What game was the best atmosphere?

@StrikeALight said:

Forgot to add Silent Hill 2. One of the most evocative games ever.

That was going to be my pick. Love that game's atmosphere right from the get go. Especially when you go down that long misty trail in the beginning.

Thief, Silent Hill 1, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Dead Space, Metal Gear Solid 1, Alan Wake, La Noire, Mass Effect 2, Dark Souls, Amnesia, Dead Space 2, Journey, Flower, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War series (consoles)...

yeah Witcher 2 and silent hill 2 are good shouts.

The opening battle in witcher 2 made me actually feel like i was in a battle, wonderful scale to it. And silent hill 2 was just cloying to the extent of having hand around your throat, gripping stuff, and very moving at the end.

Guys? Remember when GTA IV came out? Others games that haven't already been mentioned are Red Dead Redemption, the Max Payne games, and the Uncharted series.

Guys, feeling scared or threatened, or the evocation of any emotional response at all, is not atmosphere. Atmosphere is about mood, evoking a sense of place, and contributes to immersion. All your Dark Souls and Silent Hill and various FPS entries are insanity.

Red Dead Redemption has atmosphere, probably the best in recent memory.

Limbo has atmosphere.

Bastion has atmosphere.

Journey has atmosphere.

Skyrim has atmosphere.

Myst has atmosphere (though it has aged poorly).

Skyrim is the most recent game that comes to mind. I purposefully didn't fast travel all the way to locations just so that I could walk through the world for a little while.

@planetary said:

Guys, feeling scared or threatened, or the evocation of any emotional response at all, is not atmosphere. Atmosphere is about mood, evoking a sense of place, and contributes to immersion.

Atmosphere leads to the evocation of an emotional response. Think about it, its like when people may remark at a party "Yeah, theres a good atmosphere here" for example, they're most likely referring to the mood and general emotion of everyone there. Feeling scared due to the atmosphere is pretty logical, and I wouldn't be so quick to tell people they're wrong for thinking so. By arguing that the two aren't linked would be kind of like saying the comfort you feel when driving a car has nothing to do with the car (poor analogy possibly but I think you get what I mean).

If a games atmosphere fails to move you in anyway emotionally then its not done a good job at all! The dictionary definition of atmosphere in literature as follows:

A dominant intellectual or emotional environment or attitude: an atmosphere of distrust among the electorate.

To that end, I'd say Amnesia: The Dark Descent - a title that manages to make walking down an empty corridor a daunting task through clever atmospheric sounds, lighting and tension. Having recently played through it again, I'd say Vampire Bloodlines deserves a nod for doing a good job of re-creating the World of Darkness atmosphere for its time. The best example within the game itself would of course be the haunted waterfront mansion - those who've played it Im sure will agree with me on that one!

Dark Souls, such an awesomely bleak and lonely place. It's also completely full of mystery and hints at what this world might have been before.

Metroid prime. That game is the very definition of atmosphere.

Probably bioshock and limbo for me. Watching the atmosphere of journey in the quick look almost makes me want to buy a ps3

Stalker all the way. I don't understand why people are hyping Amnesia again. The insect sound effect when your character is supposed to be nervous is poor and annoying and pulls me out entirely. It's the opposite of atmospheric. The fact that the game uses it to tell you that you're supposed to be a certain emotional state is a gaping design flaw and totally immersion breaking.

@Fasckira: Fair enough. At the end of the day, though, we're talking about games with atmosphere, not moments or sequences. This is why I contend that Red Dead is a top contender. Sound design, environmental design, architecture, voicing and writing, story content -- all these contribute with remarkable consistency to the game's mood and texture.

Few games can stand up to what Red Dead did with atmosphere. A lot of the suggestions in this thread interpret "atmospheric" as "memorable". ODST? Half-Life? Stalker? Mass Effect? Bioshock? Puh-leeeze. :-)

mass effect

Red Dead Redemption. GTA IV, Times Square is ucking insane.

Skyrim does a great job of matching visuals and music to create a really subtly motivating environment.

I can also remember Assasin's Creed II really pulling me in. All the AC games do atmosphere really well. When you examine them for accuracy, it's balls out wrong. But when you're just in the world acting like some sort of god-like spring loaded sociopathic murderer, you can really appreciate how different things were.

I will play a game because of the atmosphere. For me, that's the thing that, if it's combined with mild-to-great play mechanics, really nail a game.

Silent Hill 2

Red Dead.

Dark Souls 
you will know every inch of the world after beating it, at least you would think that.  Then you come across area what never imagine it'd be there.

James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod

Recently?

Portal. Limbo. I Am Alive (Tentatively, because I haven't finished it yet). Arkham Asylum. Mirror's Edge. Skyrim. Deus Ex: HR does the cyberpunk thing real good so far, even if there are only like twelve different people in the city of Detroit. Zeno Clash (at least what I've played of it). The beginning of Bioshock. Assassin's Creed has a great vibe that I get pulled right out of every time I realize I'm doing the same thing I did in the last town.

In the past?

Link to The Past/Ocarina of Time. Beyond Good and Evil. Harvest Moon 64. (All four of those scratch the same sort of living world itch that Skyrim has). Star Wars Republic Commando. Shadowrun (because I'm a sucker for cyberpunk stuff). Max Payne. System Shock 2. Yoshi's Island.

I'm sure there's more and I'm sure that several of these are highly personal choices that are probably the wrong choices, but they are what's jumped out at me over the years. So there we go.