A good sci-fi movie is not an easy feat to produce. With the limited runtime of a film, you have to decide what to put in and what to leave out in order to tell a good, self-contained story that doesn’t rely solely on two more movies. In a series, this is a bit easier to do, since you have multiple episodes that can last up to an hour to develop side arcs and characters while introducing bits and pieces of lore at a convenient pace.
The Best Games With Deep Base-Building Mechanics, Ranked
There are a lot of great base-building games out there, but some have much better mechanics than others. Here’s a look at some of the best, ranked.
That said, no medium does it better than video games. Well, arguably, sci-fi books are up there, but the added audiovisual and interactive layer in games is what sets them apart, and at many times, even above movies. At best, they are interactive stories where players get to decide the outcome, and there are hundreds of hours of lore to be crammed in and discovered through exploration and NPC dialogue alone. Here are the sci-fi games that give the worldbuilding in movies a run for their money.
The Fallout Series
Patrolling The Mojave Wasteland Almost Makes You Wish For A Nuclear Winter
The apocalypse has always fascinated humanity, and few franchises have portrayed a possible, post-war future as well as Fallout. The whimsical, atompunk aesthetic is its trademark, from the retro posters of Nuka Girl to the music you can listen to on the radio as the Courier, Lone Wanderer, or Sole Survivor. It’s both dark and humorous, with incredibly tragic stories and locations, all relying on Bethesda’s signature environmental storytelling. Everyone’s familiar with the horrible tales behind characters like Cait and Fawkes, or the awful, morally questionable actions of Caesar’s Legion and the Gunners.
The wasteland is brimming with these warring factions, each quirky, cruel, or believing themselves to be the good guys, fighting against survival and power over the remnants of civilization. And then there’s the wilderness: Ghouls (some feral, some not), Deathclaws, Radscorpions, Radroaches, and more. It’s a very complete, immersive experience that has been a wonder to see translated into a series format with Amazon’s Fallout. Even then, there’s so much detail and more to be shown, given how rich the world and the lore of Fallout is, from how the super mutants were created to the fate of certain Vaults.
Dead Space Series
The Terrifying And Gorgeous World Of Isaac Clarke
Survival horror games are all about atmosphere, and if there’s one game that really nailed this, then it’s Dead Space, and its two sequels (and the remake). It would be pretty difficult to translate the terror of actually playing through a game like Dead Space on the big screen, with how it plays with darkness and how intricate its textures and aesthetics are. It’s sci-fi survival horror at its finest with a classic starting point of responding to a distress signal (Alien, anyone?), all witnessed over the shoulder of Isaac Clarke.
The first two games take place in more confined locations, while the third widens the scope to a planet. Either way, the sense of claustrophobia is retained all throughout as you take down the downright nightmarish Necromorphs and uncover the mysteries behind them—we’ll keep things spoiler-free. In classic survival horror style, the story is told through cryptic and dark audiologs, and a hefty dose of bloodstained environmental storytelling.
Mass Effect Trilogy
A Truly Cinematic Sci-fi Universe
If there’s one video game franchise that feels like a straight-up movie, it’s Mass Effect. It’s a relatively simple plot, but the way it’s delivered, and the depth of the companions and crew members you meet as the heroic (or anti-heroic, depending on whether you go for Renegade or Paragon) Commander Shepard, bring the whole world to life in a way that’s hard to find in games these days.
