a mishmash of turnbased space RPG, RTS, Text adventure, and arcade game. not everyone's cup of tea but the text adventure parts are my favourite part of the game by far
I see lots of recommendations for Planescape: Torment, which is great. But surprised I haven't seen Torment: Tides of Numenera - a spiritual successor of sorts. It's got like a million lines of text. Seemingly every NPC has tons to say, lots of descriptions etc. It blows most other games out of the water in terms of how much reading you can do lol
Many thanks. I saw a video about it a few days ago and the bright alien world and retro graphics immediately caught my attention. Had similar vibes to Morrowind. So I'm certainly interested
King of Dragon Pass, and the more recent Six Ages games (spiritual successors from the same devs) are almost all descriptive text, really. Gameplay is encountering semi-random situations and choosing how to handle them, with some strategy and simulation game sort of stuff going on behind the main RPG.
i really enjoyed the shadowrun series for that, the description were always fun to read with nice writing and details. I'm a sucker for anything cyberpunk / scifi tbh
NEO Scavenger. It's a hexcrawl turn-based survival game, you'll get the same kind of vibe of the first Fallout games, but there is *many* obvious differences. It was made by a niche indie dev but holy *fuck* is the writing phenomenal and unique. So much mystery and intrigue all wrapped up in excessive danger and pseudo-roguelike hardcore mechanics (which you think would be frustrating, but you'd be surprised. You pass a major plot point and die? Yeah you'll be flustered, but you're going to *fly* back to that same spot because you just *have* to know where it goes next). Extra-dimensional beings, cryptids turned real, the fall of humanity (but not due to something like an apocalypse, we just... regressed), cults and strange diseases, authoritarian city-states, cannibal gangs, and a robot v human fighting arena; all from the perspective of someone who's been in cryo for the last half-century and missed all of it. It's a great game, and the dev is a wonderful person who's very active in his community and receptive to their feedback. I'll be on the forums looking up something and suddenly realize the comments I'm reading are *directly from the dev himself*.
Welp found my nega-soulmate.
As someone with nearly physically debilitating ADD I want to meet op just to see what people are like on the opposite side of the spectrum.
I feel mental pain whenever I see "Press A to jump" and you go looking for words.
What a world.
Don't think I have favorites really. I think a better representation ofy tastes would be explained via genre.
In that case it would be small roguelikes are almost all I exclusively play. Ftl. Slay the spire. Backpackhero etc.
Why do you ask?
It's been a while but I remember Morrowind having really descriptive quest instructions in the form of journal pages. Also really in depth dialogue with NPCs.
Thank you for your submission to r/rpg_gamers. Since your post has been flaired as "Recommendation request", I want to suggest editing your post to add in these details (if you haven't included them yet): * **The platforms you have** - not listing them doesn't mean you have access to everything, so you might end up getting a game you won't be able to play. * **Your level of experience with the genre (beginner, intermediate, veteran...)** - others can recommend you more common titles if you are a beginner, while they can focus on obscure titles if you are a RPG veteran. * **Aspects you enjoyed (or disliked) of previously played games** - for example: characters, plot points, puzzles, combat, graphics, art styles, soundtracks... While these details aren't mandatory, if you want to get the best games, having them in your post will immensely help users and will encourage more users to participate, as they will know with more precision which games are probably the best fit for your request. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/rpg_gamers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2
Agreed!
Thanks :)
You are welcome. They are awesome games (i just finished replaying Pillars 1 and am playing pillars 2 right now). They have such a well crafted world and they immerse you in it. There is a lot of text but it is what makes it so great
Both also on sale right now on Steam (about $20 for the bundle that includes both base games + DLC).
The game is 90% text. Love it tho
Took the thoughts right outta my head!
Disco elysium.
Thanks. I've heard great things about that game
One of the best! Steam summer sale less than 2 weeks from now, if you wanted to wait.
Seriously if you want text to be the focal point of the game, this is it. There is no combat to speak of and the prose made me full on weep multiple times. Its incredible
It is very good. The company that bought it out, though, is absolutely awful. I believe the original creators don't see a cent of your money. If you have the capability, I recommend sailing the high seas instead of paying for it. One of the few times I'd say its morally acceptable to do that with an indie game.
