Summary
- Indie games with smaller, denser maps offer a faster pace & unique experiences.
- Kenshi, a slow-burning RPG, rewards player agency with an expansive and dangerous map.
- Outer Wilds presents diverse, immersive planets for contemplative exploration.
Open-world games are typically known for their vast, expansive maps. However, while these larger maps can be awe-inspiring, they're often diluted; the expansive nature of these games often results in stretches of uninteresting exploration, and it can be easy to miss out on the finer details within such a grand scope.
Open-World Games That Focus On Combat Over Exploration
These open-world games might feature a mix of exploration and combat, but they focus more heavily on combat and challenging encounters over discovery.
With their lower budgets and team sizes, indie games often employ smaller, denser maps that allow for a faster pace. Others, such as Kenshi, provide larger worlds that synergize with their focus on gameplay and player expression.
8 Dredge
A Minimalist World That Controls The Pace
Dredge
- Released
- March 31, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Black Salt Games
- Publisher(s)
- Team17
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Dredge is a minimalist open-world fishing game that sets itself apart with a soothing atmosphere, intuitive mini-games, and elements of eldritch horror. It excels with its stylish visuals and immersive sound design, elevated by the small scale of its environments.
Best Open-World Games That Reward Adaptive Players
These creative open-world games are great for adaptive players who crave dynamic challenges and rewarding creative solutions.
While the open waters surrounding Dredge's archipelago provide ample room to breathe, the world has been designed with intuitive navigation in mind. Featuring several unique areas, Dredge keeps a steady pace thanks to its carefully constructed scope, ensuring players are never caught mindlessly sailing across miles of uninteresting water.
7 The Long Dark
Desolate Environments & Cozy Interiors
The Long Dark
- Released
- August 1, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Hinterland Studio
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
The Long Dark is a hardcore survival game with an emphasis on simulation and environmental dangers. Tasked with battling against the elements, players will spend much of their time scavenging the surrounding area in search of supplies. But leaving the safety of a shelter is always dangerous.
Thankfully, The Long Dark features a carefully constructed world that allows players to gain a foothold in its harsh environments; it's easier to scavenge when players know where the safer and more dangerous areas are located. This is easier to remember thanks to the compact regions of The Long Dark's world, which are interconnected to form a larger, more expansive map.
6 Blood West
Expressive Wild West Landscapes
Blood West
- Released
- February 10, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
Blood West's open-world map is made up of a handful of free-form regions, each of which is visually striking with the game's old-school presentation and unique setting. Combining Wild West imagery with eldritch horror, Blood West is able to offer immediately unique and immersive environments to explore.
What makes these maps so fun to explore, however, is the game's expressive gameplay. Though primarily emphasizing stealth gameplay, Blood West takes clear inspiration from immersive-sims, giving players the freedom to tackle obstacles in their own way. Combined with an abundance of unique hidden (and not so hidden) items to loot, exploring Blood West is a frequently rewarding and often tense experience that's always fun to look at.
5 A Short Hike
A Cozy & Colorful Environment
A Short Hike
- Released
- April 5, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
A Short Hike is a short-but-sweet indie game that excels with its minimalist open world. With heavily stylized visuals to match its small scale, A Short Hike wears its heart on its sleeve. Despite being a small experience, however, A Short Hike's open-world map is jam-packed with memorable characters, points of interest, and tremendous vistas.
Exploration-Heavy Games With Great Gameplay
These incredible video games not only showcase vast and complicated environments to explore, but they also deliver great gameplay to match.
What really sells this experience is the intuitive movement and relaxing atmosphere, elevated by a superb sense of color and clear gameplay loop. For fans of exploration games who are looking to relax, A Short Hike's open-world map is the perfect place.
4 Kenshi
A Strange & Dangerous Landscape
Kenshi
- Released
- December 6, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Lo-Fi Games
- Publisher(s)
- Lo-Fi Games
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Open-World, Survival
- Platform(s)
- PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Kenshi is an open-world sandbox RPG that champions player agency to a great extent. Players are able to build unique characters, set their own goals, and make their own way in the game's open-world. However, it's a slow-burning experience that can take time to get a handle on, especially as the game's open-world map is both expansive and deadly.
This only makes Kenshi more rewarding, as success is rarely achieved easily. And, although Kenshi's open-world map is large and full of harsh, empty expanses, it's dotted with memorable landmarks and points of interest. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of its threats and wandering NPCs facilitates emergent gameplay that makes the most of the open-world map.
3 Disco Elysium
A Small But Evocative Setting
Disco Elysium
- Released
- October 15, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- ZA/UM
- Publisher(s)
- ZA/UM
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Stadia
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Although its open areas may be limited, Disco Elysium's world is a consistently immersive place to be, thanks primarily to evocative writing and stylized presentation. The map itself may be relatively small, but the poignant music, painterly visuals, and ensemble of wacky characters all help to paint a bigger picture.
What's more, the map itself is positively packed with memorable locations painted with a painstaking attention to detail. From the broad sweeps and impressive landmarks to the finer touches and subtle nuances of its myriad nooks and crannies, there's no place like Disco Elysium's Revachol.
2 Outer Wilds
Diverse & Mysterious Planets
Outer Wilds
- Released
- May 28, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Mobius Digital
- Publisher(s)
- Annapurna Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Fans of exploration-heavy experiences and thought-provoking sci-fi are more than likely to enjoy this open-world adventure. Set across a variety of memorable planets, Outer Wilds tasks players with unraveling a mystery as they explore open space in their own spaceship. It's immersive, contemplative, and utterly memorable, thanks in large part to the free-form design.
Exploring space and the myriad planets freely is what makes Outer Wilds so immersive, but it's the dynamic nature of its worlds and the sheer creativity on display that makes the map so interesting. Every location has its own wonders to witness and nooks to uncover, resulting in an experience that's all about the overwhelming sense of discovery.
1 Caves Of Qud
An Exotic Science-Fantasy World
Caves Of Qud
- Released
- July 15, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
Caves Of Qud combines procedural and hand-crafted content to great effect, offering players an evocative science-fantasy world built from pure imagination. From its myriad creatures and wacky NPCs to its exotic wilderness environments and mysterious ruins, the open-world map of Caves Of Qud is packed with interesting ideas.
Thanks to a healthy dose of unique items to find and utilize, exploring this map is a frequently rewarding experience. Whether players are pursuing a narrative quest, or simply wandering across its diverse landscapes, Qud's open-world map is full of surprises.
Best Open-World Games With Enigmatic Worlds
These excellent open-world games deliver wonderfully cryptic experiences, offering enigmatic worlds to explore.