Obviously only contenders need to have impressive graphic and scale, imagine going into a chamber of several kilometers where there's underground ancient city. Are there even such games of at least AA quality, possibly AAA quality?
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Games where you uncover mysteries of lost ancient space civilization
- Thread starter Stavrophore
- Start date
UFO: Enemy Unknown - you learn that life on Earth was created by aliens
X-Com: Terror from the Deep - an ancient underwater alien race is awakened by a signal sent from Cydonia
StarCraft - Xel'naga
Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire - you learn that the planet was created by an alien race named Progenitors who later split into 2 hostile factions
Sorry, I only now noticed that this question was posted under adventure gaming.
I believe the Dark Seed series qualifies and at least some of Lovecraftian adventure games.
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It doesnt have to be strictly adventure game(i just felt that adventure games would fill this criteria best), any rpg or arpg or just regular game themed like that is welcome too. I feel like mass effect had not enough of this and it was poorly done, with more of a hectic shooting game than actually being in awe of actually exploring million year old ancient advanced civilization remnants of gargantuan scale.
Ryzer
Arcane
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Darkozric
Arbiter
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I'm not aware of any new games with that premise, only 2 oldies come to mind.
Schizm: Mysterious Journey
Impressive graphics no, but great art direction
The game takes place in 2083, a habitable planet has been discovered in a distant galaxy, they named the planet Argilus, and it is about a planet with obvious signs of a lost civilization.
I'm not sure if it fits your criteria, but in URU you get to explore the underground lost city of D'ni
Schizm: Mysterious Journey
Impressive graphics no, but great art direction
The game takes place in 2083, a habitable planet has been discovered in a distant galaxy, they named the planet Argilus, and it is about a planet with obvious signs of a lost civilization.
I'm not sure if it fits your criteria, but in URU you get to explore the underground lost city of D'ni
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You may like Outer Wilds though I personally didn't.
Also seconding The Dig.
Also seconding The Dig.
I've always felt there's a lot of scope for that sort of thing. I've mentioned before that Vance's "Dying Earth" scenario would be ideal for it: in that scenario, Earth has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, giant space empires (often encountering aliens and their technology) have risen and fallen several times, both technology and magic have risen to dominance and fallen several times, and there's an unknown amount of archaeological remains of all that, underground facilities, etc., from all those periods, dotted around.
In fact, one of the DE stories itself is about a vast underground museum built by an advanced civilization roundabout the middle of that whole timeframe, maintained by what we would now call an AI, housing untold wonders, that the protagonists stumble on and accidentally destroy. There's another DE-period story about a "lost city" out in the wilds, built as a science utopia, whose inhabitants had forgotten how to use the tech and had fallen to a petty tribalism around coloured tokens - very typical sardonic Vance
In fact, one of the DE stories itself is about a vast underground museum built by an advanced civilization roundabout the middle of that whole timeframe, maintained by what we would now call an AI, housing untold wonders, that the protagonists stumble on and accidentally destroy. There's another DE-period story about a "lost city" out in the wilds, built as a science utopia, whose inhabitants had forgotten how to use the tech and had fallen to a petty tribalism around coloured tokens - very typical sardonic Vance
I've played outer worlds, im more digging that ancient mystery stuff and grand scale. Most likely playing stellaris scratched that itch.
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Martian Memorandum.
It's a point 'n' click thingie released around the time of The Dig, so it got overshadowed.
Two guys (three?) explore ancient ruins on Mars.
It's a point 'n' click thingie released around the time of The Dig, so it got overshadowed.
Two guys (three?) explore ancient ruins on Mars.
Heaven’s Vault sort of meets the requirements.
Primordia, although not based on interplanetary travel, also does the “uncover the secrets of a lost civilization” thing very well.
But yes, The Dig is the obvious one here.
Primordia, although not based on interplanetary travel, also does the “uncover the secrets of a lost civilization” thing very well.
But yes, The Dig is the obvious one here.
Falksi
Arcane
Graphically it's not impressive, but the sense of discovery which Starflight dishes out unearthing space-past is superb.
Spukrian
Savant
The Solus Project. Single player survival game. A big part of it is exploring ruins of a dead civilization.
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One of the few games in which collecting miscellaneous audio tapes and logs is worth the effort.
KJWY
Literate
mirrormoon EP
Morpheus Kitami
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The Myst series in general fits this description, minus the whole space part.
Otherwise, I guess I'd say the Gateworld games and the fan-made Stargate SG-1 adventure game, maybe. Both cases are less about the lost civilizations and more about general exploration though.
NecroLord
Dumbfuck!
Thief - The Lost City.
Nutmeg
Arcane
No one said Metroid.
No one said Unreal.
No one said Unreal.
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