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Voices and Choices

While some video games revel in the density and effort required to discover the narrative in their virtual worlds, others want to make it as easy and accessible to make their story your own.

Two things come together in these games. Characters are fully voiced by actors. Choices have a tangible effect on how things turn out. For former reduces friction for the player. The latter increases engagement.

Games like the Frog's Princess, King of Dragon Pass and Call of the Sea offer a story-book feel with a branching narrative that can be a novel way for younger players to discover the joy of stories.

Other games like South of the Circle, Before Your Eyes, Firewatch and It Takes Two offer fully voiced experiences with choices that don't create new endings but still add a sense of involvement.

Then there are games for older players like Detroit: Become Human, Last Stop, Grand Theft Auto, Twelve Minutes and Heavy Rain combine branching stories and fully voiced characters. These games use the immersion of the human voice and branching stories to create engaging experiences.

Voices and choices are a large part of what it means to be human. The games in this list use these two things to create experiences that engage on a deeper level.

This list includes 56 games from the last 26 years, with 1,095 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to hear characters make choices.

DetailsList Details

PEGI Ratings: PEGI 3 to PEGI 18
ESRB Ratings: ESRB EVERYONE to ESRB MATURE 17+
Australian Ratings: G to R 18+
Genres: Action, Adventure, Battle, Brain Game, Collecting, Communication, Fighting, Narrative, Platform, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Rhythm, Role-Play, Sequencing, Shooting, Simulation, Sports, Stealth, Strategy and Traversal
Total Likes: 1,095
 

Before Your Eyes

Release Date: 08/04/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: Android, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Cartoon

Before Your Eyes is a narrative game about an 11-year-old boy revisiting his life before "crossing over" to the other side. You play by exploring scenes that represent snapshots of his life. Unusually, you make choices and interact with the game by...

It Takes Two

Release Date: 26/03/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

It Takes Two is a running, jumping and exploring game that tells the story of a young girl, Rose, whose parents are divorcing. The girl creates two dolls to represent her parents, which unexpectedly traps the clashing couple in them. You and a friend...

Firewatch

Release Date: 20/09/2016

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon and Open World

Firewatch is an explorative adventure where you play a fire lookout in America’s Shoshone National Forest. It has a relational and conspiracy undertone similar to the podcast/radio drama and Netflix show [link to...

Road 96

Release Date: 16/08/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Road 96 is a narrative adventure where you play a teenager trying to escape an oppressive, authoritarian country by reaching the border. Through a series of vignettes, you experience the most important and poignant parts on an epic road trip through a...

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

Release Date: 12/08/2015, updated in 2016

Out Now: Mac, PC and PS4

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture lands you in a fictional deserted English village in 1984. As you walk the streets of another era you discover bright human forms who re-enact events like a radio play. Through their eyes, you see a web of fear,...

Thirsty Suitors

Release Date: 02/11/2023

Coming Soon: PC

Components: 3D Third-Person

Thirsty Suitors is a role play game where you play Jala, back in your home town of Timber Hills to confront mistakes, make up with exes and reconcile cultural differences with your parents. You talk to your family and old friends, take on turn-based...

The Forgotten City

Release Date: 28/07/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

The Forgotten City is a mystery adventure. You explore and relive the final days of a cursed Roman city, where if one person sins, everyone dies. It starts as a bewildering array of characters, locations and information but over multiple goes your...

Bioshock Infinite

Release Date: 26/03/2013, updated in 2020

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 15+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Bioshock Infinite is an adventure shooting game. Although the story is unconnected to the previous games in the series, it raises similar themes of dictatorship communities and alternative to capitalistic society. It's another nuanced and complex story...

11-11 Memories Retold

Release Date: 08/11/2018

Out Now: PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Hand-Made

11-11 Memories Retold is a narrative adventure about two young men caught up in the first world war. A young photographer who joins the western front in Europe to impress a woman, and a German technician who's signs up in search of his son who is...

King of Dragon Pass

Release Date: 01/01/1999

Out Now: Android, PC and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On and Text

King of Dragon Pass is a fantasy strategy game where you control barbarian clans settling in the dangerous frontier region of Dragon Pass.

