Best Open-World Games For When You’re Bored

Summary

• Open-world games offer diverse content beyond main quests for extensive gameplay.
• In-game extras like minigames and professions add depth to the player experience.
• Games like New World, Dune Awakening, and No Man’s Sky offer immersive survival experiences.

The most important idea behind an open-world game is to provide players with a vast area to explore and discover, along with a main questline or a rich backstory. There are a lot of open-world games out there, and some of them are better than others when it comes to keeping players occupied.

To be the perfect type of game that players turn to in moments of boredom, developers have to throw in a few extras in addition to the usual exploration, main storyline, grinding, farming, and side quests. These might include minigames like fishing and pet battles or professions that are separate from the character’s class, like Alchemy or Blacksmithing. No matter what, these are the games that do the most for a gamer when they feel bored.

7

New World

Survivalism, Colonialism, And Divine Judgement

The continent of Aeternum has a lot for players to do, other than the very detailed main questline, and other than the usual minigames and professions, it’s also an old-fashioned fight for survival out in the wilderness. The lore of New World isn’t based in a fantasy world or another planet, but an alternate historical timeline about the Age of Exploration.

In keeping with the realistic and immersive feel of an uncharted and dangerous wilderness, players learn to build basic tools and shelters from the moment they wash up on a strange beach. The classes are simple, without a lot of guidelines in place, and players have to spend their time adding details in the form of clothing, weapons, and gear, most of which they craft themselves.

6

Dune: Awakening

Survivalism, Questing, And Literature

There’s so much to do in this game that it’s easy to get lost, especially for those who don’t like multitasking. However, a long and detailed tutorial that evolves into the main storyline helps the player figure out their priorities, and also which tasks and quests are best to do first. As if ripping across the desert on a simple sandbike with nothing standing between the player and a sandworm wasn’t exciting enough, there are also bandits to fight and Fremen to find.

Of course, the main questline is based on the world created by Frank Herbert, so not only does it have a few of the lore’s most famous characters and their related adventures, but players have to deal with the same details when it comes to desert survival. Players not only have to build their gear and a base filled with complex machines, which takes some serious grinding, but they have to do it while surviving both the environment and the politics of Arrakis.

The Vast World Of Tamriel

The Elder Scrolls franchise has a reputation for keeping players occupied, and those who are still enjoying Skyrim more than ten years later can testify. Instead of the single countries featured in the standalone games, the Elder Scrolls Online includes the entire world of Tamriel and several of its otherworldly environs, which include the realms of the Daedric princes.

This means that ESO combines every game in the franchise and adds even more to what each has to offer. It has the same extensive amount of crafting as the other games, for both gear and professions, and includes a myriad of questlines to finish. Characters can head out into the wilderness and spend their gaming time exploring delves, caves, and dungeons without ever doing any quests.

4

No Man’s Sky

Explore The Universe

Players can, and have, spent hundreds of hours exploring the procedurally generated universe that serves as the setting of No Man’s Sky. If the prospect of exploring a whole universe isn’t enough to keep a character occupied, there’s plenty to mine, gather, and build while the character isn’t searching for the secret of the Atlas.

Part of the game is information gathering along with survivalism, so every new planet, biome, or ecosystem the player encounters is a new source of adventure and exploration. The setting and aesthetic are based on the retro science fiction that was popular in the 1970s, which sets it apart from typical science fiction games.

3

World Of Warcraft

Choose A Version, They’re All Good

There are a few versions of WoW available these days, and all of them can keep a player occupied for hours, but the Retail version is less “open world” than the Classic incarnations. Either way, each includes character building, quest completion, resource farming, and dungeon grinding, along with a few minigames like pet battles.

Every version of the game includes world holidays and events like the Darkmoone Faire and a weekly fishing contest. The two versions of Classic WoW that are currently running include Phase 5 of Season of Discovery, the oldest version of the game that includes the continent of Old Azeroth with a few interesting changes, and Cataclysm Classic, which explores the lore of Deathwing and the destruction he wrought.

2

Skyrim

Still Playing Decades Later

Call this the best video game of all time, and not many people would disagree. What makes it great is that there are so many things to do, which is why Skyrim still has such a solid fanbase more than ten years after its initial release. Add the DLCs and the hundreds of mods, and it’s no wonder that so many people turn to this game when they’re bored.

Unlike most RPGs, there’s no class system in Skyrim, and players build their characters by allotting points to a talent system that includes everything from weapon skills to social graces. Alchemy alone can keep a player busy for years, and when exploring and fighting get old, how about turning into a vampire or werewolf?

1

Minecraft

It Never Gets Old

When it comes to unleashing the sheer, unafraid power of creativity wielded by the gaming community, no game is superior to Minecraft. This is a sandbox game based in an open world, and there are virtually no limits to what characters can both make and destroy, which is one of the reasons it’s one of the best-selling video games of all time.

There are two ways to enjoy Minecraft. Players can choose whether they want an environment based on Survival, which makes farming resources a requirement to keep from dying, or a Creative mode that not only provides unlimited resources but also gives them the power to fly. It’s impressive that a game with no quests, no storyline, and no leveling system would be the best game to play when bored.