Most imaginative non-fantasy/sci-fi setting in a game?

[DriacKin]

Here at the Codex, we've had numerous discussions of how a well made setting/atmosphere can positively help a game. And yet, almost all of the examples that we think of are either sci-fi or fantasy settings.
So, I ask this question: Which games (if any) managed to create an interesting game world that felt imaginative and unique, despite not having any fantasy elements or being set many decades in the future?

 

[DraQ]

Wait, you basically want us to provide examples of imaginative settings that don't have to be imagined?
Wat.
Are you an andharia, or something?

I will avoid the nitpicking and not provide examples of settings that have neither fantasy elements nor are set in the future (alternative history, prehistory, etc. hard fiction), but somehow, I feel, are probably not what you meant.

Also, do notice that I don't object to the possibility of an unaltered historical setting being interesting, merely the possibility of it being imaginative by its very definition.

 

[Dezzy]

Shin Megami Tensei games, such as Nocturne and Persona.

Oh, and for PC games, one of my all time favorites, the Thief series had a great atmospheric and cool setting.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Does Grim Fandango count? It has fantastic elements to it, but those have their roots in Mexican folklore rather than swords and sorcery high fantasy stuff.

 

[DraQ]

not having any fantasy elements

Shin Megami Tensei games, such as Nocturne and Persona.

Demons

You dumb?

 

[Zed]

Alpha Protocol? lol

 

[deuxhero]

not having any fantasy elements

Shin Megami Tensei games, such as Nocturne and Persona.

Demons

You dumb?

He answered the topic title, not the message with it. The settings (though not so much what goes on in them) of MegaTen tends to have mundane settings+demons. I thought Inaba was fairly well done with it's rural small townness being noticeable and having a noticeable effect on characters, as was the capital of King Abaddon (The 20's slang seals the deal there, but the useless NPCs with a decent amount of models going by also helps). I think Nocturne counts as a fantasy setting though (the whole "Tokyo gets stuck on the inside of a ball" thing and all).

The World Ends With You while not that great (the battles are fun, Sho is cool and Another Day is brilliant lulz, but that is about it) captures the setting fairly well. Of course it's set in a real city with very minor changes (109 building->104 building, Tower Records "It's a World Thing"->Towa Records "It's a Wild Thing" ect) for legal reasons so...

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

It's kind of hard to tell what exactly qualifies (Bad Mojo? Jagged Alliance?), but one example that comes to mind is Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

not having any fantasy elements

Shin Megami Tensei games, such as Nocturne and Persona.

Demons

You dumb?

The setting itself is usually not sci-fi or fantasy, but rather modern period. The demons are treated as an anomaly, so i think it counts.

 

[Gragt]

Teudogar? Historical setting ftw?

 

[deuxhero]

What's the 2nd shot from? I'm guessing from the text size (looks like PC text) and font (plus the name over the shopkeeps head) it's Imagine?

 

[SuicideBunny]

does superhero league of hoboken count as fantasy, or for that matter psychonauts?

 

[Longshanks]

Imaginatively realised real-life settings? Of course they're possible, we see them in movies all the time, don't we?


The Last Express
Sanitarium (it's all a dream - dreams are real)
Heavy Rain
Max Payne
XIII
Hitman
Jurassic Park: Trepasser
Theme Park
Sim Ant
Bad Mojo
KGB
GTA: Vice City

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What's the 2nd shot from? I'm guessing from the text size (looks like PC text) and font (plus the name over the shopkeeps head) it's Imagine?

I believe so, given the PC-like interface

 

[Zeus]

Deja Vu. It was a hardbroiled detective story, drenched in atmosphere, surprisingly great soundtrack, all done on an NES without a lick of fantasy.

The original version was done on Mac in 1985, before game character amnesia became a huge cliche.

I also thought that Three Musketeers game was pretty ballsy. Not much demand for RPGs based on the works of Alexandre Dumas.

