Considering Open world RPG are rare in general, you'd think that any truly great game would forever be immortalized, revisited, and honored. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and not every masterpiece becomes a fixture of pop culture like Skyrim or The Witcher 3. As the years go by, genre-bending titles become footnotes in history, forgotten by all but the select few who dropped 500 hours into them as kids.
While they may be erased from memory, at least these games are still available to pick up in one form or another, and there's nothing stopping anyone from discovering them in 2026. If you're feeling like a trip to a fascinating world that lets you role-play as a hero, mage, or dad, check out these open-world RPGs. They are worth the effort.
“Almost perfect” is a bit hyperbolic, but all of these games are “almost perfect” in one way or another.
Dragon Quest Builders is a better RPG than DQB2
The Curse of the Sequel
-
Completely overshadowed by its sequel
-
A better “traditional” open-world RPG than DQB2
Similar Dragon Ball: Xenoverse, Dragon Quest Builders started fading into the background the second its sequel launched, improving almost everything about the gameplay loop. I'm not here to tell you DQB is actually superior DQB2Because that's not really the case, but I will say that the first game does a few things better than its successor… or at least differently.
DQB2 is entirely dedicated to the sandbox building aspect, to the point of having painfully easy combat and a story that takes hours upon hours to get going. In comparison, Dragon Quest Builders emphasizes base building without sacrificing the “action RPG” part of the equation. As a sandbox builder, it lacks the polish and QOL features that make the other game so rewarding; like an RPG love letter to the original Dragon Questthe first game is more well-rounded and even offers the occasional challenge.
Dragon Quest Builders breaks its campaign into four isolated chapters that have significant stakes, each one forcing you to essentially start from scratch. The frequent resets can be annoying, but the individual chapters tell good stories with memorable characters going through a proper crisis. The campaign doesn't have much bloat either.
Nier Gestalt tells an almost perfect story
Let's pay our respects to Papa Nier
- Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… largely obliterated the original version from history
-
For the uninitiated, Nier was originally released as Nier Gestalt and Nieer replicant with a father and brother protagonist respectively. Outside of Japan, the former was the only one released, and Nieer replicant was not made available until the 2021 remaster.
OK, this one comes with some caveats.
The 2010s Nier was not a critical or commercial success at the time of its release, and the franchise only took off Nier: Automata. Now that Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… brought the teenage Nier to North America, the original Western version starring the old Nier doesn't have much reason to be remembered. Also, the gameplay isn't very good, the fetch quests suck, the performance could be better, and the graphics were mediocre for the era.
All that being said, Nier initially didn't get enough love to tell one of the best stories of the PS3 and Xbox 360 eraand it lasts spectacularly. I would also argue that the father-daughter dynamic in Nier Gestalt not only works better than Nieer replicants sibling relationship, but it's also different from almost every other JRPG that has a young protagonist. There is something incredibly raw and heartbreaking about watching an aging father try to burn the world down to protect his sick daughter.
Are you going to go back and play in 2010 Nier? Honestly, if you've already gone through ReplicantI would not strongly recommend picking up Figure. But if you have the original PS3 version lying around, you should play it and not drop money on the remaster.
Click on the game with higher OpenCritic rating.
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura build a perfect world
Where magic and technology collide
-
A 2001 game that looks a lot like a 2001 game
Unless it's called Baldur's Gate or maybe Planescape: TormentMost early text-heavy isometric RPGs are remembered by those who grew up with them, but are rarely discovered by new generations. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura serves as a prime example: newcomers have to go through the trouble of running an old game on modern PCs, only to be met with awkward combat that wasn't very good in 2001.
Although it takes a while to completely remove the shackles, Arcanum eventually becomes a fully open world, one of the earliest of its kind. More importantly, the RPG takes place in a fascinating fantasy steampunk setting built around the ideological clash between magic and technology. If you build a Mage or a Technologist, the effect you have on the world is very different, as is what you can accomplish in and out of combat.
Arcanums player freedom still impresses all these decades laterwith their missions almost entirely reactive. How your character views the world should determine their behavior, and the game gives you the freedom to follow that mentality. In terms of pure game-changing consequences, Arcanum is perfect.
Ultima 7: The Black Gate was Skyrim in 1992
A true Open-World RPG masterpiece that doesn't get the love it deserves
-
The pinnacle of a legendary franchise that is very hard to play these days without mods.
-
It is 34 years old.
We really cannot exaggerate Ultimates influence on RPGs, bots, and even open worlds. A true trailblazer that still casts a wide shadow despite its last great game that came out in 1994, Richard Garriott's franchise peaked with Ultimate 7, an MS-DOS masterpiece that introduced a living, breathing worldimpressive environmental interaction for the time and surprisingly nuanced writing.
Cast as the Avatar returning to Britannia after 200 years, Ultimate 7 imagines a kingdom in transition, with magic falling by the wayside and a religious movement spreading its influence. The story is very good, but the game's crowning glory is its fully interactive world, which lets you pick up pretty much anything that isn't nailed down. This level of interactivity was astonishing in 1992 and is still extraordinary in 2026.
I'm not going to pretend that everyone should run out to play vanilla Ultimate 7because there's really no escaping the game's age at this point. The industry has developed so much that Ultimate 7 feels completely archaic, and it can feel unplayable without mods. But if you want to experience one of the most important open-world RPGs of all time, track this down.
Yo-kai Watch went from massive to forgotten in just 5 years
Yo-kai Watch 4 wasn't even released outside of Japan!
-
Besides the first game, Yo-kai watchs post was mostly skipped over
-
Terrible NA release dates, esp Yo-kai Watch 3
- Yo-kai Watch 4 is still a Japanese exclusive
The Yo-kai watch Games have hub areas rather than traditional open worlds, but they are pretty open and they get bigger with each sequel.
Around 2015, Yo-Kai Watch seemed poised to become the next big “creature collector” series, maybe even rival Pokémon. Level-5 wholeheartedly embraced that ring by flooding the market with sequels and spin-offs for the rest of the decade. However, something clearly went wrong along the way; just 5 years later, Yo-kai Watch 4 was not considered worthy of an international release, despite being the franchise's Nintendo Switch and PS4 debut.
What the hell happened? Well, the momentum began to slip along Yo-kai Watch 2 and 3both of which waited too long to be released globally. When they came out, the Nintendo 3DS was old news, with most people focusing on the Switch. While they didn't quite capture lightning in a bottle like the first game, each subsequent entry was very good, and the third and fourth games introduced new combat systems, multiple worlds, and expanded their free-roaming.
In an alternate reality, Yo-kai watch is gearing up for its sixth generation, firmly established as a reliable entry-level IP for kids looking to dive into RPGs.
