Well I’ll tell you first off that this listing of story rich games of 2021 doesn’t hold nearly as many games as all the amazing indie games, but let’s face it. There are a lot of indie developers out there, and many of them deserve that spotlight.
Plus, some of those games are probably going to be found on this list as well.
Since I’m a sucker for story rich games–and sometimes I go for easy mode on certain games just to focus on the story and not mechanics–I wanted to make this listing for those of you who don’t know a lot of the overwhelmingly positive story rich games of 2021. Obviously, I got all of them from Steam, since that’s how I picked them out–judging by the reviews–but not all of the games might be just for PC. They may be for other platforms you play on as well.
I’m happy that I’ve played several of these games, and I definitely agree that they should be on the list, but there are also those I never noticed before.
Maybe you’ll find something worth playing.
- All of these games are in English.
- They were all found via Steam.
- All reviews during this time of posting were labeled Overwhelmingly Positive and may change over time.
Story Rich Games of 2021
SuchArt: Creative Space
Paint on any surfaces with numerous tools in Creative Space — a free sandbox version of SuchArt: Genius Artist Simulator. Create masterpieces, complete commissions, and decorate your studio in the most advanced artist sim!
Little Nightmares II
Little Nightmares II is a suspense adventure game in which you play as Mono, a young boy trapped in a world that has been distorted by an evil transmission. Together with new friend Six, he sets out to discover the source of the Transmission.
The Room 4: Old Sins
The disappearance of an ambitious engineer and his high-society wife provokes a hunt for a precious artefact. The trail leads you to the attic of their home, and the discovery of an old, peculiar dollhouse. What secrets lie within these walls?
Rhythm Doctor
Save patients with your rhythm mastery! Rhythm Doctor is a rhythm game where you heal patients by defibrillating in time to their heartbeats. Learn each patient’s unique heartbeat and defeat boss viruses trying to sabotage your rhythm, all set to heart-pumping, soul-soothing music.
Everhood
An UNCONVENTIONAL ADVENTURE RPG that takes place in an inexpressible world filled with amusing musical battles and strange delightful encounters. To put it simply: You are in for a ride.
Mundaun
Mundaun is a lovingly hand-penciled horror tale set in a dark, secluded valley of the alps. Explore various areas full of secrets to discover, survive hostile encounters, drive vehicles, fill your inventory and solve a variety of hand-crafted puzzles.
Adios
A pig farmer decides he no longer wants to dispose of bodies for the mob. What follows is a discussion between him and his would-be killer.
It Takes Two
Embark on the craziest journey of your life in It Takes Two. Invite a friend to join for free with Friend’s Pass and work together across a huge variety of gleefully disruptive gameplay challenges. Winner of GAME OF THE YEAR at the Game Awards 2021.
DRAMAtical Murder
Aoba’s vibrant cyberpunk world is one of contrasts: high-tech virtual reality battles versus street gang turf wars, ultra-exclusive luxury resorts and tiny junk shops. The choices you make will shape the path of Aoba’s journey into the dark secrets lurking beneath the glossy sheen of the city.
Before Your Eyes
Embark on an emotional first-person narrative adventure where you control the story—and affect its outcomes—with your real-life blinks. With this innovative technique you will fully immerse yourself in a world of memories, both joyous and heartbreaking, as your whole life flashes before your eyes.
Tiny Bunny
Tiny Bunny is a non-linear horror visual novel. Those, who have heard the voice of the forest, are beyond help.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Play as an adorable yet trouble-making turnip. Avoid paying taxes, solve plantastic puzzles, harvest crops and battle massive beasts all in a journey to tear down a corrupt vegetable government!
Resident Evil Village
Experience survival horror like never before in the 8th major installment in the Resident Evil franchise – Resident Evil Village. With detailed graphics, intense first-person action and masterful storytelling, the terror has never felt more realistic.
UNBEATABLE [white label]
A young girl learns a song. An exclusive side-story set in the world of D-CELL GAMES’ upcoming rhythm-adventure.
PowerWash Simulator
Release the Pressure with PowerWash Simulator! Wash away your worries with the soothing sounds of high-pressure water. Fire up your power washer and blast away every speck of dirt and grime you can find, all with the simple satisfaction of power-washing to a sparkling finish.
Griftlands
Griftlands is a deck-building roguelite where you negotiate, fight, steal or otherwise persuade others to get your way. Every decision is important, be it the jobs you take, the friends you make, or the cards you collect.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
A top-down adventure game in a coloring book world full of vibrant characters. Use painting powers to explore, solve puzzles, make friends, and draw on anything! From creators on Wandersong + Celeste.
Kinkoi: Golden Loveriche
Kinkoi: Golden Loveriche is a Japanese-style visual novel produced by Saga Planets, a Japanese developer of romance VNs. The game won numerous awards in the year of its release in Japan for its art, music, characters, and story.
Wildermyth
Wildermyth follows heroes over their whole careers, from their pitchfork days to their powerful primes, and on into old age and memory. It’s a party-based procedural storytelling RPG where tactical combat and story decisions will alter your world and reshape your cast of characters.
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!
Welcome to the club! Write poems for your crush and experience the terror of school romance in this critically-acclaimed psychological horror story.