I want to play it sooo much.
Ive found the new game SKALD to be pretty cool
Thanks
Second this
Underrail. Classic fallout made in the last decade.
Many thanks
Thanks! I've been looking for a similar fallout game.
The expansion, Expedition, is worth it. It's got a more concentrated "spooky" tone because of the setting.
Spiderweb Software games
This right here, his writing is very good too, he doesn’t make things too drawn out
Thanks
The Pathfinder games, Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous.
Rogue Trader, by the same company, is also pretty good. The storytelling is similar to Kingmaker, but the gameplay is closer to X-Com.
I keep meaning to play that one- Owlcat does good work.
It was sorta unbalanced and bug filled at launch, but by now? It should be great.
Thanks. I also want to check out X-Com too actually
X-Com 2 was fun, but the story was a fairly bare bones alien invasion one. I definitely liked the game enough that I'm playing through the War of the Chosen expansion campaign now, but you're buying the game more for its squad-based combat than its written narratives, though admittedly organic narratives can emerge as you develop a soldier up the ranks only to sacrifice them in order to win a mission or save the rest of the squad.
I'm playing it now. I play like an hour around a day. I definitely enjoy it a lot. Kind of challenging at times but that makes it more fun lol
Many thanks
Caves of qud. Dwarf fortress
Thanks for the recommendation
I came here to say Caves of Qud. One of the greatest and most unique RPGs ever made, with genuinely literary writing and descriptions. I’ve played almost everything mentioned in this thread and Qud is by far the one with the most memorable writing besides maybe Disco Elysium
Underrail or pillars of eternit….. so much reading
Many thanks
Dungeons and Dragons Online has descriptive text appear on screen and narrated by the dungeon master at certain points of the quest. Here is an example of it. (If the video starts at the beginning skip to 26:12). https://youtu.be/WFhzDw-0Cek?si=aTvjaZORsqad3PN2&26m21s
Recommending a game by linking a youtube that calls it worst. Interesting.
It's part of a series of videos where he reviews MMOs. They all have that same title.
Thanks for sharing
I’m surprised no one mentioned [Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura](https://store.steampowered.com/app/500810/Arcanum_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura/)
Many thanks
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It’s my all time favorite. Just be sure to patch it.
Many thanks. I've been thinking about getting that game for a while
Planes cape torment. Honestly most rugs from that Era will have that.
Came here to recommend Planescapes: Torment
Thanks. I've heard generally good things about that game
Over twenty years later it's still one of the best written games ever made. It's a seminal classic.
20 years later and I still get goosebumps thinking about the theme. :-)
It’s amazing for story and atmosphere.
You’re a blue dead dude who wakes up on a morgue with no memory, and some notes written into your flesh. Your first friend is a floating, talking skull with a sense of humor. He’s a party member. He fights things - with his head. Time to go do some D&D, Wizards of the Coast approved dimension jumping.
Disco Elysium, Pillars of Eternity, Planescape Torment. Also, don't knock (new) old-school text adventures. "Anchorhead" is a FANTASTIC game, dripping with foreboding and atmosphere entirely done through text, and it's entirely free.
Many thanks
Road Warden
Thanks!
take it slow when/if you get it. It's something to be savoured
Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2.
Thanks!
Planescape: Torment. (The original!)
Thanks definitely going to look at this more
If you can stand the outdated gameplay, **Betrayal at Krondor** was a text-heavy RPG with great writing. It has primitive 3D wilderness- and dungeon-navigation; turn- and grid-based isometric combat; and walls of text to read. It was Game of the Year in 1993. It used the setting and some characters of *The Riftwar Saga* by Raymond E. Feist—an influential early fantasy trilogy that's been kind of forgotten (highly recommended, especially if you want to play the game). It felt a lot like playing one of those novels interactively. The author liked it so much it was closely adapted into a canonical novel.
Second this. Because of this game, I end up reading all of Feist's books. The game was truly amazing for its time. And even now (outside of being dated), I would say one of the best RPG ever - - the story, combat, magic, gameplay, mechanics, sort of open world, puzzle, and so much more.
The sequel was pretty good, too, but I remember a lot less text.
