Video Game Art

Everything from Supergiant Games, Transistor being my favorite. Their combination of narration, art style and soundtrack all working in tandem to tell a story is simply amazing. Darren Korb was my most listened to artist on spotify for the longest time.

Some other games worth mentioning (that I have played) are Portal 2, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Banner Saga trilogy. All of them featuring beautiful stories, visuals and soundtracks.

Also, what a great thread, I wish I had the time to play even a fraction of the games mentioned here, so thanks everyone :D

Even with modest hardware I think Hotel Dusk, and its sequel, The Last Window are both pretty beautiful.

Horizon Zero Dawn

The Last of Us (not 2)

Citizen sleeper

Like all the Supergiant Games. They all have amazing art and music. Pyre made me cry so many times but Hades has the best gameplay, they are all amazing though.

Disco Elysium is the better game probably, but since it is talked about a lot (rightfully so), I'll go with the similar game I played previous to it:

Tyranny

It is the same genre with Disco Elysium (C-RPG or Isometric RPG, whatever you want to call) with also combat on top of it. Set in a bronze-age kind of time. A lot of choices that matter so as much to block whole maps and events completely if one is chosen over the other. A lot of "main paths" that can be gone on. Both positive and negative (favor and wrath) development with factions, faction leaders, companions, etc. that can affect the game and the outcomes. Great main and side cations with quite good stories behind. Combat can take place a lot of time and the game offers deep combat builds, but overall combat is pretty dull imo.

Going beyond the introduction of the game, in my opinion Tyranny has a very rare story in gaming: The evil has already won, and a tyrant-god rules the world now. You are just a lackey with middle-management status (Fatebinder, some kind of an on-field representer of the prophet/primary judge of the tyrant ruler) that judges whether act happen in accord with the will of the tyrant or not.

Real hard decisions to be made in the game. Some Obsidian humor in it. Overall not a feel-good game, like Disco Elysium. Way better soundtrack in my opinion.

Skye, a small demo made by a team of Dutch students as part of their studies. You fly a small plane around an uncommonly sunny version of the Western Isles of Scotland. They managed to make the whole game look like a living painting. It's delightful. It's very short and there's not a tonne of depth to the gameplay, but the flight mechanics do feel good and there are some fun challenges to take on. Also it's free!

Nier Automata: the music, the way the world permanently changes as you progress through the story, as well as the art style all are all just chiefs kiss

Bastion.

One of the very few video game soundtracks I listen to. I sang Build The Wall to my first kid as a baby to get her to sleep. The choice at the end of the game literally made me walk away from my PC for a while and just kind of stare at nature lol. Not many games have had the kind of impact my first playthrough of Bastion had.