similar open world games with good combat systems,
This might be a tall order. Most of the “open world” games I’ve found either fall down in the open world department (lots of restricted areas or nothing varied/interesting enough to make exploring fun) or fall down in the combat department (awkward, unresponsive, or annoying in some other way). Some high-profile games even manage to suffer from both these problems despite being great in other ways (I’m looking at you, Geralt).
I hoped for quite a while that the next Elder Scrolls game would keep the good parts of Skyrim (beautiful environments full of unique things to discover) and overhaul the combat into something good, but recent showings from Bethesda make me less than optimistic.
Some people praise the Dark Souls series (including Elden Ring) for both openness and combat. However, if you loved Breath of the Wild, I wonder if the Souls style would be a bit too combat-focused for your taste, leaving the world feeling cold and empty. I haven’t played them enough to have a strong opinion about this; perhaps someone else can chime in.
I look forward to the suggestions you get in this thread.
Edit:
I just remembered Subnautica! I recommend this game, but there’s caveat in the context of your question: The way it avoids bad combat is to give the player reason to avoid combat as much as possible.
Skyrim and the mainline Elder Scrolls games (Oblivion, Morrowind) can run fine on most setups these days. Skyrim: Special Edition was released in 2016, which is almost a decade ago now.
Edit: Forgot you mentioned platforms. Considering your hardware, don’t play them on anything other than PC. The PS3 version of Skyrim in particular is a disaster.
Problem with them is sometimes mods are required for performance because they can be optimised terribly. There are actually some good mods which make the games play a lot better on older hardware, but it’s been a while and I don’t remember them.
Still, you’re going to want to play mostly un-modded because too many mods will tank an older system. I personally think vanilla Skyrim can be pretty fun, so it’s not a big deal, IMO.
The combat is a huge con, though. Bethesda hasn’t ever really been “good” at melee combat, and have only started to improve their gunplay starting with Fallout 4.
That said, since I’ve brought up FO4, Fallout 3 and New Vegas should run fine on pretty much anything. Although, when I say “fine”, I mainly mean “work”, because optimisation is still terrible and bugfix patches might be needed.
I love Links Awakening due to nostalgia, but Oracle of Ages is still the longest game I’ve played (since I’ve yet to beat it). Seasons is fine but not my cup of tea, and minish cap is a bit too shaort
I’m currently going through every (mainline) Zelda game and replaying them. Took a bit of a break at Links Awakening, but I’d have to say my favourite 2D Zelda are Seasons/Ages, and my favourite 3D is Majora’s Mask.
Something about the worlds in those games that really draws me in.
I’ve only ever played the two Oracle games on gameboy color, they were excellent. Never dinished Ages though, too damn difficult. Something about this format (topdown, block-based…) works really well with my brain
Just finished playing Axiom Verge. Since I picked up a SteamDeck, I’m trying to play through my library. I’m trying to figure out which game in my library to tackle next between Blasphemous, Forager, or Spiritfarer.
Dragon’s Dogma 2, getting close to 80 hours. I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface because, now that I’m getting 60’ish level pawns to run in my party, I’m still finding a ton of secrets in areas I’ve already explored extensively. In the game, the pawns you summon can show you secrets about the world that their players have discovered. It’s a neat mechanic.
If you like exploring open worlds, it’s a pretty great game.
Man, I couldn’t get into the game at all. I just found it really boring and a chore to play most of the time. This is one of those games, where I don’t get what others see in it at all.
It’s definitely not for everyone. I like it because it’s fun to explore the world they’ve built, but it’ll be more fun when the launch bugs are worked out.
You don’t need glasses during totality, if you happen to be in its path. If you’re not, actully looking at the sun is the least interesting part of a pretty eh event, anyway.
I was camping for the last eclipse. Didn’t make it north enough for totality, but fairly close. Seeing the little wedge of sun filtered and projected hundreds of times through the trees was pretty awesome- and in a way more interesting than looking at directly with the special glasses.
Even if you don’t look up , try to go out and enjoy it.
That’s how I viewed 2017! Went outside on my lunch break to watch the bananas on the sidewalk while everyone around me went about seemingly totally unaware of what was going on right above and below them
It has an overarching story and story missions, it’s combat oriented, it has one of the least-predatory F2P models I can think of, and it has both open world zones and “interior” missions.
Best of all, it runs on potatoes. Might be worth looking into.
Another option is maybe Monster Hunter Rise, but I’ve only played a demo, and you have to consider Capcom’s aggressive anti-cheat back porting.
Last one you might not have considered is Halo Infinite. I played the entire campaign with a Ryzen 5600G on medium settings and got ≈45-55fps. It’s very well optimized and should run fine on weaker hardware.
Most importantly, finish the game while having Marin as a companion until the end. I’m playing the game every year cycling through the three versions and every time I get to the original version, I skip the walrus.
In all honesty, genshin impact is a pretty reasonable facsimile of that sort of game. It’s really grown into its own, and it’s really fun and absolutely massive
That said, I’d only advise it if you are 100% confident you won’t engage in any of the gacha systems – you can play and enjoy the game with the free characters the game gives you, but once you start engaging with the gacha that can be a really dangerous slippery slope. If that’s something that you could fall prey to, I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you think you can play it without investing any money (or, really, more money than you can afford, I don’t know your financial situation) it’s actually a really great time, and the story’s only gotten better as it’s gone on. There’s definitely some stipulations with it, but it’s worth experiencing if you feel like those are acceptable
+1 for Genshin. While I think your gacha warning is excellent I do want to point out that the amount of resources you get for getting characters is more than enough to clear all story content. Hell if you’re a good player you could probably clear the whole game without using a single primogem, not even the countless thousands you get along the way.
And massive is also the understatement of the year. There is voiced content here that dwarfs even whole trilogies. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more recorded lines than all of Dragon Age and Mass Effect put together. And the story is likely not even at the halfway point yet, there’s still years to go. Closest analogy would probably be SWTOR, the MMO, but with much better combat.
that’s totally fair. I think you can do most of the story and exploration stuff without grinding much but if even that is too much grinding it’s probably not worth the effort. Hope you find what you’re looking for!
That’s probably the Zelda game I had the most negative reaction to. Oh, you’re going to undo all of my progress because I didn’t know how much more there was to do in this quest line before the world reset? No, I’m not going to do all of that again.
But that’s the fun of it! The game really manages to put you in a hurry if you really want to do everything you can in one cycle. Plus, my emotional atachment to the NPCs made me feel so relieved every time I went back in time and saw people living their little lives, clueless about the horrors to come
It would be one thing if I knew how much I had to do ahead of time, but until I’ve seen most of it before, I have no idea. There was some upgrade I could get only after finishing the entire goron temple, race, and some such, and I was on the final step of it when I ran out of time. I can’t do just the last step of it; I had to repeat at least the race, maybe the temple, in order to get to that spot again. I decided instead, “Nah, I’m good,” and put the game down. I respect that they tried to do a lot with a little on the development side, but it introduced tedium for me, the player, to be within those constraints.
This was the last Zelda game I played, but I couldn’t really get the hang of it since I really went into it expecting OoT 2: Eclectic Boogaloo, and OoT was really the best thing I’d seen up until then regardless of franchise. Then I saw all the cool stuff being done in later games with all the amazing tech that was being developed but I just couldn’t get around to have the time or patience necessary to sit and play anymore.
I’ve played them all over the years. My favorite for a long time was Wind Waker, because of the feeling of freedom it gave me, so it’ll surprise no one that Breath of the Wild beats it.
Breath of the Wild is my new fave. I gotta say that the story of Tears of the Kingdom really did it for me (just absolutely sobbing at points) but since it feels like it wouldn’t have had that impact if it wasn’t for Breath of the Wild, I give it to Breath of the Wild.
(Special shout out to Link Between Worlds. Really feel like that game was fun as hell.)
Edit: Gotta be real. I don’t remember which one I played first? I think it was Link to the Past.
Been on a Cyberpunk 2077 binge for the last 2 weeks or so. I’m maybe 4-6 hours away from completing everything except the final main story mission. It’s been an absolute pleasure, I haven’t found myself wanting to come back to a singleplayer game in the same way for some time. I know the game had a rocky start, but having picked it up much later, it’s a welcome addition to my “would recommend” list of games for RPG-lovers.
Twilight Princess. I loved the characters and the vibe, the MUSIC was something else too. On par with OOT. The snowy mountain theme was chilling.
It was not revolutionary like OOT, experimental like MM, or transformative as WW, but I feel like it was the most polished, quintessential Zelda game we got.
Now that BOTW and its squeakwal are just cash cows though, it’s sad to think we’ll never get a good old fashioned Zelda game again.
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