Open-World Games That Use Storytelling To Enhance Exploration

The best open-world games immerse players to the point where they are completely lost in the environment. This can be a problem sometimes too. After all, when players can spend as much time as they want between story missions, they can easily lose the thread or the narrative can become second fiddle to the gameplay.

All the games listed below remedy exploration and story to help them complement each other. This is achieved through different means and no one way is better than the other. At the end of the day, they accomplish the same feat of exploration always feeling meaningful.

7 Red Dead Redemption 2

Every Town And Forest Feels Alive

The advantage of creating a more desolate setting like the Wild West as opposed to an urban metropolis with millions of people is the ability to refine the details of small towns and villages. Everybody Arthur Morgan interacts with feels like a real person with a life outside of their place in the game, something one would expect from Elder Scrolls but not from a rockstar open-world game, at least not until 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

The wilderness is similarly just as vibrant and alive with animals that behave realistically. Combine that with side quests from strangers that take the player down narrative rabbit holes for a world where no footstep is taken in vain.

6 Batman: Arkham City

The Writing Makes Every Side Quest Feel Special

Even though Batman: Arkham City is open-world and eschews the linear corridors of its predecessor, it still retains the structure that made Arkham Asylum so intriguing. Every side quest storyline deals with a character from the hero’s past and culminates with some special event related to the Batman lore.

The Riddler Trophies themselves are creative puzzles hidden throughout the world that encourage players to look through every nook and cranny of the environment. While one can look at the side quests here as simple checklists to fill out, the writing and the character interactions elevate these to some of the most memorable side quests in any open-world game.

5 Elden Ring

Deep Lore Makes Exploration A Part Of The Storytelling Even If You Don’t Understand The Plot

One could play through Elden Ring multiple times and might not be able to accurately describe exactly what it is about. Does that mean it does not have good storytelling? The beauty of its narrative is players can dive deep into the lore to figure out every character and boss’s story, or they can focus on the pristine gameplay and level design.

Either way, world-building is there to enhance the experience every step of the way. The cryptic nature of the plot might be hard to understand on its surface, but it gives enough so players feel a clear objective. Exploring every inch of the world, players feel the history and lore behind it even if they did not read up on it themselves.

4 The Sinking City

Frogware’s Experience With Sherlock Holmes Put Into A Supernatural Setting

Ukrainian developer Frogwares became known for their Sherlock Holmes games before taking on the supernatural, H.P. Lovecraft-Inspired The Sinking City. Though it is an open-world game with action elements, the developer’s experience with adventure games still shines through in many of the quests and side stories that involve investigation mechanics fans of Sherlock Holmes will be familiar with.

The player’s efforts in these sequences affect how events turn out, so it is not as automatic of a process as the investigation modes are in other games like The Witcher 3 or the Batman Arkham games.

3 Fallout 3

Giant Questlog Replaced By More Subtle Environmental Storytelling

For a Bethesda game, Fallout 3 has a surprisingly low number of side quests. However, they are all multi-layered with numerous outcomes and ways of completing them. What it lacks in smaller side quests it more than makes up for in more subtle environmental storytelling and gameplay moments.

There is still a huge world out there to explore and just because it is not marked as a quest on the Pip-Boy does not mean it is not interesting. Most buildings still have documents to read, computers to hack, and even NPCs to interact with. The smaller interactions range from dealing with a lonely sniper in the middle of a minefield to finding a skeleton in a bathtub with a toaster in it.

2 Breath Of The Wild/Tears Of The Kingdom

Exploring Feels Like Training For The Final Mission

Some criticize the Nintendo Switch Zelda games for being too open and not having enough structured storytelling. However, its exploration feeds into its story in a much more interesting way that motivates players to see and explore all there is to do. In both games (especially in Breath of the Wild) players know their final objective almost immediately and are given several points of interest as objectives before tackling the final area.

The mere journey to these locations and the shrines found along the way beef up Link with hearts, weapons, and stamina to help him face off against the threats in the wild. Everything players do in the game feels like training for the final fight, whether it be increasing one’s stats or doing a quest to get better weapons and armor.

1 Outer Wilds

Explore The Solar System In 22-Minute Intervals To Progress Through The Story

This open-world game works on Timeloop where the world sun supernovas after just 22 minutes. This is enough time usually to explore, progress through the story, and get one step closer to learning about the mysterious alien civilization at the heart of the game’s plot. There is no combat so the game is exclusively about searching the world, solving puzzles, and uncovering the mystery.

A lot of other games with a time loop are often very linear, so Outer Wilds stands out for really not holding the player’s hand. All the same, it never feels frustrating or overly obtuse. 22 minutes is usually just enough time to uncover one mystery before another reveals itself.

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