The best open world/sandbox PC games out there?

[x3kj 1247]

i would maybe play space engineer when it had better reason to build stuff. right now its basically just self gratification. Same with minecraft. So whenever i built something, i feel like i have wasted my time, because it's ultimately useless, as the game has no real goals that you need to fulfill. And i can't make use of it in any other game either. If i wanna just build something for buildings sake i'd rather do that in a 3D package so i can use it in other games with purpose at least. Surviving is achievable with bare minimum efford, so that doesnt count.

[Rydygier 1317]

So... Any thoughts on Fallout 4 anyone? I just started, and likely I will have some notes to make, but not yet. 

[SonOfKrazyBee 15]

There's a copy really good ones for sure but depends on if your talking about singleplayer wise, modded wise, multiplayer wise... here's my opinion:

SinglePlayer: FarCry 5 or Skyrim V or Fallout 4

Multiplayer: GTA 5 or Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games makes really nice Multiplayer Open World Games) ;)

Modded: GTA 5

[Sleepy Joe 1]

If we talk about open world games then you gonna find many good.. Nice openworld games i liked to play or have seen real gameplays from friends:

 

Assassins Creed

Gothic

Gta

Farcry

Red Dead Redemption - only seen it cuz no pc version :(

Fallout

Just Couse

Witcher

T.C. The Division

Batman: Arkham Origins

Dead Island

L.A. Noir

Mafia

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Saints Row

State of Decay

Two Worlds

Skyrim

[Maio 293]

I always enjoyed the Gothic series...

[Tonci87 163]

I always enjoyed the Gothic series...

 

 

I enjoyed Gothic 1 and Gothic 2+addon

 

Brilliant RPGs

 

Sadly it all went to shit with Gothic 3 & onwards....

[Rydygier 1317]

I earlier tried Farcry 3 and recently Farcry 4. It's rare to see a game, that is so quality work with so promising concepts, that so quickly proves to be completely boring, frustrating in many ways, oddly full of tiring "intrusive richness" and repetitive in the same time. So big potential and all this high quality work wasted so terribly, while so close to something cool. Same, as for Assassin's Creed (Black Flag in my case) BTW. It's wide and shiny at first glance but shallow, where should be deeper, and very annoingly failing in many details of gameplay solutions and technicals. Similarity of consequent titles of the series and even between Ubisoft's series is another story, indicates, that they think, like they found some perfect gameplay optimum, and no chance for risking anything really new and fresh, but it's so close and in the same time so FAR from my own taste, so I want to CRY :) . So, wasted not only ideas, potential and hard work, but also my money, which always hurts, despite, all their titles was discounted when I bought them. I have to be far from the gamers' taste mainstream, if such policy and game design gives them satisfactory profit. 

[JdB 151]

I earlier tried Farcry 3 and recently Farcry 4. It's rare to see a game, that is so quality work with so promising concepts, that so quickly proves to be completely boring, frustrating in many ways, oddly full of tiring "intrusive richness" and repetitive in the same time. So big potential and all this high quality work wasted so terribly, while so close to something cool. Same, as for Assassin's Creed (Black Flag in my case) BTW. It's wide and shiny at first glance but shallow, where should be deeper, and very annoingly failing in many details of gameplay solutions and technicals. Similarity of consequent titles of the series and even between Ubisoft's series is another story, indicates, that they think, like they found some perfect gameplay optimum, and no chance for risking anything really new and fresh, but it's so close and in the same time so FAR from my own taste, so I want to CRY :) . So, wasted not only ideas, potential and hard work, but also my money, which always hurts, despite, all their titles was discounted when I bought them. I have to be far from the gamers' taste mainstream, if such policy and game design gives them satisfactory profit.

I felt the same about Farcry 2. Nice that they chose Africa, looked believable but was utterly devoid of challenges/atmosphere/life. About half way into the campaign I just gave up as it was just too repetitive.

Crysis on the other hand was much better imo (especially the parts without the aliens). Of course because of my extensive love for OFP I completely neglected the sci-fi suit stuff.

[EO 11277]

This takes open world to a new level........ http://www.outerra.com/

 

[Wavemaker 1]

Orbiter's a more realistic open space game where you can fly around the solar system.

