RPGs Where the World Doesn’t Care If You Finish the Story

Role-playing games, or RPGs, often put players in the role of heroes tasked with saving the world and maintaining order. A classic example is Final Fantasy 7, where Cloud and his team must prevent Sephiroth from destroying the planet with a massive meteor. If Cloud fails, the world will be destroyed.

Whether or not Cloud succeeds is ultimately up to the player, as they always have the option to stop playing. While other RPGs offer great stories, they don’t typically present situations where the fate of the world truly hangs in the balance. Those games usually feature heroes on more personal, less world-altering quests.

Cat Quest 3

Sail On Kitty

Cat Quest 3 is a really relaxing open-world RPG. It doesn’t have a strong main storyline – you play as a cat pirate who simply enjoys going on adventures.

This game doesn’t have a big, world-ending threat or a dramatic storyline focused on stopping a major villain. If the main character, a pirate cat, simply stops their adventures – exploring caves, sailing, or conquering towers – it doesn’t really affect anyone else, and that’s a surprisingly welcome change.

Dead Rising

Survival Is Key

The original Dead Rising puts players in the role of Frank West, a photojournalist who arrives in Willamette, Colorado, to document a zombie outbreak. However, when Frank lands on the roof of the local mall, his goal isn’t to rescue people or stop the outbreak – he’s there to get pictures.

Frank isn’t a hero destined to save the world from zombies; he’s just trying to survive. He often bites off more than he can chew, quickly getting in over his head and needing help from people around the mall. The story focuses on his personal struggle, and his death wouldn’t significantly impact the bigger picture, as others are already working to handle the zombie outbreak.

Dragon’s Crown

A D&D Style Adventure

Dragon’s Crown is a fun 2D role-playing game where you can play as one of six different characters, each with a classic RPG role like mage, warrior, or archer. You’ll start in a central town where you can collect items before exploring dungeons—either by yourself or with friends online.

The dungeons don’t have a connected storyline, and the world isn’t facing any major crisis. It’s more like a classic Dungeons & Dragons game where the goal is to explore dungeons for experience, treasure, and bragging rights – not to save the world from destruction.

Elden Ring

The Tarnished One

Like other games from FromSoftware, Elden Ring doesn’t have a heavily detailed story. It’s an open-world role-playing game where you play as a Tarnished—a warrior exiled to another world.

The game isn’t about saving the world or finding a way out; players are meant to accept their situation. However, they can defeat the ultimate evil and take control. But whether they do or not doesn’t affect the world itself – it’s a personal journey in a place that’s already lost hope.

Fallout: New Vegas

A Sandy Side Of Revenge

The game Fallout: New Vegas starts with your character being shot and left for dead in the desert, only to wake up alive and recovering with a doctor. Unlike other Fallout games that focus on heroic goals like saving people or finding resources, New Vegas centers around a quest for personal revenge.

In this post-apocalyptic Nevada, whether players track down those who killed them and get revenge doesn’t really matter to the overall population. While players can help people and improve things for different groups, they won’t be the ones to save everyone.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Mom Troubles

In Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Ichiban starts by assisting people with job searches in Japan. However, when he learns his birth mother is in trouble in Hawaii, he embarks on a new, unpredictable Yakuza story. During his journey, he discovers a powerful Yakuza group operating on the island, a hidden network of homeless people, and a mysterious cult pulling the strings.

Life is increasingly chaotic, but the conflicts don’t involve grand schemes to take over the world – they’re smaller, more personal problems that Ichiban and his friends can resolve through traditional turn-based combat. Ultimately, the fate of the world doesn’t depend on Ichiban finding his mother, making it a very focused and intimate story.

Octopath Traveler

Eight Individual Adventures

In the turn-based RPG Octopath Traveler, you begin by choosing one of eight different characters, each with a unique class such as Thief or Hunter. Your choice determines where your adventure starts, but you’ll be able to find and add the other seven characters to your party as you explore.

Every character has their own unique set of quests to finish, and these don’t impact or connect with what other characters are doing. While unusual for a turn-based RPG, this approach is actually quite nice because it focuses on individual goals and self-contained stories.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Becoming Number One

This concept would work with almost any Pokemon game, as they generally center around a young trainer striving to become a Pokemon Master without impacting the game world. Even the newest game, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, focuses on a more limited goal: becoming the champion of Lumiose City.

The game lets players catch Pokemon in specific areas of the city. At night, they can challenge other players to battles and earn points to climb the ranks, starting from Rank Z and aiming for Rank A – which is where the game gets its name. While the story is straightforward, Pokemon fans are primarily interested in the core gameplay: catching Pokemon and battling.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

New York Is A Battleground

Tom Clancy’s The Division takes place in New York City after a deadly virus spreads following a Black Friday attack. Someone deliberately contaminated money to cause the outbreak, and the city is quickly put under quarantine. As the situation worsens, different groups begin to fight for control while others simply struggle to stay alive.

As part of The Division, players are deployed to maintain peace and restore order in New York City, and to contain the outbreak. While failure could potentially allow the virus to spread beyond the city, other groups are also working on the problem. Players aren’t responsible for finding a cure, though – their job is to control the situation on the ground.

The World Ends With You

Back From The Dead

In The World Ends With You, players enter a strange afterlife where a teenage boy named Neku is given another shot at life. However, he must participate in a series of games to earn it.

If he lasts a week and wins, he’ll get a wish – and that wish could even bring him back to life. This challenge is a personal one for Neku, impacting only those he cares about most, and it’s a chance for him to learn and develop as an individual.

2026-01-01 08:35