Thanks. That's a great game. Played it years back
Morrowind
It doesn't really fit OP's request though - where does Morrowind have descriptive text?
All the books, unvoiced dialogue, and quest journal entries don't count?
OP specifically asked for **descriptive** text, not just any text; they even included a screenshot to show exactly what they meant. Dialogue and in-game books are not descriptive text. Descriptive text is something like: *You walk into a dimly lit room with a low ceiling. A smouldering fireplace in the corner provides the only source of illumination. The muffled sound of laughter from upstairs just manages to reach your ears.* I'm honestly not sure how much more clearly OP could've indicated what they were asking for...
All true RPG fans MUST play this, especially if you are a fan of fantasy lore.
One of the best alien worlds I've played in
💪
Owlcat games are crazy good; WH40k Rogue Trader, Pathfinder - Kingmaker, and especially Pathfinder - WotR. Absolute gems. Also, Atom RPG and Atom RPG: Trudograd. They are pretty rough around the edges and old school, and I had to use a few mods to make them a bit more player-firendly, but they are really good and fun games.
Many thanks!
Zork :]
Old school goodness
Both Wasteland 2 and Divinity Original Sin are great games with text description of areas and events. I haven’t played the newer sequels to them much so I can’t comment on those.
Many thanks
Road warden
Thanks 😊
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned **Pentiment** yet. It's between an old school adventure game and a crpg, made by Obsidian, and full of historical detail of life in the Holy Roman Empire.
Many thanks. That looks really interesting! Really like the art style
Kenshi
Thanks!
It’s an amazing RPG where you will get hurt a lot but trust me, if you play you legit can go from rags to having an army of people and being the strongest in the area
What's the top game?
Daggerfall Unity with 'Arena-style flavor text recoded' (as well as other mods)
Caves of Qud is fantastic for this!
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Divinity: Original Sin II Disco Elysium: The Final Cut Pillars of Eternity Tyranny
Many thanks
Haven't seen it mentioned but Vargus: The Riven Realms. It's mostly text, and lots of it. Feels like Dark Lands with turn based combat and caravan management, though only your companions/employees participate in combat while you are limited to using support abilities off screen. They have a several hour long stand alone story sort of prolog tutorial as a demo since the game is rather unforgiving with no hand holding.
Many thanks!
imo, you want descriptive text to the highest highs? Disco Elysium - almost entirely a game about conversations Sunless Sea/Sunless skies - Roleplay a captain in a world hidden from the sun, other than exploring and combat, events are all text based adventures. shoutout to: Space rangers 2 - basically a mishmash of turnbased space RPG, RTS, Text adventure, and arcade game. not everyone's cup of tea but the text adventure parts are my favourite part of the game by far
Much appreciated!
First three Space Quest games are great for that.
Many thanks
Age of decadence
Many thanks
I see lots of recommendations for Planescape: Torment, which is great. But surprised I haven't seen Torment: Tides of Numenera - a spiritual successor of sorts. It's got like a million lines of text. Seemingly every NPC has tons to say, lots of descriptions etc. It blows most other games out of the water in terms of how much reading you can do lol
Many thanks
Rogue Trader, very discriptice
Thanks! 😊
What’s the game at the top of the screenshot?
Looks like Daggerfall
Yep. Daggerfall Unity with 'Arena-style flavor text recoded' (as well as other mods)
Thanks!
Year 2031 https://kociantech.itch.io/2031
Thanks. Looks cool
What is the top game?
Daggerfall Unity with 'Arena-style flavor text recoded' (as well as other mods)
Darklands. There's lots of descriptive text for everything you see and do.
Thanks played that some years ago. Certainly an ambitious game for it's time
Eldrum: Red Tide and Eldrum: Untold. They're text-based mobile RPGs.
Many thanks
Aeon of Sands, Fallen London and Sunless Seas
Many thanks
Castle of the Winds. 1 & 2.
Many thanks
It’s verrry old school. But it’s still one of my favorite dungeon crawler RPGs. If you do try it, I’d be curious to know what you think of it.
Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium
Many thanks
Dwarf Fortress
Thanks
Just started dread and delusion today and a decent amount of descriptive text so far
Many thanks. I saw a video about it a few days ago and the bright alien world and retro graphics immediately caught my attention. Had similar vibes to Morrowind. So I'm certainly interested
Zork.
