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.
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!
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.
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.
Might I recommend Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions? Both of these games involve non-linear, open world explorations. As for combat, they are turn-based, so I’m not sure if that’s what you would consider a “good” combat system. Also, unlike traditional RPGs, which use a point-based system to level up and gain new skills, SaGa games involve a “Spark” system, where new techniques are learned randomly or through use of an existing technique during battles.
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.
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.
I’ve got a few years of waiting on you, but never made an eclipse a priority to see. This one was close enough where I had no excuses. And I had the day off with the kids. We drove many hours to get to Plattsburgh, NY in the hopes that the event wouldn’t be obscured by clouds, we had a choice between that and Ohio. Looks like Ohio did pretty well, we had a high cirrus cloud layer but it wasn’t enough to disrupt the view. I wouldn’t call myself an astronomy buff, but Space has always held huge interest in my life, so dragging the family out for this event was kinda a big ask because they weren’t necessarily into it. I hoped the trip would be worth it, both weather-wise and stellar phenomena-wise.
Worth it. There’s no words to describe the ethereal, silvery ring that magically appears during totality. Bailey’s beads and more. Sure, there are photos and videos, but that doesn’t do justice to the play of light in the environment surrounding the viewer, the night-yet-still-day incongruity.
Everyone is taking home some joy from the experience.
We tried to capture a photo of total, but due to a comedy of errors, it didn’t happen, so the memories will just have to stay in our heads.
I hope anyone near an eclipse’s path of totality won’t write it off if they have a choice. Go see it. Truly a sight.
This is the kind of thing where even if kids don’t seem to really be interested in it, even if they don’t seem impressed, it’s such an incredibly rare and unique event (close enough to home) that they will always remember it. Maybe not to the point of thinking about it every week, but in the sense that every mention of solar eclipses, at the very least, will remind them of this one moment in totality with you. You can plant some seeds for interests without knowing what will take root while still knowing the seed stays there.
Piggybacking on my genshin suggestion, another suggestion would be Guild Wars 2? It’s world is more open than most MMOs and since it’s over a decade old there’s a ton of content there. There’s a lot as a free2play player, but you can buy expansions if you want even more to explore, and I genuinely think gw2’s exploration is best-in-class. It’s also benefitted by being an old game in terms of old computers being able to run it, you’d probably have to play on low graphics but it’ll certainly run. Hope that’s more useful if you dont wanna do gacha stuff like genshin!
Second for guild wars 2, the world is huge when you first start playing, and though the initial levelling experience can feel like it takes a while, once you have hit the cap you can go pretty much anywhere. The story is pretty linear, though, so if you want a deep and complex story it might be better to look for a single player game.
I’d also say the combat system in Guild wars is fantastic, it’s simple enough to pick up and not have to stress about playing the game, but if you want to engage and get better there is so much to learn about and improve.
It has borrowed many elements from botw but with a lot of the “Ubisoft open world formula” on top. I really enjoyed it. The combat is deeper than botw in the traditional sense but I found it responsive and easy to learn. The “shrine” equivalents also had some interesting and unique challenges too.
I would recommend to play this on Switch though. That’s because, unlike the PC version, the Switch version can be played without an Ubisoft Account. All one has to do is to disconnect the Switch from the internet, and suddenly the game runs without login.
Train gameplay was actually enjoyable for me (especially the way it got used in one of the end game fights was so cool). It was also nice that Zelda was an actual part of the game and helped solve puzzles instead of some princess locked away in a castle.
I played Phantom Hourglass much later and Spirit Tracks honestly just felt much more polished and fun.
I really think that everyone really had trouble with the DS microphone rather than the flute challenge itself. It came pretty easily to me but I doubt I’m a particularly expert mic blower, so I can only think my mic was a fully functioning one and people like you got a much harder challenge.
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.
I see a lot of MMOs being recommended, but I find them to be either shallow in combat or predatory unless you are seeking MMO specific things, so I’m going to point at single player/coop stuff.
Bethesda has a large selection of open world games, but I pretty much assume people have played all of them (Elder Scrolls / Fallout games).
If you are okay with going outside of Fantasy, the Far Cry series has some impressive technology in their older titles. Far Cry 2 is a personal favorite, your PC might be able to handle it.
Borderlands series.
The original Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen holds up. This is probably my best recommendation based on your asks.
Lego Star Wars or the Lego Marvel game.
Fable 1, 2, 3
The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War Games were pretty incredible but might be too high-end.
The first Red Dead Redemption might run for you.
Early Dark souls games might run. Maybe 1 or 2.
From here, I would start listing old Star Wars Jedi Knight series games.
I could probably go on, but this is most of the good stuff off the top of my head.
I forgot to add Mass Effect. Great for sci-fi, great leveling, and combat.
Seconding Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I have it on GOG, it’s absolutely fantastic (apparently the pawn rental system is broken on that version, but I never used it anyway). Climbing up a drake to stab it in the face has never been so satisfying! and magic archer is OP
It’s also old enough that OP’s hardware shouldn’t have any trouble running it at decent settings.
Edit: I just realized the GOG version is currently on sale for under $5, what are you waiting for?
Dark souls 1. No other game made exploring the world so exciting. I was checking every single nook and cranny because the game isn’t afraid to give you good gear if you look. The combat can be frustrating but the further you get the easier the game gets. Also definitely follow a build guide if it’s your first ds game.
Note that Dark Souls games are absolute Marmite. I’m aware that some people praise them as the greatest games ever made, but I had a terrible experience playing DS1 and have no desire to touch another one!
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