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 have actually been spent running between locations and completing the same style of scripted quests over and over again. Open-world games struggle with this problem for a number of reasons, and from the outside looking in, it's pretty clear that even the best in the genre aren't immune to this plague of content bloat.

That's not to say that the quests, activities, and exploration aren't enjoyable; it just means that in between all the amazing main plot points, players often find themselves in a sea of ​​filler content that can actually make the whole experience a little less special. On the other hand, there are plenty of content-rich games that also manage to bring the world to life with valuable activities that give the player's every move meaning and ensure that they're constantly exposed to new faces and new ideas.

Size Between Inflation

Side-quest after side-quest

Examples of great games with lots of filler

The modern open world design philosophy often mistakes abundance for depth, and this concept has found its way into some of the best games in the entire genre. The Witcher 3for example, it remains one of the crowning achievements of the entire universe, yet its sea of ​​smuggler's hideouts and recurring question marks often undermine the pacing and feel more like a series of seemingly never-ending checklists.

Other games like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn follow a similar pattern, they have gorgeous worlds to explore and some pretty compelling stories, only to be overwhelmed by repetitive side content. These games are still exceptional, but they highlight a wider problem with the genre, where without meaningful variation, even the best worlds can become boring after a while.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

A reason for everything

Details:

• System freedom over content overload

• Exploration becomes the primary purpose of gameplay

Breath of the Wild it gets rid of content loops by making the world and exploration rewarding enough on their own. Climbing a mountain or exploring a strange landmark often leads to meaningful interaction rather than another generic control task, and because of how unguided everything is, players are never forced to follow certain markers or adhere to the game's own idea of ​​how to play it.

The world design does a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard as well, being open and spacious but never truly empty. Rather than filling every corner of the map with content, it trusts players to create their own value as they journey across the land, making it feel incredibly unique and personal compared to most other games in the universe.

Elden Ring

Dense yet purposeful

Details:

• Real location and variety of enemies

• Even more repetitive dungeons offer different loot and challenges

Elden Ring is one of the best examples of how to make a giant world feel truly rich with meaningful content. It doesn't matter if players are diving deep into caves or exploring a huge castle; there is always a sense of purpose, mainly because of how different each area is from the other.

Something that also contributes to this sense of constant discovery is the lack of clearly defined directions or limitations placed on where the player can go. They're free to explore and roam at their own pace, and if they decide to get off the beaten track for an extended period of time, they're almost guaranteed to still encounter plenty of new and exciting adventures to keep them busy for hours on end.

The outer wilderness

Details:

• Open world with shorter runtime

• A game full of important pieces of content

The outer wilderness is open-world in nature, but the scope is significantly toned down compared to other games in the genre. Each location is broad enough to keep players engaged in their search for answers, but in a compact way that removes any emptiness that would otherwise be present in a larger setting.

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

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Anchored in reality

Details:

• Realistic mechanics add immersion to every action

• Meaningful interactions replace constant stimulation

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

In terms of side content, activities and tasks are directly integrated into everyday life, as opposed to being layered on top as optional time fillers. This cohesion gives the world a texture that shows how a slower pace can still be purposeful, even when things would normally feel tedious or boring.

External

Writing your own stories

Details:

• Moments are created through the player's own survival

• It rejects convenience over organic gameplay

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

This approach adds a level of importance to otherwise small tasks, with the game almost implementing its own micro-tasks that are just as important to understand and complete. There's no running environment filler with repetitive objectives and no drawn-out sequences to keep players from real action, just a constant sense of progress that never leaves once the adventure begins.