Some video games are predicated on the idea of constant player movement. Experiences such as Ghostrunner and the ever-hectic N+, for instance, hammer home the point that stopping and standing still, even momentarily, can be deadly.
Free Open-World Games With The Best Exploration
These free open-world games offer vast and beautiful open worlds, great exploration, loads of content; there's almost no catch.
"Just keep swimming," as a very famous fish would put it, or just keep fighting if the game in question has super-aggressive combat. Other titles, though, focus on the idea of constant travel around the world rather than continuous, endless runner-esque movement. If you're looking for titles that'll keep pushing you to explore and see more of a vast world, these titles should fit the bill perfectly.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Take In More And More Of Kojima's Fascinating World
Death Stranding 2 is often referred to as a walking simulator, and while this isn't strictly entirely untrue, it massively undersells the experience. Hideo Kojima has a way of splicing genres and embracing utterly unique mechanics, and that's certainly what he's done with this sequel. Sam Porter Bridges is not simply out to deliver packages, but to play his part in rebuilding civilization. Quite literally, in a way.
In this game, momentum is everything. There's an enormous, hazardous, and largely barren world ahead of our hero, but time isn't up for humankind yet. It's been decimated, though, by the threat from natural disasters and ghastly creatures. There's more combat in this title than in the original Death Stranding, and it can be nicely reactive, doing a good job of changing the pace and reminding us that there's rarely a moment to stop and recuperate. The further Sam progresses, the more there is for him to do, and the more involved the developing network for defense and communication you're building becomes.
The Wandering Village
You'll Move Whether You Like It Or Not
At first glance, The Wandering Village might look like quite a conventional town-builder. Paths to build, crops to prepare, production to see to, and a variety of buildings to house the townsfolk and serve their needs. Then, you notice that the background is moving. The big twist here is that the village is wandering because it's built on the back of a huge creature, named Onbu (which means "piggy-back ride," as the game's Creative Director, Philomena Schwab, explained to Xbox Wire), who is compelled to just keep on walking. Doing so takes the village to different areas to which the player must adapt in terms of their resources, in a similar fashion to the different seasons in Don't Starve.
In this way, the movement isn't just a design gimmick, but a fundamental part of the game's progress. As the new leader of this curious community, you get wrapped up in the story, which concerns the nature of Onbu and the efforts to tackle the mysterious poison that lingers in the world below. The traveling focus also means that others can join your community as you go, but even without it, The Wandering Village offers a suite of charming and engaging building and management features that aren't too complex to get to grips with.
Subnautica
You Never Know What You'll Find Under The Ocean
In survival games, some players like to steadily develop the largest and most luxurious bases they can. For others, it's all about maintaining a nomadic lifestyle, keeping a small inventory's worth of the survival goods you'll need, and replenishing as you go. In Subnautica, the latter works very well, and it's also a fascinating novelty to be primarily exploring an ocean world from beneath the water rather than a great landmass.
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You can strategically place supply lines of sorts, make simpler structures and equipment to keep you moving, and generally be quite self-sustaining. You can dot your creations around the map, big or small, as you see fit. Especially later in the game, with more advanced tools, you'll have access to the upgrades you need to be sure that you'll never be too far away from valuable resources. You'll probably become quite familiar with the depths of 4546B as you fight to develop the means to escape it.
Darkest Dungeon 2
The Stagecoach Rattles On
For the sequel to the lengthy horror RPG Darkest Dungeon, Red Hook decided to really mix things up. Previously, the player would dispatch their chosen four party members to a specific location on a quest, then they would be directly controlled as they moved through a series of corridors and rooms on foot. In Darkest Dungeon 2, the Stagecoach is a major mechanic, and the party sets out from the Crossroads in it. Their ultimate goal is the Mountain, with the goal of administering Hope to a corrupted relic known as the Iron Crown.
Battles themselves play out in a familiar turn-based, formation-focused manner, but traversing the various horrific areas that lead to the Mountain means steering the Stagecoach through them. It's a bit of a jarring perspective shift, but the player does have some opportunity to scout the paths ahead and choose a merchant or NPC they need in that moment or avoid a trap. The Shrines of Reflection are particularly important stops along the way, allowing the player to learn more about the pasts of each Hero, learning new techniques for them as their backstories unfold.
No Man's Sky
That's No Moon
With the size of No Man's Sky's world (or universe), it's fair to say that there's plenty of room to expand. Who needs bases when you can have whole planets? Travel to one, take a look around, claim what you can, and then move on. For many, this enormous title is all about the journey rather than the destination, and it can take you to all kinds of fascinating places. Even so, if you'd like to set down roots and get started on an expansive base, that's possible too.
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No Man's Sky gives you the tools to do so and some gentle instruction through missions, but it's really just another option in your toolkit rather than a necessity. Post-Voyagers, the game has provided more options than ever for designing your own spacecraft, and that could be all you need. Some of us here on Earth all but live in our RVs, and the game's freighters are just a futuristic version of that, in a manner of speaking.
Mad Max
Movement Equals Survival, Hopefully
In the dystopian world of Mad Max, lone survivors and loose groups quarrel over the few survival supplies remaining on a ravaged planet. Life has been reduced to scavenging, lawlessness, and dramatic, ludicrous displays of vehicular combat. Consider it part Borderlands and part Twisted Metal.
What this means, of course, is that there's no comfortable, well-supplied home base for Mad Max to return to and rest in luxury. Living off the land, or what little the land can still provide, is the route to finally accessing the so-called Plains of Silence. Others, needless to say, either want to get their hands on your resources or to guard theirs, and so many of those you'll meet on your journey will be distinctly hostile towards you. Mad Max is a game, then, of almost constantly journeying around an open world, building and maintaining what you can, and taking down all who oppose you along the way.
Raft
Life On The Open Ocean
The survival genre is one in which only the resourceful survive for long. Typically, you're plonked in an increasingly hostile environment with nothing but what you can find and make use of along the way. Raft is a fantastic, down-to-basics example, in which you're adrift with a meager raft on a flooded planet.
Once again, much of the human race is lost, this time to catastrophic flooding. Protagonist Maya gathers what she needs to proceed onwards, in the Mad Max-esque hope that there's a safe haven for fellow survivors somewhere out there. Along the way, sharks are the primary danger, though you'll also be beset by the likes of seagulls, who will delight in stealing and eating your food. Repairing and maintaining your raft as needed all happens on the go, and the loop of hopping onto islands you pass and collecting what you can keeps up that feeling of a non-stop struggle for survival.
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Fans of the survival genre who are looking for their next favorite game should keep an eye on these upcoming releases.