Elder Scrolls Are there even Elder-Scrolls-like Exploration RPGs?

[V_K]

The only thing I dislike about the Vogel games (the couple I tried) is that they have a lot to read

Yeah, Vogel's games are all a bit on the wordy side, but also the quality of writing is rather different between different series. Avernum and Geneforge are pretty good and not too overwritten. Avadon on the other hand....
Speaking of Generforge, the first game in the series (which got a remake recently) also fits the bill quite well, being very open and allowing you to give a middle finger to all the factions and just explore the island and its mysterious past. The rest of the series, unfortunately, is more plot-heavy.

 

[Artyoan]

Play Conan Exiles singleplayer. You can jack up harvest rates and play it as an exploration game. It doesn't have quests but the world is fun to explore. Naturally, I am ridiculously biased.

I'm surprised this game doesn't come up more often when people are asking this question. Its a survival crafting game but the survival part is a non-issue, the crafting can be as involved as the player wants it to be, and almost everything can be tweaked in server settings anyway. Its on my short list of games I bought with low end expectations yet it was a 9/10 for me.

Dragon's Dogma is very good but its also very slow at the start and the best part is in the DLC. The pawn system is my favorite 'player created' content in any game ever. Combat feels great but is let down by a broken damage calculation system.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Speaking of Generforge, the first game in the series (which got a remake recently) also fits the bill quite well

I backed the kickstarter but didn't try it yet - I certainly should though!
-
Conan Exiles singleplayer sounds also interesting!

 

[Siveon]

I think one of the things Elder Scrolls always had against others waa the fact there simply aren't games like it. This is why Avowed is kind of important, and in a minor way Outer Worlds (if FNV can be considered "ES-like" for being semi-similar to F4).

Play Nehrim and Enderal, yeah. They're pretty much the games that scratch that itch outside that series.

 

[MpuMngwana]

This is why Avowed is kind of important, and in a minor way Outer Worlds (if FNV can be considered "ES-like" for being semi-similar to F4).

The greatest trick Obsidian has ever pulled is convincing everyone TOW is anything like FNV, and it is even farther removed from Bethesda games. Hopefully Awoved will be a Bethesda-clone, because there is an untapped “Skyrim but actually good” market, but we hardly know anything about that game so I’m not holding my breath.

Spoiler

Kingdom Come Deliverance is almost there, it’s just missing that customizable protagonist. Pyranha Bytes games scratch a different itch, as does Dragon’s Dogma and various non-RPG open world popamoles such as Rockstar and Ubisoft games. No one really attempts that mix of deeper-than-average simulation with a fairly large world and some ammount of scripted content.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Underrail.

 

[Siveon]

This is why Avowed is kind of important, and in a minor way Outer Worlds (if FNV can be considered "ES-like" for being semi-similar to F4).

The greatest trick Obsidian has ever pulled is convincing everyone TOW is anything like FNV, and it is even farther removed from Bethesda games. Hopefully Awoved will be a Bethesda-clone, because there is an untapped “Skyrim but actually good” market, but we hardly know anything about that game so I’m not holding my breath.

Spoiler

Kingdom Come Deliverance is almost there, it’s just missing that customizable protagonist. Pyranha Bytes games scratch a different itch, as does Dragon’s Dogma and various non-RPG open world popamoles such as Rockstar and Ubisoft games. No one really attempts that mix of deeper-than-average simulation with a fairly large world and some ammount of scripted content.

I would argue that Kingdom Come is removed from ES to almost the extent of Outer Worlds. Lack of dungeons, customizable protag, loot, etc.

And OW is like NV, there's no other game anyone could compare it to but NV or the beth Fallouts. It may not be good, but what else could it be?

---

I don't consider Avowed to be a savior here, but an attempt to be like Bethesda has not been done, so just its existance is notable. There's also that unfinished indie game on steam but that game kind of blows.

 

[Butter]

Outer Worlds hub design makes it closer in spirit to Bloodlines than to New Vegas.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Speaking of Outer Worlds, if it's exploration you're looking for, there's the other 2019 OW outer sci-fi space game that came out around the same time: Outer Wilds.

Not to say it's like a Elder Scrolls and their Fallout game, or that it's like Outer Wilds, but you might like it if the exploration stuff is what you're into when it comes to Bethesda Game Studios stuff.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

didn't read most of the replies, since you only mentioned the nu-TES games you're looking for Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

 

[anvi]

This is like the bad games thread.

 

[Bad Sector]

There are very few games like that - IMO the elements that make those games (at least judging from up to Skyrim, i haven't played the later games yet) are:

1. Character creation. This is important since pretty much every other "open world" game has a predefined character, but in all Bethesdalikes you get to make the character yourself (even if in Skyrim the character creation is largely visual).
2. Open world. Not to be confused with "seamless world" (Bethesda's games are really straddling the line of that anyway with all the loading screens between cells, houses, etc): with "open world" here i mean not just being able to move your character to any place in the world map but actually do stuff in any order you want (quests are still largely linear though, i think only Morrowind had quests where you could complete parts of it in any order, mainly because they relied on you achieving a bunch of stuff without caring in what order you achieve them). As an example i consider the first Fallout an "open world" game even if it doesn't have a seamless world. Many self-proclaimed open world games are in reality very linear.
3. Consistent interaction between the characters (including you) and the world. From simple stuff like being able to open containers and move stuff to/from them, picking up items in the world, pickpocketing NPCs (or placing stuff in their pockets) to things like NPCs being governed by the same stats as your character and largely being able to do the same actions as you do (AI limitations notwithstanding). Yeah sure, often things are done in a shallow way (i was a bit disappointed when, after i saw Serana using a forge, i asked to trade items with her and she didn't had anything crafted) but look, other games do not even try.
4. Being first or third person. Others might disagree with this, but for me world exploration is an important aspect and the experience is very different when is done via a first person (or at least third person) than when it is done via a bird's eye / isometric camera. Ultima 7 may have everything i mentioned but the fact that it has a top down-ish view (and with a weird projection too) puts it in a very different category for me.