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

[tortuosit 486]

This takes open world to a new level........ http://www.outerra.com/

 

Interesting. Looks like it could rather serve as an engine.

[navials 3]

Hi! :) I recommend you the Open World Games for PC list.

 

There you can browse a brief information about a game. Like description, screenshots, publisher and so on.

So, you can ease your game searching.

 

Good luck  :)

 

[Rydygier 1317]

So, No Man's Sky. Quite noisy fuss around, didn't buy so far (no Polish publisher means Steam price, which is simply too high as for Polish reality). I see potential and a step toward very interesting, but still far goal. In the same time I don't share author's vision as for kind of experience, NMS should give. My perfect exploring experience is different. I would like less space opera, more hard SF. All, even travel itself, more challenging, life more rare (thus less repetitive, but also more interactive), finding it should be a rewarding accomplishement by itself, more scientific approach etc. Also not sure about graphics, from gameplays seem blurry to me, even full HD. If so - bad. I can't stand blurry graphics. What you think? Do you like NMS? How it should develop? 

[IndeedPete 1038]

I'd stay clear of NMS for now. The technical problems ranging from FPS hitching to the game crashing on start seem to affect a large part of the player base right now. It had almost 80% negative steam ratings last time I checked. Plus I heard it does not support HOTAS and the controls should be console-ish which seems like a big no-go for a space flight game. It seems to be a mess on PC right now.

 

Now, I was never really interested in NMS as I personally didn't like the art style. And when I heard the devs saying "yeah, we're using super complex math functions to create our universe" I knew that was just a fancy way of saying they don't have the resources to handcraft a world and thus have to fallback to procedural generation. The footage and comments I saw until now only prove the point that it's all kind of the same shit over and over again. Gather, build, fly to next planet that looks slightly different yet generic, repeat. But if that is what some people like, good for them. I still have Elite: Dangerous which suffers from the same symptoms of procedural generation and that's exactly why I stopped playing it.

 

Edit: A NMS review from my favourite YouTuber. (Trigger warning.)

 

[Rydygier 1317]

Yes. Still, I hope, it's a step toward a goal. A goal is - procedurally generated worlds/gameplay not worse as for look and diversity, than handcrafted, while better as for complexicity, deepness, scale, and development flexibility. Who knows, maybe someday... 

 

What I like about procedural generation idea (not necessarily status quo as for execution/quality) is a feeling, it gives, it's not a pretended, premeditated in every detail by someone (thus "artificial"), put before my eyes player-centric theatre, but something, that can and will surpirse even game devs, especially as for exploration experience - this feeling, world isn't built around you, is something more authentic, not "caring" about you, also because based not on someone's imagination, but on the rules, that run real world too. And a feeling, when I explore, I can see something, that genuinely no one, game devs included, didn't see before me. 

 

As for the art style - not a fan too, I prefer realistic approach, although other planets may have really disturbing color palette. I think, it's kinda enforced by procedural generation, not sure though. 

 

Also interesting thing, most people, whose opinions I read, that drop off NMS did that after few/several hours thinking, they saw all, what was to see and so further is only the more of the same. And what, if not? Game of this kind and this magnitude easily may require more patience and only the persistent will be rewarded and see some extra deepness. 

[IndeedPete 1038]

I feel procedural generation can be a very powerful tool. But it needs to be tailored, just like any other form of RNG. If a game is centered around procedural generation, I will most likely not enjoy it. And NMS seems to be solely made of RNG. Good examples for usage of procedural generation are Diablo I & II (never played III so I don't know), or a more recent example would be XCom 2. Even if I'm really skeptic when it comes to RNG, I got 50 or so hours of great fun out of XCom 2. Mostly because it uses RNG to create the basic level layout but fills these levels with handcrafted, unique enemies. Of course, there is some repitition in mission types and overall gameplay. But the intense combat and strategic decisions hide the fact quite well that it's pretty reliant on RNG. Whereas the RNG in NMS is constantly rubbed in your face. The game retails at a AAA price but looks more like a 20 $/€ indie title.

 

I like the Star Trek look of some planets but the rest, meh. And for example Tanoa wouldn't be such a beautiful and unique experience worth exploring, if it was procedurally generated.

