Elden Ring is one of those rare games that, in the process of delivering a solid action-combat experience, succeeds in completely immersing the player in the story, lore, and the breathing world itself. The shift toward open-world mechanics was such an excellent choice for FromSoftware to not only expand the player’s options but to give fans immense depth to lose themselves in.
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It’s unfortunate that in the current modern gaming era, expansive open-world fantasy projects are not nearly as common as they used to be. The era of bragging about the map sizes of fantasy games seems to have passed, leaving Elden Ring fans struggling to find another game that can replicate its intimate world experience. Here are five games that can scratch that open-world fantasy itch while you wait for the next FromSoftware masterpiece to get lost in all over again.
5. Outward
Released in 2022, Outward is a Souls-inspired fantasy adventure game that offers players the ability to explore the world of Aurai, by themselves or with a friend in co-op. The map is vast, and players of Elden Ring will be familiar with its intense difficulty and freeform way of allowing diverse player builds.
Definitely the best feature of Outward is the co-op, which also offers the rare split-screen local co-op option. It’s less polished than Elden Ring, but still manages to share a very similar vibe.
4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Some may not have immediately felt that a Legend of Zelda title could be in the running, but both The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom share a very similar discovery and world feel to a Soulslike game. The combat and puzzle-solving are more intuitive than those of Elden Ring, and the bosses are much easier, leading to a more relaxed type of fantasy world exploration. Players who liked the discovery and world-building of Elden Ring but didn’t care much for the difficulty might find themselves losing many hours here.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is highly praised for its open-world design, and it’s hard to imagine that the series will ever go back to its old ways after the success of this innovation. Like Elden Ring, players are thrown into a vast open world with little guidance and are given total freedom on how to approach it.
3. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Distilling the appeal of Elden Ring down to its basics, freedom of choice is the heart of its strength and what makes it transcend its predecessors. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt offers action combat set in a fantasy world that is significantly impacted by the players’ decisions. It has non-linear elements, allowing players to take on tasks in the order they want, though certain areas are closed off until you make progress on the main story.
While it isn’t quite as open as other open-world games, it still offers an impressive amount of area to get lost in on its map, and most importantly, its rich characters and world-building leave players fully immersed. Even now, The Witcher 3 fans are still discovering new content after countless hours.
2. Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 has players managing a team of “pawns” as they overcome dangerous creatures as the “Arisen,” a special entity who can control other pawns and is destined to fight the dragon. Although the combat system differs, the game has a very Elden Ring-esque feel to it and shares a penchant for incorporating the word “God” into items and plot events.
While not technically a Soulslike, Dragon’s Dogma 2 still embodies the same spirit in its open world, and with the way you can have different character builds by blending different classes, called vocations, together. By utilizing and managing a team of pawns, the game creates a vast array of options when approaching combat, allowing the player the freedom to combine different skills to devise unique strategies for defeating enemies.
1. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Now, Skyrim definitely doesn’t have Soulslike combat, and the game’s combat approach is often one of critics’ biggest criticisms. However, when it comes to engaging and immersive fantasy open worlds, it’s hard to go much better than Skyrim. Since its release in 2011, no other fantasy game has really come close to touching its accessible replayability and promise of complete player freedom. It deserves its place as one of the best Bethesda games.
If what you liked about Elden Ring was the ability to get lost in it for hours, then Skyrim is the true final boss that even Elden Ring fears. In 2012, Todd Howard boasted in a keynote speech that Skyrim had been played by over 10 million players, who averaged a playtime of 75 hours. Players are still losing countless hours over a decade later, this year nearly breaking an all-time high concurrent player count set when the Special Edition of the game was released on Steam in 2016. Even if you have played Skyrim before, it’s hard to resist the call to play it again after enough time has passed.
What did you think of these games? Are their open worlds similar enough to Elden Ring’s to scratch the same itch? Let us know what games your list would feature if you were recommending a game to another Elden Ring enjoyer.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm
