Summary
- Open-world games tackle mature themes like loss and honor, allowing players freedom in activities.
- Base building is crucial in these games, offering the first line of defense against threats.
- Tower defense gameplay involves building structures to fend off threats like zombies and aliens.
Open-world games provide expansive, highly detailed game maps for players to explore as they see fit. Many open-world games also follow the sandbox format, empowering players to undertake an activity they wish, at any time. Base building is a common feature of these games, and for some of them, the player's base is also their first line of defense against threats.
8 Best Open-World Games That Explore Mature Themes
Some open-world games address important mature themes, such as loss, sacrifice, honor and redemption.
Tower defense gameplay will often involve the player having to build defensive structures and weaponry to protect their base from threats such as wild creatures, zombies, aliens, and other aggressive inhabitants of the game world. A well-defended base will fight off a threat automatically, but an inadequately defended base could result in the player taking significant losses.
8 Conan Exiles
The Purge System Results In NPC Base Raids
Conan Exiles
- Released
- May 8, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Funcom
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Action-Adventure
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
Conan Exiles, which follows the lore from the Conan the Barbarian franchise quite closely, is a multiplayer action survival game that features a huge open world map with many different biomes. These range from grueling deserts to ice-cold tundra, and are the setting for the survival gameplay mechanics.
8 Best Open World Games With Animal Taming
Many open world games feature some form of animal taming, from capturing and riding mounts, to using pets to help in combat.
Base building is a large part of the gameplay in Conan Exiles, and players can group together to build entire communities if they wish to. The game has a feature called the Purge System, which sends countless waves of NPC enemies to assault a player’s base. Therefore, every player needs to set up base defenses to fight off these attacks. What makes the game special in this respect, is that players can team up to build a huge, impregnable defensive structure if they wish.
7 RimWorld
Procedurally Generated Map With Attacking Threats
RimWorld
- Released
- October 17, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
Rimworld is primarily a colony management game. The gameplay takes place on a large, procedurally generated open-world map. The idea is that the player must strive to build a fully self-sufficient colony, and this includes a base that can defend against attack.
Base defenses are tested by a number of different types of enemies in Rimworld. These include mechanoids and raiders, and also wild creatures. These attacks can be quite frequent, so it is important that players build defensively from the outset in this game. There are a range of different defensive structures available, including turrets, traps, and walls.
6 Project Zomboid
Defend Against Undead Hordes
Project Zomboid
- Released
- November 8, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- The Indie Stone
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Project Zomboid is a 2D zombie survival game, that focuses on player freedom and sandbox gameplay. The game map is huge, and the player is free to enter every building to search for resources or defend themselves against the undead.
As the game progresses, the number of zombies that spawn on the map increases, and eventually this will result in huge hordes of them wandering around. If they detect the player or any of their companions, they will attack endlessly. Therefore, a tower defense style of base building is crucial in Project Zomboid, as if the player’s base is overrun, they could lose valuable resources, and some or even all of their companions could be bitten and begin to turn into zombies themselves.
5 7 Days To Die
Prepare For Blood Moon Attacks
7 Days to Die
- Released
- June 28, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- The Fun Pimps
- Platform(s)
- Linux, macOS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One
- OpenCritic Rating
- Weak
7 Days To Die is an open-world zombie survival game that prioritizes defensive base building as a crucial aspect of the gameplay. The game requires the player to explore and exploit a number of different biomes, all of which contain towns, cities, and wilderness POIs. All of which are infested by zombies.
10 Nintendo Switch Open-World Games With The Best Optional Content, Ranked
From A Short Hike to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, there are myriad open-world Switch games overflowing with fun optional content.
However, it is the Blood Moon, which takes place every 7 days, that will require the player to set up a base with comprehensive defenses. At 10 pm on Blood Moon night, wave after wave of zombies will try to attack the player, and this will not stop until 4 am in the morning. The player can use traps, walls, turrets, and other defensive structures to try and survive this 6-hour window. As the game progresses, the waves of zombies become larger and are made up of more dangerous undead creatures.
4 Empyrion - Galactic Survival
Defend On The Ground And In Space
Empyrion - Galactic Survival
- Released
- August 5, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Eleon Game Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Open-World
Empyrion - Galactic Survival is an open-world space survival game. The player is free to explore whole planets, their moons, and also any space stations that they can locate. Mining resources, crafting equipment and weapons, and, of course, building a base are all features of this game.
Base defenses are a requirement in Empyrion - Galactic Survival. The base will be attacked by space pirates, aliens, and other AI foes. Automated turrets and defense drones can be deployed to deal with these threats, and the player will need to design their base layout strategically, to ensure it is protected sufficiently from every vector of attack.
3 Grounded
Defend Against Giant Bugs
Grounded
- Released
- September 27, 2022
- ESRB
- Teen // Blood, Mild Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Obsidian Entertainment
Grounded is a pretty unique survival gam e, set in an open world where the player has been shrunk to the size of an insect. This sets the scene for some very well-thought-out survival gameplay, as the player tries to find a way to protect themselves in a landscape replete with flooded tunnels, deep cave systems, and, of course, lots of enemies.
From a tower defense perspective, Grounded requires the player to build a defensive base. These need to be heavily fortified to fight off swarms of attacking insects. Spike traps, turrets, walls, and other defensive structures can be placed to defend a base. Grounded makes this list primarily because of its fresh take on the survival genre, as well as the need to defend themselves from giant bugs.
2 Valheim
Increasingly Dangerous Base Attacks
Valheim
- Released
- February 2, 2021
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Iron Gate AB
- Platform(s)
- Linux, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Valheim is a Viking-inspired open-world survival game that is based on Norse mythology. With its unique progression system, requiring the player to defeat a series of bosses, the game can be quite a challenge, especially for new players. This challenge is made more so by the inclusion of base raids.
8 Best Open-World Games That Focus On Building A Business, Ranked
These great open-world games include a focus on the ability to run a business, building one (or several) from the ground up.
Once the player has established a base, there it will occasionally be attacked by animals and monsters. Initially, these will be quite minor attacks that are easily repelled. But as the game progresses, these attacks become firstly, more frequent, and secondly, much harder to fight off, as the number of enemies and their hazard level increases. The player needs to build defensively in order to stop these attacks from destroying their base.
1 Factorio
Automation Game With Tower Defense
Factorio
- Released
- August 14, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
Factorio is a game that requires the player to set up a massive, sprawling manufacturing complex. Resource procurement and making sure that supply chains are available and optimized means playing Factorio takes a fair bit of thought and planning.
Unfortunately, as the player industrializes an ever-increasing area of the planet, the environment begins to become polluted. And as the land becomes more and more polluted, the local wildlife begins to evolve and gain aggressive traits. Therefore, the player must build with defense in mind, although likely not right at the start of the game. Drones, artillery turrets, and other defensive structures can be placed to protect the player’s industrial facilities from this threat.
28 Best Open-World Games With Third-Person Shooter Gameplay, Ranked
Open-world games are inescapable, but which are the best titles that also have third-person shooter gameplay?