Summary
In recent years, games have ballooned in size. Whereas once upon a time it was common for AAA games to only take a weekend to complete, these days they’re more likely to take a few dozen hours. This trend has gone hand in hand with the rise in popularity of open-world games. Gamemaps are getting biggerand developers are stuffing them full of optional content to complete.
It’s reached the point where the main story now often takes a backseat to the various side activities on offer, with some games barely having any kind of story to speak of. Whether or not this optional content is always fun, or even worth doing, is up for debate.
Updated May 13, 2025 by Robbie Mitchell:With open-world games more popular than ever before, it’s time to add some more entries to this list. Palworld has given Pokemon a run for its money, Horizon: Forbidden West recently got its big PC release, Once Human has proven free-to-play games can be just as good, and Elden Rings’s big DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, has set the gaming world alight.
These titles have helped prove that it’s not always a bad thing when big open-world games focus on optional content over their main stories. For anyone looking for more games that let them do their own thing, each one of these is a great pick.
Survival games tend to be famously light on story elements, but even for this genre,Palworldis incredibly light on actual story. It doesn’t feature any kind of main story quest, and outside of a tutorial and missions encouraging the player to take on world bosses and reach new areas, it lets the player do whatever they like.
This is a wise choice becausePalworld’score gameplay loop is a ton of fun. There are tons of Pals to “recruit” and either use either to battle other Pals or work on one’s base. The quests that do exist are entirely optional but offer meaningful rewards and tend to lead to the player discovering new areas. While some players might missPokemon’sslightly more structured approach to catching monsters and exploring the world,Palworldoffers significant levels of player freedom.
Once Humanhas a surprisingly good story for an open-world, live service free-to-play survival game. Based around a particularly bizarre alien invasion, the game’s story is mostly an excuse to push the player into new areas and discover new gear and blueprints.
The game’s real focus, though, is on undertaking sidequests, weekly/seasonal challenges called commissions, and building up the player’s gear and base. In an interesting twist, the game’s servers are set to reset every six weeks (a bit likeTarkov), wiping certain parts of the player’s progression. These resets will also add new features, including continuing the game’s story. This will likely lead to a cycle where every six weeks players will complete the next bit of story as quickly as possible and spend the rest of their time doing optional content while they wait for the next reset/story drop.
Unlike some games here,Horizon: Forbidden Westdoes have a decent story to tell. As a direct follow-up from the first game, it follows Aloy not long after she defeats the rogue AI, Hades, and has her searching for a way to save the world. That main story is pretty beefy and will take most players just under 28 hours to complete.
Most of the player’s time spent playingHorizon: Forbidden West, however, will be spent tackling its side content. The game has various side quests and tasks to complete, many of them meaningful, some feeling like filler. Crafting is also a big part of the game, and it’s easy to sink countless hours into hunting down specific beasts to upgrade Aloy’s gear. Finally, the game has a lot of map icons for players to visit, and ticking off every location on the map will take a fair few hours just on its own. It’sa great open-world game that might be too longthanks to its emphasis on side content.
WithElden Ring, FromSoftware took their classic Dark Souls formula and applied it to a truly massive open world. It proved to be a recipe for success and since its release in 2022, the game has done phenomenally well. Just like theDark Soulsgames,Elden Ringhas a story and lots of in-depth lore, but most players have no idea what’s going on.
Elden Ringhas a massive map stuffed to the gills with hidden locations to find, tombs to explore, and world bosses to hunt down. It’s a gigantic game that encourages players to go where they want and do what they want. The vast majority of locations can be undertaken in whatever order the player wants (depending on how good they are) and pretty much everything is optional. Rather than being told where to go, most players will complete the main story organically while hopping from one piece of content to the next. It’s a setup that the game’s DLC,Shadow of the Erdtree, also follows, adding many, many hours of optional content to the game.
Ever sinceFallout 3, theFalloutgames have been known for their immersive world-building and great side quests. Many fans would argue thatFallout’s best stories and contentare usually found off the beaten track - it’s kind of Bethesda’s whole thing.
WithFallout 76, Bethesda doubled down on this approach. The game doesn’t feature a traditional main storyline and what story it does have is mainly used to drip-feed players new camp plans and equipment. Instead,Fallout 76encourages players to explore and tackle whatever content they feel like. Fans can focus on completing more traditional quests if they wish, or the multiple events, raids, expeditions, and other MMO aspects of the title.
TheSaints Rowseries may have started as “we have GTA at home” but quickly evolved into its own thing. WhileGrand Theft Autohas always had a focus on storytelling,Saints Row’s main goal has always been to fill its map with as much mayhem as possible.
Saint’s Row 4dishes out this mayhem in the form of an eye-watering number of optional activities. These range from committing insurance fraud (aSaint’s Rowstaple) to flying around in a UFO and taking down enemies as anoverpowered pseudo-superhero. The game’s storyline doesn’t take very long to beat, but getting a Gold medal in all these activities can easily become a time-consuming addiction.
WhenNo Man’s Skywasfirst released, players were given one objective: reach the center of the universe. Unfortunately, it soon turned out that was pretty much all there was to do. Thankfully, over the years Hello Games kept adding to the game and now fans are spoiled for choice when it comes to things to do.
No Man’s Skydoesn’t really have a traditional story. Instead, players are free to do whatever they want in aprocedurally generated universewhere everything is optional. Want to become a space rancher? Go for it. Travel space as a bounty hunter tracking criminal scum? The game has fans covered. InNo Man’s Skyplayers make their own stories.
Some gamers can remember a time when theAssassin’s Creedgames were actually about assassinating people. Over time, however, theUbisoft open-world tropesset in, and the games became more about exploring the map to hunt down collectibles and a multitude of optional activities.
Assassin’s Creed Valhallaepitomizes this evolution - the main character, Evior, isn’t even an assassin. Players can go hunting, lead raids, play drinking games, and even attend Viking-style rap battles (plus much, much more). There’s so much to do and see, most players will spend most of their time in Viking England tackling optional content rather than playing the story missions.
It’s a shame that outside of Japan the originalXenoblade Chronicleshas never really gotten the love it deserves. The size of this RPG is staggering, featuring a massive open world and more quests than fans can shake a stick at.
There are over a dozen regions to explore, each packed to the gills with optional side quests. In total, the game has 480 quests to complete, with only 31 of them being compulsory. Anyone looking to complete them all can expect around 200 hours of game time.
Starfielddoesn’t just have one open world with a lot of optional content. It has entire star systems and planets that are optional.
If they want, players can spend hundreds of hours just exploring Starfield without ever opening their quest log or taking on the main quest line. Of course, this being a Bethesda game,Starfieldalso has dozens of hours worth of optional side quests - some of whichare really weird.
