Good Open-World Games With Tedious Exploration

Even the most beloved games aren’t perfect. Flaws are unavoidable, whether they’re present from the start or develop later on. Take The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, for instance. It’s considered a masterpiece thanks to its incredible exploration – you can glide and climb almost anything! However, not everyone enjoyed the way weapons break down over time.

Even great games aren’t perfect. A common problem is that while they create vibrant and fascinating worlds, actually getting around and exploring them can be frustrating. This is often due to slow movement or a lack of good ways to travel.

Death Stranding

Watch Your Feet

I remember when the first Death Stranding came out – it was such a bold move for Hideo Kojima after leaving Konami! You play as Sam, and the whole point of the game is literally walking across a huge, broken America, delivering stuff between bunkers. The map wasn’t real, obviously, but it still felt incredibly challenging because you couldn’t just stroll through the world; every step felt like work!

Players had to constantly adjust their weight to stay balanced, and falling could damage their cargo, sometimes causing Sam’s Bridge Baby to cry. This crying would then attract ghostly creatures. While vehicles and better equipment could make things easier, the original game was notoriously difficult.

Fallout 4

Sand Land

Considering how many new features Fallout 4 introduced to the Fallout series, it’s surprising it didn’t include vehicles or rideable creatures. Players could build and customize almost anything, but they still had to travel on foot. Luckily, the game world wasn’t overly dangerous, and the fast travel system worked well, so getting around wasn’t too bad.

Exploring the world often felt tedious, particularly when players frequently encountered radiation zones or tough enemies that significantly slowed their progress. While players could get Power Armor to fly, maintaining its fuel supply was a hassle, and moving around on foot felt awkward without flight as an option.

Days Gone

Gas Troubles

Set in a post-apocalyptic Oregon, Days Gone is a visually stunning game. While the beautiful natural environment is a highlight, getting around can be challenging because fuel is limited. Players can travel on foot, but the game features particularly dangerous zombies, and ammunition is hard to come by, making survival difficult.

Because of these challenges, exploring the world in Days Gone is best done by motorcycle. However, gas is scarce, forcing players to spend a lot of time searching for supplies on foot. The combination of limited resources and dangerous zombies often made players hesitant to venture out and explore.

Deadly Premonition

The Worst Open-World Driving Ever?

What makes Deadly Premonition stand out is its quirky characters and engaging story. However, as an open-world horror game, it falls short in many areas, especially when it comes to driving. The cars are painfully slow, and the town of Greenvale, while realistically sized for a remote mountain location, feels vast and difficult to navigate.

Getting around the game world feels incredibly slow – it can take a surprisingly long time to travel between locations, and the cost of gas adds to the frustration. The town’s residents follow strict routines, so completing optional quests requires carefully observing and learning their schedules, which can be a bit of a chore. Despite these slow-paced gameplay elements, Deadly Premonition is still worth playing for its story, but it’s a tough game to recommend to everyone.

No Man’s Sky

Just Keep Scanning

No Man’s Sky is a massive open-world game with what feels like an infinite number of planets to discover. However, after exploring for a while, the experience can become repetitive because the planets are created using random generation. The gameplay usually involves flying to a planet, landing, and then beginning your exploration.

Players can scan and identify plants and animals, then collect resources from them. If they don’t plan to build a base on a planet, they’ll probably return to their ship and do this all over again on another planet. Some players might find this repetitive cycle enjoyable, while others may find it boring.

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Terror From All Sides

In Xenoblade Chronicles X, Earth is nearly deserted, and players join a team sent to explore a new planet. They found and build a colony called New L.A. The game offers a huge, open world where you can go anywhere. However, each area also contains incredibly powerful enemies – sometimes they’ll leave you alone, and other times they’ll actively pursue and attack you.

You won’t lose your progress when you die – you’ll simply restart at the last checkpoint. However, repeatedly being attacked and killed while trying to complete tasks or mark locations can become frustrating. After roughly twenty hours of gameplay, you’ll unlock a mech called a Skell, which will make getting around much easier, though it takes a while to reach that point.

Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning

Great Combat, Hard On Your Feet

Released in 2012, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning boasts one of the most engaging combat systems found in any open-world game. A wide variety of weapons and a deep skill tree ensure players always have new options and never tire of battling monsters.

The game doesn’t have mounts or vehicles, so you’ll be doing most of your exploring on foot. It does feature a fast travel system, similar to games like Fallout 4 and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but you’ll need to explore areas firsthand before you can use it. Fortunately, the game’s areas aren’t overly large, which helps make up for the lack of other travel options.

Diablo 4

My Kingdom For a Horse

Diablo 4 is the first game in the series to offer a truly open world, and it’s a major improvement. While previous Diablo games had large areas, players can now explore seamlessly without loading screens, leading to more spontaneous encounters with events happening throughout the world.

Players couldn’t get a horse until Act 4, which meant waiting roughly twelve to twenty hours of gameplay, depending on how much extra content they chose to explore. It’s disappointing when open-world games restrict access to mounts, because traveling on foot can be slow and difficult, even with fast travel options available.

2025-12-17 08:35