Open-world RPGs where you can casually lay waste to entire regions

For a long time now, choices and consequences have been a staple of any decent role-playing game, Including open-world RPGs. Indeed, when stepping into a vast living interactive world, it is natural to expect it and its inhabitants to respond to player actions. Easier said than done, though. With rare exceptions, very few RPGs result in a specific quest and NPC that gives the player. Only a handful of open-world RPGs fully embrace this concept, Creating sustainable results That, at times, can stick with players for the entire playthrough.

Even better, some open-world RPGs allow it Player mistakes and wrong choices with surprising depthsometimes destroying key NPCs, locking players out of entire questlines or endings, or creating permanent world-state consequences and Destroying entire map regions for good. Returning to such locations after a fatal choice can become a truly special moment for players, highlighting how meaningful their own actions can be. Below are some great examples of open-world RPGs where players Indeed can ruin entire fields by accident or choiceAlong with the most memorable examples.

Warning! For obvious reasons, the text below contains spoilers for the games listed. Proceed with caution.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Players can accidentally dumb down the entire starting area of ​​Kefalonia

The Assassin's Creed The series was the first foray into true open-world action-RPG territory Assassin's Creed OriginsBut that wasn't it Assassin's Creed Odyssey that the series went completely RPG, offering branching choice-based quests and dialogue instead of two playable protagonists and static cutscenes at the player's choice. Even with all that, few expected real depth AC OdysseyThat actually played to the game's advantage, catching some players off guard and providing a brilliant illustration of player-driven results in the opening hours.

Choosing Kassandra or Alexios, all players start on the small island of Kefalonia, spending the first hour of the game tackling quests and chores for the locals. During a quest called “The Blood Fever”, players encounter a family quarantined due to the plague, with the option to either kill them or rescue them in hopes of finding a cure. If they choose mercy, players will inadvertently destroy the entire island, which will be consumed by an off-screen epidemic. Some players may not even know the results. However, if players choose to return to Kefalonia later in their story after rescuing the sick, they will be greeted by a deserted cemetery full of skeletal corpses and abandoned houses. Subtlety works wonders in this case, as this is a completely optional side quest Assassin's Creed Odyssey Players can lose or quit, and the game never forces them to return to a later witness.

Dragon's Dogma 2

The hidden dragonsplague mechanic can turn playthrough into hell

familiar on the surface, Dragon's Dogma 2 approaches many typical open-world RPG mechanics differently, including having its own companions (known as pawns), no immediate fast-travel options, and the distinct division of day and night, affecting gameplay and exploration. Dragon's Dogma 2 It doesn't reveal all of its secrets to the player, so many may be caught off guard by its dragonsplague mechanics. This pan-exclusive disease is caught randomly from Dragon Brawl, and players can unwittingly hire infected pans without any obvious signs. As time goes by, more symptoms of the disease will appear, but they will disappear easily. If players aren't paying attention to their companions, they risk letting the Dragonsplag in all its horrors, resulting in their pawn turning into a terrifying dragon, killing entire cities or settlements while the player rests.

How shocked many players were when they first encountered the Dragonsplague, turning the bustling hubs into ghost towns filled with corpses after all the NPCs and their quests were gone. With the game's auto-save mechanics, it's impossible to reload and avoid shocking consequences, adding to the memorable nature of such events. On top of Dragonsplague, Dragon's Dogma 2's The endgame is also special, thrusting players into a dark undead world where monsters constantly attack settlements and cities, able to destroy them and all their inhabitants in time. If players are slow to provide help or are busy exploring elsewhere, all side materials in the area will be lost.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 Gives the player more of an agenda. Its reputation system allows them to do good or bad things, each with its own advantages for certain roles. True to the game's twisted world, players can do truly terrifying things, including wiping out entire cities and settlements. As in many Bethesda open-world RPGs, players can choose to kill almost every NPC in the game, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of big twists are available for evil geniuses. One of the most unforgettable moments Fallout 3 Of course the optional side quest is “The Power of the Atom”, which allows players to detonate an atomic bomb in the center of Megaton City, one of the first hubs encountered in the game.

Although it's hard to claim that players can accidentally trigger Megaton's destruction, since the game reveals all the cards before that point, this world-changing event still stands out in the genre. After a bomb detonates, an entire city will disappear from the map, turning the once-bustling settlement into irradiated ruins, vaporizing dozens of NPCs along with their quests, and even triggering specific random encounters if players choose to do so. some major Fallout 3 The characters, when told about it later, also give their perspective on the player's actions. Hey, at least the explosion looks pretty cool. From a safe distance, that is.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Geralt means to kill monsters – not to trust them

Manufacturers of Witcher The series always values ​​options and consequences, even going to extremes The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game offers a completely optional part of the game for a large part of Act 2, depending on the players initial choices. As a result, players end up in different regions of the world, surrounded by opposing friendly forces. the reason The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's A true open-world structure, the trilogy's grand finale doesn't offer a comparable non-linear sequence, but almost every quest has more than one solution, depicting constant moral dilemmas as only the player chooses the right thing for Geralt to do. what's more, The Witcher 3 Pushes the complexity of its world through ambiguous situations, where players can rarely predict how their moment-to-moment decisions will backfire or how significant the consequences will be.

in The Witcher 3Players can restore several small settlements, ridding them of bandits and monsters and then watch as people return to their homes, but another way is also possible. During the “The Whispering Hillock” quest, players find an innocent spirit seemingly trapped in a tree promising orphaned children safety. If the players think compassion is the way to go and decide to free it, the spirit unleashes a rampage in the nearby village of Downwarren, killing everyone and leaving a trail of corpses and ruined huts for the rest of the game. On top of that, this mistake could significantly affect the outcome of the larger Bloody Baron quest arc. The Witcher 3. After all, Geralt is meant to kill monsters, not help them, so there's a valuable lesson here.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Everything and everyone can be lost in the dangers of the zone

While hunter 2 While there are some decent RPG elements, it's still not a full-blown open-world RPG. However, its example is too strong for such a list not to be included.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl It's primarily an open-world FPS game, but it still offers some decent RPG mechanics, such as branching quests, dialogue choices, a faction system, multiple endings, and far-reaching consequences for many of the player's decisions during their playthrough. Playing as a skiff, players can choose their allies and enemies at almost any moment, and there are plenty of opportunities to completely switch sides or betray certain factions. Additionally, throughout the story, several major events unfold that dramatically change large areas of the game, such as Wild Island, SIRCAA, and Duga.

While the majority STALKER 2's While major world-shaping events are inevitable, there are also cases that depend on player actions (or inaction). One of the most impressive and memorable events occurs halfway through the story, when a brainwashed monolith returns to the zone, simultaneously attacking camps and stalkers and army bases. Players receive a request for help from the first friendly hub in Zalissya, where the Monolith attacks the rookie Stalkers' position in full. The game doesn't directly specify that this quest is very time-sensitive, and if players decide to go elsewhere instead of rushing to help Zalisya, the attack will soon end, and almost all of the friendly members of the camp will be killed, turning what was once a peaceful village into a grim graveyard for the rest of the playthrough. It turns out pretty much hunter 2 Players learned that lesson too late, missing one of the best foundations in the game as a result.