Best Anthology Video Game Series To Play
An anthology in gaming, like in movies and shows, offers great storytelling if you’re looking for new narrative experiences over continuing storylines. Though some anthology storylines are all branching in one game, there are also games part of an anthology series where you can start in any order and still fully understand the narrative.
When the anthology technique is used in games, you’ll often see horror as the favored genre, as it also corresponds to films and television like American Horror Story, V/H/S, and The Twilight Zone. But there also exist compelling video game anthologies that are in very different genres as well.
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Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
A good starting point when discussing anthology games is, of course, one of the originals to convey such a fascinating narrative design. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is a classic horror anthology game that launched on GameCube in 2002, and it follows 12 different characters at various points in history fighting an insidious Lovecraft-inspired collective known as the Ancients. And it does cool things with sanity effects like tricking you into thinking save files have been corrupted and lost.
Though it all starts in 2000 as Alexandra Roivas looks for evidence in her murdered grandfather’s estate, you’re soon pulled through history to witness the stories recorded in the Tome of Eternal Darkness. You explore four primary settings of The Forgotten City, Persia, Rhode Island, Angkor Thom, Cambodia, and Amiens, Europe, jumping around from periods like 26 BC and WWI in 1916.
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Layers Of Fear (2023)
Before its 2023 graphical remake in Unreal Engine 5 and expanded story, Layers of Fear was an anthology series consisting of two main games and DLC. Now, all these gripping pieces of psychological horror are combined into a single experience with the introduction of a new character stationed at a lighthouse, known as the Writer, telling the anthology.
The stories you’ll uncover are incredibly unsettling and tied to the mysterious pasts of artists across different mediums, like the Painter, the Actor, the Musician, and the Writer. You gain the full picture through the various notes and materials you can read throughout the environment, and each story will have multiple endings.
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Stories Untold
Stories Untold also tells an anthology of stories within one game rather than breaking it into a series of multiple entries. Structured as a horror text adventure game in a fitting retro 80s atmosphere, there are four separate stories designed for you to interact through an old-fashioned computer interface. They are The House Abandon, The Lab Conduct, The Station Process, and The Last Session.
Even though it’s a text adventure, it’s as frightening as Layers of Fear, with its jump scares and environment sometimes also changing as you progress, and each of the stories comes with excellent voice acting. The first is about playing a text-adventure in an eerie family home, while The Lab Conduct and The Station Process lean more toward sci-fi horror, and the last story ties all of them together.
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Far Cry Games
Since its first game in 2004, Ubisoft has continued to develop Far Cry as an anthology rather than a direct continuation of each previous game, with the only exception being New Dawn as a direct sequel to the fifth entry. There even exists an Anthology Bundle edition.
These FPS games always share similar combat and the mechanics of crafting weapons, liberating enemy camps, and hunting in open-world environments, but drop you in different gorgeous fictional locations and introduce new ruthless villains. Primal takes you as far back as prehistoric times.
The well-acted cruel villains are definitely what gives this anthology series its greatness. Some standouts are Michael Mando as the unhinged pirate Vaas Montenegro in Far Cry 3 and Giancarlo Esposito as Yara’s merciless dictator Antón Castillo in Far Cry 6, both actors involved in Better Call Saul. Troy Baker’s performance as depraved leader Pagan Min in Far Cry 4 is some of his best work.
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Amnesia Games
Amnesia is an anthology of horror games from Frictional Games, which have also made Soma and Penumbra. The series began with The Dark Descent in 2010, and each entry after has introduced new characters, settings, and historical periods. Sometimes you can find connections and references between games, such as Rebirth and The Bunker, but they fully stand on their own narrative-wise.
Every game has different horrific monster designs in store tied to its storytelling, with the only connecting force between the games being the Otherworld Orbs and the hostile Shadow enemy guarding it from protagonists. Dark Descent sees the horror puzzle-solving in a castle in 19th century Prussia, Rebirth in the 1930s in a cave in Algeria, and Amnesia: The Bunker in the middle of a battle in WWI.
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Live A Live
Live a Live is a remake of a 1994 JRPG that takes us back to the gameplay design of one game showcasing an anthology of stories. As the name suggests, you get to live the multiple lives of seven characters across different settings and times. The graphics are also a gorgeous 2D-HD pixel art style similar to Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy, also from Square Enix.
Your adventures with these characters will take you to prehistoric times, Imperial China, the Wild West, and two versions of the future. The stories are all thrilling, bringing new companions and turn-based battles at every step of the way.
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Life Is Strange Games
If you’re looking for an anthology of narrative-driven games that have themes of family drama, small-town secrets, and the supernatural, Life is Strange is a perfect option. Don’t Nod has launched three mainline games and a prequel to the original called Before the Storm. Only the first two games follow an episodic structure, but all three contain choice-based stories focused on character development.
The first Life is Strange centers around a student disappearance at Blackwell Academy in Arcadia Bay, where you control Max Caulfield, a photography student able to rewind time. Life is Strange 2 focuses on runaway siblings Sean and Daniel Diaz following a terrible tragedy, the younger brother Daniel having telekinesis. True Colors is set in a Colorado mining town where Alex Chen is reunited with her brother after eight years and now has powers that let her see the colors of people’s emotions.
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The Dark Pictures Anthology
The Dark Pictures is the ultimate video game anthology containing the first season of four branching narrative horror games from Supermassive, who you may know as the developer of Until Dawn and The Quarry. Each game has a cast of recognizable actors from Hollywood films and shows and features horror plots tied to historical themes. And it’s all told through a narrator called the Curator.
Every game in the anthology has good and bad parts, with House of Ashes being a standout due to its brilliantly executed sci-fi horror twist and frightening creature designs. Little Hope is a mystery transcending time with eerie apparitions stalking you and a story tied to the Witchcraft Trials. Man of Medan takes place on a haunted ghost ship from WW2. The Devil In Me is inspired by the murder hotel built by serial killer H.H. Holmes with a documentary crew trying to survive their escape.
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What Remains Of Edith Finch
What Remains Of Edith Finch probably remains one of the most unique anthologies in gaming from an art style and storytelling standpoint. It’s a game bundling that shares the stories of the entire Finch family as recorded in the journal by Edith Finch during her trip to the family home on Orcas Island. The Finches are a cursed bunch destined to die under tragic circumstances, and you’ll get to explore the story behind their deaths by assuming each character.
You roam the house from the point of view of Edith Finch as she visits the rooms of several family members that passed away, narrating and interacting with letters that trigger the moment of their passing for you to play through. Each member has distinct contrasting environments and art styles with their untimely fate, like one transporting you inside the pages of a comic book and another as a bath toy swimming in a tub.
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