My vote has to go to the super storms in Horizon Forbidden West. They're pretty incredible as they pass over. It's just a shame they're so rare and stop after a certain point in the game.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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No Man's Sky has some impressive storms. They change depending on the planet, and a recent update (still updated for free since 2016, btw) added a bunch of new atmospheric effects. Some storms have winds strong enough to throw around and, in some cases, off the planet.
Most recent time I was awestruck by a thunderstorm in a game? Forza Horizon 5. One of the early missions involved heading out in the jungle during a massive thunderstorm and it was just legendary. Visuals, audio, everything.
The opening act of Little Big Adventure 2 gets my vote.
I really liked the storms in Valheim. Probably not the best looking but they felt so impressive.
This channel has a lot of pretty game ambience, but isn’t limited to storms.
Uru and Mabinogi has surprisingly good audio with theirs.
I'm going to give you an evil answer and say Final Fantasy X. Are you ready to dodge 200 lightning bolts?
I'd forgotten that awful bit until you mentioned it. :( iirc my brother got that on my file and I got the chocobo balloons on his.
I'd say Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). Everything about the atmosphere in that game was immersive - graphics were good enough that I didn't notice they were graphics. I genuinely felt cold, wet, hot, windblown, or joyful at the various weather/environment situations in the game.
How about the one at the end of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?
Having effects that shatter the framerate is, of course, a very undesirable thing for gamers. But something about it in the context of a sudden final boss fight against Ganon, placing his large figure against the thundering background, made him much more imposing in a way that might not really even be represented when playing the game in 4K on an emulator.
The ganon fights from Wind Waker and Skyward Sword are similarly cinematic!
Ganon has a thing for theatrics
I've always liked the storm in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC from Mass Effect 2. It takes place on a ship chasing the sunset on a planet with a really slow rotation, and there's a massive storm at the terminator. It looks amazing.
Stalker ~ Stalker gamma but those storms are a little more than a thunderstorm..
Came here to mention just that. Base Stalker has some nice storms, but the mods built into Gamma make those absolutely terrifying. I think I genuinely fear the weather more than any mutated monster in the Zone.
BOTW/TOTK is pretty memorable because it has a mechanical effect. Climbing becomes harder due to wet surfaces being slippery, and lightning can strike things killing them, damaging things and setting fires.
I loved the storms in BOTW. The rainy atmosphere and the mechanical effects were really well done.
In a similar vein, Majora's Mask has a fantastic thunderstorm on day 2 of the cycle.
This is one of the two that jump to mind. Red Dead Redemption 2 had beautiful, atmospheric storms that were a sight to behold at a distance. Breath of the Wild brought the lightning up close and personal.
There's nothing quite like deciding to take a fight in a thunderstorm while the only gear you have left is metal, or carefully sneaking up on an enemy only to have a bolt of nature's electric fury crash down two meters behind you and shake the ground you're standing on. Especially in surround sound.
In Valheim it was quite real and comfy at the same time. Weird I know.
I have a tower built off a pine tree. When it thunderstorms, I race up the stairs to go Thor-spotting
Witcher 3 and Skyrim are pretty good. RDR2 is great, particularly because you can see it coming.
I feel like I'm biased and it's my answer for everything, but RDR2. No other game environment has come close, for me. Screenshot from one moody moment I captured:
Rockstar is no nonsense with their thunderstorms. The ones in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are particularly wild.
Though they're a mix of sandstorm/thunderstorm (like in the movie), the Mad Max game from Avalanche.
One of the few games where I thought storms were an actual danger.
The way those storms rolled in and turned peace into pure chaos. Driving around avoiding thunderstrikes. Going on foot meant having to dodge pieces of debris or getting yeeted to some unknown part of the map. Actually required to take shelter somewhere. Storms felt actually like it really added something to the game beyond just a different skybox and rain. That was good shit.
A Link to the Past was the first thing to come to mind. Of course many games since have done storms much better, but that one had the biggest impact on me personally. The jump from 8 to 16 bits was a hell of a thing!
