5 Open-World Games Worth Playing Just For Their Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is an essential part of open-world games, more so if the lore of said games is filled to the brim with ancient civilizations, background stories, and many strange creatures and folks to meet. And speaking about great worldbuilding, there are a few titles that are simply crafted differently, with such finely crafted world background design threads that it is just too good to be true.

Some of them carry years of development on their backs, and some are relatively new but still have thousands of pages of lore to discover. Nevertheless, these titles are totally worth playing just for the worldbuilding behind the main storyline and are guaranteed to offer a fully immersive experience to every player who dares to step into their worlds.

5 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Explore A Whole Culture, Like You've Never Seen Before

With everyone talking about the upcoming sixth iteration of the Elder Scrolls franchise people tend to forget that the lore of these games has been over 30 years in the making, turning them into one of the oldest franchises that have been constantly working on their worldbuilding. And that, of course, means two things: Lots of lore to read and great background design quality. But it is in Skyrim where TES worldbuilding shines brighter, with a lot of side stories to explore, especially, the living and breathing ecosystem that Bethesda has managed to create surrounding the main story.

Just thinking about the fate of the Dwemer, how they are related with the legendary Snow Elves, and at the same time, with the Falmer, you have a great example of a story finely crafted for over 3 decades. Then you have Akatosh and the rest of the Aedra, never more present in Tamriel, than when the Alduin crisis imploded. But there's not only grand sagas to uncover in the game, but many, many tiny little secrets that give meaning to an everchanging world: From a naughty Argonian Maid, to the origin of Sheogorath one of the most mysterious (and beloved) beings in the Elder Scrolls universe; every little tale matters.

4 Horizon: Zero Dawn

Visually Breathtaking, And Narratively Heartbreaking

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Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 94%

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Released

February 28, 2017

ESRB

T for Teen: Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Mild Sexual Themes, Violence

Developer(s)

Guerrilla Games

Publisher(s)

Sony

Engine

Decima

Franchise

Horizon

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Platform(s)

PS4, PC

Genre(s)

Action, RPG

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Horizon: Zero Dawn is not a story about Alloy, nor about any of the characters currently living on Earth, it is a story about how making ruined the world, and how human culture persisted beyond its well-earned extinction. An incredibly well-developed worldbuilding that doesn't unravel until the very exact moment when all pieces fall into place, and you end up there, standing, in the horrifying realization that all was for nothing.

Humanity may have persisted, but so did its greed, low moral standards, aggressivity, and hubris of believing itself in control of its own fate. Alloy's tale is a wake-up call everyone not realizing that there's no planet B, but players might not be ready for this discussion. In the meantime, the worldbuilding is all that's good in games like this one, and even if you go beyond the cautionary tale, there are hundreds of small stories of survival, some are a spark of hope, others, tremendously heartbreaking, but all of them are worthy of being known.

3 No Man's Sky

No Other Game Dared To Go As Far As This

No Man's Sky wasn't always as good as it is today, and ever since the hype balloon blast from the initial release to the latest update, it has been 8 years of long development and persistent quality-of-life improvements that have made it the greatest space exploration game ever made. But it is not just its hundreds of thousands of procedurally generated worlds, side missions, and activities that give life to a vast universe. It is its worldbuilding, well hidden, tucked away in dark deep corners of forgotten planets and ruins.

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No Man's Sky has an underlying story to tell: How did the space explorer (avatar) reach there in the first place? Why do they "hear the call" of the Ancient Civilization Ruins? Thinking about how players are practically stranded in unknown space, with several alien races to meet and languages to learn bit by bit, making themselves known while trying to break through the cultural barriers. This game's worldbuilding is so deeply intertwined with gameplay, that it might be taken for granted. As things are right now, the game will keep growing more and more, until it reaches near perfection, and its worldbuilding will grow alongside it, proving its worth time and time again.

2 Borderlands 2

Its Worldbuilding Reached Its Pinnacle Here

Be it by its zany humor, or its incredibly rewarding loot system, Borderlands 2 marked a before and after in the Looter Shooter genre, redefining it, and setting the standard for other similar games to follow. But, above all else, it brought to the table something even more cool: Incredible lore that could balance out humor with seriousness and deep worldbuilding as never seen before.

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The story is set in a Galaxy where corporations were constituted around the perilous job of the Vault Seeker, and where an ancient civilization seemingly lost constructed thousands of secret places to hide (dangerous space monsters) incredibly powerful artifacts. Borderlands 2 may appear as simplistic and straightforward but hides a deep and powerful world design. More importantly, its character design goes way beyond regular standards. The lore about corporations might be incredibly well constructed, but the worldbuilding surrounding Sirens and their origin is fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

1 Fallout 4

Its WorldBuilding Is One Of The Best Things In The Game

Bethesda nailed the worldbuilding for Fallout 4 like they did in no other game in the franchise, and that's perfectly fine. From the incredibly well-written initial setting to the complex and deep main character background design, to the faction system that is just pure gold, Fallout 4 has it all and more. It is a game that has gone through several revisions, and had to receive the love of the modding community like no other Fallout game did.

But, despite all that, it is a great game in its lore and storytelling-wise, it is neatly polished, and solid, and every character you encounter in the Commonwealth surrounding Vault 111 is definitely worth meeting and talking to. With the latest reveal of Fallout: London, a mod that has been years in the making, players have yet another chance to rediscover this game. So you better hurry up and test it out, you don't want all that extra effort from the mods to go to waste, right?

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