Branching storylines or one precise story in narrative driven games

[JJ Strife]

Linear story but with some open-ended sections and lots of optional detours along the way.

I think Xenolade Chronicles is my favourite example of story-telling in a game. The main plot is really linear, but you have these huge open areas at each step along the way, so you can really choose how quickly you progress the story. That's different from most of the traditional FF games, because they don't have much to do between main story points (except just battling), and it's also different from open-world story games like Witcher 3, because you can't just go anywhere and lose that sense that you're locked into a particular time, place and situation (which is helpful for adding a sense of urgency)