Its been a while since I played botw and totk, I want to get into similar open world games with good combat systems, any recommendations?
As for platforms, I need games that aren’t too intensive, my PCs are kinda weak and my consoles are a switch and an emulator that does up to GameCube/ps2
It’s not Zelda like, but if you like factory games, Satisfactory is as close to open world as a factory game gets. You land on a planet and have to build a factory to launch things into space for corporate overlords. It’s first person, lots of climbing and building. There’s a tiny bit of combat, not the focus tho.
I don’t know how weak you’re talking, but Horizon Zero Dawn has that same engaging, high skill ceiling combat that BOTW/TOTK does. The minimum specs don’t look too bad, and the game is quite well optimised. Forbidden West is probably a no-go, though, and it’s a much better game which serves as a true direct sequel. They’re great if you like story, too.
It has borrowed many elements from botw but with a lot of the “Ubisoft open world formula” on top. I really enjoyed it. The combat is deeper than botw in the traditional sense but I found it responsive and easy to learn. The “shrine” equivalents also had some interesting and unique challenges too.
I would recommend to play this on Switch though.
That’s because, unlike the PC version, the Switch version can be played without an Ubisoft Account. All one has to do is to disconnect the Switch from the internet, and suddenly the game runs without login.
Dark souls 1. No other game made exploring the world so exciting. I was checking every single nook and cranny because the game isn’t afraid to give you good gear if you look. The combat can be frustrating but the further you get the easier the game gets. Also definitely follow a build guide if it’s your first ds game.
Note that Dark Souls games are absolute Marmite. I’m aware that some people praise them as the greatest games ever made, but I had a terrible experience playing DS1 and have no desire to touch another one!
I see a lot of MMOs being recommended, but I find them to be either shallow in combat or predatory unless you are seeking MMO specific things, so I’m going to point at single player/coop stuff.
Bethesda has a large selection of open world games, but I pretty much assume people have played all of them (Elder Scrolls / Fallout games).
If you are okay with going outside of Fantasy, the Far Cry series has some impressive technology in their older titles. Far Cry 2 is a personal favorite, your PC might be able to handle it.
Borderlands series.
The original Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen holds up. This is probably my best recommendation based on your asks.
Lego Star Wars or the Lego Marvel game.
Fable 1, 2, 3
The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War Games were pretty incredible but might be too high-end.
The first Red Dead Redemption might run for you.
Early Dark souls games might run. Maybe 1 or 2.
From here, I would start listing old Star Wars Jedi Knight series games.
I could probably go on, but this is most of the good stuff off the top of my head.
I forgot to add Mass Effect. Great for sci-fi, great leveling, and combat.
Shadow of Mordor on lowest settings I managed to run on integrated graphics for a while. It’s a fantastic game if you do manage to get it to run OP. Open world with enemies that really “get” you. The sequel especially is in my favorite games of all time.
Seconding Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I have it on GOG, it’s absolutely fantastic (apparently the pawn rental system is broken on that version, but I never used it anyway). Climbing up a drake to stab it in the face has never been so satisfying! and magic archer is OP
It’s also old enough that OP’s hardware shouldn’t have any trouble running it at decent settings.
Edit: I just realized the GOG version is currently on sale for under $5, what are you waiting for?
similar open world games with good combat systems,
This might be a tall order. Most of the “open world” games I’ve found either fall down in the open world department (lots of restricted areas or nothing varied/interesting enough to make exploring fun) or fall down in the combat department (awkward, unresponsive, or annoying in some other way). Some high-profile games even manage to suffer from both these problems despite being great in other ways (I’m looking at you, Geralt).
I hoped for quite a while that the next Elder Scrolls game would keep the good parts of Skyrim (beautiful environments full of unique things to discover) and overhaul the combat into something good, but recent showings from Bethesda make me less than optimistic.
Some people praise the Dark Souls series (including Elden Ring) for both openness and combat. However, if you loved Breath of the Wild, I wonder if the Souls style would be a bit too combat-focused for your taste, leaving the world feeling cold and empty. I haven’t played them enough to have a strong opinion about this; perhaps someone else can chime in.
I look forward to the suggestions you get in this thread.
Edit:
I just remembered Subnautica! I recommend this game, but there’s caveat in the context of your question: The way it avoids bad combat is to give the player reason to avoid combat as much as possible.
Skyrim and the mainline Elder Scrolls games (Oblivion, Morrowind) can run fine on most setups these days. Skyrim: Special Edition was released in 2016, which is almost a decade ago now.
Edit: Forgot you mentioned platforms. Considering your hardware, don’t play them on anything other than PC. The PS3 version of Skyrim in particular is a disaster.
