Video game stories can often deepen immersion or serve as a source of direction for the player to follow, but sometimes they are optional luxuries rather than necessities. Certain games offer extensive lore and narrative layers, yet their core loop stands entirely on its own, where the fighting and exploration are rewarded far more than attention to dialogue and cutscenes.
Whether it’s through relentless combat, punishing bosses, loot-driven systems, or perfectly optimized speed runs, plenty of games prove that a well-designed gameplay loop can carry itself. For those who value performance over plot, these worlds demonstrate that success does not require players to focus solely on the story, but can instead come from their personal desires and playstyles.
Monster Hunter Wilds
The Hunt Is The Story
Monster Hunter has always placed narrative as secondary to its mechanical loop, and Wilds continues this tradition. Each encounter is defined by the player’s ability to learn monster behaviors, prepare properly, and adapt under pressure. The framework of an ongoing story sets the stage, but the real measure of progress is how well-crafted gear and strategy hold up against increasingly ferocious creatures.
Victory comes from repetition, patience, and precise execution. The deeper one delves into crafting weapons, fine-tuning armor sets, and experimenting with hunting tactics, the less the overarching narrative matters. Ultimately, success is forged during the hunts themselves.
Hades
Mythology That Takes A Backseat To Mechanics
Hades
10/10
- Released
-
September 17, 2020
Hades delivers a rich mythological narrative, but its roguelike core ensures that progression can unfold even when the story is ignored. Each escape attempt is a test of combat mastery, a knowledge of synergy between boons, and a familiarity with the ever-changing chambers of the Underworld.
The plot adds depth, yet victory is determined solely by gameplay. Clearing runs comes not from dialogue with gods or extended cutscenes, but from the refinement of builds and the consistent improvement of skill over the course of 100s of runs.
Elden Ring
Victory Carved Through Skill
Elden Ring’s narrative and lore stretch deep into cryptic mythmaking, but the true triumph lies in perseverance and mechanical mastery. The Lands Between are filled with challenging encounters, and success is dictated by preparation, adaptability, and combat execution. The notoriously tough bosses demand patience and sharp reflexes, not narrative understanding.
Weapons, builds, and exploration define the player’s progression more than any spoken line of dialogue, and the path to victory lies in learning attack patterns and discovering new strategies to survive overwhelming odds. While lore enriches the world, it remains secondary to the combat and riveting gameplay.
Doom: The Dark Ages
Violence Is The Only Way Forward
The Doom series has never required a narrative to justify its relentless pace, and The Dark Ages continues that trend. Combat is a test of precision shooting, aggressive movement, and resource management. Although the story is definitely more in the player’s face in this entry, the shooting will always remain king.
Players end up sprinting, diving, flying, and charging across landscapes at insane speeds. It’s nice to have a stronger narrative thread holding things together, but with so much satisfaction coming from the gameplay itself, players should feel no need to pay much attention to the narrative at any point.
Borderlands 4
Shoot First, Listen Second
Borderlands 4 takes everything that makes the franchise so iconic and dials it to eleven. More weapons, more enemies, and more explosions than ever, all across a gigantic open-world full of surprises around every corner. While there is a story to follow to keep players invested in the adventure, the real draw is the side content and extra loot that players can grab outside the campaign.
If the main story takes around 15 hours to beat, then the side quests easily triple that. It’s easy to get lost in the world, and by the time players come back to finish off those last few missions, they should be stacked in terms of loadouts and skills, ready to take on that final threat.
Salt And Sanctuary
A Cryptic Narrative Overshadowed By Darkness
Salt and Sanctuary offers a mysterious narrative heavily steeped in atmosphere, but players have no obligation to pay attention to it. Instead, they can find success by mastering movement, memorizing attack patterns, and progressing through the dark depths below.
The world is structured in an interconnected manner that allows players to loop back on themselves and return to previous locations to finish off any missed bosses or quests. Having a narrative in the background ties the world together, yet by ignoring it, players can still enjoy the environments and enemies for what they are.
Neon White
Speeding Past The Dialogue
Neon White pairs story-driven dialogue with its stylish speedrunning design, but thanks to the satisfying gameplay loop and unique visuals, the story often comes second to the actual game. Each level is a puzzle of optimization, rewarding experimentation and creativity, while the dialogue serves more as a supplement to keep things moving forward.
Mastery lies in stringing together weapon abilities, maintaining momentum, and refining runs for efficiency. The satisfaction of shaving seconds off of completion times exists independently from the story, proving that a great game can be enjoyed even without paying attention to the story.
Resident Evil 6
Best Not To Think Too Hard
Resident Evil 6 is, for many people, the end of an era for the Resident Evil franchise. The series had fully shifted away from horror and into action, leaning heavily into absurdity and explosive set-pieces to deliver a game that is narratively flawed but still a boatload of fun.
It can be hard to try to piece everything together, with so many characters and so much going on, so it is fine to just focus on shooting and appreciating the amusing dialogue and silly character interactions. No section in the game will prevent further progression if players forget a narrative detail, as things are constantly in motion regardless of whether the story is focused on or not.
