Ok, what are you favorite open world RPG's other than the TES series?


Being that it's a fairly small category you can even count stuff that isn't entirely open ended..

My two all time favorites would be Ultima 7, both parts, and Gothic 2.

Fallout is the obvious one.

And the first Dragon Age and Mass Effect are pretty good semi-open world games (add KotoR, Neverwinter Nights and Baldurs Gate to that list too)

Saints Row 3 is gloriously psychotic as well, just good silly fun.

Mine is an online game called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. One of the largest game worlds I've ever experienced, and open-world too.

The usual...Fallout

I'd throw in the first two fallouts I guess too. I loved BG2, never played 1 as of yet.

I seem to remember you could get 'poisoned' or something by performing in a pormo without your Jimmy hat in one of the fallout games, it's always stuck out as one of my "this game was made for me" memories.

Gothic 1,2,3 (Com Patch)
Fallout 3, NV

Short list, depends on how much leeway people allow.

If you own a PC and you haven't tried out the Stalker series yet then I would highly recommend you do.

Being a console gamer, there aren't really that many real rpgs around for me. The only one I like the best is Fallout 3, but many don't consider that an rpg for various reasons.

There's three other games which definitely aren't rpgs, but have rpglike aspects that I really enjoy, and that is:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat, a must for any Fallout 3 fan who has a fetish for Russian army hardware. Has hardcoe rpg elements like needing to eat to survive. And also some basic elements like elemental damage/resistance and extensive weapon modification (this part really is the best I've seen in a game)

Then Far Cry 2, which as I mentioned is nothing like an rpg, but the immersion factor is high, and it's a huge open world game with plenty of opportunity for exploration. And a bit of weapon modding/collection

And lastly Red Dead Redemption. Again not an rpg, but the character can be roleplayed if you're openminded about rping without stats to look at. Huge, beautiful open world to explore.

This, it's a more serious take on the post-apocolyptic scenario

Ah yeah I hadn't thought about the STALKER series, I bought them for like ten bucks months ago on Steam, great buy - they are fantastic.

Also I guess I could give some honorable mention to RISEN, i don't consider 'the best', but by the standards of most RPG's I think it's pretty decent.

Is BG2 considered an open world game? I thought it was more world-map (although you can sometimes discover places while travelling and don't always need a quest to open up areas).

I think it's kind of in a grey area, I mean it had chapters and such, and it was partially linear, but you could also explore a bit and weren't necessarily limited in the order you did things.

Well im not entierly sure, what I can remember , im pretty sure its morrowind ( Unless I could say Might and Magic VIII, VII VI Which , imo , are the greatest rpg's of ALL TIME )

X3 - Although calling it an 'open-world RPG' might be a bit of stretch. Open world space trading/combat strategy sim might be more appropriate.

Other than Morrowind?
Any rpg adventuring game that does not have guns in it.

Personally I do not consider any of Bioware's games to be "open world." Dragon Age: Origins, in fact, is the definition of non-open world game for me.

An open world (or sandbox) game is one where we can go where we want. If we can see a place, we can go there. Any game that uses "maps" is not an open world game, in my opinion.

Ultima Online.. Been around since 97 and still strong... an MMO

Single-player; Uhm not tried anything else besides everything from Elder Scrolls.. But i have heard good words about Witcher 2, gonna try it out..

An old classic mmo - Ultima Online. Played it for 10 years

I see I`m not the only one

Well there are open-world games with RPG qualities:

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas

Red Dead Redemption

Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (I'm sure Revelations as well)


Some upcoming ones to look at would be:

Dragons Dogma
Kingdoms of Amalur
Game of Thrones
Risen 2: Dark Waters
Prey 2
Dishonored

Def. not.. Am still playing after 14 years

Yes, these... very good RPGs for their time, only bested by, indeed, Daggerfall and Morrowind. And since some people are mentioning mmorpgs as well and nobody dares to admit it: World of Warcraft. Yes!

It's got good gaming mechanics, the largest open world out there, it definately classifies as an RPG and is relatively well balanced. Never mind the abundance of nerdraging teenagers in this game, it's still a topclass game.

Ultima 7 was awesome.

But I feel open-world RPGs are starting to become an oxymoron because it is a sign of the times. I find myself enjoying more "close-world" RPGs like Mass Effect 2. Themeparks are starting to become more enjoyable for me.

I just finished LA Noire, but I am more interested in the story than exploring the whole of LA. There's just no reason to explore. Nothing happens outside the street crimes and main story.

Or maybe it's because open-world RPGs are not done right. I remember it was interesting to explore Ultima 7 because I'd never know what I would find in caves. I may find more magic armor, magic weapons (such as the fire sword that also acted like a torch), treasure in the form of gold bars, jewelry, dragons that drop jewels, interesting creatures like that Unicorn that is a virgin-detector lol, the Cyclops that could talk and ask the Avatar why his people were always the target of genocide, the crazed sultan suffering from delusions that had the powerful stone harpy guarding his treasure, etc.

In Skyrim there is no such incentive to explore.

Starflight. Still among my all-time favorite games.

Not in the same way no...that's why I consider it to be pretty much the best open-world RPG still, despite the god awful graphics even playing it today it really retains a certain magic that is hard to find elsewhere.
Another thing though, the story, lore, writing, and especially humor in those games was mind-blowing, it is so far beyond most of what's out there there just isn't any comparison..that's part of what made the Ultima games great.

Two Worlds manages competently. It's a strange game. Single player feels like it's trying to be a lot like Oblivion, except the surface quests are more important than dungeons because the dungeons are forgettable. It also has multiplayer, which is sadly not as open, but lets you quest together in maps mostly composed of parts of the single-player world and PVP in arenas if you want.