Summary
The scale andbreadth of the open-world genrecan get somewhat overwhelming sometimes. These games present some truly massive worlds for fans to explore, and they often demand a correspondingly huge time commitment to boot.
Given the scope of such games, it often happens that simply completing the main story alone will cause players to miss out on some interesting locales. Here’s which titles have plenty of cool spots that story-focused fans might simply never encounter.
Fallout 4is one of Bethesda’s most successful games, and it’s easy to see why. The vividly detailed Commonwealth Wasteland is full of interesting ruins and cityscapes to explore. The game’s new enhanced crafting systems give players a multitude of options for exploring the wastes and giving themselves a fighting chance against whatever they find there.
One ofFallout 4’s biggest claims to fame is the new settlement system, which lets players claim pockets of the Commonwealth for themselves and build new bases and even villages for NPCs to flourish and trade in. Working with the Minutemen faction will open up a lot of these settlements for industrious fans, but players who are dead-set on finding their son will likely never see most of these nascent homesteads. Many potential settlement spots are small and somewhat generic, like County Crossing and Somerville Place, but others, like Kingsport Lighthouse and the massive Spectacle Island, are extremely distinct, and definitely worth a visit.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis one of Bethesda’s most influential games. This expansive open-world RPG gives players countless ways to build their Dragonborn and explore a rich and robust northern setting,slaying dragons and discovering legendary treasuresalong the way.
Skyrimis packed so full of side content that most players find themselves ignoring the main storyline entirely. On the other hand, players who do focus on the main story will completely miss several major regions in the game. Regions like Morthal and Dawnstar have very little to offer players who don’t stray from the critical path, even though they are home to some pretty major sidequests. If the Dragonborn doesn’t get involved inSkyrim’s ongoing civil war, they likely won’t spend much time in Solitude either.
Dragon’s Dogma 2made some truly strange creative decisions, heightening the surreal nature of the game’s story. The title’s limited fast travel capabilities means players will constantly be wandering the expansive open world on foot. Many players might find this tedious, but given the game’s rich and endless array of secrets, there’s plenty to reward the determined explorer.
Secrecy and misdirection are some of the core pillars ofDragon’s Dogma 2’s design, and the world of the game exemplifies this very well. If players aren’t extremely focused onthe game’s many secrets, they’ll miss out on some major parts of the world. Some of the most significant locations and encounters, like the lairs of the elusive Sphinx, can quite easily be missed by players who aren’t curious enough to journey off the beaten path.
Rockstar’s iconic prequel toRed Dead Redemptionratchets up the detail and historical realism of its fictionalized Western setting, bringing players deep into the Wild West through minor historical details and enhanced graphics. As is Rockstar’s milieu, the developers have spared no expense on the story, entrancing players with the slow but inevitable decline and collapse of the Van Der Linde Gang.
The game’s open world is almost as vast as the real United States that inspired it, and players will havea lot of ground to coverif they want to see everything. Fans who are solely interested in experiencing Arthur’s tragic story will inevitably miss out on a lot of what the vast frontier has to offer. Most notoriously,the previous game’s setting of New Austin and West Elizabeth are present in the game, but can only be fully explored after the campaign is all but over.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomdid a lot to elevate the expansive map it mostly inherited from its predecessor. The complex structures and vehicles players can cobble together using the game’s Ultrahand ability open up wild new avenues for exploration and traversal, and the addition of Sky Islands and the expansive Underground vastly increases the size of the play space.
Link’s quest to defeat Ganondorf and protect the land of Hyrule will inevitably bring him all over the world, from the desert sands of the Gerudo to the Gorons' volcanic domain. But some of the greatest treasures are hidden in more secret realms, where the main story never treads. Players can find terrifying and fascinating secrets like the menacing Gleeok Den and a series of brutal coliseums, but only if they spend much more time underground than the storyline expects them to.
FromSoftware pulled out all the stops for its first open-world soulsborne game, and the result is a staggeringly large open world that fans can lose dozens of hours exploring. Players have multiple options to pursue their main goal of restoring the Elden Ring; they must challenge a variety of Shardbearers lurking in Legacy Dungeons throughout the land.
Fans can pick and choose their battles on their quest to the top. This means that even major, prominent locations like Stormveil Castle can be entirely bypassed if fans so choose. Players can make it through an entire playthrough without ever meeting some ofthe most prominent bosses. In fact, if they aren’t diligently pursuing questlines and referencing walkthroughs, many fans will likely entirely miss regions like Miquella’s Haligtree, a massive location home to Malenia, one of the game’s most notorious bosses.
Fallout: New Vegasremains an enduring open-world RPG due in large part to the high level of interactivity and flexibility of its world. As players make choices and side with factions throughout the Wasteland, characters begin responding to their decisions, opening up new paths and possibilities in future quests.
The Mojave Wasteland is full of secrets. Players who focus on the main quest and their journey to get revenge on Benny will miss out on a lot of surprising and intricate sidequests, some of which might even have implications on the final battle. While the main storyline does see the Courier bumping elbows with most of the major factions in the game, intricate and detailed regions like Vault 11, which features a gripping and involved story of political corruption and cruelty, are completely optional, and easy to miss.