(obviously things like at least having some semblance of RPG elements are also part of them but that goes without saying)

AFAIK there aren't many games like that. Whenever i look for similar games, the vast majority of suggestions fall short in one way or another. Of course they tend to be decent games, but they do not scratch that itch.

This is why Avowed is kind of important, and in a minor way Outer Worlds (if FNV can be considered "ES-like" for being semi-similar to F4).

I really really really really hope that Avowed is a better "ES-like" than Outer Words was an "FNV-like".

 

[RapineDel]

World of Warcraft Classic (the Levelling experience).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

with "open world" here i mean not just being able to move your character to any place in the world map but actually do stuff in any order you want (quests are still largely linear though, i think only Morrowind had quests where you could complete parts of it in any order, mainly because they relied on you achieving a bunch of stuff without caring in what order you achieve them).

JarlFrank first referred to this as goal-oriented quest design, and I agree that it's a good name for it:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/sawyer-wants-rpg-to-evolve.121468/page-21#post-5580502

Most of JF's posts in that thread are worth reading btw.

It's quests that instead of following instruction steps, you simply are given a goal and must reach it somehow. The order things are completed becomes (partly) irrelevant.
Not to be confused with nonlinear which can be visualized as a branching tree(that tends to come back together later), goal-oriented quests would be visualized as a connected graph -- a web.

 

[Bad Sector]

JarlFrank first referred to this as goal-oriented quest design, and I agree that it's a good name for it:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/sawyer-wants-rpg-to-evolve.121468/page-21#post-5580502

Most of JF's posts in that thread are worth reading btw.

It's quests that instead of following instruction steps, you simply are given a goal and must reach it somehow. The order things are completed becomes (partly) irrelevant.
Not to be confused with nonlinear which can be visualized as a branching tree(that tends to come back together later), goal-oriented quests would be visualized as a connected graph -- a web.

Yeah, i have seen JarlFrank using this term in some of his other posts (though i hadn't read that particular one) and in general i agree that it is a good design. Actually i considered using that term when i wrote it but i hesitated since what Morrowind does isn't exactly what i have in mind as "goal oriented" (though TBH i have a more "mechanical" view whereas what JarlFrank seems to describe in that thread is more of a design approach) and despite the engine being among those that make it easier to do such quests, the game only rarely takes advantage of it.

 

[V_K]

Sorry to toot my own horn, but I was using the quest/goal distinction some years before Jarl.

 

[eli]

play arena it is bigger, better and pixleted. the control scheme shouldnt be an issue as there is a mod to fix it. hit me up if you managed to fix the 15 fps gameplay.

 

[jdinatale]

The closest I have ever found to Morrowind is King’s Field IV: The Ancient City on the PS2.

Other games that scratch the Morrowind itch for me are: S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Fallout: New Vegas, System Shock 2, and SureAI mods Myra Aranath and Arktwend. Unfortunately I do not recommend the other SureAI mods because you still have to use the Oblivion and Skyrim engines.

And this is a FPS, but the original Unreal game captures that exploring an alien world feel.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Kenshi scratches the Morrowind itch like no other.

 

[JarlFrank]

Play Conan Exiles singleplayer. You can jack up harvest rates and play it as an exploration game. It doesn't have quests but the world is fun to explore. Naturally, I am ridiculously biased.

So I started playing this and yes, it is actually pretty good.

I'm using a bunch of mods (some that add more cute clothes and jewelry for my cute barbarian chick , one that makes enemies drop their equipment so going through the game without crafting becomes more viable, Greater Camera Distance because even max FOV in the game options is too narrow) and setting the server options for my single player game to make grind a non-issue and soloing without NPC companions viable: crafting time and cost reduced to 0.1 so I can build a small homebase with all the crafting stations by chopping just a handful of trees, and enemy damage to my character reduced to 0.6 while my own damage raised to 1.5. The game is designed for multiplayer, or at least for tagging some thralls along, so this is necessary if you want to solo everything. The game works pretty well with those settings, the combat is challenging and exploration is rewarding but there's no need to farm resources.

The exploration is pretty good. I've only seen the river, desert, and the edge of that red city in the far west, but what I've seen is impressive. There are very tall structures everywhere, and you can climb them! Any vertical surface can be climbed, how far you can go depends only on how much stamina you have. I have often come into situations where I barely managed to reach the top of a tall cliff, but then had no idea how to get back down again. Oops. Sometimes there's even something useful to find up there.

The verticality is excellent

You can climb up ANYWHERE

 

[koyota]

Outer Worlds hub design makes it closer in spirit to Bloodlines than to New Vegas.

Just play the first world of Outer Worlds and then stop and you`ve got what OP is asking for.

Honestly, if The Outer Worlds was a $15 game and only contained the first world, reviews would have been better.
Game Doesn`t start majorly breaking, become linear until after you are done with it.

 

[Desiderius]

Outer Worlds hub design makes it closer in spirit to Bloodlines than to New Vegas.

Just play the first world of Outer Worlds and then stop and you`ve got what OP is asking for.

Honestly, if The Outer Worlds was a $15 game and only contained the first world, reviews would have been better.
Game Doesn`t start majorly breaking, become linear until after you are done with it.

So D:OS3 then