Problem with them is sometimes mods are required for performance because they can be optimised terribly. There are actually some good mods which make the games play a lot better on older hardware, but it’s been a while and I don’t remember them.
Still, you’re going to want to play mostly un-modded because too many mods will tank an older system. I personally think vanilla Skyrim can be pretty fun, so it’s not a big deal, IMO.
The combat is a huge con, though. Bethesda hasn’t ever really been “good” at melee combat, and have only started to improve their gunplay starting with Fallout 4.
That said, since I’ve brought up FO4, Fallout 3 and New Vegas should run fine on pretty much anything. Although, when I say “fine”, I mainly mean “work”, because optimisation is still terrible and bugfix patches might be needed.
Assassins Creed 1&2 are not really open world games comparable with BoTW or ToTK. The world is much smaller and everything is far more linear.
The combat system is also not extremely great. You can mainly just wait for counters constantly.
That said, I still enjoyed the games (especially 2) a lot. But it is more the fun climbing action and fairly good storytelling.
Skyrim might be possible, but I have not played it personally. The witcher is available on the Switch as well.
Morrowind is a great game, Worth a try if you’re willing to watch some videos on how to play. Its a bit unforgiving to newcomers who don’t know how to build a proper class yet. Its got an android port too.
If I’m an experienced D&D player, will I need to worry about knowing how to build a class? I didn’t have any problems understanding KOTOR’s character creation, and I actually prefer Mass Effect 1’s combat and levelling over 2. I love crpgs.
You might really enjoy DayZ. The public servers are pretty brutal, but if you find a comfortable RP server you can settle in and really enjoy exploring the landscape. Once you’re used to the mechanics it’s so smooth.
Stereo headphones or even like monitors make hunting a lot of fun, listening to distant sounds trying to find a deer or boar is a lot of fun. And once you’re used to dealing with zombies and the sthough.l mechanics, crafting and all that, it really opens up.
Plus the ability to expand it with modding is pretty extensive. We’ve got some neat stuff on our own server (though not much pop atm), and I’ve seen others that do some next level stuff like player vampires and werewolves and stuff.
Even just the vanilla game is absolutely gorgeous though. If you like exploring, scavenging, and crafting, especially with friends, it’s kind of perfect.
Conan Exiles has a somewhat similar vibe but a bit clunkier and in a low fantasy setting. It’s also got a lot of D&D roleplay servers.
On the switch you have Skyrim (but I’m assuming you’ve played that)
But also there’s a couple games that could be worth looking into. I have no idea how well they play on the switch or if they would even be your cup of tea, but there’s Dragons Dogma(the first one) and also Outward. Again no idea how they play on switch but they’re both open world rpg type games.
If you’re up for something that is specifically all about exploring, you could try Outer wilds on the switch(this does not have combat FYI) but you get to explore a solar system and unravel a mystery.
I would recommend to play Skyrim on PC though. Even if your computer is old, you should be able to get a much better experience from it than the Switch version.
I mean, I played it on the Xbox 360, and it worked like a charm. On an ancient three-core console with 256 MiB of RAM.
Then I wanted to replay it on the Switch, and was disappointed. There are a lot of physics glitches on the Switch, but what is worse is that the NPC pathfinding takes a lot longer on the Switch, such that NPCs move in nonsensical directions during combat, as they start to follow paths that they would have needed several seconds earlier. Instead of moving near the player to attack, they move near the position where the player had been some time ago. This is particularly bad on the overworld, but also noticeable in dungeons.
I just finished playing Horizon: Zero Dawn for the second time and it was way more engaging than I remember it being back in 2017. Apparently a lot of reviews ragged on it for “not being Breath of the Wild” which is a lame thing to complain about, even if the game came out at the same time, and they share a lot of thematic elements (like heavily focusing on archery, fighting ancient machines, exploring a beautiful world, etc.).
But it’s a very different game, very narrative heavy, very beautiful, and very well-optimized on PC. The combat is very focused and fun in a good way.
That’s perfect. I don’t think there could be a better way to describe it in one sentence. It’s also a fun spin on the “like skyrim with guns” oversimplification lol
Perhaps you may or may not enjoy Space Asshole Red Faction: Guerilla. It’s a 2009 game that got a solid enough PC port that may run on weaker systems. There’s a remastered version but if you’re aiming for low-spec the original might be a better bet.
Anyway, it’s an open world set on Mars and you go around wreaking havoc and blowing up buildings with ahead-of-its-time physics/destruction mechanics. The combat is more like a shooter and you play with lots of explosives.
