The Worlds In These Open-World Games Feel So Alive And Real They Beat Even The Elder Scrolls Games

Open-world games have had a big boom in the last two decades. Initially, it was all about how big a world could be, and all the places you could go to that were previously locked behind an invisible barrier. It was revolutionary for exploration, as we finally got games where we could decide how to go about interacting with the world and its story. No longer were players trapped to just follow a linear quest line; if there was a mountain you wanted to climb, then you could.

The Elder Scrolls games were some of the biggest titles to popularize the format, and while their influence can’t be denied, as they are absolutely stellar games, a lot of the focus has been on the amount of content in those worlds rather than how alive and immersive the worlds are. Considering Skyrim came out about fifteen years ago, it’s safe to expect that Bethesda will probably innovate quite a bit for The Elder Scrolls 6 and deliver something mind-blowing, considering the rather stiff competition of other open-world games. However, for now, here are a few games that manage to trump The Elder Scrolls series with how incredibly alive their worlds feel.

Honorable Mention: Cyberpunk 2077

An honorable mention goes to Cyberpunk 2077. There’s no question the game has come a long way since its release, and is easily one of the best, most atmospheric open-world RPGs to date. That said, a lot of Night City still feels a bit setpiece-y at times, and there are big areas that could have received a bit more love to make the city truly feel cramped and alive.

It’s nice to see NPCs with unique appearances and walk styles, but so much of it can’t be interacted with in any meaningful way, nor does it particularly change as the story progresses, so it loses out a little bit in that regard. Where it does excel is in telling excellent, deep stories and crafting gorgeous environments.

Gothic 2

You Can’t Be Everyone’s Bestie, And The World Lets You Know That

In most The Elder Scrolls games, you can join factions in a pretty unrestricted way. There are a few choices you have to make, of course, like either picking the Imperial Legion or the Stormcloaks, or picking only one of the three great houses seen in Morrowind. Aside from that, it’s a free world, unlike Gothic 2, where simply wearing the wrong type of armor can turn some characters hostile, and your credibility and standing as a character actually matter.

Characters will react to you depending on how they perceive you, and depending on the types of clothes you’re wearing. While this does happen a little bit in Skyrim, with guards commenting on what type of armor you wear or the weapon you’re carrying, it’s dialled up to 200% in Gothic 2 and has more tangible gameplay consequences. It really shows that a lot of thought was put into the game.

The world and the combat are also pretty challenging, and you have to be ready and approach it with a strategic mind to memorize attack patterns before you run into to challenge, even something as small as a wolf. It’s a far cry from the comparatively relaxed combat of The Elder Scrolls games, though melee combat on high difficulty in Skyrim is definitely not easy either.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Learn The Zone, Or It Will Torment You

Skill progression in The Elder Scrolls games will eventually make a lot of them feel like a cakewalk, unless you’re playing on very hard difficulty and with mods. Leveling up grants you points that significantly buff you, which is something entirely absent in STALKER 2.

The developers were very committed to making the gritty survival in the Zone feel rewarding and immersive in the sense that you, as the player, must learn for yourself how to become a better survivor rather than relying on buffs granted through XP. There’s an ever-present, dreadful atmosphere as you struggle for resources against the very world that is built to be hostile and look down on you. Not just that, the NPCs and creatures, despite all the jank the franchise is known for, feel very dynamic as well. You might walk in on two factions battling one another or see mutated creatures roam the wilderness, hunting.

One important gameplay feature that further enhances how alive the world feels is the reputation system. So long as you’re in the good graces of a group, you can find shelter with them, but if not, they will turn hostile as soon as they spot you. Conversely, in Skyrim, you can join the Imperial Legion and still walk into Windhelm pretty freely. It’s only once you start progressing the quest that you’ll really take on the other side of the war

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Decisions Have Tangible Consequences Reflected In The World

One of the major criticisms of The Elder Scrolls games is that your decisions rarely have a big impact on the world and its characters. Fallout 3 and 4 did this slightly better, but outside of Bethesda games, The Witcher 3 did it probably the best.

Your choices during quests as Geralt would come to haunt you in good and bad later down the line, to the point where you might even come to regret or second-guess yourself. It’s a world where finding the right way is not always self-evident, and choosing one way will almost always hurt someone else or even decide the outcome of wars and other major conflicts among factions. These choices carry over from region to region, and you’ll see them affect the characters, monsters, and villages around you. Sometimes, it feels almost impossible to predict what choices matter.

For example, one interaction with Ciri that leads to a snowball fight is more important to her ideal ending than one would imagine. These are the type of do-or-die choices that you simply won’t find in a game like Skyrim, and can make you permanently lose or have characters’ fate sealed long before you knew what was even going on. This even extends to the characters you end up romancing, with rather funny consequences if you end up trying to get with both Yennefer and Triss at the same time.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Henry Better Be On His Best Behavior

It’s a shame Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 didn’t fare better at The Game Awards, because a lot of the game could be considered almost a medieval simulation. Henry’s life is dictated by a lot of things: cleanliness, clothes… even his ability to read, or his Scholarship skill. If you’re a smelly, badly dressed, drunken gentleman misbehaving in the middle of the village, you’d better believe people will take notice and comment on it, unlike in The Elder Scrolls titles, where you basically never have to bathe. At most, NPCs might comment on it, but you can’t quip back and lose reputation.

Here, though, forget about trying to persuade anyone if you’re grimy. Your bad behavior and responses, especially when you retort at people for calling you a stinky pig, will also affect your overall reputation, so it’s actually in your best interest to behave well if you don’t want to piss off half of the world’s people. It’s a nice change where no one’s going to accommodate you because you’re a powerful chosen one, because you aren’t. You’re just a small part of the world, a resident of it, and everyone in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will be sure to remind you of that. Oh, if only you could tell the guards of Whiterun to bugger off after they ask if you’ve lost your sweetroll!

Red Dead Redemption 2

The World Lives On, With Or Without Arthur

It’s for good reason that so many praise Red Dead Redemption 2 for its immersion. Like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, it has the magical power of making you feel like a drop in the bucket in the world, instead of a god-like being interacting with it as your playground. The NPCs have real lives and real reactions as you approach them. They will remember your actions, and your gang will even comment if you’ve just shaved yourself. Shopkeepers get annoyed at you if you circle behind the counter.

There are so many other insanely small but awesome details in the game that you might even miss if you blink. At restaurants, food doesn’t just disappear or stay on plates, but will gradually be consumed by the NPCs eating there. Your horse gets tired if you keep pushing it for a while. Dead bodies will decay as time passes instead of just disappearing into the aether. Even animals in the wilderness go about their routines, with cats hunting down rats and eagles diving down to snatch snakes.

The world isn’t just a set piece where characters are going through animations and motions, but it’s actually fully alive, and Arthur’s behavior has consequences, hence the Honor system. This isn’t just flavor, either, because low and high honor both have their unique endings. Overall, it’s a game that very few open-world titles will likely ever be able to surpass immersion and technology-wise, but one can hope that The Elder Scrolls 6 takes a page out of its book.

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