Summary
- Some studios embrace fun bugs in open-world games, leading to memorable experiences.
- Goat Simulator 3 thrives on jank and clipping, making glitches part of the fun gameplay.
- Games like Fallout 4 and The Legend of Zelda encourage exploiting mechanics for creative play.
Balance is one of the most difficult parts of game design, especially for those set in an open world. On the one hand, jank can rip a player right out of the experience or frustrate them into quitting. On the other hand, finding exploits or glitches can be one of the most memorable and enjoyable parts of playing a video game.
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These open-world games refuse to guide you, as getting lost is the point. From STALKER to Morrowind, they reward the bold and punish the careless.
With this realization, some studios have begun leaving certain fun bugs in their game for players to enjoy, or even building whole games around breakability. Whether through creative mechanics or developer oversights, these are the open-world games that are the most fun to break.
7 The Bloodline (Early Access)
A Bonkers, Off-The-Wall Fantasy Adventure
The Bloodline
- Developer(s)
- Shieldbearer Studios
WHERE TO PLAY
- The breaker: over 500 skills, including wall running and a grappling hook
Although The Bloodline is still in early access, this open-world sandbox continues to demonstrate an "everything but the kitchen sink" and "implement now, polish later" design philosophy, resulting in a chaotic gameplay buffet. There are too many activities to count, all packaged as minigames, and all of them are optional.
Learnable spells and skills that completely break the game's physics or balance can be found plentifully around the worlds, and mixed with the completely bombastic open-world movement mechanics (wall running, grappling hooks, and magical jet boosting). While it seems as though three bugs get added for every one crazy new feature, they can lead to some hilarious situations with the right mindset.
6 Goat Simulator 3
The Greatest Glitch Game Of All Time
Goat Simulator 3
- Released
- November 17, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- Simulation, Adventure
- The breaker: the goat and the bizarre physics engine
Not quite pets but not quite fearsome beasts, goats come with plenty of inherent comedic potential. If it weren't obvious from the title alone, Goat Simulator 3 is something of an open-world, physics-simulator parody game borne out of glitch-oriented game design. Namely, if a glitch was funny, it was apparently allowed to stay in.
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The second installment in the Goat series perfects the jank and makes clipping, ragdolling, and physics exploits a part of the gameplay. Every system in Goat Simulator 3 feels like it's one step away from completely falling apart, but that’s exactly the appeal.
5 Watch_Dogs Legion
Hacking The System (And Enemy AI)
Watch Dogs Legion
- Released
- October 29, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- The breaker: the spider droid and rideable flying drone
The Watch_Dogs series seems to have been conceived as Grand Theft Auto but with cheats as part of the gameplay, at least when it comes to hacking infrastructure and tech, making cities playgrounds for hackers to manipulate them and their central operating system. Watch_Dogs: Legion took a massive leap into sandbox gameplay by making every Londoner a potential playable character with their own skills and equipment.
If balancing an open-world game with so many playable characters sounds impossible, it pretty much is. That said, most of the fun in Legion comes from finding the most optimal methods for completing missions or the most unconventional operatives for the resistance (grannies, dog walkers, beekeepers, etc.), although most of them involve a rideable cargo drone and spider droids.
4 Fallout 4
Settling In To A Broken Build
Fallout 4
- Released
- November 10, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- The breaker: the settlement, scrapping, and crafting mechanics that can be exploited from very early on
In terms of balance, the Fallout series has always been slightly more tied down balance-wise than its sibling RPG series, The Elder Scrolls, besides the glitches that its adopted parent, Bethesda, is still known for today. That may have something to do with Fallout having a skill point allocation system as opposed to the usage-based skill leveling system, and an absence of world-breaking magic.
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However, Fallout 4 introduced the settlement system and with it a small village of exploits. Besides players happily discovering a slew of workarounds for their impossible builds, settlements offer players a way to farm healing items and develop extremely powerful and durable weapons and armor very early on. Of course, the rest of the world is also full of exploitable secrets, such as fast-travel tricks and the respawning money bag at the Lexington Super Duper Mart.
3 The Legend Of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Ultrahanding Players All Of The Tools Of Creation
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Released
- May 12, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Rated E for Everyone 10+ for Fantasy Violence and Mild Suggestive Themes
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Action, Open-World
- The breaker: the Ultrahand's Merge, Fuse, and Ascend abilities
If Breath of the Wild was the Zelda series' first foray into emergent sandbox gameplay, Tears of the Kingdom took a high dive (probably from one of the floating islands) into full-blown systemic chaos. Every new ability, most notably Ultrahand, Fuse, and Ascend, was designed with layered interactions in mind, allowing players to not just solve puzzles, but sidestep or completely rewire them.
Players can construct bee-powered weapons, mad vehicles, flamethrowers, working engines of war, and Hyrulian mech suits to take down the Demon King and his minions. TotK doesn't just tolerate rule-breaking, it encourages it with the aim of blurring the line between player and developer. For example, Ascend was originally a developer tool that Nintendo left for fans to use themselves.
2 Minecraft
Redstone And Out-Of-The-Block Thinking
Minecraft
- Released
- November 18, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
- The breaker: combining redstone circuitry with any number of blocks and objects
To the uninitiated, Minecraft's worlds may seem as stable as a gravity-defying LEGO set. However, redstone changes all that by allowing players to create useful contraptions with repeaters, comparators, pistons, observers, slime blocks, and other objects that allow for flying machines, item farms, elevators, rocket launchers, teleporters, drills that can cut through unbreakable bedrock, and so much more.
Some players have even gone as far as building workable calculators, computers, and even ways to run and project other video games inside Minecraft. Entire YouTube careers have been launched on finding new ways to exploit redstone, and the exciting prospect for many creative Minecraft fans is that not every discovery or invention has yet been made.
1 The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
The Grand Champion Of Exploitable Mechanics And Jank
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
- Released
- April 22, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action, RPG, Open-World, Adventure
- The breaker: spellmaking, sigil stones, ragdoll physics, and general bugginess
Exploitable mechanics have been with The Elder Scrolls series from as far back as Daggerfall, when players were given the option to craft their own spells or design a completely broken character from the start. Morrowind famously gives players access to game-breaking alchemy, and Skyrim's blacksmithing and alchemy follow in the same suit. However, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remaster (which, to the delight of longtime fans, preserved most of the original bugs and even added a few fresh ones) brings the best balance-destroying potential and an optimal level of jank.
This is thanks to the spellmaking and sigil features, as well as the hilarious ragdoll physics system. For example, mages can create spells that make the target vulnerable to fire and set an intense burst of flame on them for a single second, killing them instantly. Sigil stones allow players to create a set of armor that turns them completely invisible and impervious to consequences. Tricks like holding up a pitcher to create an invincible shield for arrows still work, and instantly ragdolling enemies upon their death is still as amusing as it was in 2006 when Oblivion was first released.
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