It’s not a huge map by standards today but is a big enough playground to keep one occupied.
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t exactly open world in the strictest sense, but the maps are so massive that you can get the same sense of wonder and exploration as something like Skyrim or BoTW.
Not precisely open world but has the same feeling of exploration, discovery and unlocking, Supraland. Harder puzzles, unlock things that make combat easier. Combat is pretty similar to botw.
Yeah, don’t underestimate the Supra- series of games. I thought Supraland looked childish, but then I started playing it and couldn’t stop. It’s SO fun.
The jokes are hit and miss, but the interconnected world, steady progression and cool mechanics make it stand out. And you can freely draw on the map to mark points of interest!
There are currently 3 games out in the series, with 4th (Supraworld) being in the works.
Others have mentioned Elder Scrolls, but nobody recommended Daggerfall yet, so it’s one of my picks. Yes, the 1996 game, which you can play on Unity for a much, much better experience overall. Since the game is free, you don’t need to pay a thing. Combat won’t feel good, tho.
If you enjoy space games, X3 Albion Prelude might be a good option. It’s “open world” in that you can go anywhere right from the start, but the main gist of the game is to get rich so you can get the capital ships. Ship to ship combat is fine, each ship class has strengths and weaknesses. It has a learning curve and can feel needlessly convoluted at times
Kingdoms of Amalur isn’t really open world, but its combat is awesome. Get the original, non-remastered version, and it should run on your stronger PC, hopefully.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !gaming@beehaw.org
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it’s gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
It’s not Zelda like, but if you like factory games, Satisfactory is as close to open world as a factory game gets. You land on a planet and have to build a factory to launch things into space for corporate overlords. It’s first person, lots of climbing and building. There’s a tiny bit of combat, not the focus tho.
I don’t know how weak you’re talking, but Horizon Zero Dawn has that same engaging, high skill ceiling combat that BOTW/TOTK does. The minimum specs don’t look too bad, and the game is quite well optimised. Forbidden West is probably a no-go, though, and it’s a much better game which serves as a true direct sequel. They’re great if you like story, too.
The Zero Dawn Steam page.
As well as Forbidden West.
Everyone else has already made great suggestions too. This was the only different suggestion I could make.
Looks good but yea, too weak
Tho it is a good game, played some on my sousins ps4 1 time
I played all of Horizon Zero Dawn on a Steam Deck, so it might work for you. You can get it for like $10 on key resell websites
Have you looked at “immortals: Fenix rising”?
It has borrowed many elements from botw but with a lot of the “Ubisoft open world formula” on top. I really enjoyed it. The combat is deeper than botw in the traditional sense but I found it responsive and easy to learn. The “shrine” equivalents also had some interesting and unique challenges too.
Looks like a good game, just don’t have the power to run it and no way I’m giving Nintendo any more money
I would recommend to play this on Switch though. That’s because, unlike the PC version, the Switch version can be played without an Ubisoft Account. All one has to do is to disconnect the Switch from the internet, and suddenly the game runs without login.
Would play it. Just don’t have enough emulator power
It’s an Ubisoft game but you can usually get it for pretty cheap second hand for your switch if you’re against giving Nintendo more money
Local market kinda sucks,
What are the exact specs (CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD yes or no) of your PCs? “Kinda weak” kinda covers an enormous and very subjective spectrum.
My laptops are the following
A 4 GB ram celeron HDD laptop and an 8 GB ram with a ryzen of some kind. It was a ryzen 5 I think, the better laptop has an nvme
Dark souls 1. No other game made exploring the world so exciting. I was checking every single nook and cranny because the game isn’t afraid to give you good gear if you look. The combat can be frustrating but the further you get the easier the game gets. Also definitely follow a build guide if it’s your first ds game.
Note that Dark Souls games are absolute Marmite. I’m aware that some people praise them as the greatest games ever made, but I had a terrible experience playing DS1 and have no desire to touch another one!
Fair play I love marmite.
and that’s good, I’m always happy to see completely different kinds of games get attention even if they’re not my cup of tea
I see a lot of MMOs being recommended, but I find them to be either shallow in combat or predatory unless you are seeking MMO specific things, so I’m going to point at single player/coop stuff.
Bethesda has a large selection of open world games, but I pretty much assume people have played all of them (Elder Scrolls / Fallout games).
If you are okay with going outside of Fantasy, the Far Cry series has some impressive technology in their older titles. Far Cry 2 is a personal favorite, your PC might be able to handle it.
Borderlands series.
The original Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen holds up. This is probably my best recommendation based on your asks.
