Hlvrai not quite in character but still rp personally I really liked it and can’t wait for the sequel but It prob will arrive one week after half-life 3…

VLDL make rally funny parodies of various games. They have some long running series with recurring characters.

It’s comic, not a video series, but Concerned fits the bill fairly well.

I really miss the G4/TechTV show “Portal.”

It was machinima and live action, kinda in world lore but it used multiple MMORPGs for the in-game parts and had a sort of multiverse plot line where there were recurring characters that would appear in all the different game worlds and such.

It’s hard to explain because it was really its own unique thing.

The Codex series is definitely worth watching.

You might also enjoy Arby ‘n’ the Chief - it’s not exactly machinima but it certainly fits the culture. If you played Halo 2 or 3 during the peak days, it will be nostalgic.

Maybe someone knows what it is. I remember watching many years ago a series of videos of Rust that were narrated as if they were a nature documentary.

Full story Machinima style series are rare, but if you just want heavy editing and a somewhat coherent plot as opposed to nearly unedited gameplay, Alpharad and LarsBurrito might work. Alpharad heavily edits his videos and usually writes a script to go over the gameplay that does a good job pulling a story out of the footage. LarsBurrito does a similar style, but also often does themed playthroughs where he writes the script to flavor the playthrough to fit whatever character he’s roleplaying as.

If you want actual story but are ok with significantly less editing, Mianite is a series I rewatch every once in a while in a similar way you describe. The scripted story doesn’t really start picking up until a significant way through season 1, but there is still enough conflict between the different players to make it more than just a Let’s Play.

Red vs Blue (their channel is locked behind some kind of ‘join’ thing… wtf…),

I think that they went commercial at some point, stopped just being a for-fun project on YouTube, and I assume that that’s what happened. Wikipedia doesn’t have anything clearly indicating the transition, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue

Although it is distributed serially over the internet, Red vs. Blue is also one of the first commercially released products made using machinima, as opposed to a product merely containing machinima. DVDs (and later Blu-rays) of every completed seasons are sold through Rooster Teeth’s official website, as well as at several retailers in the United States, such as Target and Wal-Mart. Rooster Teeth claimed in 2017 that Red vs. Blue has sold more than 1 million DVDs of individual seasons and box sets.[76]

kagis more

Hmm.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/1ct84yj/rooster_teeth_shutdown_red_vs_blue_and_where_to/

With the final closure of the Rooster Teeth website, and RTs insistance on removing much of their content from YouTube, many may be wondering where you can watch that once popular web-series: Red vs. Blue.

I intend to keep this post as a repository, cataloguing public archives of RvB and RT content. There are of course still legal ways to acquire the show via YouTube, Amazon, Apple. However with that money no longer supporting RT, I can only recommend them on a convenience basis and instead offer some free alternatives.

The most comprehensive and accessible is: https://archiveofpimps.com/ which contains all of the main series and mini-series in both its original and remastered states. It appears to lack some PSAs but with tonnes of other RT content and a strong interface it’s currently the strongest contender.

Additionally, there is a Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NHnQK7-BgwaJiKJOYA7CkRQemKjTQ8Nd This also contains all of the main series and mini-series in both original and remastered formats. Individual episodes and movie edits, PSAs, Behind the Scenes, trailers and bonus material. For Red vs. Blue specifically this is the place to go.

*Our subreddit wiki also has a detailed watchlist order to help new viewers https://www.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/wiki/watch_order/

I urge people to maintain their own archives and if you are hosting your own public archives and wish to advertise them, let me know and I’ll add them to the post.

Thank you Rooster Teeth for 21 years of laughs. Let’s try and preserve their legacy. ❤️💙

That post was dated a year ago, so I assume that there was some change that happened around that point in time.

Skyrim For Pimps.

I very much enjoyed watching Yogscast which does Minecraft machinima

For historical purposes I’m obligated to inform you about G4’s Portal.

Note: Quality is not guaranteed.

This might be too far into the “watching gameplay” side of things or not up your alley, but I remember watching through some Arma II videos by Jester814 on YouTube and enjoying them.

He was one of a number of members who play in a group that tries to stay in-character, act as if it were a real Marines operation.

https://www.506thir.net/

The 506th Infantry Regiment Realism Unit was founded in late 2014 by former members of the 15th MEU(SOC) Realism Unit. Many of our members are veterans and active duty military from around the world. The primary focus of the unit is light infantry combat in Arma Reforger utilizing real to life tactics, techniques, protocol, and communication.

While I do like some military history, I’m not really all that interested in light infantry tactics, so the content itself wasn’t an immediate draw…but I wound up finding it fun to watch through the videos.

One of his ArmA II playlists:

• ArmA 2 - 15th MEU Official

He’s also done ArmA III videos, which are obviously graphically-prettier, but at least in the few I watched — and I haven’t gone back and looked recently — he didn’t have larger numbers of coordinating players acting as larger, hierarchical military units, just a squad or maybe a couple of squads, and I didn’t find it as interesting.

That being said, it’s not something like Red vs Blue, which is content scripted purely for the viewer, not the people involved.

EDIT: Actually, I do remember a couple of large-scale ArmA III operations that he did. Just that there was a lot of smaller-scale stuff mixed in. That being said, could have been that when he was recording them, people hadn’t switched to ArmA III yet — it was still a pretty new game then. I should really go back and see what the situation is now.

Not exactly what you’re asking for (specifically episodic) but relevant, and might be that this tweaks someone’s memory if they’re familiar with such a series and it’s listed here:

Wikipedia: List of machinima works