I love me a good open-world game. Besides just generally getting a lot of bang for your buck, open-world games give you multiple, for lack of a better word, states of gaming. There are plenty of high-impact moments to keep your focus, like in linear games, but there are also lots of quiet, exploratory moments to enjoy on their own or while listening to a podcast or something.
10 Best Semi-Open World Games
For players who want to explore, but not be overwhelmed by a world larger than the story.
The only real problem with open world as a genre is that more than a few open world games get a little lost in the sauce. Some of them have absolutely nothing to do in them, forgetting to keep you engaged, while others go too far in the other direction, spattering the entire map with pointless busywork collectibles.
The best kind of open world, a true all killer, no filler experience, is one that hits that magic middle of giving you a big field to run around in, as well as filling it with interesting, relevant things to do. These are the open world games that, at least in my opinion, come closest to that magic middle.
10A Short Hike
All For The Final Hike
A Short Hike
It’s important to remember that an open world game doesn’t necessarily need to have agiganticopen world. The point of an open world is to give you a decently large space to explore and fill with stuff worth exploring. Case in point, A Short Hike’s open world may bepositively tiny compared to some other entriesin the genre, but it’s still an excellent example thanks to its smart map design and tight focus.
Just about everything you do in A Short Hike is in service to the game’s main throughline, that being getting enough Gold Feathers to climb the mountain. You interact with passersby, maybe do a little favor for them, and you get a Gold Feather, or otherwise some manner of helpful item like the running shoes. you’re able to also just find Feathers hanging out here and there, and can grab them with a bit of creative climbing and gliding.
There are small distractions here and there, like fishing or watering sprouts that have nothing to do with the main goal, but they’re only there if you feel like interacting with them. The game won’t browbeat you into bothering with either, and there’s no particular reward for doing so. It’s your hike; you approach it in the way that works for you.
9Lil Gator Game
Small Island, Lots Of Kids
Lil Gator Game
In a similar vein to A Short Hike, Lil Gator Game is a very simple, cozy open-world game that still manages to be outstanding in the genre by adopting a simple scavenger hunt approach. The main way you progress in this game is by finding more kids to join up with your burgeoning playground town, and once you get past the initial tutorial, you have pretty much free rein of the entire island.
You can go wherever you want, talk to whoever you want, and accomplish tasks in any order you want. This kid wants you to smash some pots he made? Sure. That kid wants a cool rock from the river? Why not? More often than not, doing these little favors for everyone will lead you to discover even more kids in your vicinity to help out, resulting in a little conga line of continuous engagement and fulfillment.
You technically don’t need to recruit every kid to beat the game, though after you finish the story, you’ll get a handy tool for tracking down anyone you missed. It’s a game that encourages 100% completion, and unlike some open-world games, it’s quite feasible to actually achieve it in a couple of sittings.
8Sunset Overdrive
Bounce And Slide To Your Heart’s Content
Sunset Overdrive
One of the linchpins to creating a great open world isfun and responsive movement systems. It doesn’t matter how big and impressive your open world is if it’s not fun to navigate; nobody will bother. This is why I considerSunset Overdriveone of the underappreciated examples of the genre, as wild and wacky movement is the game’s entire bread and butter.
Velocity and momentum are the first and foremost elements in Sunset Overdrive’s special sauce. If you can help it, and you definitely can, you should never, ever stop moving, whether it’s grinding on rails and wires, running along walls, or bouncing off dumpsters and air vents. This emphasis on speed and movement makes it easy to get around the game’s map in a hurry, though there’s also a fast travel too if you really can’t be bothered.
The primary missions involve a lot of tower defense and fetching, which would be kind of obnoxious in other games, but because the movement is so fast and slick, it’s much less of a slog than it could be. Being able to get from point A to point B quickly and under your own power helps to keep you from drifting off between action beats.
7The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
See A Mountain, Climb A Mountain
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
While just about every Legend of Zelda game features some degree of open world design, many of them are less “open worlds” and more “slightly-large boxes connected by hallways.” You could attribute some of that to technical limitations, but perhaps that’s what madeBreath of the Wild’s debut on the Switch such a big deal: it was an open world like Zelda had never done before.
The big selling point for Breath of the Wild during its promotional phase was, “if you see it, you can climb it.” In other words, rather than just being a lot of set dressing, every visible element of the game’s overworld wasa place you could physically visit. This high exploration potential is complemented by the game’s many hidden shrines and towers, which you can stumble upon natively or with the help of your Sheikkah Slate.
Breath of the Wild also has the novel decision of letting you decide when to tackle the final dungeon. Unlocking all the Divine Beasts makes it easier, but if you’re really in a hurry and are confident in your skills, you can just go do it whenever.
There’s Always Something To Do
The Yakuza/Like a Dragon games, at least by reckoning, have always existed as something of a diametric opposite to something like Grand Theft Auto. The maps arewaysmaller, relatively speaking, but within those reduced confines is a greater density of content and activities. The Yakuza game that best exemplifies this isYakuza 0.
Yakuza 0’s two city maps, Kamurocho and Sotenbori, are only a few blocks large each, but those blocks are jam-packed with minigames and side stories to sink your teeth into. Yeah, the main story is great, but as anyone who has played this game will tell you, it is genuinely difficult to pull yourself away from all the side content to get back on track. That’s how engaging it all is.
Whether it’s karaoke, Pocket Circuit, Real Estate Royale, or the infinite time sink that is the Cabaret Club, the minigames get their hooks into you and never let go.
