Every day, we are faced with choices. These can be big, life-altering events or as simple as deciding what color shirt to wear. Choices, big and small, are one of the core aspects that make us human, a truth that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:As Dusk Falls captures in its well-realized and branching storylines, regardless of its less gameplay-heavy design. It's not the first game to do such a thing, and it won't be the last.
After f𝓡inishing As Dusk Falls, you may find a hole in your heart in the shape of story-rich games. But, fear not, there are plenty of games where decision-making is at the center of gameplay, and even more with deeply impactful plots and characters.
Updated December 28, 2022 by Keitha Sims-Korba: After its recent win at 2022's The Game Awards in the "Games for Impact" category, As Dusk Falls has proven its ability to get people talking and, more importantly, thinking. Emotional, intellectually stimulating games are thankfully not a rarity, so if you're not completely emotionally wiped out after finishing As Dusk Falls and you're on the hunt for more thought-provoking works, you've come to the right place. With all that in mind, we've updated this list to bring attention to similarly impactful games. Games that scratch at our minds - and pull at our hearts.
15 Pentiment
The truth is a fickle thing, prone to sway. No game understands this quite as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pentiment does. As Andreas, an artist working in the monastery of the small, alpine town of Tassing, you find yourself embroileꦿd in the results of a complicated local history 🔴— a murder.
Like As Dusk Falls, Pentiment⛎ takes place over decades. It features intricate relationships, not to mention its similar commitment to a striking 😼art style — and its availability on Game Pass. Both games are about people, their actions, and the following ripple effects.
14 Undertale
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Undertale, available on 🐻Game Pass, is less about branching choices and more about your personal journey. Three paths lay before you, with lingering effects. Not ju✱st for the characters but for you.
Like As Dusk Falls, Undertale is about dealing with the consequences of choices you weren't part of — the fallout of decisions you never made. Undertale is cute and often hilarious, yet beneath it all, there's this melancholy, a nostalgia for an unknown home.
13 ♋ Valiant Hearts: The Great War🀅
An adventure game set in Europe during the First World War, Valiant Hearts grips your emotions. Its 168澳🙈洲幸运5开奖网:adorable art style betrays its intense atmosphere - sure, you get a cute dog to hang out with, but you're also dealing with the first instances of chemical warfare and the civilian cost of war.
The path you walk is set; there are no choices. No way to avoid what's coming. As Dusk Falls is dynamic, where Valiant Hearts is static. Still, both tap into something deep with their respective ensembles — a solid emotional core with compelling, relatable characters.
12 🌱 Life Is Strange:𝐆 True Colors
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life is Strange, as a series, has always toyed with the ideas of choice and branching narratives. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life is Strange: True Colors is the only game in its series on Game Pass, and it's a good jumping-in point for those fresh from As Dusk Falls.
Despite the serious matters it deals with, True Colors 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:feels cozy due to its forest-dense🌺 setting. Like the cast of As Dusk Falls, Alex Chen is a profoundly humanꦗ protagonist, one you want to lead to the brightest possible future.
11 🍸 Ken🏅tucky Route Zero
There's something about long journeys that can feel slightly surreal. Watching the flora and fauna change around you, shifting timezones and finding that the day seems too long, too bright. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Kentucky Route Zero is a ghost of a game, a story of Southern Gothic folklore and the too-familiar consequences of overstretched economies, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more feeling than anything else.
Despite its surreal nature, it feels close, a reality we know but don't see. There are no puzzles - you, your dog, and the unknowable road. As Dusk Falls couldn't be more different from it in terms of its actual content, other than its adventure game mechanics, yet they both have this strange longing lurking beneath - one that has no name but endures all the same.
10 Until Dawn𒊎
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Supermassive Games' 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Until Dawn lives and dies (joke intended) on its "Butterfly Effect" system. With it, you can see how every one of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:your choices may affect the outcome of th👍e gaꦏme — misunderstand Ashley in a crucial scene, and she 💦may let you get your hea🔯d lopped off.
Luckily, the characters of Until Dawn weren't crafted with realistic scenarios in mind, unlike in As Dusk Falls. As such, if you want a decision-based game without the far-too-real stakes, Until Dawn is ready and waiting for you to pick it up.
9 ꩲ Heavy Rain
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Heavy Rain, upon its initial release in 2010, was acclaimed for its moody atmosphere and intense focus on narrative. It was a focal point in the early 2010s debate about whether video games could be art, like literature or films. Heavy Rain was dark, not just in its dreary, cloud-covered setting, but in its content. You play as four different characters, all tied together by the search for a mysterious serial killer that's targeted the son of the main protagonist, Ethan.
It was a smash hit for a reason, though not without its problems. Playing the game now, you may notice the violent sexualization of its female protagonist. But, if you can stomach it, it's worth a playthrough, if only to see how far cinematic, choice-based games have come in such a short time.
8 🐼 Life Is Strange 2
Any of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life Is Strange games would make a great game to play after As Dusk Falls, but the mood of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life Is Strange 2 is probably the closest. The story is magical realism, which contrasts starkly with As Dusk Falls, but they share similar cores: they're games about family and, more accurately, family trauma.
Sometimes, Life Is Strange 2 feels like a sweet story about two brothers on a weird road trip. And sometimes, it punches you in the gut. It's not difficult to map the Holt brothers, especially Jay, and their trials through As Dusk Falls, onto Sean and Daniel. There is a strange kinship between these two games that goes beyond just choice-based gameplay. But you'll have to see that for yourself.
7 Night In T𓄧he Woods ❀
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Night In The Woods is a story-focused platformer centering on college dropout and cool cat Mae as she returns to her dying hometown. Despite its pleasant art style, this game hits hard when it comes to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:emotional beats and the lingering effects of past actions and traumas. Sure, you get to play in a garage band with your high-school buddies. You get to talk to them about their lives and try to rekindle your friendships. Meanwhile, in the 🐬shadowy forest, a terrifying local mystery unravels around you.
Like As Dusk Falls, Night In The Woods is about the realities of simply being 𒉰and reckoni🏅ng with the actions of a former "you." It may be packaged in an almost cutesy aesthetic, but make no mistake: if you want to have a lot of feelings, play Night In The Woods.
6 🎃 The Quarry
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Quarry has you taking control of nine campers as they try to survive a night of horrors. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:While whether it e🥂xceeds its 🍷predecessor✅ is a question only you can answer for yourself, the fact is that The Quarry is much more accessible than the Playstation-exclusive Until Dawn.
Thankfully, for those who are horror-averse, The Quarry is relatively tame, no more frightening than some of the more tense moments of As Dusk Falls. As such, if you're looking for a game that can give you all that choice flowchart goodness, you don't have to look much further than this spooky adventure in Camp Hackett. Just be ready to hear a lot of bad jokes about bears.