Whenever it rains, I still hum that tune. Gives a certain mood to it all.
Sailing games like black flag, valheim, and sea of thieves had pretty fun weather iirc
+1 for sea of thieves.
Super Metroid.
Surface of Crateria has a thunderstorm for the entire length of the game.
Incorrect... The storm actually ends after you get the Varia suit and the music turns from dark and brooding to more heroic.
It still wins for one of the moodiest openings to a game, in my opinion. It really makes me wish that Metroid leaned even harder into the horror stuff
@games Battlefield Bad Company 2 has a sniping mission in a thunderstorm. You use the thunder to hide your shots and that one was memorable to me.
And I think Far Cry 3 or Blood Dragon had thunderstorms somewhere? But of that i'm not sure anymore
I think that "best" is open to various interpretations.
The most-emotionally-impactful in the context of the game?
The most-graphically-impressive?
The best-integrated with the game?
I often don't try and play the latest-and-greatest games, and while I'm sure that I've played games with thunderstorms in them, I can't immediately recall any recent first-person 3D games...and I've kind of shifted way from FPSes in recent years. Probably the newest 3D game that I can immediately recall playing that I distinctly recall having thunderstorms -- though I think that they were rain is modded Fallout 4; I was using one of the weather mods.
I think it was one of:
There are radstorms that impact gameplay by dosing the player with radiation, and I suppose could be considered to a different form of thunderstorm. These are separate from normal storms. Fallout 76 also has radstorms, but they are less-frequent and far-less-damaging than in (modded, don't recall base game) Fallout 4.
I guess that that'd probably be the most-graphically-impressive that I personally can recall off-the-cuff. I'm sure that there must be some newer, fancier thunderstorms out there.
For impact...I can't recall for certain whether-or-not there was actual thunder and lighting other than in cutscenes, though there's certainly rain.. But The Saboteur is an Assassin's Creed-style game (I understand; I've never played more than a very small amount of those games) set in World War II Paris. The areas that are occupied by Nazi forces are mostly black and white, with a small amount of color, mostly red, and at least some of the time, it's raining. The areas where forces have been pushed back look kind of like spring. I think that it added to the game's atmosphere a lot.
Best chill weather: FFXIV
Turn off the music and sit in a zone listening to the rain and thunder while talking to friends. A+.
This game has excellent ambient sounds. I turn the music off often and just listen. Sometimes it's fun to just wander or find a little nook to craft in nature.
As much as the rest of the game is an exercise in tedium and complete disrespect of the player's time and intelligence, the thunderstorm event in Spiritfarer is pretty rad, and definitely one of its high points.
At least the first time. The charm wears off after the 9th or 10th time you do it just because you need to grind for the one material you can get from it, and only from it.
I really tried to like spiritfarer. It’s popular and conceptually my kind of game.
How tf did they manage to make it so awful. I still don’t understand. I played like 4 hours and not once had anything approaching fun. Even the emotional impact of the first storm was ruined by that terrible minigame.
Thunderstorms in Baldur's Gate (the old ones) could outright kill you. Scary stuff.
Sea of Thieves overall best. Hunt: Showdown a close second
I swear I've come across an indie game that had great thunderstorms, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me.
That said, imo The Sims as a series has had good thunderstorms. Being outside can result in your Sim being hit by lightning, and iirc there are things that'll increase the chance of getting hit, like being wet, being in a pool, holding an umbrella, etc. I'm not sure which game has the best thunderstorms though.
VRchat has some worlds with really good ambience, and typically they include rain and/or thunderstorms to some extent. You don't actually need VR, you can play VRC on a normal monitor.
I've just realized that one of the things that Risk of Rain 2 is missing, is a persistent thunderstorm that gets stronger as the difficulty gets higher, lowering your visibility over time.
Mafia's "A Trip to the Country" mission has to be up there for best thunderstorm. The atmosphere in the Remake was even better.
For atmosphere, I was floored by Kingdom Come: Deliverance's storms. They really did a good job of capturing the deep rumble of an approaching storm out on the plains.