Open World Games are one of the most popular genres of video games out there, but a lot of them trick players into exploring empty wastelands. This is not to say that empty open worlds are wrong.
Some games have it because it’s not the main focus, while others have it because it’s a failed attempt at bloating up the game. In this list, we shall be looking at some of these open-world titles with empty wastelands.
Open World Games That Force You To Explore Empty Wastelands
Starfield
Once upon a time, Bethesda was hailed as one of the greatest video game companies around. This was mainly due to the incredible success surrounding the older generation of Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.
But post the seventh console generation, the company has become the center of a large amount of criticism. Mainly due to the severe buggy mess of releases. The developer aimed to change all of that with their ambitious new IP, Starfield.
Unfortunately, it fell off harder than even the established ones that came before. The game promised an open world with explorable planets, all of which turned out to be empty wastelands. Creative bankruptcy of Bethesda became glaringly obvious after this.
Forspoken
Square Enix is known for some of the most popular RPG franchises in existence. The company sought to expand upon that goodwill with new and modern IPs. So the Luminous Productions studio was appointed to work on a new game, Forspoken.
It sought to reach the popularity of Square’s pillar franchises, such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, with a focus on modern Western-style over-the-shoulder cinematic games. But Forspoken just became another heavily criticized game with empty wastelands as an open world.
The complaints were also backed by the game’s uninteresting characters that tried to pander to overused humor tropes.
Mad Max (2015)
You may think that it is super dumb that we are putting the Mad Max game in a list about open-world games with explorable wastelands, because that is literally the idea of this franchise. For those unaware, Mad Max is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian film franchise.
In 2015, Avalanche Studios developed a game based on the franchise starring Max Rockatansky as the protagonist. The game literally puts players in the vast wasteland with vehicles and several other common game elements, such as weapons and armor, with free-flowing combat.
Rage 2
Now, if we are to talk about a Mad Max-like that is actually a disappointing imitation and a sequel, then Rage 2 is what comes to mind. Similar to the last game, Rage tries to place players in a vast post-apocalyptic open world, forced to survive because it’s a dog-eat-dog world.
The culprit: Bethesda is back once again. Riddled with bugs, repetitive fetch quests, and a barren wasteland of an open world, Rage 2 is an uninteresting game that has become a shadow of its former self. It is one of the most forgettable games that we have put in our list.
Just Cause 4
The Just Cause video game franchise is not something new, unless you have been living under a rock. Among the platheora of open-world action-adventure games, Just Cause stood out with the insane amount of mobility it provided.
You step into the shoes of Agent Rico Rodriguez, diving and gliding through the skies, utilizing several transport methods, including grappling hooks. But that’s where it all ends, as the rest of the franchise is just a story-focused, empty open-world game like everything else on this list.
Even though it’s another game by Avalanche Studios, by the fourth iteration, we thought the creators would have understood that the charm was running its course.
Death Stranding
When Hideo Kojima left Konami with an unfinished Silent Hill title, the whole of the gaming community fell to their knees. We thought that we would never get to see another masterpiece from him ever again, but little did we know that he would be back soon and hit harder.
After establishing his own studio, Hideo Kojima went on to create the most ambitious new IP of his career. Death Stranding is a new genre-defining game that would go on to bring the film and gaming industry closer. It did, but it also divided the whole of the gaming community after release.
That is because Death Stranding, as an open-world game, had an empty wasteland of a world, with experiences being very linear and related to the game’s plot points only. Though it did separate itself from the other empty open-world games with the strand-like experience.
Metal Gear Survive
While on the topic of Hideo Kojima, we should also talk about the biggest open-world spin-off title that the Metal Gear franchise ever saw. But that’s as far as our accolades for this game go because the game is built on top of a forgettable and empty wasteland.
Metal Gear Survive was Konami’s first attempt at doing something with the franchise right after the director left, and boy, did they blow it. The game is said to take place between the two mainline Metal Gear Solid V games, following an MSF soldier who finds himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
This is most definitely the lowest point that the Metal Gear franchise has ever reached in its lifetime, almost at the brink of extinction as a video game series.
Days Gone
Modern PlayStation games are marred by the same-looking over-the-shoulder camera with realistic worlds that could either be open-world or linear experiences. Days Gone is just another needle in this haystack.
Created by Bend Studios, who were once known for the Syphon Filter franchise and the ever-so-famous Bubsy 3D. Days Gone is a narrative-focused game set in a world with a zombie apocalypse, and that’s where it all stops.
Unless you are someone who is completely satisfied with every same-looking empty open-world zombie-survival game out there, Days Gone will have to do more to reel you in.
Far Cry 6
Ubisoft is a company that was once revered for its experimental titles, such as Beyond Good & Evil and the Prince of Persia franchise. But now it has been reduced to recycling the same game IPs with overly bloated open worlds that are empty wastelands, once you look past the pretty visuals.
This is most prevalent with the last release in the Far Cry series. Even after employing star power such as Giancarlo Esposito, it can’t distract players from the fact that the charm of this franchise has run its course.
No Man’s Sky
Before we talk about the problem, we must give our respects where they are due. No Man’s Sky is a franchise that promised a lot to its players and absolutely failed by falling flat on release.
Its story is very similar to Bethesda’s Starfield, but while this one failed at picking itself back up, No Man’s Sky came back harder than ever before. Fulfilling every promise made to the players under the sun and even beyond that.
But after the charm wears off, one has to realize that No Man’s Sky, fundamentally, is an open-world title with generative wastelands. Of course, there is stuff to do, but not its not a type of game that will be everyone’s cup of tea.
