Open-world games thrive on variety, interesting gameplay, and a compelling story, but interestingly enough, it’s easy to see that it isn’t always the case from a development standpoint. For example, Rockstar is renowned for its open-world games, but these titles are primarily Red Dead or GTA. In other words, to make really good open-world games, it oftentimes takes so much time that they are more specialized than some might think.
This applies to Bethesda as well; after all, Starfield is the studio’s first new IP in a decade. Bethesda‘s name is synonymous with open-world, but when looking at the best open-world times from the studio, it’s almost the same as saying the best Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. Nonetheless, in terms of its open-world adventures, these are some that do take the cake.
Obviously, Skyrim takes the cake and eats it too; it’s the game many open-world adventures want to be. It’s one of few games to actually last a decade with dedicated players returning to it over and over again, always discovering something new. Perhaps the best part is that open-world here doesn’t mean big, as there’s many open-world games bigger than Skyrim, but breadth. Skyrim nails the balance between story, open-world exploration, danger, progress, locations, and icon overload, where many open-world games teeter far closer to one than the others.
Fallout 3 sits at a 91-93 on Metacritic, depending on platform, as the highest-rated Fallout Bethesda game. Part of this comes from its position in time: this is when Bethesda came in and the franchise transitioned to an open-world first-person format. Bethesda had started work on this before buying the full Fallout IP in 2007, with it arriving in 2008. It showed not only where the franchise was going and what it was capable of, but how much it’s worth experimenting with genre. Bethesda stepped into a foreign world, took everything built to this point, and made it one of its top games in the catalog.
If there’s one thing to be said about the Elder Scrolls franchise, it’s how each game modernized in different ways. Skyrim abandoned a lot of the classic RPG features of Oblivion, such as traditional classes, but that only makes them different, not one inherently worse. Oblivion is the achievement for Bethesda that paved the way for Skyrim, but whether it was diving through the Oblivion Gates, exploring Cyrodiil’s main story and factions, or adventuring through the splendid Shivering Isles DLC, Oblivion did it all first.
Of course, Oblivion didn’t do it literally first: as it paved the way for Skyrim, Morrowind paved the way for it. Morrowind‘s open-world take was much more literal, as players had to follow instructions to reach places instead of relying on checkpoints. As such, it wasn’t nearly as accessible as those that came after it, but it stands proudly for all the things it got right.
Technically developed by Obsidian Entertainment but published by Bethesda, Fallout: New Vegas brought together a unique story, a dangerous world, fun exploration, and then built on it. It wasn’t perfect on day one, but for those who play Fallout: New Vegas on Game Pass, it’s clear that it’s come a long way. Indeed, even as a 10-year old game, there’s plenty of fun to be had with it in 2021.
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