Have you ever wanted to paint, draw, write, or make music but couldn’t find the creativity to do those activities? If you are anything like me, inspiration is often hard to come by. Ideas for your art can come from many different places. Authors often mention how some of their story ideas came from a dream. Artists can find inspiration on walks in nature, trips to the zoo, or just looking for it in other media. It is all about finding things that inspire creativity because, really, ideas can come from many places.
One place I often find inspiration is in video games. I believe them to be an art form in itself considering how much work goes into making them. What makes games able to inspire creativity? For writers it could be a well written story or characters you hold dear to you. The environment of the video game along with the graphics or scenes can be great for an artist to find creativity. For the musicians the sound track can be great or a scene in a game has you making music up in your head. These ten video games have inspired creativity in me, and I believe they can in you as well.
Minecraft, windows edition 2011, Mojang
Of course Minecraft would be on this list. Minecraft has sold more copies than any other game ever and for good reason. This game is great for all ages and really gets the creative juices flowing. At a glance, it’s a simple block game where you mine and then craft stuff. I wonder where it gets its name from. What makes this game great is the ability to build anything in it.
From statues to castles to architectural oddities, you can build anything. Want to make a massive farm or a modern city? Maybe something smaller like a nice cabin or you want to build a dwarven city under a mountain. Anything you think up you can design and make in Minecraft. Maybe building architecture and building isn’t your thing, well you can make pixel art using all the different colored blocks. This game truly is a great place to find inspiration. It gets your creative juices flowing and the ideas you can get from this game are endless.
Control, 2019 505 games
Control looks like something taken straight out of the SCP Foundation. You play as Jesse Faden who is the new director of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government organization that contains reality bending artifacts. Jesse is looking for her brother at the same time defending the Oldest House, the FBC’s main headquarters, from something called the Hiss.
This game has unique enemies and weird and wacky artifacts spread throughout the game. The architecture of the Oldest House looks like any government building from the 1960’s. This game can inspire creativity with the strange objects and environments you explore. Maybe it can even inspire you to write some SCP monsters of your own imagination.
Kenshi, 2018 Lo-Fi Games
Kenshi is the most unique game on this list. There is no story in Kenshi. In this apocalyptic setting, you start off as a lone wanderer, a nobody and you make your own story. You can really do whatever you want in this game. Do you want to be a trader, a slaver, a slave freer, or a conqueror? Do you want to make your own bustling city? Your story is entirely up to you.
This game has made me invent many stories about my characters in my head. For example, slavers tried to enslave my character so now he wants to make an army and declare war on the slaver cities. Playing this game you’ll invent many stories for your characters, what their ambitions are, their goals, and motivations. It is a great way to inspire creativity in your stories for your own characters.
Cyberpunk 2077, 2022 CD Projekt Red
I love the cyberpunk genre as a whole and this game fits in greatly. In Cyberpunk 2077 you play as a character who ends up with a malfunctioning relic installed in your head. This relic has a personality engram of a well known corporate terrorist from 50 years prior. The main goal of the protagonist is to figure out how to remove the chip and stop the construct from taking over the protagonist’s mind and body. This all leads up to a stunning conclusion.
If you pay close enough attention to the game you will see it takes inspiration from other popular cyberpunk media such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?, along with Japanese anime Akira and Ghost in the Shell. If Cyberpunk 2077 takes inspiration from other sources, you can easily find inspiration in it. Driving around Night City you can see so many interesting things. From people modded in cyberware to gangs and futuristic cars. At night when the city is all lit up it has some of the best views in any game I’ve played. From it you can find inspiration if you only look.
Detroit: Become Human, 2018 Sony Interactive
Are you interested in science fiction books or art? Detroit: Become Human is a great game to inspire creativity. In this game you play as three separate androids that gain sentience. Humans call androids that gain sentience deviants. The first android is Kara, who kidnaps a child away from an abusive father. The second is Markus who becomes sentient and starts a revolution freeing other androids and making them sentient as well. The last one the story follows is Connor who works for the police to hunt down deviant androids.
This game plays almost like a choose your own adventure book. Every choice you make affects the ending of the game and the characters around you. The choices you can make get your brain turning to try and figure out every possible outcome for each choice. As you make choices for the protagonists you establish deeper bonds with each one. This can lead to you coming up with ideas for your own characters or maybe choices for your characters to take in your writing.
