Summary
- Rebel Galaxy prioritizes arcade combat over exploration in a space-sim setting.
- Mount & Blade: Warband emphasizes large-scale ground battles over free-form exploration.
- Far Cry 5 offers engaging combat encounters in an expansive open-world setting.
Typically offering all manner of environments to tread through and across, open-world games naturally excel with their exploration-heavy gameplay. Outer Wilds, for example, focuses almost entirely on exploration of its minimalist solar system.
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These incredible video games not only showcase vast and complicated environments to explore, but they also deliver great gameplay to match.
However, there are a variety of open-world games that, while exploration remains a factor, focus on combat instead. These titles offer everything from large-scale and strategic battles to stand-offs against impressive bosses, providing a little something for everyone.
1 Rebel Galaxy
A Swashbuckling Adventure With Arcade Combat
Rebel Galaxy
- Released
- October 20, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Double Damage Games
- Publisher(s)
- Double Damage Games
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Fans of swashbuckling adventures and sci-fi westerns will surely enjoy Rebel Galaxy. In keeping with classic space-sims such as Freelancer, Rebel Galaxy is more concerned with punchy gameplay than it is with realistic simulation. Thankfully, Rebel Galaxy focuses wholeheartedly on the strength of its combat.
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Exploration is a part of Rebel Galaxy's gameplay loop, to be sure, but it's a simple and repetitive system that's by no means the focus. Instead, Rebel Galaxy frequently throws opportunities for combat at the player, sometimes even forces it. But as mentioned, combat is easily its greatest strength, offering arcade-infused space battles fought in a broadside manner.
2 Mount & Blade: Warband
An Open-World Sandbox With Large-Scale Warfare
Mount & Blade: Warband
- Released
- March 30, 2010
WHERE TO PLAY
- Publisher(s)
- Paradox Interactive
Mount & Blade: Warband is a sandbox RPG with free-form overworld exploration. However, Mount & Blade has a clear focus on combat over exploration, emphasizing large-scale battles with an impressive sense of scale.
Though a strategy game at heart, Mount & Blade: Warband's battles take place on the ground, from the perspective of the player character. This creates distinct and often visceral gameplay, allowing players to control their armies from an unorthodox perspective with unique controls.
3 Far Cry 5
An Open-World Action Sandbox
Far Cry 5
- Released
- March 27, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Toronto
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Xbox One
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Far Cry 5 offers players an expansive open-world to explore. Exploring this world is only engaging, however, thanks to the frequent opportunities for combat and the dynamic nature of its myriad enemies.
The FPS gameplay of Far Cry 5 may not be innovative, but it does offer players a great deal of freedom in how they approach encounters. Perhaps not as much freedom as an immersive-sim, for example, but enough to provide players with a meaningful sandbox of action that takes precedent over exploration.
4 Blood West
An Immersive First-Person RPG
Blood West
- Released
- February 10, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
Blood West is an open-world FPS that stands out with its unique setting and infusion of immersive-sim elements. Though not a fully-fledged immersive-sim, Blood West allows players to overcome its myriad combat encounters in multiple ways, though it does heavily encourage a stealthy approach.
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Players won't be receiving any mercy when they first walk out to explore these harsh and difficult open-world games.
These encounters are the lifeblood of Blood West, with a clear focus on combat over exploration. That said, exploration is still important, as players will want to find as many items and weapons as they can in order to increase their options and improve their chances of success in combat.
5 Borderlands 2
Open-World FPS Action
Borderlands 2
- Released
- September 18, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
Borderlands 2 is a first-person shooter with an emphasis on powerful, procedural loot. This title is further elevated by the addition of co-operative gameplay and interconnected open-world environments that weave together encounters with short stints of exploration.
Despite its diversity of environments, Borderlands 2 remains a game that emphasizes combat over exploration. The core motivation for the game is finding bigger, better weapons to take out bigger, badder foes. And, while exploring is a part of this, it's only a means to an end, with the end being combat.
6 Battle Brothers
A Combat-Focused Sandbox
Battle Brothers
- Released
- April 27, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Overhype Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Overhype Studios
- Genre(s)
- Indie Games, Tactical, RPG, Strategy, Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Battle Brothers is a low-fantasy sandbox RPG that features overworld exploration frequently interspersed with brutal combat encounters. Combat is a clear focus of the experience, and rightly so, as Battle Brothers tasks players with running a company of mercenaries.
The combat of Battle Brothers has been designed with clear attention to detail, with gameplay that's naturally punishing rather than posing artifical difficulty. Mistakes are swiftly punished, though a healthy dose of RNG ensures luck can sometimes sway the outcome.
7 Elden Ring
A Boss-Fueled Open World
Elden Ring
- Released
- February 25, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bandai Namco Entertainment, From Software
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Developed by the prolific FromSoftware, Elden Ring offers players an open-world take on the soulslike formula. This open-world structure does reduce the density of combat, but it remains a combat-focused experience that fans of the Dark Souls games are sure to appreciate.
Although Elden Ring presents players with a painstakingly crafted expanse of dark fantasy that greatly rewards exploration, it remains an experience that focuses on the challenges of combat encounters. It's true that players will spend plenty of time exploring, probing the dark corners of the enigmatic world, but a vast array of enemies dots the expanse, and the defeat of myriad bosses remains the core motivation.
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