Open-World game where the best missions are hidden

Questlines in the open world genre are one of the most important aspects of keeping players invested in the world for a long period of time. It's no good having a compelling world with no reason to explore it, so it's important to give players a sense of meaning and purpose amidst all the action and chaos. But as engaging as the main quests can be, in some situations the side content actually makes for an even more enjoyable experience, taking players on journeys through the landscape, following characters and clues they might never have encountered if they stuck to the default path.

Some of these quests are one-offs, but still manage to be incredibly fun and memorable, while others are much more expansive and span multiple stages that often take hours to see through to the end. What makes them so great is their ability to feel deeply important on a level similar to the overall goal of the story, allowing players to feel invested in stories and characters they had no obligation to care about in the first place. By filling the world with so many interesting quests, the environment feels more alive, and players can feel much more excited to explore every minute detail, knowing that there could be an incredible adventure waiting for them just around the corner.

Skyrim

Curiosity leads the way

Details:

• Unmarked locations that can often trigger huge quests

• The best stories have no relevance to the main road

Bethesda has always been known for filling its games with a large number of missions, and Skyrim is no exception. It's pretty hard to go far into a city without finding a person in need of help, or even out in the mountains, where a lost traveler might be looking for someone to help them defeat a terrifying monster. One of the best examples of this is The Mind of Madness quest, where players begin by talking to a seemingly harmless madman wandering around Solitude, but quickly find themselves traveling into a world of dark humor and madness, with more than a few twists and turns along the way.

Other quests, like the Forbidden Legend, can be completely overlooked, as the condition to start is literally tied to reading a random book. From there, the mystery gradually unfolds, revealing ancient betrayals and plenty of powerful rewards for those who pay close attention to their surroundings. In all of these cases, the quests really feed into the idea of ​​curiosity in a large open landscape, as rather than explicitly showing players exactly where to start, they instead have to go out of their way to hunt and explore in hopes of finding a new story to follow. And because the map is so densely packed with these adventures, it's easy to get lost in the side content for hours, forgetting there's even a fearsome dragon waiting to be conquered.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Roads that branch off for hours

Details:

• Contracts quickly spiral into massive arcs

• Timing and obscure choices indicate which quests are available

The Witcher 3 is full to the brim with quests and stories, both optional and mandatory, but as players travel across the lands in search of adventure, they'll quickly discover that many of the side quests are actually more fun and interesting than the main one. Some, like Equine Phantoms, take players on a more strange but exciting path that couldn't be further from the actual larger mission, but it still manages to be a short but fun little journey to go on between taking down enemy camps and saving entire cities from collapse.

Because the writing is so exceptional, even minor supporting characters can feel incredibly believable. Where Cat and Wolf Play is a good example of a quest that many players completely miss, but it offers an incredibly complex story about trauma and the cost of surviving in the world. It also presents a tough choice for the player that carries about as much weight as any of the other major quests in the game, showing the importance of having a rich environment that doesn't feel empty, but instead is full of life.

Fallout: New Vegas

Faction-driven stories that are easy to miss

Details:

• Some groups are completely optional and can be missed

• Dialog options may lock content permanently without warning

Fallout: New Vegas stands at the pinnacle of the RPG genre and for good reason. Its characters and quests are among the best in the business, and some of the best of the bunch are tucked away in less obvious parts of the map or places players would never think to explore the first time around. More importantly, many missions can actually become locked and unavailable depending on the choices the player makes, forcing them to think carefully about their decisions from the moment they step out into the wasteland. The Beyond the Beef is an incredibly infamous side story that is not only unmissable, but heavily influenced by the choices the player made leading up to it.

After heading to the Ultra-Luxe casino, players can talk to Heck Gunderson in hopes of finding his missing son. But the initial interaction quickly turns into a disturbing conspiracy involving cannibalism and social decay, despite initially appearing as a fairly basic missing persons case. There are so many other examples similar to this, some involving humor like Come Fly With Me and Not Worth a Hill of Corn and Beans, which is much more grounded and focused on skill checks rather than presenting a longer story. No matter where players are in the desert, there will always be something new to see or someone to talk to, so going the extra mile and really checking out the hidden rooms is often a great way to find some of the best quests in the entire game.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Deep stories off the beaten path

Details:

• Each area hides a large number of captivating stories

• Some quests can progress for many hours without interacting with them

Red Dead Redemption 2 stuffs some of its most emotionally resonant far away from the main story, often behind vague triggers or hidden in isolated locations. The Widow of Willard's Rest is a heartfelt quest where players teach a grieving woman how to survive on her own in the world, creating a quieter and more human story away from the larger adventures elsewhere. The quest takes place over multiple visits, encouraging players to return time and time again with no real incentive other than helping a struggling soul, with many players finishing the game without ever realizing it existed.

Another standout is the Veteran questline, which is initiated by meeting a wounded veteran deep in the remote Grizzlies. The series of quests focuses on companionship and healing on a much smaller scale, making it feel like a deeply personal set of tasks that sharply contrasts the game's larger narrative. Many quests like this thrive on their isolation and simplicity, reinforcing the game's belief that the most meaningful stories are often the most human, and that in a world full of all kinds of people, even the most insignificant can mean the most.

Fire Ring

No Quest markers to guide you forward

Details:

• Lack of clear steps for each NPC

• Unpredictable characters that can move without warning

Fire Ring is a game that is practically a long mystery spread over a gigantic world. There are no real markers or ways to reliably locate individual NPCs, so players must instead follow subtle clues or spend a lot of time googling to actually follow these stories to the end. The biggest of these are actually tied directly to endings, like Ranni and Fia's quests, which, without venturing into the longest and deepest parts of the map, can be very easily missed on a first playthrough. The latter literally sends players into the depths of the earth and back, forcing them to take on fearsome enemies and succumb to the frenzied flame, again, all without explicitly showing them where to go next.

The DLC continues this theme by hiding entire bosses and missions in the smallest crevices of the environment. Putrescent Knight is already way off the beaten path, but even further is the St Trina and Thiollier questline, which is not only about as far away from the main area as possible, but also tasks players with an adventure across the entire landscape that is very easily avoided. Metyr, Mother of Fingers, follows the same pattern, this time with the quest as the precursor to the actual fight. Players must run across Shadow's realm, ringing bells and performing gestures, only to be rewarded with one of the weirdest bosses in the entire game. This philosophy of vaguely guiding players around the world is what makes the game so engaging, as many of the NPCs and stories wouldn't be nearly as interesting if they were just shown to the player right from the start.