Summary
- Open-world exploration in games like Valheim and Elden Ring is high-stakes, rewarding, and terrifying.
- Survival in harsh environments like The Long Dark and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Requires caution, preparation, and constant risk assessment.
- Games like Don't Starve and Subnautica challenge players with punishing mechanics and unpredictable dangers, making every decision vital.
Open-world games love to lure players in with pretty vistas and curious question marks on the map. But sometimes, taking one step too far off the beaten path means a nasty case of frostbite, being stricken with radiation poisoning, or getting turned into mushroom soup by something living underground.
In these games, exploration isn't a side activity — it's a gamble. Every cave, coastline or corridor might have treasure, but it might also kill the fragile player character. The scariest part is that most of the time, players won’t even see the dangers coming.
8 Best Open-World Games You've Probably Never Heard Of
These lesser-known games are well worth playing for those who love a good open-world adventure.
6 Valheim
The Trees Are Watching, And So Is Everything Else
Valheim
- Released
- February 2, 2021
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- r
- Developer(s)
- Iron Gate AB
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
What starts as a quiet romp through a charming Viking purgatory turns into a full-on war for survival the moment players step outside the Meadows. Valheim doesn’t wait long before punishing curiosity. That Black Forest nearby is full of skeletons and trolls. The Swamp hosts poison leeches, wraiths, and monsters that hit like trucks. And then there's the Plains biome, home to Deathsquitos — fast, tiny, and capable of killing a fully armored player in seconds.
Exploration in Valheim is about caution and preparation. Venturing into new biomes too early is a death sentence unless players bring the right gear, food buffs, and sometimes even a portal to escape. The world is procedurally generated, but it’s not randomized chaos. It's structured, with enemy scaling and biome difficulty meant to push back hard against greed. Even sailing isn’t safe, thanks to the ocean biome's terrifying serpent encounters. It makes crossing a river feel like crossing into enemy territory, and that tension is exactly what makes its exploration so rewarding — and terrifying.
5 The Long Dark
Every Step Forward Is a Countdown
The Long Dark
- Released
- August 1, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood, Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Hinterland Studio
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
In The Long Dark, survival isn’t just about what’s around the corner — it’s about whether players remembered to pack enough matches. There are no zombies or monsters here. Instead, players face snow, starvation, isolation, and the slow, creeping realization that freezing to death in the dark is not only possible, it’s likely.
8 Survival Games For Players Who Love The Long Dark
If you're craving a similar experience to the survival challenges of The Long Dark, you'll want to check out these similar survival game experiences.
Set in a post-apocalyptic Canadian wilderness, The Long Dark leans into realism so hard that even exploring an abandoned fishing hut can get someone killed. There's hypothermia, frostbite, cabin fever, and wolves that stalk the player for miles. Everything is out to get the player, and the only thing worse than dying is dying slowly. Resources are finite, gear degrades, and every decision to explore deeper into the woods must be weighed against how much daylight, calories, and stamina remain.
The game doesn’t even allow manual saves in its survival mode. So if players slip into a frozen lake or get ambushed by a bear they didn’t hear over the howling wind, that death is permanent. Exploring is necessary to progress, but it's almost never safe — which makes every successful expedition feel like a small miracle.
4 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Curiosity Killed The Comrade
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
- Released
- February 2, 2010
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M // Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- GSC Game World
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, players not only explore a radioactive wasteland — they try to survive it while being hunted by things that should not exist. The Zone is more than just Chernobyl with extra mutants. It's a complex, hostile ecosystem layered with invisible anomalies, faction warfare, psychic horrors, and some of the most punishing survival mechanics ever seen in an FPS-RPG hybrid.
Artifacts, valuable items that grant powerful bonuses, often lie deep inside gravitational anomalies that can instantly crush the player into paste. There’s no glowing warning sign — just a brief shimmer and a squelching sound if players aren't fast enough to toss a bolt ahead of them. Adding to the chaos are emissions: sudden bursts of deadly radiation that force players to scramble for shelter or get vaporized on the spot.
