When you’re first dropped into an open-world environment, not every game is going to put you through a comprehensive tutorial. Many do, but many more trust you to just figure things out on your own. It might even be part of the game’s mechanics for you to experiment and explore, instead of having every piece of information handed out to you immediately and potentially overwhelming you. It’s definitely a preference question. Some gamers prefer not waste their time finding out how things work, while others want to test their mental agility by not receiving any help.
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If you belong in the latter group and get the most fun out of games that let you experiment through trial and error, these open-world games will be right up your alley. They have minimal tutorials, and typically just thrust you into the deep end. Not all of them are difficult the whole way through, either, so if you’re not a fan of challenging games in general, don’t worry, there are a couple of games here that, once learned, are pretty easy or at least come with difficulty settings you can tailor to your liking.
Find all 10 pairs
Find all 10 pairs
Minecraft
Welcome To The Sandbox Of Trial And Error
If you have no idea what Minecraft is about and you drop yourself into a survival world, you’re probably going to be very lost. The game doesn’t tell you how to do anything, though it does guide you a little bit better now, thanks to the recipe book. With no tools or gear at your disposal, you can only punch different blocks and see what happens. It’s a pretty counterintuitive sandbox survival game, too, because who could ever imagine that you can harvest a tree by punching its trunk?
This is just one of those games where, if you play without the wiki at your fingertips, you’re going to be spending a lot of time just learning through trial and error, and observing your surroundings. The achievement screen gives you a few hints on some of the locations you might find, such as the End and the Nether, but actually getting there is another whole debacle. It’s pretty amazing how the game has come such a long way without ever even including a tutorial anywhere. If survival is too hard, you can also just put yourself into Peaceful mode to explore and experiment.
Kenshi
No Direction, No Guidance, And Absolutely No Mercy
Maybe you’re one of those players who are more okay with games that are challenging. In that case, I recommend Kenshi. A lot of fans describe this open-world RPG as a simulation or a sandbox, and they’re completely right. Unlike most games of its genre, it doesn’t present you with a main quest where you’re the chosen one. Instead, you’re a nobody. From there on, you can freely choose what path you go down, and build whatever kind of character you’d like.
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Just be aware that it won’t be easy. Kenshi’s world is all about survival, and at first, you’ll be playing incredibly safely as you increase your toughness. That involves failing, getting beaten down over and over again, and healing up slowly over time in order to get back in there. A lot of the game’s features can feel convoluted, so you’ll definitely need to approach with an open and curious mind that’s not afraid of being challenged by a system that can feel overwhelmingly complex.
Project Zomboid
The Tutorial Only Scratches The Surface
Project Zomboid is a survival game where you’re the only one left alive in Knox Country, surrounded by hundreds of zombies. It’s a huge open-world environment experienced from an isometric setting, and with survival gameplay that’s incredibly deep. While there’s a tutorial that explains some of the movement and controls, Project Zomboid has so many intricacies and details to its sandbox that jumping directly into Apocalypse or Survivor mode will have you tearing your hair out. It’s another game that’s reminiscent of a simulation: the world goes on around you, with bodies decaying, zombies migrating, and eventually, electricity and water cutting off.
If you stay long enough, even the buildings, cars, and streets start to decay as wilderness takes over. With that, you have to apply real-world logic to a lot of its situations, which can feel a bit weird from a gamer’s perspective. You don’t exactly expect to think about boredom in a zombie apocalypse, or increasing your quality of sleep by adding a pillow to your bed, from a real-life perspective, it makes perfect sense. The game doesn’t explain these at all, or teach them to you, but through trial and error, and likely many failed runs, you end up learning not just the blueprint of the massive world, but also the loot and gear that helps you survive longer each time you jump back in.
Elden Ring
The Tutorial Is Easy To Miss, And The Game’s Main Lessons Are Silent
Of course, a FromSoftware game would end up here. The studio’s games are famous for expecting you to just wing it, releasing you into their worlds by showing you what to expect, instead of telling you outright. Elden Ring, one of its least punishing games with a massive open-world setting, is that way, too. My first time in this game led me to completely miss out on the tutorial and just walk out into Limgrave and challenge the Tree Sentinel. This is a silent message: you are not ready, and you must get stronger. Come back when you’re prepared.
Very few other games let you walk into these impossible situations from the get-go, but Elden Ring slaps the world in your face immediately and tells you to adapt, or fail, over and over again. Eventually, you’ll get the hang of the game’s systems, of the different enemies, and the movement of major bosses that act as your gatekeepers. It’s a deeply satisfying but grueling progression, from which players often emerge much stronger than ever before.
Terraria
A Charming Sandbox For You To Pick Apart
Terraria is here for the same reason that Minecraft is. It’s the best pick for players who want to test their deduction and wits in games, but don’t want to jump into the deep, deep end with Souls games and titles like Kenshi. You’re introduced to a charming 2D pixel world that’s yours to explore, but don’t be fooled by the vibrant colors. There are enemies on the surface, below, and even above. Fulfill certain conditions, and you can also encounter some incredible bosses.
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Terraria does deliver a bit of guidance in the form of its NPCs, like the Guide. Move them into your house to keep them close, and you’ll at least get started on figuring out what you should do and where to go. A lot of it is trial and error, trying different things, picking up items, and seeing what they do, if you don’t want to rely on the game’s wiki, but it’s an incredibly satisfying game to go into completely blind.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
No Skill Trees, Just You As A Player Getting Better
One of the fundamental design ideas behind STALKER 2 was the absence of any skill trees. The games have never featured such things, as the idea behind this challenging FPS franchise has always been that players themselves must learn how to traverse its difficult and dangerous Zone without dying.
It’s a grim mixture of survival and fairly realistic FPS elements where you take on the role of Skif, a stalker who wanders the Zone. While the first part of the game does introduce you to basic stuff like controls and using bandages and medkits, there’s a ton more that never gets explicitly explained in STALKER 2, and which you only learn through failure and experimentation as you traverse the Zone.
Outward
The World Isn’t Easy, And Forces You To Learn
Considered one of the hardest open-world fantasy RPGs out there, Outward delivers a mixture of survival gameplay and classic RPG content. It also comes with a tutorial, and while it’s incredibly helpful to go through to get a hang of the basics if you’re brand-new, nothing will fully prepare you for its demanding environment better than just jumping in.
You’ll likely die many times and struggle to travel too far away in the wilderness that features no fast travel or mounts, but each time, you learn something new about your movement, the enemies, and your abilities. It’s also a game that wants you to fail, because death isn’t the end. You can end up far away from where you left off, or you might get lucky and receive help from a passerby. The world is alive, but it does demand that you learn its ins and outs.
Green Hell
One Of The Hardest Survival Experiences That Forces You To Learn
Not afraid of great challenge? Green Hell is perfect for you, then. Many consider this to be one of the most harrowing survival experiences for how little mercy it shows you. Doomed with minimal resources in the open-world Amazonian rainforest, your job as Jake Higgins is to survive, while the world wants you to suffer and die. It’s a constant uphill battle against the predators that stalk the wild, as well as the bugs, poisonous plants, and infections that will start to plague you if you don’t take care of yourself.
Green Hell is yet another game where you will learn, or you will suffer and learn. The world doesn’t spell things out for you, and it’s more than likely that just like with games like Kenshi, you’ll be dying a lot before you can actually figure out how to stand on your own two feet. Over time, however, you hone your skills, you learn what works and what doesn’t, and there’s no greater reward than that.
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