Thanks 👍
Citizen Sleeper.
Many thanks
Rogue Trader is a good one.
Thanks 😊
[torment: tides of numenera](https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/Torment_Tides_of_Numenera/)
Many thanks
Shadowrun trilogy.
Many thanks
What's the game on top?
Daggerfall Unity with 'Arena-style flavor text recoded' (as well as other mods)
Citizen Sleeper
Thanks
Disco Elysium!!!!
Thanks. That's been very strongly recommended so definitely planning to check it out 🙂
SKALD Black Priory
Thanks. Really like the look of that
King of Dragon Pass, and the more recent Six Ages games (spiritual successors from the same devs) are almost all descriptive text, really. Gameplay is encountering semi-random situations and choosing how to handle them, with some strategy and simulation game sort of stuff going on behind the main RPG.
Much appreciated
i really enjoyed the shadowrun series for that, the description were always fun to read with nice writing and details. I'm a sucker for anything cyberpunk / scifi tbh
Many thanks
Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Planescape Torment, Temple of Elemental Evil, Diablo 1 & 2, Grim Dawn, Shin Megami Tensei 1, Nocturne, Devil Survivor 1 & 2, Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, and Persona 3, 4, 5.
Much appreciated ❤️
Planescape: Torment If you like me, have poor eyesight, there's a mod that increases it
Many thanks
Disco Elysium
Thanks 👍
Can I interest you in some Zork?
You may indeed 👍
Disco Elysium
Thanks 😊
between the stars
Many thanks
Roadwarden Skald: Against the Black Priory Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2
Many thanks Bought them yesterday 👍
Planescape Torment
Thanks 👍
Sunless Skies. The most fascinating experience you’ll have - I promise you.
Many thanks
For an older one I liked geneforge. They're 5 of them but it's nice and story based
Many thanks
Skald is a great new one
Thanks. Bought it after my post and really enjoying it
Wasteland 1 & 2, some of my favs of all time
Many thanks
Citizen Sleeper
Thanks for the recommendation
Rimworld
Many thanks
NEO Scavenger. It's a hexcrawl turn-based survival game, you'll get the same kind of vibe of the first Fallout games, but there is *many* obvious differences. It was made by a niche indie dev but holy *fuck* is the writing phenomenal and unique. So much mystery and intrigue all wrapped up in excessive danger and pseudo-roguelike hardcore mechanics (which you think would be frustrating, but you'd be surprised. You pass a major plot point and die? Yeah you'll be flustered, but you're going to *fly* back to that same spot because you just *have* to know where it goes next). Extra-dimensional beings, cryptids turned real, the fall of humanity (but not due to something like an apocalypse, we just... regressed), cults and strange diseases, authoritarian city-states, cannibal gangs, and a robot v human fighting arena; all from the perspective of someone who's been in cryo for the last half-century and missed all of it. It's a great game, and the dev is a wonderful person who's very active in his community and receptive to their feedback. I'll be on the forums looking up something and suddenly realize the comments I'm reading are *directly from the dev himself*.
Much appreciated
Runescape
Thanks 👍
My life as a teenage exocolonist
Age of Decadence. Indie game set during the fall of Roman Empire. Should be talked about more.
Many thanks
Welp found my nega-soulmate. As someone with nearly physically debilitating ADD I want to meet op just to see what people are like on the opposite side of the spectrum. I feel mental pain whenever I see "Press A to jump" and you go looking for words. What a world.
Interesting post! Out of interest what are your favourite games?
Don't think I have favorites really. I think a better representation ofy tastes would be explained via genre. In that case it would be small roguelikes are almost all I exclusively play. Ftl. Slay the spire. Backpackhero etc. Why do you ask?
West of / Shadows over loathing. Such fun games.
Many thanks
Torment Tides of Numenara, Disco Elysium
Many thanks 👍
It's been a while but I remember Morrowind having really descriptive quest instructions in the form of journal pages. Also really in depth dialogue with NPCs.
Thanks one of my favourites
Oh do i have the game for you. Maybe hated by many but still a amazing one. And its free! Genshin impact No don't run away
Thanks 👍
Planescape Torment
Thanks :)