Best Open-World RPGs Without Level Scaling

Some gamers don't like the idea of enemies leveling up with them. In their eyes, level scaling defeats the purpose of leveling up and makes getting stronger feel irrelevant. The open-world games below should fit right in their wheelhouse, then. They eschew the concept in favor of other ways to balance the gameplay.

These open-world games either start out difficult and get easier as players grow stronger, or cleverly curb how fast the player levels up so they do not become overpowered. When a new area presents a particularly challenging set of new enemies, players are further encouraged to explore and do side quests to eventually match the new monsters' strength.

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6 Elden Ring

As Brutal And Unforgiving As It Is Mysterious

FromSoftware's epic open-world RPG puts the joy back into the simple act of exploring an unknown land. The world is open to players pretty much from the start, though some bosses and story events lock off certain areas. In the opening hours, only the weakest fodder enemies are approachable, but through leveling up, players can more confidently explore dangerous areas.

As hard as Elden Ring is, there are enough paths to go down that players should never feel like they have to enter a dungeon at too low a level. If simple enemies are causing too much trouble, it is a sign to leave and come back later when one is stronger. Elden Ring takes player agency to a new level in open-world games by even making them mark points of interest on the map themselves instead of the game leaving a bunch of them automatically.

5 Xenoblade Chronicles

A Strange Science-Fiction Landscape

Xenoblade Chronicles feels a lot like Final Fantasy 12 when it comes to traversing vast landscapes on foot, fighting enemies, and passing gigantic threats that are clearly too strong to take on at the moment. Progression in the game is pretty precise. If the party is a couple of levels below the enemy, they barely stand a chance at victory. If they are just a couple of levels higher, then they steamroll them and gain only a pittance of experience points.

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This leaves little room for experimenting or trying to break the game, but it also lets players clearly know when an area is too intense for them at the moment. It can feel restricting, but letting players know what areas are or are not explorable is important for a game with a world as big as this.

4 Dragon's Dogma 2

Quirky, Difficult, And Surprising Fantasy RPG

The long-awaited sequel to the cryptic 2012 open-world RPG delivers a more refined version of what players came to love about the series. Players are free to experiment and travel the world as they please. This does not mean the world will not bite back, however.

Dragon's Dogma 2 starts out brutally difficult. Players are likely to fail many times, but that failure is just a learning opportunity. As players become stronger and learn more about the game's system, the world's threats become less deadly. However, the game still has some surprises in store to drive up the challenge later on. The endgame in particular offers a whole new set of quests that provide a challenge even for the most prepared explorers.

3 Gothic 3

A Group Of Wolves Is As Dangerous As A Monster

Gothic came before a time when 3D open-world RPGs were so abundant and their influence could be felt in many other open-world titles. The third game came out in 2006 and has a familiar structure that lets players explore, complete quests, and eventually make decisions that affect the game world.

Part of Gothic 3's charm is the difficulty and the lack of level scaling. Depending on the type of gamer one is, getting a game over from a seemingly innocuous forest animal might feel unfair or perfectly reasonable. Wolves are no joke in real life even to trained hunters, so maybe it is right for them to destroy the player so easily.

2 Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Do Side Quests To Even Out The Levels With Monsters

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes the beautiful visuals of the game and blows it up into an open-world environment with various biomes. The game features four difficulty modes to make sure every type of gamer has an experience tailored for them. On a first playthrough, most people are likely to play on Normal, which offers just enough pushback to make players train a bit and do some side quests. People who do everything are likely to become overpowered.

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Those looking to breeze through the story will have a harder time. Once hard mode is unlocked, the game provides a new challenge that forces players to think about the battle system and exploit its nuances to come out victorious.

1 Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Smoothly Balanced So Players Don't Have To Grind

Infinite Wealth takes place on three distinct open-world maps. The chapters bounce players between them, but eventually they have access to everything at their fingertips. As an RPG, Infinite Wealth offers an extremely smooth progression that ups the challenge at the right moments in the narrative.

Sometimes it is even rough to take on common enemies on the street, but players level up fast enough to see the results of the training quickly, so it never feels like a grind. This only becomes a problem after beating the game. Most of the endgame content is locked behind launch DLC, making it almost impossible to reach the max level with the base game.

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