Summary
- Open-world games have evolved to include more creatively focused mechanics such as base building, resource collecting, and character customization.
- Games like No Man's Sky, Fallout, and 7 Days To Die allow players to build and customize their bases in unique and creative ways.
- Minecraft is the most creatively rewarding open-world game, giving players the freedom to literally do anything they want and has a massive modding community for customization.
If the early to mid-2000s was the era of the linear military shooter, the 2010s and 20s have undoubtedly been the era of the open-world game. From the massive hit that is Minecraft, to games like God of War, players can't seem to get enough of wide open landscapes that they can explore to their heart's content.
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One of the ways open-world games have evolved over the past decade, however, is to ingrain more creatively focused mechanics into the gameplay loop. This includes base building, resource collecting, weapon modding, character customization, and more. Some of this is undoubtedly due to the sheer popularity of Minecraft, with many games taking its ideas and trying to integrate them into their format.
8 No Man's Sky
Though it was in a rough state on launch, with many deriding it as broken and unfinished, No Man's Sky has seen a massive rebound in the years since. The core gameplay loop focuses on space exploration, where players will explore procedurally generated planets to gather resources.
Using these resources is where the creativity comes in, as these are what players use to build and customize their bases. These bases can be built practically any way the player wants, anywhere they want, making the creative potential nearly endless.
7 The Fallout Series
The Fallout series is one of the best 3D RPGs around depending on the game and is actually very rewarding when it comes to creativity. The classics and New Vegas are known for rewarding smart and creative character builds while games like Fallout 4 and 76 have robust weapon customization and settlement systems. Each allows the player to build virtually whatever they want within reason.
One thing the latter games starting with Fallout 3 excel in, however, is letting the player mod the game in all sorts of interesting ways. Mods allow the player to configure their Fallout game any way they see fit, whether it involves changing the visuals, music, story and so much more via mixing and matching just some of the many thousands of mods that exist between all the games.
6 7 Days To Die
Think Minecraft but in a more realistic-looking zombie apocalypse setting. That is 7 Days To Die. Not only does the player scavenge for materials in much the same way, but they will also mine and collect those materials to use when building fortifications, weapons, and much more.
The player truly can build whatever they want in 7 Days To Die. In fact, there are whole strategies for building countless different styles of fort and defense layouts that can be seen on YouTube. Building a base from scratch isn't even mandatory since there are plenty of pre-generated structures for the player to explore and modify as they see fit.
5 Subnautica
Subnautica is one of the original success stories for early-access games. Its mechanics and narrative were slowly developed over time through consistent updates until it was ready to be released as a complete product in 2018. One area in particular that was refined over time was the base-building portion of the game, which is a rather large one at that.
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Players explore the ocean to gather raw materials with which to build a base, which can be built any way they'd like in any location. Both the interior and exterior can be customized to an impressive degree as can the size and scope of each base.
4 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
While Skyrim is technically an open-world action/adventure game with RPG elements, it also allows for a staggering amount of player creativity in the form of the character creator, house-building system, and of course the leveling. One thing Skyrim also has that other open-world games might not, however, is a nearly endless pool of mods for players to download on a whim.
These mods can either drastically or minimally change even the tiniest element of the gameplay experience, and thanks to mod managers, players can rather easily customize their list of mods at a moment's notice. This adds a whole other dimension of creativity to the experience.
3 ARK: Survival Evolved
As far as open-world base-building games go, ARK: Survival Evolved is certainly one of the best. The potential to build any kind of base there is, whether it's a high-tech utopia underwater, or a high rise in the middle of the desert exists for every player. What ARK brings to the open-world survival genre is a sense of scale that few of its peers can match.
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Players can make utterly gigantic, landscape-changing builds that rival Minecraft, except it looks far better due to the game's use of the Unreal 4 engine. Having the ability to build up a potentially massive tribe from scratch while taming wild dinosaurs just isn't something one finds very often in gaming.
2 Starfield
Compared to prior Bethesda games, Starfield is very similar in how it allows the player to customize their character in a multitude of different ways, and it already has a thriving modding community pumping out new mods every day for players to experiment with. Aside from this, Starfield brings something entirely new to the table in the form of shipbuilding.
Much like how Fallout 4 introduced settlements, Starfield expanded the concept to the player's personal starship, allowing them to customize various parts in exchange for resources. Alongside the basic character creation, this customization has tangible effects on the gameplay experience, making it one of the more rewarding aspects of the core gameplay loop.
1 Minecraft
Minecraft is flat-out the most creatively rewarding open-world game out there right now. The kinds of things that players have made, from personal houses to whole cities and even working computers, Minecraft gives the player the tools to literally do anything they want.
This isn't even touching on the massive modding community that, like Skyrim, allows the user to change the game exactly how they want extremely easily. It's no wonder why Minecraft has become the juggernaut that it has because it truly is whatever the player makes of it.