Call of the Sea

Release Date: 12/08/2020, updated in 2020

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Call of the Sea is a narrative adventure set in the 1930s. As Nora, you explore an island in the Southern Pacific to find your missing husband. As you do you discover that he went hunting for a cure for your mystery illness, but what happened after that...

Grand Theft Auto V

Release Date: 01/01/1997, updated in 2019

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 16+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

Grand Theft Auto V is the latest in a series of action-adventure games where you travel around one large location taking part in different criminal activities: pulling off heists, with lots of shooting and stealing and driving a variety of cars and...

Detroit: Become Human

Release Date: 25/05/2018

Out Now: PS4

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Detroit: Become Human is a branching narrative game from Quantic Dream, the studio behind Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. This is the third game in the series and offers a more refined version of the filmic branching experience.

Oxenfree

Release Date: 14/01/2016, updated in 2016

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Oxenfree is an adventure game where a teenagers’ beach party spirals into a supernatural story. You guide the outcome with your choices as the well-written dialogue reveals characters coming to terms with family breakdown, death of a sibling, blame...

Heavy Rain

Release Date: 06/10/2010, updated in 2019

Out Now: PC, PS3 and PS4

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Weather

Heavy Rain is from the same Quantic Dream studio who made Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human. It preceded these games but shared the same branching narrative and photo-realistic aspirations.

Beyond Blue

Release Date: 22/04/2020, updated in 2020

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Beyond Blue is an underwater exploration game where you play Mirai, a deep-sea explorer and scientist. You see, hear, and interact with the ocean and the creatures in it as you discover an untouched world.

Twelve Minutes

Release Date: 19/08/2021, updated in 2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Components: 2D Overhead

Twelve Minutes is an adventure thriller game about a single apartment building. You view things from above and can interact with a simple click-and-drag interface. What starts as a romantic evening with your wife turns into a nightmare when a police...

Bioshock

Release Date: 21/08/2007, updated in 2016

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Bioshock is a first-person shooting game set in a fantastical underwater city. A dark story unfolds about the misuse of surgery and gene therapy, and what happens when a society develops with a power mad genius in control. It's an unusual combination of...

Last Stop

Release Date: 22/07/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Components: 3D First-Person and Cartoon

Last Stop is an adventure set in London. You play three interconnected characters, making choices that shape their conversations, and determine where their stories lead.

Wylde Flowers

Release Date: 18/02/2022

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid and Weather

Wylde Flowers is a cozy life and farming strategy game with a witchy twist. It's a charming world of diverse characters, magical spells and player choices. You play Tara, who has moved in to help her grandma and the family farm. By day you work the farm...

Hidden Agenda

Release Date: 24/10/2017

Out Now: PS4

Skill Rating: 16+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Hidden Agenda is an adventure noir crime thriller. It's from the people who made Until Dawn, but uses the PlayLink technology to let multiple people play on the PlayStation using their smartphones to interact and make decisions.

Tacoma

Release Date: 24/04/2018

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Components: 3D First-Person

Tacoma is set aboard a space station in the year 2088. As you explore you can discover how the station’s crew lived and worked, using an AR device that lets you review past actions and conversations, you discover clues that unravel a plot of trust,...

Black Book

Release Date: 10/08/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Cards and Hand-Made

Black Book is a dark adventure, based on Slavic myths where you are a young sorceress. It combines a visual novel point-and-click adventure with card collecting to gain abilities to fight evil forces and explore the world where humans live alongside...

Frog's Princess

Release Date: 09/12/2020

Out Now: Android, Mac and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Frog's Princess is a narrative game about a kingdom surrounded by evil. You play a young princess who must save her kingdom. Along the way, you encounter a frog prince on a quest to rescue his bodyguard and find your plans overturned.

Mass Effect (Series)

Release Date: 20/11/2007

Out Now: PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Mass Effect is a sci-fi adventure where you role-play a soldier named Commander Shepard, who must save the galaxy from a race of powerful mechanical beings. The series started in 2007 and has fourth substantial instalments that take you from that first...

