Disco Elysium is the only game that reads like a literary novel. The prose — the actual text, in skill checks, in dialogue, in the internal voice of your detective — is written with the care of serious fiction. The game examines ideology, failure, memory, and identity with the complexity of Dostoevsky filtered through a detective novel. It is genuinely what literary fiction readers have been waiting for from the medium.

RDR2 is a western novel in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy: bleak, honest about violence, interested in the psychology of men who chose the wrong life and know it. Arthur Morgan's introspection — particularly in his journal, which updates in his handwriting throughout the game — is some of the finest character writing gaming has produced. Readers of No Country for Old Men will find familiar themes and emotional territory.

The Witcher books (by Andrzej Sapkowski) are some of the finest fantasy fiction of the last three decades. The game continues their tradition: complex politics, moral ambiguity, characters with genuine interiority, and a world that operates by its own consistent rules. Players who approach it as they would a fantasy novel — exploring fully, reading every document, following every character arc — get something closer to a great novel than most gaming experiences offer.