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
While imprisoned in Balduq, Adol is cursed and becomes a Monstrum. With his newfound powers, he must stop the Grimwald Nox from consuming the city.
Death’s Door
Reaping souls of the dead and punching a clock might get monotonous but it’s honest work for a Crow. The job gets lively when your assigned soul is stolen and you must track down a desperate thief to a realm untouched by death – where creatures grow far past their expiry.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Immerse yourself in a dramatic yet charming and witty world of evidence-gathering, deduction and courtroom battles with this double-pack of the adventures of rookie lawyer Ryunosuke.
The Forgotten City
The Forgotten City is a narrative-driven time loop adventure in ancient Rome. Discover the ruins of an ancient underground city, travel 2000 years into the past, and unravel the mystery of who destroyed it by cleverly exploiting the power to wind back time. The fate of the city is in your hands.
Death Trash
Death Trash features a post-apocalyptic world where cosmic horrors long for humanity but meet punks with shotguns. It combines old-school role-playing, modern action gameplay and player freedom. Create your own character and explore a handcrafted world.
Purrgatory
A slice-of-death visual novel about making friends, cracking cat puns, and waiting for eternity to pass.
Psychonauts 2
Combining quirky missions and mysterious conspiracies, Psychonauts 2 is a platform-adventure game with cinematic style and tons of customizable psychic powers.
Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery
Guide brush strokes and solve a variety of puzzles to help an aspiring artist complete her masterpiece amid her brusque neighbor’s gaze and his pesky cat. As her painting starts to take shape, uncover an emotional tale of chance and artistry revealed behind unrelated yet familiar moments.
PARQUET
In the near future, a technology called Brain-Machine Interface connects the brain and machines. This technology brings about a new paradigm and opens the gates to the digitization of human memory itself. From these new discoveries, “he” is born.
Jerma’s Big Adventure
Oh no! Jerma985 has fallen into a spooky cavern filled with ROBOT dinosaurs and EVIL warlocks. In this wacky action-platformer, fight to escape the treacherous cavern while a live studio chat cheers you on!
OPUS: Echo of Starsong
Echo of Starsong is a narrative adventure game. Eda, a girl who can hear mysterious sound waves known as starsong, crosses paths with a young man in search of their source. Together, they venture out to the heart of space to unravel an ancient myth.
Milo and the Magpies
Milo and the Magpies is a point-and-click, hidden object game following the story of a little cat named Milo who is trying to find his way home after getting turned around by an unfortunate encounter with some pesky magpies.
The Rewinder
The Rewinder is an adventure puzzle game based on Chinese mythology. You play as Yun, the last known Rewinder, who can communicate with spirits and explore other people’s memories to alter the past.
Find Love or Die Trying
Welcome to the only killer dating show where ending up single means ending up dead! Date or die, it’s up to your choices!
If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers
If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers is a narrative-driven point-and-click adventure with horror elements that explores the stories of four characters in a masked ball taking place aboard a train in the late 1920s.
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft
Face unspeakable horrors. Succumb to madness. Welcome to a free daemonic narrative experience inspired by H. P. Lovecraft.
In Sound Mind
In Sound Mind is an imaginative first-person psychological horror with frenetic puzzles, unique boss fights, and original music by The Living Tombstone. Journey within the inner workings of the one place you can’t seem to escape—your own mind.
Impostor Factory
A bonkers time-loop tragicomedy murder mystery thriller featuring multiple casualties and a suspicious cat, from the creator of To the Moon & Finding Paradise.
The Last Campfire
The Last Campfire is an adventure, a story of a lost ember trapped in a puzzling place, searching for meaning and a way home.
Project Kat – Paper Lily Prologue
Project Kat is a short, unconventional RPG horror game in which there is always another way. Solve puzzles, make friends (or not), and guide Kat as she attempts to uncover the mystery behind a strange golden letter.
Escape Simulator
First-person puzzler you can play solo or in an online co-op (best with 2-3 players, but playable with more). Explore a set of highly interactive escape rooms. Move furniture, pick up and examine everything, smash pots and break locks! Supports community rooms through the level editor.
Inscryption
Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscrybed upon the cards…
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Fire up a wild ride across the cosmos with a fresh take on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. In this action-adventure game, you are Star-Lord leading the unpredictable Guardians from one explosion of chaos to the next. You got this. Probably.
BAD END THEATER
Select your protagonist and explore a variety of terrible fates!
The Legend of Tianding
The Legend of Tianding is a sidescrolling action game about Liao Tianding, the legendary Taiwanese Folk Hero. Explore the dazzling streets of Colonial Japanese Taiwan in the early 20th century.
LoveChoice
“What is love?” We try to answer that with this game. The game encourages people to have a warm, soft, and understanding heart.
The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos
The Kingdom of Myrtana is in a dramatic situation. After the major defeat of the royal fleet in the waters of the Eastern Archipelago, the once thriving city of Archolos stood on the brink of crisis. Meanwhile, a young foreigner goes to the island in search of a new, better life.
Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk
A sequel to Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. Dive into demented and bizarre world once again and help the girl become a little happier.
The Planet Crafter: Prologue
Experience the first stages of terraforming an entire planet in this space survival open world terraforming crafting game prologue. Explore, survive, collect, build your base then create oxygen, heat and pressure to make an hostile planet livable for humanity.