Lego Star Wars or the Lego Marvel game.
Fable 1, 2, 3
The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor / Shadow of War Games were pretty incredible but might be too high-end.
The first Red Dead Redemption might run for you.
Early Dark souls games might run. Maybe 1 or 2.
From here, I would start listing old Star Wars Jedi Knight series games.
I could probably go on, but this is most of the good stuff off the top of my head.
I forgot to add Mass Effect. Great for sci-fi, great leveling, and combat.
Shadow of Mordor on lowest settings I managed to run on integrated graphics for a while. It’s a fantastic game if you do manage to get it to run OP. Open world with enemies that really “get” you. The sequel especially is in my favorite games of all time.
Seconding Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. I have it on GOG, it’s absolutely fantastic (apparently the pawn rental system is broken on that version, but I never used it anyway). Climbing up a drake to stab it in the face has never been so satisfying!
and magic archer is OPIt’s also old enough that OP’s hardware shouldn’t have any trouble running it at decent settings.
Edit: I just realized the GOG version is currently on sale for under $5, what are you waiting for?
This might be a tall order. Most of the “open world” games I’ve found either fall down in the open world department (lots of restricted areas or nothing varied/interesting enough to make exploring fun) or fall down in the combat department (awkward, unresponsive, or annoying in some other way). Some high-profile games even manage to suffer from both these problems despite being great in other ways (I’m looking at you, Geralt).
I hoped for quite a while that the next Elder Scrolls game would keep the good parts of Skyrim (beautiful environments full of unique things to discover) and overhaul the combat into something good, but recent showings from Bethesda make me less than optimistic.
Some people praise the Dark Souls series (including Elden Ring) for both openness and combat. However, if you loved Breath of the Wild, I wonder if the Souls style would be a bit too combat-focused for your taste, leaving the world feeling cold and empty. I haven’t played them enough to have a strong opinion about this; perhaps someone else can chime in.
I look forward to the suggestions you get in this thread.
Edit:
I just remembered Subnautica! I recommend this game, but there’s caveat in the context of your question: The way it avoids bad combat is to give the player reason to avoid combat as much as possible.
Maybe Valheim?
Ooh, more combat= better
What platforms are the older skyrim and elder scrolls games on? I don’t have the means for the switch version
Skyrim and the mainline Elder Scrolls games (Oblivion, Morrowind) can run fine on most setups these days. Skyrim: Special Edition was released in 2016, which is almost a decade ago now.
Edit: Forgot you mentioned platforms. Considering your hardware, don’t play them on anything other than PC. The PS3 version of Skyrim in particular is a disaster.
Problem with them is sometimes mods are required for performance because they can be optimised terribly. There are actually some good mods which make the games play a lot better on older hardware, but it’s been a while and I don’t remember them.
Still, you’re going to want to play mostly un-modded because too many mods will tank an older system. I personally think vanilla Skyrim can be pretty fun, so it’s not a big deal, IMO.
The combat is a huge con, though. Bethesda hasn’t ever really been “good” at melee combat, and have only started to improve their gunplay starting with Fallout 4.
That said, since I’ve brought up FO4, Fallout 3 and New Vegas should run fine on pretty much anything. Although, when I say “fine”, I mainly mean “work”, because optimisation is still terrible and bugfix patches might be needed.
Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2. I’ve also heard good things about Morrowind but haven’t played it.
Assassins Creed 1&2 are not really open world games comparable with BoTW or ToTK. The world is much smaller and everything is far more linear. The combat system is also not extremely great. You can mainly just wait for counters constantly.
That said, I still enjoyed the games (especially 2) a lot. But it is more the fun climbing action and fairly good storytelling.
Skyrim might be possible, but I have not played it personally. The witcher is available on the Switch as well.
Morrowind is a great game, Worth a try if you’re willing to watch some videos on how to play. Its a bit unforgiving to newcomers who don’t know how to build a proper class yet. Its got an android port too.
Android port you say?
https://www.androidpure.com/how-to-install-elder-scrolls-morrowind-on-android/
+1 for Morrowind. Be sure to play via OpenMW. It fixes a LOT of stuff and gives many quality of life improvements
If I’m an experienced D&D player, will I need to worry about knowing how to build a class? I didn’t have any problems understanding KOTOR’s character creation, and I actually prefer Mass Effect 1’s combat and levelling over 2. I love crpgs.
You might really enjoy DayZ. The public servers are pretty brutal, but if you find a comfortable RP server you can settle in and really enjoy exploring the landscape. Once you’re used to the mechanics it’s so smooth.
