Open-World RPGs That Punish You For Trying To Play Like Skyrim

For many RPG fans, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is a reliably enjoyable game. Despite being over a decade old, it still excels in many areas. A key part of its appeal is the incredible freedom it offers players. While not a true sandbox, you begin with a blank slate and can develop your character in any direction you choose. After the initial events, you’re free to explore the world and follow your own path, leading to a vast and exciting range of possibilities.

Like many games, Skyrim lets you feel powerful quickly, as if you’re a special hero. The Anniversary Edition made this even easier. The game world largely bends to your will, and even on harder settings, enemies mostly just hit harder and take more damage. It’s a comfortable experience where you’re in control. However, the following five games offer a different kind of challenge, pushing you beyond the gameplay Skyrim encourages. They each do this in unique ways. If you love Skyrim and are looking for something new that will truly test your skills, these are great games to try.

Fallout: New Vegas

Choices Must Be Made, And You Won’t Be The Master Of Everything

Both Fallout 4 and New Vegas could have easily been included here, but New Vegas offers a more in-depth role-playing experience with meaningful choices, which is why I chose it. In Skyrim, your character’s skills, how you build your character, and what you say rarely have a significant impact on how the game plays out. You can befriend almost any group, even holding positions like Archmage at the College of Winterhold and Listener for the Dark Brotherhood simultaneously. While some companions might judge your actions, many won’t care what you do. Ultimately, Skyrim offers so much freedom that it can sometimes feel like your choices don’t really matter.

Unlike Skyrim, New Vegas truly reacts to your decisions from the very beginning. Even something as simple as lowering your intelligence during character creation has noticeable and lasting effects – the game’s doctor will even comment on it! Your skills impact what you can say and do, and NPCs will remember and react to your actions. This creates a much more dynamic world where you need to consider your reputation (Karma) and relationships with different groups. Even your companions have specific requirements before they’ll join you. While you can still do whatever you want, your choices have real consequences, and people won’t always react the same way. New Vegas holds you accountable for the RPG choices you make, making each playthrough feel unique and immersive. The game acknowledges that specializing in certain areas means you’ll be weaker in others – and that’s a good thing, because it creates a more compelling narrative. You can’t please everyone, for example, you can’t be allies with both the NCR and the Legion at the same time.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A Tighter, Character-centric Experience That Demands Your Focus

Most people agree that Skyrim‘s story isn’t as strong as The Witcher 3‘s, and that’s perfectly fine. While the two games are often compared, they offer different experiences, especially considering The Witcher 3‘s more focused narrative. The Witcher 3 centers on the established characters of Geralt and Ciri, rather than a player-created hero. This means you need to really engage with the story and your choices, as they have a significant impact on the characters’ fates and the endings you’ll achieve, similar to how Fallout 4 works.

Unlike Skyrim, where your choices often don’t have lasting consequences, The Witcher 3 makes you carefully consider every decision and conversation. From major quests like Keira’s to even small interactions with characters like Ciri, and even your romantic choices between Triss and Yennefer, your actions truly matter. The game doesn’t hesitate to close off entire storylines based on your choices. While Skyrim’s Dark Brotherhood questline has some of this, where you can side with the Imperials to destroy a sanctuary, most of the game doesn’t emphasize the weight of your decisions like The Witcher 3 does.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Combat Requires More Thought And Strategy

The combat in Skyrim is beginning to feel outdated. Specifically, the close-quarters fighting is quite basic when compared to more recent games. Kingdom Come: Deliverance offers a much more demanding sword-fighting experience. Let’s focus on the latest installment in that series, which is truly impressive and known for its challenging combat. Unlike Skyrim, where you can often simply swing your sword and block occasionally to defeat enemies, Kingdom Come: Deliverance requires a lot more skill and effort.

As a fan, I have to say the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is on another level! It’s way more involved than something like Skyrim. You really need to master things like combos, ripostes, and even faking out your opponent to survive fights. Stamina is important, sure, but it’s all about strategy and timing. The enemies aren’t magical, but they’re smart. They don’t just mindlessly block and attack like in Skyrim; you have to actually think about how you approach each fight. Skyrim’s combat is pretty straightforward and lets you feel powerful right away, but Kingdom Come 2 throws you into a much more complex system and makes you learn it if you want to succeed.

Kenshi

Don’t Come Here Looking For A Power Fantasy

Kenshi is a challenging game that quickly shatters typical power fantasies. Unlike Skyrim, where you’re quickly established as a uniquely gifted hero destined to save the world, Kenshi doesn’t offer that instant gratification. In Skyrim, your abilities rapidly increase, making many challenges easy, which is why it’s a popular and forgiving choice for RPG fans. Kenshi, however, throws you into a harsh world where you’re just another person struggling to survive.

Unlike games like Skyrim that aim to make you feel powerful, Kenshi deliberately throws you into a harsh and unforgiving world. It prioritizes challenge and requires you to be resourceful and think for yourself. While it offers the same open-world freedom as Skyrim, it arguably does it even better, but nothing comes easily. You won’t find guiding quests or helpful characters; you have to define your own goals. Getting what you want will be difficult. In Skyrim, joining groups is simple – just show up and complete a few tasks. Kenshi treats you as just another person in a world that doesn’t care about your fate. Life goes on regardless of your struggles, and you’ll quickly learn you’re not special. This humbling experience, however, leads to incredibly deep and rewarding RPG gameplay that’s rare in many modern games, if you’re willing to embrace the difficulty.

Elden Ring

Unforgiving World Where Death Is Punishing

Bethesda RPGs and Soulslike games are almost complete opposites. That’s why Elden Ring stands out – it’s a massive, open-world RPG that gives you total freedom to create your character, but it’s brutally difficult, especially when you’re starting out. You’re thrown into the game with no guidance, and immediately face a powerful boss you’re likely unprepared for – unless you’re already familiar with the Soulslike genre. It’s like if Skyrim started you off by immediately throwing a Legendary Dragon at you the moment you left Helgen.

While not as complex as the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Elden Ring‘s fighting system is a big step up from the straightforward approach in Skyrim. You’ll need to master each weapon’s unique moves, and enemies will constantly try to interrupt your attacks and leave you vulnerable. Elden Ring is deliberately challenging – you’re often at a disadvantage as a humble Tarnished, unlike the powerful Dragonborn in Skyrim. You have to earn your place as a challenger to the demigods of the Lands Between, and the game doesn’t offer much help along the way. Dying in Skyrim is usually a minor inconvenience, as quicksaves can save you a lot of time. But in Elden Ring, death can be costly – if you don’t retrieve your runes from where you fell, you’ll lose them, and sometimes reaching that spot again isn’t even possible.

2026-01-27 08:35