Elden Ring, 2022 Bandai Namco Entertainment
Elden Ring is nominated for the game of the year in 2022 and it is not hard to see why. In this third person game you play as a character you make. You go on a journey through The Lands Between. You fight bosses to take their shard of the elden ring and by the end you restore the elden ring and become an elden lord.
This game is an open world with many weapons or magic to use on your quest giving you the freedom to figure out the best way to kill enemies. George R.R. Martin (you know the one) worked on some of the world building, so the scenes and the look of some of the monsters are his creations. The setting and views are incredible. Artists can find inspiration in the creatures, the landscapes or the beautiful glowing trees scattered across the map. If I could paint you can bet I would take things from the wonderful Lands Between.
Red Dead Redemption 2, 2018 Rockstar Games
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of my favorite games. This game can truly inspire writers, artists, and musicians. In this game you play as Arthur Morgan in 1899 at the fall of the wild west. He tries to lead his outlaw gang to safety while attempting to get enough money for them to live a better life. This story is one of the greatest ever told in a video game. Truly, this game can inspire creativity in everyone.
For the writers, who doesn’t love a great western story? Watching the gang go through hardships and the gang leader’s descent into madness can inspire many ideas for your writing. For the artists, do you like painting scenery or wildlife? This game has plenty of views to take in and inspire with a whole plethora of animals to give you ideas to paint. Lastly, for the musicians this game’s soundtrack won many awards. Looking for some good western inspiration for your music, look no further.
Final Fantasy X, HD REmaster 2013 Square Enix
Final Fantasy X was a big deal when it came out. It was the first Final Fantasy that was fully voice acted. In this game you play as Tidus. It starts off as a classic hero’s journey. A giant creature called Sin takes you from your home and places you in a new world called Spira. You meet a summoner, Yuna, who needs to complete a pilgrimage to defeat Sin so you go with her as her guardian. While Sin is the biggest monster in the game, the other antagonist is the main religion in Spira. The rulers of the religion are hypocrites and cause more problems than Sin.
This game inspires me to play my instruments more. I believe it has one of the greatest soundtracks in video games, composed by the famous Nobuo Uematsu, who is sometimes called the Beethoven of video games. Along with the music, the unique evilness of an organized religion is a fun theme to watch throughout the game, showing writers the antagonist doesn’t always have to be a monster or another person.
Ghost of Tsushima, 2020 Sony Interactive
Ghost of Tsushima is a game with another great story and beautiful environments. In this game you play as Jin Sakai, a samurai defending his homeland from the Mongol invasion. During the entire game Jin struggles to decide if he should fight with honor and the samurai code or do whatever it takes to repel the invasion.
This game also has the potential to inspire creativity in everyone. Everyone loves good samurai stories; they have been around for as long as film has been around. The setting in Japan is filled with beautiful cherry blossom trees and burning landscapes due to the invasion which can lead to some beautiful paintings. The struggles of Jin can lead to some creative ideas for your own stories as well.
Final Fantasy VII Remake, 2020 Square Enix
When Final Fantasy VII Remake first came out I stayed up all night playing it. I was roped in from start to finish. In this game you play as Cloud, a former elite soldier. Cloud gets hired as a mercenary by an old friend Tifa. Tifa hires Cloud to work for an eco-terrorist organization called Avalanche. Avalanche wants to blow up the Shinra’s mako generators because they believe they are causing the death of the planet. Along the adventure Cloud meets Aerith who has the blood of the Cetra flowing through her. The Cetra are believed to know where the promised land is. Shinra wants to find the promised land and you end up fighting them throughout the game.
It was a hard choice deciding whether or not the original be included in this list or the remake. Arguably, the original is the best in the entire Final Fantasy franchise so why this? The remake fleshes out minor characters and explains some key points better than the original. As a result, the minor character arcs are more heartfelt and meaningful than the original. The reason I find this game to inspire creativity is the unique relationships the characters have with one another and their motivations to be in Avalanche. There is natural feeling humor and each of them care about one another. This game, like Cyberpunk 2077, has a unique cyberpunkesque setting to get lost in. Playing this game makes me want to write relationships as well as they are shown in the game.
Conclusion
Hopefully you play one of these games and find the inspiration you need for any of your arts. These games have all at some point inspired creativity in me. I hope they can do the same for you. Two disclaimers, I think of all creators as artists, but in this article the term artists is in reference specifically to the visual arts, such as painting and drawing. I reference musicians and writers individually, but they are there own type of artist. Secondly, the pictures shown have all been taken from my own gameplay on both PS5 and PC. If you have any other games you feel should be on this list feel free to add a comment below letting me know.