South of the Circle

Release Date: 20/10/2020

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

South of the Circle is a narrative adventure game about, Peter, a Cambridge academic who finds himself fighting for survival in Antarctica during the 1960’s Cold War. You must cross desolate terrain to reach British, Norwegian and Soviet Antarctic...

The Wreck

Release Date: 15/03/2023

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

The Wreck is a narrative game where you play Junon, a mother at a crossroads. She's 36 but her career has stalled, she's emotionally numb, and her personal life is falling apart. It's not unfamiliar territory for a video game these days, but The Wreck...

Monorail Stories

Release Date: 30/09/2022

Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels

Monorail Stories is a narrative adventure where two people's lives are entwined by the journeys they take on the same monorail. You make choices for each character that can impact not only people on your commute but those on the other journey. It's...

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

Release Date: 28/02/2018, updated in 2019

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a narrative adventure game about sharing stories. You travel across the Depression-era United States discovering and collecting the stories of the people and places you encounter on your journey. You use this...

Leaving Lyndow

Release Date: 08/02/2017

Out Now: Mac, PC and PS4

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

Leaving Lyndow is a narrative adventure set a couple of generations before Eastshade. Sharing the same anthropomorphized animal society, although here at an earlier stage, it's a game about the memories we make in the places we...

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals

Release Date: 12/07/2023

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals is an unsettling narrative adventure and sequel to Oxenfree. Like that game, you guide your character through choices that affect the direction of the well-written and complex story and tune your radio...

Please Knock On My Door

Release Date: 07/09/2017

Out Now: PC

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

Please Knock on My Door is a narrative puzzle about someone suffering from depression and social anxiety. By making choices you help them get through work and reach out to friends. But more than the mechanics of self-care, the game engages with the...

Star Wars Eclipse

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

Components: 3D First-Person

Star Wars Eclipse is a narrative role-play set in the High Republic Era of the series, when the Jedi were in their golden age. Like Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain, and Beyond Two Souls, the action focuses on character choices and branching narrative...

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

Release Date: 25/05/2023

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a stealth traversal game set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth where you play Gollum after he escapes from Mordor. As you hunt for the One Ring, stolen by Bilbo Baggins, you ensure you remain hidden as you dash from one bit of...

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown

Release Date: 19/08/2021

Out Now: PC and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Hand-Made and Open World

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown is an audio-based role-play adventure where you play Alex, a blind princess. After your brother takes his place as king, you are made warden of a small castle on the outskirts of the kingdom. Without sight from birth and...

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?

Release Date: 18/03/2022

Out Now: PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Components: Filmed

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? is a murder mystery game with footage of real actors. Your family meets to play a board game on zoom, but before you start you discover someone has poisoned Uncle Marcus. You have to both play the quiz and glean...

Catherine

Release Date: 03/09/2019, updated in 2020

Out Now: PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Switch and Xbox 360

Components: 2D Side-On, Blocks and Cartoon

Catherine is a narrative puzzle game about a young man torn between two lovers, struggling with the temptation and consequences of infidelity. During the daytime, you interact with characters in a visual novel that sets up the nighttime traversal...

Ghost on the Shore

Release Date: 24/02/2022

Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Ghost on the Shore is a narrative adventure about emotional and community ties that last after people pass away. You encounter a headstrong ghost who urges you to investigate an island with a tragic secret. Choices in dialogue shape the bond between the...

L.A. Noire

Release Date: 08/09/2011, updated in 2017

Out Now: PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

L.A. Noire is a narrative adventure where you play a police detective in 1947 Los Angeles. You explore the open world and solve crimes to advance through the ranks. As you interview suspects you need to not only pay attention to what they say but their...

Marie's Room

Release Date: 13/04/2018

Out Now: PC

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Marie's Room is a short narrative game where you revisit an unconventional friendship between two classmates. You play as Kelsey, exploring Marie's room as it was twenty years ago. But as you do, a story unfolds where something is not quite right and...

Taming Gaming Book Written by parents for parents, the database complements the in-depth discussion about video game addiction, violence, spending and online safety in the Taming Gaming book. We are an editorially independent, free resource without adverts that is supported by partnerships.

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