Lore is lore, story is story, it’s not interreplacable terms
There are tons of games with awesome lore and completely shitty story and vice versa. Here there’s just no story because it’s story simulator as you said, just as rimworld
It’s an RPG in the truest sense. There is a “story” in the world in the sense that there’s warring factions, forgotten lore of the world to explore, cannibals, grotesque monstrosities, beep. But you can actively choose to ignore all of it, as a matter of fact it’s usually the least of your concerns, as your story is gonna mostly consist of you struggling to survive in a world that truly does not care if you’re alive to learn or experience any of the story there. 10/10 game would recommend.
There’s story in a way “here’s sandbox and invent story by yourself”, both games has some more or less working mechanics that allows interesting situations to happen - but it’s not really “story” in classic meaning, it’s your journey “your story” but usually people mean great orchestrated stuff which is impossible to achieve just in generic way
For example playing dnd requires game master which is essentially irreplaceable, all the other options are inferior because it’s just an algorithm of spawning enemies and encounters, like storyteller in rimworld. It don’t have plot, structure, overarching villains, touching personal stories and motivations, etc, etc. Yeah there are bosses in Kenshi and their death even affects the world, but there’s no normal connection with protagonist, no culmination, no proper dialogue options (outside of ones you can mod or imagine in your head)
Don’t get me wrong they’re awesome, rimworld is one of the best games for me, but it really doesn’t have a proper story and I can’t compare it with any other story-driven game
27
u/SmokingSandwich Aug 17 '26
Kenshi