Lore Codex

Lore Codexes are archives used by video games to keep track of different things that a player has come across. Among other subjects, Codexes can list enemies, items and weapons, Item Crafting recipes, major locations, and really any other major element of a given game's story and environment. In some cases, these are purely gameplay abstractions; other times, they're presented as in-universe diaries or logs that the characters fill out over time. While formats can vary widely, a typical entry usually consists of a picture and short bit of Flavor Text, usually between a sentence and a paragraph. Where applicable, typical locations and crafting recipes may be included as well.

The Codex is typically filled in as the player progresses through the game, with new entries being added when their associated thing is encountered. Sometimes this is done automatically when the appropriate entity is interacted with in a certain way, such as an enemy being beaten, an item being picked up, or a new area being entered. Other times, the player will need to actively scan things in some manner to have them logged.

Lore Codexes serve a few functions. Firstly, they act as a reference guide for the player, who can refer back to them to check up on information about a desired subject without having to put down the game or resort to guesswork. They also provide additional worldbuilding, as their commentaries can contain bits of background information or trivia that mightn't easily be worked into normal gameplay. They also serve as a way to quantify and track game progress by keeping track of how many gameplay elements the player has encountered.

A Super-Trope to Monster Compendium, which often appears as a subsection of the Lore Codex. A Codex may also be used to provide the player with Story Breadcrumbs. Compare and contrast Encyclopedia Exposita, a document or a collection of documents that exist in-universe, whereas a codex is a gameplay element primarily for the player's benefit. There can however be overlap between the two when a Codex's entries have in-universe author attributions.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• ANNO: Mutationem: The Database menu showcases information on characters, various enemies, items, terms, and locations such as the Limen Crater or the Mechanika Virus, as well detailing other factions mentioned throughout.
• Batman: Arkham Series: Each game lets you access the Batcomputer's files in the pause menu to review the biographies of characters you've met, riddles the Riddler has tasked you with, and little short stories about the history of different places in Gotham.
• God of War
  • God of War (PS4): Kratos' son Atreus has a diary in which he writes down the player's objectives, information about the characters and enemies encountered - as well as tips about defeating adversaries -, tales told by Mimir, and records of the scriptures, treasure maps, scrolls, Jotnar shrines and lore markers found across the world. The Codex is always told in Atreus' point of view and often has additional commentaries about his feelings and opinions at the moment in each page. Notably, it is Kratos who writes the objectives in the diary when Atreus gets ill until he gets better.
  • God of War Ragnarök: The Codex returns in the sequel with similar functions, with the main difference that it is narrated by either Kratos or Mimir, also revealing thoughts and perspectives throughout the path.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2021): The catalog organizes information lore you've learned into six categories — characters, factions, monsters, locations, Guardian collectibles, and archives (messages and texts that can be read in the game's levels).
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The Hyrule Compendium describes the various things that Link can encounter in his journey through Hyrule, and is split into sections listing animals, monsters, edible plants and fungi, weapons and shields, and treasure (the shortest section, listing only treasure chests and three types of ore deposit). The Compendium is filled in piecemeal after upgrading the Sheikah Slate's camera rune; after this, Link needs to take pictures of desired items or creatures, which will cause their associated entries to be filled in, or failing that to purchase random entries at Purah's lab; these will include the picture alongside a short description and some areas in the game where the subject can be found.
• Mafia III: Lincoln's Journal in the Pause Menu covers all of the major main story events that take place throughout the game, from Lincoln signing his discharge papers and getting his ticket home, to finally killing Marcano and deciding on what to do. Included in this journal are mugshots for several of Lincoln's major targets, including the racket bosses that serve directly under Marcano's Lieutenants and Capos. Sadly, this journal doesn't cover any of the events of the three DLC campaigns. In addition to this, there's the Kill List also found on the Main Menu, which, as its name implies, is a detailed list of high-ranking Marcano Family Capos and Lieutenants that Lincoln needs to take down to get to Sal himself. Each is updated once the target is killed or usurped.
• Risk of Rain 2 has the Logbook, which details everything from places, items, characters and monsters.
• The Skylanders series has Story Scrolls, one of the collectibles that can be found in each level. They give some information on a certain place or people of Skylands. They only ever did this in the first three games, as the scrolls in the following games instead were one NPC boasting about himself, recordings of the Big Bad's diary for future generations of evil, and the sixth game had nothing of the sort at all.

MMORPGs

• Warframe: The player's orbiter includes a console for the codex, which allows the player to look up information such as data scanned from enemies, the Story Breadcrumbs found in memory fragments, stats for any weapon or warframe you can equip, and drop locations for mods, arcanes or relics.

