Your favorite 100-hour open-world games are mostly filler

There's nothing worse than exploring a breathtaking world full of exciting stories and amazing characters, only to realize that the last 100 hours were actually spent running between locations and completing the same style of scripted missions over and over again. Open-world games struggle with this problem for many reasons, and looking at things from the outside, it's very clear that even the best in the genre aren't immune to this scourge of content bloat.

That doesn't mean the quests, activities, and exploration aren't fun; it just means that, between all the great main points, players will often find themselves in a sea of ​​filler content that can actually make the whole experience feel a little less special. On the other hand, there are tons of games that have an abundance of content that also manage to make the world feel alive with worthwhile activities, giving meaning to the player's every move and ensuring that they are constantly presented with fresh faces and new ideas.

Greatness Between Bloat

Side-Quest After Side-Quest

Examples of good games with a huge amount of filler

The modern open-world design philosophy often confuses opulence with depth, and that concept has found its way into some of the best games in the entire genre. The Witcher 3for example, remains one of the crown jewels of the entire space, but its sea of ​​Smuggler's caches and repeated question marks often undercut the pace and make it feel more like a series of checklists with seemingly no end.

Other games like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn Follow a similar pattern, with gorgeous worlds to explore and some pretty compelling stories, only to be bogged down by repetitive side content. These games are still exceptional, but they highlight a broader issue with the genre, where, without meaningful variety, even the best worlds can become boring in no time.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

A reason for everything

Details:

• Systemic freedom over content overload

• Exploration becomes the primary purpose of playing

Breath of the Wild get rid of content loops by making the world and exploration rewarding enough on their own. Climbing a mountain or investigating a strange landmark often leads to meaningful interaction, not another generic checklist task, and because of how unguided everything is, players are never forced to follow certain markers or stick to the game's own idea of ​​how to play it.

The world design also does a lot of heavy lifting in that regard, it's open and spacious but never really empty. Instead of filling every corner of the map with content, it relies on players creating their own value in their journey across the land, making it feel incredibly unique and personal compared to most other games in the space.

Fire Ring

Dense yet determined

Details:

• Genuine location and enemy variety

• Even more repetitive dungeons offer different loot and challenges

Fire Ring is one of the best examples of how to make a gigantic world feel genuinely full of meaningful content. It doesn't matter if the players are digging deep into the caves or exploring a huge castle; there's always a sense of purpose, mainly because of how different each area feels from the next.

Also contributing to this sense of constant discovery is the lack of clearly defined directions or restrictions on where the player can go. They're free to explore and roam at their own pace, and if they decide to escape the beaten path for any length of time, it's almost guaranteed that they'll still stumble upon plenty of new and exciting adventures to keep them occupied for hours on end.

Outer Wilds

Details:

• An open world with shorter driving time

• Game filled with important pieces of content

Outer Wilds is open world by nature, but the scale is toned down significantly compared to other games in the genre. Each location feels wide enough for players to stay engaged as they search for answers, but compact in a way that removes any emptiness that would otherwise be found in a larger environment.

And because the player's progress is directly tied to the locations around them and the information hidden within them, there's never a moment when the exploration feels like it's being done for the sake of it. Basically, the game proves how a smaller, well-crafted world with a much richer content density can be much more fun to experience than a larger one.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Grounded in reality

Details:

• Realistic mechanics add immersion to every action

• Meaningful interactions replace constant stimulation

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 avoids filler by ensuring that even slower moments serve the game's core mission: immersion. From traveling the landscape to talking to locals, everything reinforces the grounded nature of the world and the player's gradual progress forward, without distracting from it.

When it comes to the side content, the activities and quests feel directly integrated into daily life, as opposed to being layered on top as optional time fillers. That cohesion gives the world texture and shows how a slower pace can still feel purposeful, when things would normally feel boring or boring to complete.

Outwards

To write own stories

Details:

• Moments arise through the player's own survival

• Rejects convenience compared to organic play

Outwards embraces the concept of friction in a way that few modern open-world games have ever attempted. Advancing in the world is dangerous, and each step forward is earned through persistence rather than constant rewards or completion badges, which removes the otherwise cyclical nature that comes from having dozens of precise things to do.

This approach adds a level of importance to otherwise small tasks, with the game almost implementing its own micro-quests that are all equally important to understand and complete. There's no runtime padding with repetitive objectives and no drawn-out sequences that keep players from the actual action, just a persistent sense of progress that never leaves once the adventure begins.