New Open-World games that rewrite the rules of the genre

The open world genre has a well-established set of norms that pretty much every seasoned player has come to expect: waypoints and quest markers, a long list of main and side quests, a huge map loaded with collectibles, and a 30 to 40 hour runtime (if not more). These genre rules are not mandatory, but they have become standard in the modern open world.

Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

Start

Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.

Light (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)Start

That's what makes these upcoming games stand out. They take those rules and rewrite them to fit a new concept. Sometimes that just means making exploration feel more organic, while other times it means changing the very fabric of the open-world genre. It's not easy to successfully innovate in a genre as beloved as open-world gaming, but these titles tried, succeeded, and helped shake up a stagnant set of gaming trends in the process.

Shadows of Doubt

A case-by-case basis

Outside Minecraft, procedurally generated open world maps are not very common. Sure, you have your side-scrollers like Terraria or Noita, but design constraints usually force open-world 3D games to use a fixed map so that the developers can populate it with content at a good pace. Not so with Shadows of Doubt, a 3D detective immersive sim set in a procedurally generated map with nine to 20 blocks.

There are many impressive things about it Shadows of Doubt. First, these city blocks are fully explorable, and not just the exterior. Building interiors, rooftops and back alleys are all accessible. From there, you can approach each case (even procedurally generated) however you want. Break into a suspect's house, accompany them to work or interview every tenant at a crime scene in an apartment building. As long as you charge the right suspect, your methods will not be questioned. Accuse the wrong suspect, but the string of murders will continue. Shadows of Doubt is an incredibly deep game with tons of freedom, but the fact that it can offer all that while randomly generating most of its key content is a remarkable achievement.

My The Hollowers

Old-School Look with New-School Sensibilities

Open world games are usually considered “modern” games. Sure, the genre dates back to the 2001s Grand Theft Auto 3, but advances in technology, design, and hardware have meant that these games are at their best when they're made to run on the best consoles and PCs available. Then there is Mina the Hollower, a throwback to retro gaming from the 1990s, but one that's still an open world game.

It takes that title seriously, too. Mine the Hollower giving you basically no direction on where to venture until you reach the main hub city. Instead, it encourages you to explore by hiding things everywhere. Practically every screen has something hidden in it; sometimes it's just some Bones (the in-game currency), and other times it's a new weapon. The game is clever with its puzzle solutions, forcing you to figure out for yourself if you need a certain trinket or sidearm to reach an inaccessible area. It all works together to encourage your innate curiosity, but for a retro-inspired game like this, it's amazing to see an open world this dense with content, easily rivaling some of the biggest triple-A open-world maps out there.

Crimson Desert

Make the right priorities

Speaking of content-dense maps, Crimson Desert may seem a little winding at first as it guides you through its long (but very necessary) tutorial. The combat system is very unusual. The story is… well, not good honestly. Visually, it's spectacular, but the first few hours may make you question what all the hype is about. Then it lets you loose on its open world, and everything starts to make sense.

Crimson Desert isn't a game that wants you to focus on its story, or on crafting a perfect character build (although that helps), or even on completing a checklist of activities scattered throughout the world. Crimson Desert is a game that wants you to wander. There are countless things to find in the world, and many of them have no quest markers, no waypoints leading to them, not even a specific reason to venture to that part of the map. These aren't just hidden chests or bits of resources either; we're talking giant boss fights, ridiculously intricate puzzles, hidden areas and more. Crimson Desert, in many ways, it feels like it fulfills the promise that open-world games have teased for decades, and that alone makes it an easy recommendation.

Drova: Forsaken Kin

Keep your wits about you

If you have ever played gothic, either the original or the latest remake, then you have a feel for what Drova: Forsaken Kin is about. It's an open-world RPG set in a dark, brutal world that isn't very large by the standards of the genre, but is densely packed with both activities and atmosphere. It's also brutally hard, but only if you're not paying attention. After all, everything you need to succeed can be learned by exploring thoroughly and paying attention to what NPCs tell you. Rushing through anything will almost certainly lead to failure.

Although this is a concept that Gothic did decades ago, we've never seen it done in a top-down RPG before, where that information is delivered through pixel art rather than detailed textures. On top of that, Drova has a very strict narrative choice and consequence system that will lock you out of certain options based on choices you make, specifically which faction you choose to side with and how dedicated you are to furthering their cause. Most impressive of all is that Drova can run on mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. Combining all these already unfriendly elements into a game that pushes back as hard as Drova: Forsaken Kin do is something we don't see often in a genre where hand holding and mission markers are common.

Palworld

What happens if we give them guns?

Pokémon clones are already hard to come by with Nintendo's litigious tendencies, and even Palworld can attest to that. “Creature collectors” that are not Pokémon exists, sort of Cassette animal or Temtem, but none have swung as boldly into Nintendo territory as Pocket Pair's breakout. Given that it seems to have survived Nintendo's team of lawyers, Palworld already writes about many genre rules, and game rules in general. You can create a game that visually resembles another game, even to the point of being almost indistinguishable, as long as you distinguish it in other ways.

Palworld takes things longer than that. Okay, so you have a creature collector. So the assumption is that you fight in turn-based battles. Not here. Palworld is a third person shooter more than anything else. It's also a sandbox sim, where you can build and customize a small base and assign friends to complete jobs at home while others join you on an adventure. None of these things agree with Pokémon or creature collectors at all, but Palworld don't care It's genre-blending on a level we haven't seen anyone attempt before, and yet somehow it all works. It's a sign that both untouchable IPs and established genre conventions aren't as restrictive as we once thought.

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

Ubisoft without Ubisoft staples

This one comes with a bit of a caveat, because Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora doesn't rewrite the open world gamebook to any significant degree. What it does is take everything you thought you knew about Ubisoft's open-world games – tower climbs, tons of waypoints, heavily guided exploration – and strip them away entirely. Okay, not quite. There are settings you can enable that allow you to play the game in a more traditional open world way, but not only are they not standard, they take away the best parts of the game.

Instead, Pandora's Limits encourages you to explore organically. Use your Na'vi senses to find a way through the jungle. Climb and run along branches and rocks to look for a vantage point where you can see your destination in the distance. Befriend animals instead of hunting them. It's also a remarkably immersive experience, even compared to the genre as a whole. With so little screen clutter when you play, its visuals and smooth controls draw you in immediately and make it hard to pull away. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the kind of open world game that feels like a call to action to other games in the genre. Here's what these games could look like if the teams that made them weren't so worried about players turning around while exploring. If the world is well designed, players will lose themselves in it, and that should always be the goal.