[veles-zv 176]

fallout, wasteland

rim world (deep gameplay)

under rails ( like wasteland and older fallout  titles) 

sins of a solar empire (rts but its really the only one i play) 

homeworld ( a classic )  

slient hunters

just cause  just for the terrain :D

metal gear soild (somewhat open world but still worth it)

most flight sims such as Il-2, fsx, dcs, 

space engineers is a great open world game

from the depths  

Kerbal Space Program 

witcher  is a great game how ever im not a fan of mid evil combat 

star wars knights of the old republic (which is being remade)

[tortuosit 486]

Did not buy NMS, EUR 60, they are kidding. Looks like a stupid console game, poor mechanics, super simple controller friendly gameplay and controls, no possibilities (modding etc). It's the typical stuff I buy for like EUR 10 and then never play. Creating worlds through PRNG sounds good, but after all looks pretty similar. I mean, I just need to see a blurred image and can see it is NMS. I see 50% hype, 45% religious extremist community and 5% game.

Even Totalbiscuit struggled in telling us clearly about the state of that game. He seemed to have been well aware about the religious feelings out there.

 

The religious overshadowing can be seen in this fact: We see and saw LOD popping in every preview and now after release. Nobody really complained and complains. WTF?

 

I am very sceptic if they do not do prereleases, everything being vague. They know why! It's simply sales. X:Rebirth comes to mind. They must have known it was crap.

 

Yeah, their super complex math function. It works. People repeat "But there are trillions of planets" in the same way like other people repeat "Jesus died for you". It's so easy to repeat things :D

[IndeedPete 1038]

True. And what does it matter if there are trillions of planets which

 

a. you will never be able to visit in your life time

 

b. look all the same, just in different colours?

 

I found that Jim Sterling thing disgusting where some mindless fanboys DDos'd his site just because he expressed some criticism towards the game. That's exactly that kind of oppression one would expect from religious cults.

[Rydygier 1317]

Well... Thanks for opinions, guys. My verdict, also after reading pretty harsh review on Polish gaming site and the more harsh comments on their forums is as follows: I should wait, till the price drop like 2, 3 times, 2-3 patches come and some expansions enriching gameplay too (something is planned as I heard) and expecting that in 6-12 months. With this additional requirement, so the graphics will be sharp, not blurry at that point (which is not only ugly, but also tires my eyes and even gives headaches). If that will happen, as I hope, I'll likely buy NMS. Otherwise - sadly, no. In such case I only would to sing a requiem over so huge potential wasted like that. 

[Rydygier 1317]

I still have Elite: Dangerous which suffers from the same symptoms of procedural generation and that's exactly why I stopped playing it.

 

 

Do you mean including Horizons? 

[IndeedPete 1038]

Do you mean including Horizons? 

 

Uh, no, I haven't bought Horizons (yet). I felt it was way too overpriced, it's cheaper now I guess. But at the moment I'm not really interest in playing Elite. It's a fine game though, I probably got out more than 20 hours playtime. Flying is fun, but it's very repetetive and a bit too relaxing. I used to read newspapers or books while doing long distance travels to keep myself entertained. Not really what I want from a game.

[dmarkwick 261]

That Russian space game, you know the one, Nomansky, I would describe the gameplay as being rather "flat". That is, you experience about the same thing continuously, while doing the same things continuously. If you like to wander about and look at things that are somewhat different (and almost guaranteed to be unique) then you can get some enjoyment out of it. Luckily, I do. However unless the gameplay ramps up over time then my interest will definitely wane.

 

I'm suspecting there is some amount of upgrade rubber-banding, as I get bigger better ships so the choice of further ships seems to be expanding, although that might also be a mechanic of further travel. I'm hoping there is some gradual expanding of available gameplay in this fashion, eventually allowing the use of far larger ships and even large ships with landers. I'm pretty sure this would have been definitely touted as a feature though.

 

Maybe future patches will expand the gameplay. As I understand it, there wasn't even as much gameplay as there is now until a few days before launch.

[tortuosit 486]

Edit: A NMS review from my favourite YouTuber. (Trigger warning.)

Have you seen his Apex review? It's so funny. That guy is brilliant.

Part 2 of his NMS review is out :)

[tortuosit 486]

The internet humour is worth every penny I did not pay for NMS :) Best entertainment I had for ages...

Video sums things up pretty well.