Stereo headphones or even like monitors make hunting a lot of fun, listening to distant sounds trying to find a deer or boar is a lot of fun. And once you’re used to dealing with zombies and the sthough.l mechanics, crafting and all that, it really opens up.
Plus the ability to expand it with modding is pretty extensive. We’ve got some neat stuff on our own server (though not much pop atm), and I’ve seen others that do some next level stuff like player vampires and werewolves and stuff.
Even just the vanilla game is absolutely gorgeous though. If you like exploring, scavenging, and crafting, especially with friends, it’s kind of perfect.
Conan Exiles has a somewhat similar vibe but a bit clunkier and in a low fantasy setting. It’s also got a lot of D&D roleplay servers.
On the switch you have Skyrim (but I’m assuming you’ve played that)
But also there’s a couple games that could be worth looking into. I have no idea how well they play on the switch or if they would even be your cup of tea, but there’s Dragons Dogma(the first one) and also Outward. Again no idea how they play on switch but they’re both open world rpg type games.
If you’re up for something that is specifically all about exploring, you could try Outer wilds on the switch(this does not have combat FYI) but you get to explore a solar system and unravel a mystery.
I would recommend to play Skyrim on PC though. Even if your computer is old, you should be able to get a much better experience from it than the Switch version.
I mean, I played it on the Xbox 360, and it worked like a charm. On an ancient three-core console with 256 MiB of RAM.
Then I wanted to replay it on the Switch, and was disappointed. There are a lot of physics glitches on the Switch, but what is worse is that the NPC pathfinding takes a lot longer on the Switch, such that NPCs move in nonsensical directions during combat, as they start to follow paths that they would have needed several seconds earlier. Instead of moving near the player to attack, they move near the position where the player had been some time ago. This is particularly bad on the overworld, but also noticeable in dungeons.
I just finished playing Horizon: Zero Dawn for the second time and it was way more engaging than I remember it being back in 2017. Apparently a lot of reviews ragged on it for “not being Breath of the Wild” which is a lame thing to complain about, even if the game came out at the same time, and they share a lot of thematic elements (like heavily focusing on archery, fighting ancient machines, exploring a beautiful world, etc.).
But it’s a very different game, very narrative heavy, very beautiful, and very well-optimized on PC. The combat is very focused and fun in a good way.
I affectionately refer to it as live action breath of the wild
That’s perfect. I don’t think there could be a better way to describe it in one sentence. It’s also a fun spin on the “like skyrim with guns” oversimplification lol
Perhaps you may or may not enjoy
Space AssholeRed Faction: Guerilla. It’s a 2009 game that got a solid enough PC port that may run on weaker systems. There’s a remastered version but if you’re aiming for low-spec the original might be a better bet.Anyway, it’s an open world set on Mars and you go around wreaking havoc and blowing up buildings with ahead-of-its-time physics/destruction mechanics. The combat is more like a shooter and you play with lots of explosives. It’s not a huge map by standards today but is a big enough playground to keep one occupied.
I’ll never not upvote Red Faction.
It’s also on the Switch!
Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t exactly open world in the strictest sense, but the maps are so massive that you can get the same sense of wonder and exploration as something like Skyrim or BoTW.
deleted by creator
Game looks good, but I doubt I can run it
Not precisely open world but has the same feeling of exploration, discovery and unlocking, Supraland. Harder puzzles, unlock things that make combat easier. Combat is pretty similar to botw.
Yeah, don’t underestimate the Supra- series of games. I thought Supraland looked childish, but then I started playing it and couldn’t stop. It’s SO fun.
The jokes are hit and miss, but the interconnected world, steady progression and cool mechanics make it stand out. And you can freely draw on the map to mark points of interest!
There are currently 3 games out in the series, with 4th (Supraworld) being in the works.
What platforms is it on
Others have mentioned Elder Scrolls, but nobody recommended Daggerfall yet, so it’s one of my picks. Yes, the 1996 game, which you can play on Unity for a much, much better experience overall. Since the game is free, you don’t need to pay a thing. Combat won’t feel good, tho.
If you enjoy space games, X3 Albion Prelude might be a good option. It’s “open world” in that you can go anywhere right from the start, but the main gist of the game is to get rich so you can get the capital ships. Ship to ship combat is fine, each ship class has strengths and weaknesses. It has a learning curve and can feel needlessly convoluted at times
Kingdoms of Amalur isn’t really open world, but its combat is awesome. Get the original, non-remastered version, and it should run on your stronger PC, hopefully.
How?
I put the link on the Daggerfall word, it’s this one - https://www.dfworkshop.net/
Daggerfall Unity.