Open-world games have always focused on giving players a huge amount of freedom, primarily in terms of exploration but also in the story itself. It is important for the players to feel like they are actually a part of the narrative, as if they are simply following instructions and completing countless quests without much choice. The game can become stale pretty quickly.
Best Co-Op Open-World Games
Here are a variety of options for the best co-op games that can be experienced in an open world setting.
However, there are many great games in the genre that give players the chance to change, alter, and even break the main quest, whether literally by altering the trajectory of the narrative itself or by returning later after gearing up and clearing out the rest of the world. Whatever the case, this level of freedom makes the world so much more enjoyable to explore and exist in, as there is no longer a need to adhere to one specific path.
10 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
World-Ending Stakes But No Real Urgency
Details:
- Narrative tension collapses due to the side content
- The main quest can be delayed indefinitely
Skyrim’s story centres around an apocalyptic dragon threat, yet the game places no pressure on players to address it in a specific period of time. Instead, they can choose to progress entire guild questlines, civil wars, and personal narratives before the dragons even become a factor.
By delaying certain early quests, players can effectively disable core narrative elements for dozens of hours, even as other characters speak of the world ending. This disconnect erodes the tension of the story completely, transforming the main plot into a piece of background lore rather than the central focus.
9 Fallout: New Vegas
A Story Designed Around Player Decisions
Details:
- Players can remove entire factions from the game
- Endings adapt dynamically over time
Fallout: New Vegas treats its main story as a flexible framework rather than a fixed arc. For starters, major faction leaders can be killed as early as the first encounter, which can drastically shift alliances, and while this may seem like it would ruin the experience, the game actually adapts instead of collapsing.
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.
Because the player's allegiance is fluid, the story becomes a reflection of the individual's ideology and choices. By the end of the game, the entire narrative can effectively be completely dismantled should players choose to, by ruining groups from the inside, disrupting connections, and completely forgoing any major progression until absolutely necessary.
8 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Unintended Consequences Throughout
Details:
- Many outcomes are tied to subtle choices
- Story reveals can lose impact through exploration
The Witcher 3’s narrative is built on long-term consequences, but the game rarely signals when those consequences are being locked in. Seemingly minor choices can lead to pretty drastic outcomes, ranging from individual character deaths or entire endings falling apart, often without any clear indication in the present.
The exploration-first style of gameplay also leads to many characters being introduced well before the story properly frames them, which can result in their impact being lessened overall. There won't be any complete game changers, but players have enough control to disrupt storylines and diverse quests in ways unique to their playthrough.
7 The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Cutting Straight To The End
Details:
- The final boss can be fought right after the tutorial
- Story context can be virtually ignored
Breath of the Wild has one of the most game-breaking features of any open-world game. After completing the tutorial, players are free to challenge the final boss should they choose to, and this fact remains true from the moment they step into the world and for countless hours later.
8 Best Open-World Games That Everyone Should Play, Ranked
There's a reason that open-world games are so popular, and while there are countless choices available, these genre entries are must-play experiences.
Players who rush the ending experience a stripped-down version of the story, but having the choice there the whole time makes the journey so much more rewarding. At no point are they forced into a final encounter that would normally halt their gameplay progress, and instead, they can explore as much or as little as they choose, completely breaking the traditional open-world story flow.
6 Cyberpunk 2077
Molding The World To Your Will
Details:
- Endings unlocked through specific choices
- Open-world distractions pull players away from the story
Cyberpunk 2077 delivers a tightly written, cinematic main story that depends heavily on the player's emotional investment in its themes and characters. However, the open-world design allows players to divert their attention elsewhere whenever they choose, with some character relationships being deepened or resolved long before the narrative expects them to matter.
Also, certain endings can be unlocked with surprisingly limited engagement, while others require obscure dialogue choices disconnected from the main path. In a sense, the city becomes the story's biggest enemy, as players can decide to power up well beyond expectations and solve the larger mysteries of the world, without ever needing to conclude V's arc.
5 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Total Narrative Freedom
Details:
- Major events are broken apart without ever touching the main story
- Contradictory moments become almost inevitable
Morrowind offers nearly unparalleled narrative freedom, and one of the biggest by-products of that is the lack of protection against self-sabotage. Players can kill essential NPCs, break prophecy chains, or complete major faction arcs without ever touching the main story, but even when things completely break down, the game allows them to continue playing regardless.
When it comes to the characters and the world, a lot of the dialogue is based on the assumption of knowledge that the player may or may not have, which can lead to late-game truths being revealed well ahead of time. This lack of structure turns the central prophecy into something else that can contradict itself or even vanish entirely.
4 Outer Wilds
Knowledge Is The Only Way
Details:
- Ending the game is dependent on knowledge alone
- Narrative order varies on a player-to-player basis
Outer Wilds is in a very small category of games where knowledge is the most important factor to the player's success. No amount of mechanical prowess or brute force can carry them through, but with enough information gathered, they can effectively jump straight to the end of the game.
Because of this fact, subsequent playthroughs become very redundant, as all of the revelations have already been uncovered, and any exploration just leads to the same outcome. It's a rare example of a game that can truly only be played once to be fully enjoyed.
3 Dragon’s Dogma
A World That Refuses To Wait
Details:
- Important NPCs can die permanently
- The main plot often becomes secondary
Dragon’s Dogma presents players with a mythical story of destiny and cyclical struggle, yet players are still able to spend dozens of hours hunting monsters, exploring ruins, or pursuing side quests while the central threat remains frozen in place. This undermines the urgency the narrative attempts to convey and often leads to a lot of questlines falling apart at the seams.
More radically, important NPCs can die permanently, sometimes eliminating story paths without warning, and a lot of late-game revelations can also reframe earlier events in drastic ways, meaning that players who delay or rush key moments often experience entirely different narrative perspectives, despite playing through the exact same game.
2 ELEX
Ignoring The Structure Is The Only Way
Details:
- Faction choices override certain plot arcs
- Revelations can occur out of sequence
ELEX drops players into a hostile world that refuses to guide them through the story at a fixed pace. Major narrative arcs tied to factions and larger groups can be entered at virtually any point, which means that without important context or build-up, players will find themselves either completely lost or well ahead of the curve in terms of information and lore.
In a lot of situations, the central plot can actually be overridden entirely, purely due to factional allegiance and the quests taken and specific times. And, because the combat difficulty is not scaled, determined players can access areas much earlier than usual, and as a result, the perception of many crucial events becomes drastically distorted for the worse.
1 Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Exploration Leading To New Answers
Details:
- Major villains can be taken out early
- Long-stretches of ignoring the main plot
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey sends players on an epic historical adventure built around family, fate, and political rivalries in the middle of Ancient Greece. Despite the stakes within the narrative, however, the pacing becomes unraveled almost immediately, as players are able to forgo any story progression and simply focus on the side activities that dominate the world.
This leads to a diminishing emotional urgency at best and a complete narrative upheaval at worst, with key cult members being susceptible to death far before their actual intended meeting. The story might technically adapt to the player's actions, but the emotional side of things never fully recovers when they go further afield and explore in an unconventional order.
8 Most Immersive Open-World Games Released in the Last Decade, Ranked
For truly immersive open worlds brimming with small details and special atmosphere, these titles released in the past 10 years are definite standouts.