 

[Black Cat]

@ DriacKin

"Which games (if any) managed to create an interesting game world that felt imaginative and unique, despite not having any fantasy elements or being set many decades in the future?"

None? Without Fantastic or Science Fiction elements you always have The Normal World (tm). They don't have their own settings, they have plots that work without need of a setting.

@ deuxhero

With, like, all the authority of someone who got three months of her life stolen by that stuff i can totally confirm it's Imagine's japanese client, yay. That guy's the arms dealer of Home 3, the first townie town and, like, stuffies.

@ DraQ

Many Megami Tensei games are kind of on topic since, like, the setting is totally your daily normal world and in most games the incidents are localized, contained, and no one outside that location (be it a single school, a small town, a side universe dungeon thingie, or stuffies and thingies) even knows anything is happening at all. In a way the whole, like, concept of many Megami Tensei series and, like, settings is that the normal world is kind of being invaded by things not normal, and even after the anomalous thingie is solved only those directly involved on it know it wasn't a natural catastrophe.

Even in the first Shin Megami Tensei, whose storytelling was in no way subtle and stuffies, during the modern day chapters it is implied many civilians inside the demon infested area only know of the demons by rumor and hearsay, the outside world only knows of those events as the american army getting involved in stoping a coup the PDF staged against the civilian government. Then you have the persona sub, like, setting thingie as much subtler, with almost all the storylines (IF, Persona 3, Persona 4, and kind of Persona 1) either happening completely isolated from the normal world or paralel to the normal world, with the characters trying to maintain a normal life while facing the anomalous stuff in an isolated enviroment.

@ Longshanks

Bad Mojo is real life with a guy turning cockroach by the power of a magical pendant. Jurasic Park has dinosaurs. Hitman has cloned super assasins. The first one is a fantastic element, the two other ones clearly science fiction elements until someone can show me the dinosaurs and the cloned super assasins.

@ DramaticPopcorn

The Sims has ghosts, aliens, magic. Death as a character. Supernatural powers (teleportation in Sims 3 is a nice example), magical herbs and poultices, and even nice politicians. Simcity has city destroying monsters.

 

[poocolator]

tits or gtfo

 

[Yeesh]

Wait, you basically want us to provide examples of imaginative settings that don't have to be imagined?
Wat.
Are you an andharia, or something?

I will avoid the nitpicking and not provide examples of settings that have neither fantasy elements nor are set in the future (alternative history, prehistory, etc. hard fiction), but somehow, I feel, are probably not what you meant.

Also, do notice that I don't object to the possibility of an unaltered historical setting being interesting, merely the possibility of it being imaginative by its very definition.

For someone who's so singularly focused on stringently observing the rules of the question, you don't seem to have read it. Examples of settings are not asked for, games are. If you reckon there have been no such games, say so. If there have been, list them. No point grousing about the topic.

 

[Black Cat]

@ Pocky-Kun

Sorry, right now they are private property. Also i'm pretty comfy in here so i don't see the need to leave, but no one forces to stay if my presence bothers you, nya.

 

[poocolator]

I'm sorry, too. I meant to write:
moobs or gtfo

 

[JarlFrank]

Monkey Island?

Oh noez, it has voodoo!

 

[ghostdog]

Hi gaiz ? What is this thread about ?


If the setting is not "fantasy" (this includes sci-fi) then it's either based on realistic present or past. And yeah demons and stuff are considered fantasy.

 

[treave]

Does Alpha Protocol count?

I was going to say Shadow Hearts, but unfortunately the supernatural elements in those disqualify it, as well as Bloodlines by the same standards.

Damn, most of the games I've played have had fantasy elements in one way or another.

 

[Felix]

Way of the Samurai, 19th century Japan when samurai went out of style and the invasion of technology is an interesting setting, it's even has C&C and multiple endings, Codex's favourites, you can even be EXTREME. :smugcodex:

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

It probably means no magic, no fantastic creatures, no future-tech and not real world.

Which would mean a planet like earth, but with different culture and old/present-style tech.