Mistborn & Stormlight Author, Brandon Sanderson, Reveals Top 5 Narrative-Driven Games; Favorite is Final Fantasy X

Prominent author Brandon Sanderson, known for the Mistborn and Stormlight Archives’ book series, posted a video of him conversing with fellow author Wesley Chu about their top five narrative-driven video games.

Regarding Sanderson, his honorable mention before delving into his list proper was Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Then, going sequentially, his top five picks were the PlayStation 3 Sucker Punch superhero action-adventure, Infamous, the Supergiant Games roguelike, Hades, the indie sensation Undertale, BioShock, and the Square turn-based JRPG Final Fantasy X.

For clarification, Sanderson briefly mentioned and showed the original BioShock before talking about his love for BioShock Infinite.

On the other hand, Chu’s top-five narrative-driven video games were Solaris, BioShock, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, The Last of Us, and Grand Theft Auto V.

The duo discussed their early video game memories, too, such as with Castlevania. Additionally, Sanderson brought up his love for Elden Ring and how it didn’t make this list since, while FromSoftware games have terrific lore, that doesn’t necessarily translate to equally strong storytelling.

Sanderson stated he has not played the first The Last of Us or The Last of Us Part 2 since he doesn’t like survival horror games, so he watched Let’s Plays of just the story scenes and immensely enjoyed them.

Regarding Final Fantasy, Sanderson notes the series has a danger of packing in so many ideas that you don’t know what’s happening. Still, he said he also likes all of them, explicitly mentioning Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy IX.

However, Sanderson found Final Fantasy X to click with its ideas the best, leading to his preference for it. His admiration for Yuna’s role as a Summoner Job’s integration bolstered that love further.

Alas, Sanderson doesn’t seem to like Final Fantasy X-2 much, calling it “rough.” He also has a fondness for Final Fantasy XII, at least partially for Balthier, though he critiqued the lingerie armor of Fran, desiring to see types of that armor scaled back and yearning for “real clothing.”

You can view Sanderson’s full video with Wesley Chu below:

Earlier last year, Sanderson received an Elden Ring package from Bandai Namco, with them stating their interest in a potential collaboration.