The side stories also encompass many of the game’s most memorable, memeable moments outside the main story. Anyone who has ever played Yakuza 0 almost assuredly has the phrase “shooreh pippi” permanently seared into their memory. If you know, you know.
5Batman: Arkham City
No Batmobile Necessary
Batman Arkham City
The three main entries in the Batman: Arkham series (not including Arkham Origins, because nobody cares about that game) represent the extremes of the open world formula.
Arkham Asylum was an open world in the literal sense, but still a largely linear affair. Arkham Knight got too carried away with itself, forcing you to use the less-than-stellar Batmobile tank to get around. The game that hit the perfect middle between these two extremes wasArkham City.
Nearly from the beginning of the game, Arkham City gives you the run of its titular walled-off section of Gotham, which you can quickly and easily traverse through the Grapnel Gun and gliding. I still remember the first time I used the Grapnel Boost and launched Batman high into the air like one of those old slingshot rocket toys, and it never stopped being fun.
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The particular selection of activities also gave you numerous opportunities to, and please pardon the cliché here, feel like Batman, including pummeling punks and solving puzzles detective-style. Really, the only part of the game that could feel tedious was the Riddler stuff, but that’s all optional, and really, it’s funnier to just ignore Nygma and let him seethe.
4Super Mario Odyssey
It’s Time To Jump Up In The Air
Super Mario Odyssey
I’ve played every mainline 3D Mario game to date, and in just about every circumstance, those games were the deciding factor that got me on board with Nintendo’s newest consoles, save for the Wii U. I think perhaps the most dastardly example of this wasSuper Mario Odyssey, the release and reception of which kicked me off the fence I was sitting on over getting a Switch.
Super Mario Odyssey incorporates many elements of other 3D Mario platformers, with one important tweak: streamlining. Rather than instanced levels that end when you grab the goober, Odyssey just keeps on chugging along with each Moon you pick up, encouraging you to keep platforming and exploring to uncover even more of them. There’s always some little passage or contraption nearby that looks like it’ll yield a Moon, and curiosity compels you to explore it all.
It helps that Odyssey has quite possibly the most buttery-smooth controls of any 3D Mario game to date, with both responsive movement and additional horizontal movement potential thanks to Cappy. Don’t even get me started on how much fun capturing every enemy type is.
3Donkey Kong Bananza
This Gorilla’s Going Places
Donkey Kong Bananza
In the same way that Super Mario Odyssey got me to buy into the Switch,Donkey Kong Bananzagot me to buy into the Switch 2, again after prolonged fence-sitting. It makes sense, considering Bananza wasmade by the same team that did Odyssey. Nintendo ought to let these folks develop a game for every new console it releases, because they’re alarmingly good at it.
In much the same way as Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza is a game that naturally encourages you to explore its open world, subtly guiding you on a path of progress through the main story beats. DK is even more mobile than Mario thanks to his various jumping and rolling abilities, not to mention his ability to smash through everything but defined world borders. There are very few limitations on where you can go, and thanks to your slap radar, you’ll always know when there are goodies to uncover.
Adding Pauline and the Bananza abilities into the mix just bolsters the formula further, as unlocking new abilities encourages you to progress the critical path, after which you may use them to continue your exploration dalliances. It’s a dangerously addictive feedback loop.
2Elden Ring
You’re Entering A World Of Pain
Elden Ring
Fextralife
I admit, prior to the release ofElden Ring, I wasn’t really a fan of Soulslike games. I’d tried to play Dark Souls, but the constant runback after dying to bosses really wore me down. That was one of the problems decisively solved by Elden Ring’s switch to an open world: if you can’t progress in one area, just go somewhere else.
Elden Ring’s open world seems empty at a glance, but it’s actually densely packed with bosses to fight, treasures to uncover, and sidequests to pursue. It’s so dense, in fact, that nobody else I’ve seen play the game has had exactly the same experience as I did. Everyone walks off in a different direction and ends up discovering things in different orders, if they even discover the same things at all. I remember talking to a friend about fighting Margit, and telling them, “oh, I stopped him with Margit’s Shackle,” and they had no idea what I was talking about.
To return to my original point, I obviously had plenty of trouble with many of the game’s big bosses. Unlike in some Soulslikes, though, if I felt overmatched, I could just go explore or grind somewhere else a little more my speed. The difficulty isn’t diminished by the open world; it’s just more evenly spread.
1Outer Wilds
It’s All One Big Mystery
Outer Wilds
I think the hardest thing about making an open-world game is making the whole map feel like it matters. The reason a lot of games in this genre fall victim to busywork is that if you don’t putsomethingeverywhere you possibly can, the world feels empty. Perhaps the solution to that would be a tighter map focus, but rather than shrinking in size,Outer Wildswent the detailed route.
Just about every aspect of Outer Wilds’ explorable galaxy contributes to the overall mystery of the story. Translating Nomai texts, activating ancient gadgets, or even just plunging headfirst into a black hole gives you one more scrap of information for your virtual conspiracy board. Everything in this galaxy exists for an explicit reason, something that few, if any, other open-world games can claim.
I imagine, if you held Outer Wilds’ total map space up against a different open world game, it wouldn’t be as big as it feels. You never notice this when you’re playing, though, because every planet is deeply packed with intrigue. I shudder to imagine the nightmarish level of detail work that must’ve gone into making this game.
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