For many players an open world RPG The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is a relaxing game. Even for a game that's over ten years old, it manages to tick a lot of boxes and set quite a few things straight. First, you have complete freedom to do whatever you want. It's not quite a sandbox experience, but you start from a tabula rasa character and build them however you want. Once you leave Helgen, there's nothing stopping you from going wherever the road takes you. The possibilities are endless and overwhelming in all good ways.
Skyrim is also a game that uses that powerful fantasy of being the chosen one and becoming extremely powerful quickly. It's even easier with the Anniversary Edition, which added a bunch of creations. The world is basically at the mercy of the player, and the hardest difficulties and higher levels just introduce enemies that deal more damage and are spongier. It is a safe and comfortable environment where you define everything. In contrast, these five games will challenge the default playstyle Skyrim trains your brain to do Everyone does it in different ways and for different reasons. If you are hardcore Skyrim fan looking to branch out into something different and challenge themselves a bit, these games are a good place to start.
Fallout: New Vegas
Choices must be made and you will not be the master of everything
Fallout 4 he could also easily have created this place but New Vegas it goes even deeper into options and RPGs, which is why I chose it for this entry instead. In Skyrim, your stat, build, and dialog choices have very little effect on your gameplay experience. You can befriend almost any faction and juggle the role of Archmage at the College of Winterhold and listener of the Dark Brotherhood. While some companions have moral compasses that make them dislike you for your actions, there are also plenty who don't care what you do. Basically, the freedom it has is so vast that the experience can be quite watered down.
New Vegason the other hand, it pays attention to every single choice you make from the moment you create your character. For example, leaving your intelligence extremely low will have permanent effects on your game, and Doc Mitchell even comments on this once you get out of character creation. Skills directly affect and even limit dialogue and quest options, and NPCs often comment on your choices and actions. It feels like a much more dynamic world to me, especially since you have to manage your karma and track your standing with each of the wasteland factions. The same goes for companions, some of whom have certain and rather specific requirements before they will want to follow you. This means that you can't actually run around doing whatever you want (I mean, yes, you can, but it has much bigger implications) and expect everyone to have the same, deadpan reaction. New Vegas unlike Skyrim, it makes you accountable for your RPG choices in a way that immerses you and turns each playthrough into something unique. By specializing in one area, you sacrifice yourself in another – and that's okay, because that's how good stories are told. After all, you can't be friends with the NCR and the Legion.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
A narrower character-focused experience that demands your attention
It is widely accepted Skyrim he doesn't fight back The Witcher 3 in his writing, and that's fine. The two games have been compared to death over the years, but given the obvious limitations of the other, they are quite different experiences. The Witcher 3 is the story of Geralt and Ciri and everyone around them – it's not the story of a random chosen one that you create from scratch. As such, similar to s Fallout 4you will have to pay more attention to the story and the choices you make while playing because it will affect where which character ends up and which endings you unlock.
There are many more such options The Witcher 3from Keira's quest to even the seemingly innocent interactions Geralt has with Ciri, as well as the two main romance options: Triss and Yennefer. IN Skyrimyou can get rid of any kind of interaction with an NPC without really feeling its weight further down the line but The Witcher 3 it really challenges you to carefully consider all your decisions and choices in dialogue if you care at all about everyone's well-being. In this way, it does not shy away from locking you out of a series of tasks, even if it does in some Skyrim The quest lines, especially the dark brotherhood where you can choose to help the Imperials destroy the Falkreath shrine, the vast majority of the game lacks this aspect.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Combat requires more thought and strategy
Skyrim the fight is starting to show its age. Melee combat in particular can be quite simplistic compared to a lot of newer titles, and one of the biggest challenges in fencing is found in Kingdom Come: Deliverance franchise. For the sake of simplicity, we'll talk about the latest, second installment in the series, certainly a wow-worthy experience and a labor of love that has left many players stunned by how challenging its combat is. This isn't one of those games where you can just run around, draw your sword, block every once in a while and kill almost every enemy – e.g. Skyrim.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's Close combat is much more complex and concepts like combos, parries, feints and main strike are key if you want to fight your way through armed encounters on your quests. While it also uses stamina as your main resource in combat, there's a lot more nuance and strategy to it, and the enemies you face, while all human and non-magical, are far more intelligent and cunning compared to the enemies in Skyrim who block for a while and then pounce on you. Movement is more telegraphic in the latter, making melee combat accessible and powerful right from the start Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 challenges you to learn a complex system from scratch.
Kenshi
Don't come here looking for Power Fantasy
oh Kenshia place where all dreams of power fantasy die, at least in the beginning. IN Skyrimin the main quest you learn pretty quickly that you are a very special person with a very rare and special ability that could help save the world from the dragon menace. You are basically the chosen one and your abilities grow exponentially, which makes some of the encounters in the game trivial. You can be pretty careless with the game and still do a great job, which is why it's a comfort zone for a lot of open world RPG enthusiasts.
Open world games that punish you for playing on autopilot
Be lazy and distracted or try to run through these open world games and your character will quickly be sent to the death screen.
Kenshihowever, the opposite is true. He doesn't want you to be comfortable; it requires you to think and pay attention. Although it does share that sandbox freedom, doesn't it Skyrim has (and arguably does it even better), it doesn't make it easy for you right off the bat. There are no quests and NPCs to point you in the direction you should go, meaning you have to think about what you actually want out of the world for the first time ever. That means it won't be easy to get. IN Skyrimyou can join most factions by walking up to their front door and saying you want to join and proving yourself with a quest or two. IN Kenshiyou are not special and the world doesn't care about you at all. His life goes on even if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere bleeding out after a fight gone horribly wrong. It will wear you down quickly, but if players are up to the challenge, it also has some of the most detailed RPG gameplay not easily found in many modern titles.
Elden Ring
A ruthless world where death punishes
If any genre is antithetical to Bethesda's RPG brand, it's any Souls-like game. Therefore Elden Ring claims the top spot here, because while it easily ticks off those open-world and RPG spots and simply drops you into the world without any direction, allowing you to be exactly as tainted as you want to be, absolutely nothing about your journey is going to be epic and easy—at least not at first. The moment you exit the first area, you'll encounter a Tree Sentinel. Your first boss you're not quite ready to deal with, most likely unless you're a soul-like veteran who can dodge perfectly. Imagine that Skyrim he did, pitting you against a legendary dragon the moment you leave Helgen.
Close combat Elden Ring doesn't have to be as complicated as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2but it's still miles higher Skyrim relatively simple and intuitive system. You'll have to learn new weapon special moves, and enemies will relentlessly disrupt and stun you if you give them a choice. The very essence Elden Ring is unfair: the odds are always stacked against you. You're just a lowly tainted, not a Dragonborn savior riding off into the sunset to restore balance to the world. It's up to you to prove yourself worthy of challenging the demigods of Earth among, and no one, not even Melina, will hold your hand (well, they will, but not in this way). Even worse is dying Skyrim it just seems like a little hassle to me. Chances are, Quicksave will save you a ton of backtracking to get back to where you were. IN Elden Ringthough, you can say goodbye to your runes if you fail to return from your previous Grace to collect them. Sometimes it's not possible.
The 6 Best Medieval Open-World Games, Ranked
Often with a touch of fantasy on the side, these open-world medieval games do the best job of providing a fun and immersive package in one scoop.