Role-Playing Games

• Bug Fables: The game keeps track of several things that the player runs into, including spied enemies, discovered recipes, and major areas and plot events, which are stored in the in-game logbook for the player's reference.
• Dragon Age has an extensive codex comprised exclusively of in-universe documents equivalent to a nine-novel book series in length. Individual entries are often carried over from game to game, with their in-universe authors making appropriate updates to reflect the events of the past installments.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VIII: The Information sub-section of the Tutorial menu serves as a glossary for notable locations, characters and terminology in the game's setting, which are gradually filled in as the player progresses, though some entries require them to go out of their way to talk/interact with an NPC at the right time, making them Permanently Missable Content. There is only one exception: The "Succession of Sorceress Power" entry can only be acquired through hacking the game.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: The Datalog features thirteen different categories of lore for the player to read, including history, people, and a bestiary.
  • Final Fantasy Type-0: The Rubicus serves as the game's lore codex. However, it can only be accessed either from the History option on the title screen or in-game in the Crystarium building in Akademeia.
  • Final Fantasy XV:
    • The Compendium is a resource in the pause menu that lets you look at the models of each character and monster you've met. Each one also comes with a little blurb about the subject's backstory.
    • The game was patched after its initial release to add an Archives section in the main menu, which acts as a more traditional codex in that it collects all sorts of information. There were also archives added for each of the Episode DLCs.
• GreedFall has a codex which is a combination of abstract and in-universe elements. There is a tab for notes found during your adventure, but also tabs for the usual: gameplay help, characters, places, etc. that isn't information given in-universe.
• Hades: Achilles gives Zagreus the "Codex of the Underworld" for him to carry around and fill out while he escapes. Some things, like locations, weapons, foes, and artifacts, are filled out automatically. Others, like the Chthonic and Olympian Gods, on the other hand, require some input from Zag in order to fill out their entries.
• Kingdom Hearts games include a log of the journey, featuring plot recaps, character bios, details on enemies, minigame high scores, and more. In I, Chain of Memories, II, and III, this takes the form of Jiminy Cricket's journal, while other games have the information in the player character's personal logs.
• Magical Starsign fills out the Logs with tutorials and other explanations as you progress through the game. They also contain a bestiary, and notes by your characters on events that've happened in the story — notably, some are implied to have been written by your otherwise-voiceless player character.
• Mass Effect has an extensive codex, which lovingly shows off the hardness of the "science" part of its sci-fi.
• Paper Mario: The Origami King: As Mario progresses through the game, he comes across a great variety of things, which are recorded as he finds them in the Musée Champignon, which lists them alongside a short descriptive blurb. This includes a Monster Compendium of origami enemies, as well as the various forms of origami Toads scattered around the world.
• Pokémon Ranger has a glossary built into your Styler, which includes information on different aspects of the game and important characters and areas. Shadows of Almia splits it into three sections, detailing overworld mechanics, in-battle mechanics, and important terms.
• Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra features the Xenobible, which fills in the player with all the major characters and plot elements that happened over the course of the first two games in the series.

Sandbox

• Outer Wilds has the ship's log, which automatically notes down things that the player has discovered while exploring the solar system.
• Terraria: One is included in "Journey's End" update, which contains entries about NPCs, critters, enemies, and bosses. The bestiary describes the lore of the entities, their stats, and their drops. The entries need to be filled out depending on how much experience the player had with the entity in question. For critters, it's how many the player came in close proximity with. For NPCs, it's how much they chatted with them. For enemies, it's how many were killed, with more additional info being revealed depending on the kill count, with ffifty kills completely filling out the entry. For bosses, the player only has to kill one.

Shooters

• Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal: The codex is a series of data entries that contain information about enemy monsters encountered during the campaign, in addition to weapons and modifications which have been acquired.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy: Samus' log records information on anything you can scan, including enemies, item pickups, puzzle mechanisms, local and ancient lore, and so on.
• Serious Sam: All mainline games of the series (with the exception of II) feature NETRICSA, Sam Stone's head-implanted AI, which keeps track of all things Sam faces or discovers such as weapons, enemies, and missions.

Simulation

• APICO has a few guidebooks to help you in your beekeeping career. Your grandpa's guidebook gives you the tutorial on how to gather resources and craft items, Abbee's Folio documents every flower, Beelia's Almanac lists all the bee species you can find and breed on Apico Islands, while Dr. Sto's Journal has insights on butterfly care.
• In No Umbrellas Allowed, Darcy's manual provides 30 years worth of everything you need to know in running his secondhand shop. It offers guides on how to use your appraisal tools along with the history of Mindlesia and information about various brands.
• In Potion Permit, your journal tracks every task, person, potion, ingredient, food, fish, and monster encountered in the game.

Stealth Games

• Yandere Simulator: There is a Content Checklist in the main menu to inform you of how many elimination methods you have used to successfully beat your rivals. This takes different forms in the 202X and 1980s modes.
  • In 202X mode, Info-chan gives you a list of Schemes (options to throw NPCs off so that you can defeat your rivals) via cell phone pause menu.
  • In 1980s mode, they are named Ideas because Info-Chan was not alive at that time to list Schemes. You start off with a fair amount. However, you can pay the hair salon manager for more knowledge, and this will add ideas to your pause menu notebook.

Strategy

• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars has unit dossiers, which show a high-resolution image of a unit while telling the player the lore surrounding it.
• X-COM: The UFOpedia, which contains information on the enemies that you researched after capturing or killing them, as well as their ships, their weapons, their useless but interesting technology, and their society. It also contains information on your ships, weapons, items, and base facilities, making it the one-stop shop for any info you're looking for.

Tower Defense

• Plants vs. Zombies: The Suburban Almanac (a reference to the real-life farmer's almanac) contains info about both your current plants and the zombies you've seen. In addition to useful information, each entry contains humorous Flavor Text that gives more characterization to a game otherwise short on it.

Visual Novels

• The main games in the Danganronpa series have the backlog of the "e-Handbook" (called "Monopad" in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony) in the pause menu, which, asides from including information about the characters, setting and cases the player has gathered thus far, also features tabs for items the player currently has (or used to have in the record of truth bullets from previous cases).

Other

• Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which has a section for explanations of items, monsters, events and story recaps, and also works as the game's menu system.
• Subverse: Just like the BioWare games that inspired it (first and foremost Mass Effect), the game features an expansive Codex that is populated with entries about characters, places, and historical events that get brought up in the dialogue and story. Owing to the game's irreverent nature, however, there is also quite a lot of silliness mixed in, such as a Codex entry on the Codex itself:
  It's what you're reading, idiot.
• Yet Another Merge Game: The Mergepedia catalogues what mergers the player has reached, as well as their production and base production rates.

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