The Rogueies: Best Story nominees

The stories that video games tell can be huge, sprawling epics or deeply personal, individual tales. You don't have to have a great (or good) story to have a great game. But the stories that move us are an art that deserves to be recognized. And we had some great stories this year.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Look, the name of the award is best story, not most comprehensible story. And, as Kojima continues to evolve as a storyteller, he just keeps getting weirder — in all the best ways.

Both Death Stranding games are Kojima’s riffs on the deeply human experiences of hopelessness and loneliness. Death Stranding 2 is more of the same, just in a more refined and an overall better game. When you add in the themes of grief and loss that On the Beach includes, the story becomes absolutely profound.

Also, there’s a talking doll.

— JP

Dispatch

I slept on Dispatch for most of 2025, but when I finally got around to it, I inhaled it in a single day. It’s difficult to develop a narrative that’s capable of pulling at your heartstrings while dispensing lewd jokes at a mile a minute, but the writers at AdHoc Studios managed to pull it off. Just when I thought I’d had my fill of superhero stories, I was introduced to a new cast of uniquely entertaining and complex characters, all anchored by superb performances. 

While there are plenty of characters in gaming with personality, it's less common to see genuine emotional development or change based on your actions, and that’s where Dispatch sets itself apart. It’s impossible not to get a little choked up watching your team grow from Suicide Squad rejects to full-blown Avengers, and it’s safe to say that I’ll never be able to look at Mexican food the same way (if you know, you know).   

Dispatch manages to assemble a story full of genuine surprises and twists while putting your conscience in mortal peril by forcing you to second-guess every decision you’ve made, and that’s why I nominated it for best story of 2025.

— AJ

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

The Indiana Jones series doesn’t have a lot of great movies. Listen, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade are genuinely amazing action flicks and I love them both dearly. The rest of the series is mostly not good at best. But the concept of Indiana Jones running around some non-American country, solving religious puzzles and stealing artifacts is such a great one that it’s confounding how many times they’ve fucked it up in Hollywood.

OK, the stealing artifacts thing hasn’t aged well at all. But they’re great movies (especially if you have a lot of religious knowledge from your youth, which happens to describe me).

The Great Circle fits between the series two good movies and tells a globe-trotting tale of giants and mysterious religious artifacts – classic Indy. It nails that mix between supernatural and real history that leaves the entire thing feeling just plausible enough to fascinate the mind. The final reveal of the religious artifact had me shouting “Oh hell yes!” alone in my living room after my family had gone to sleep.

It’s one of the best licensed games of all time, and certainly one of the only truly great games based on a film franchise rather than, say, comics. It’s so good that it eclipses most of the movies in the series and manages to tell one of the best Indy stories out there.

— RG

Look Outside

I’ve talked at length about Look Outside’s novel premise of being stuck in an apartment building and being unable to, well, look outside, lest one be warped into a mutated and possibly malevolent creature. The Visitor and its implications drive much of Look Outside’s plot forward, and one thing is clear – there’s no “going back” to how things used to be. No matter which ending you choose (and there are tons of endings, some sweet and others sour), there’ll be some new society that has to accommodate a post-Lovecraftian apocalypse.

Despite Lovecraftian cosmic horror often being painted as unknowable to the feeble human mind, Look Outside takes a different approach. A few people do understand what’s happening very well – they might wish they don’t, but the Visitor has imparted a certain kind of horrible knowledge with its visits. Most of the people you encounter as protagonist Sam don’t really get what’s going on, and it doesn’t matter to them. I trade cassette tapes with a little guy who’s just a pair of eyes behind many furled sets of hands. A kindergarten class is mutated and scared in the sewers, with the exception of one kid who can’t keep his eyes off his console. His spider friend, no longer able to manipulate a video game, walks him through a double jump. Sam plays a final game of army soldiers with a slowly calcifying child. 

It’s horrible, empathetic, tragic, and beautiful. Every corner of the game has some small story, some tragic tale, that all intertwines into something utterly unforgettable.

— CM

The Seance of Blake Manor

It is the year 1897, and you are traveling to a remote hotel in Ireland in order to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Evelyn Deane. Your investigation leads you to Blake Manor, where a collections of eclectics and suspicious folk are gathering for a séance, and even the slightest slip-up can lead to your untimely demise. This is a rock solid mystery, a follow-up to classics like Return of the Obra Dinn or Curse of the Golden Idol, and one of the best titles of 2025.

The player is beholden to a timer, which forces you to make tough choices. Do you attend one of the talks to learn more about the séance taking place, or do you get lunch with a suspect in order to dig up more details? The timer adds some delicious tension without restricting the player overmuch; as long as you attend the events with the most importance, you won’t miss anything of import. 

The best part about this game is uncovering the secrets of the cast staying at Blake Manor. Some are lovers (or exes), others are professional rivals, a few are frauds masquerading as the supernatural, and still others are the real deal, with all the malice and danger that entails. Only by unwinding this complicated Gordian knot do you have the ability to solve the core mystery – and prepare to perish along the way, or watch guests meet their terrible ends.

— CM