What makes Call of Pripyat especially brutal is how it encourages exploration with great loot, hidden stashes, and side quests, then punishes players for trying to get too clever. There’s always something in the shadows, whether it’s a snork lurking in a basement or a bloodsucker waiting behind a door. It only takes one mistake to lose everything. Players have to think like scavengers, not heroes.
3 Don’t Starve
Dying Isn’t The End; It’s The Whole Point
Don't Starve
- Released
- April 23, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Fantasy, Violence, Crude Humor
- Developer(s)
- Klei Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Management
The whole premise of Don’t Starve is right there in the title, but starving is just one of a dozen ways players can lose everything. Wilson might look like a Victorian cartoon character, but his world is pure, unfiltered malice. Every step in a new direction is a roll of the dice — will it be pigmen? Killer bees? An angry herd of beefalo?
Games to Play If You Like Don't Starve
Klei Entertainment's Don't Starve is one of the most unique survival games out there, but there are a few titles that can match up to it.
Exploration in Don’t Starve is high-stakes from day one. Maps are randomly generated, and players start with nothing. To find food, crafting materials, or safer biomes, they’re forced to push outward constantly. But night falls fast, and unless players have a fire ready, they’ll get eaten by literal darkness. Sanity also plays a huge role. Let it drop too low, and the world itself starts turning against the player. Hallucinations become real, and even common tasks like chopping trees can spawn living horrors like Treeguards.
Then there’s Don’t Starve Together, which adds co-op and somehow makes things worse. There are mouths to feed, more chances for someone to accidentally anger a giant, and a higher probability that everyone freezes to death because no one remembered to build a thermal stone. It’s pure chaos disguised as quirky fun.
2 Subnautica
The Ocean Hides Beautiful Nightmares
Subnautica
- Released
- January 23, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language
- Developer(s)
- Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Subnautica is the kind of game that lures players in with coral reefs, soothing ambient music, and glowing fish. Then it casually introduces creatures like the Reaper Leviathan and says, “Good luck.”
Set on an alien water world, players start near the safe shallows, where gathering titanium and building tools feels calm and almost meditative. But real progress means diving deeper, and that’s when Subnautica starts flexing its true horror potential. The ocean gets darker, colder, and more claustrophobic. Areas like the Blood Kelp Zone and the Lost River feel like undersea graveyards. Visibility plummets, and audio cues — like low rumbles or sudden roars — become the only warning of something large and hostile that's just out of sight.
Oxygen is always a ticking clock. The deeper the dive, the more players have to juggle pressure, limited light, and creatures that can grab their Seamoth and crush it in seconds. Subnautica doesn’t just punish reckless exploration — it thrives on the fear that players know they need to go deeper but have no idea what’s waiting down there. And once they hit the Void and learn what's beyond the map's edge, it becomes clear: the ocean isn’t empty. It’s watching.
1 Elden Ring
Every Hill Hides A Horrible Secret
Elden Ring
- Released
- February 25, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
There’s no open-world map quite like the Lands Between. Elden Ring may look inviting at first, with golden trees and watercolor skies, but anyone who’s played more than 30 minutes knows the truth — it’s a world that has deep, creative ways of showing its hatred for the player.
Every inch of Elden Ring’s open world is loaded with ambushes, minibosses, and traps that exist to punish curiosity. A harmless-looking ruin might hide a Rune Bear that can flatten a level 60 character. A random chest can teleport players to Caelid (essentially hell on Earth) hours before they're ready. Even peaceful NPCs occasionally turn into boss fights if players breathe wrong near them. The risk of exploration is baked into FromSoftware’s design ethos: players are free to go anywhere, but they better be ready to die there.
The map is enormous and has almost zero handholding. Hidden walls, secret portals, and entire legacy dungeons like Nokron and Mohgwyn Palace can be completely missed by those unwilling to explore. But exploring without caution usually ends in a “You Died” screen, followed by a desperate sprint back to recover Runes while avoiding whatever horror caused the death in the first place. It’s brutal, and fans wouldn't want it any other way.
Best Games To Play If You Like Elden Ring
Those looking for something as engaging and entertaining as Elden Ring can turn to some of these games to get their fix.