An open world RPG where your mistakes can ruin an entire region.

Choices and consequences have long been at the core of any decent role-playing game. Including open world RPGs. Indeed, when entering a vast, living, interactive world, it is natural to expect that the world and its inhabitants will respond to the player's actions. But it's easier said than done. With rare exceptions, the outcome of an RPG rarely matters outside of specific quests and the NPCs who provide them to the player. Only a few open world RPGs fully embrace this concept. Create lasting results Sometimes it can even hold the player for the entire play.

Even better, in some open world RPGs Mistakes and poor choices from players with surprising depth.Sometimes they destroy key NPCs, prevent players from accessing entire quest lines or endings, or even have permanent world state consequences. Destroys the entire map area permanently. Returning to such a place after making one fatal choice can be a truly special moment for the player, highlighting just how meaningful their actions are. Here are some of the best examples of open world RPGs that players can play. In fact, you can ruin an entire area by mistake or by choice.Along 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

It is possible for a player to accidentally ruin the entire starting area of ​​Kefalonia.

that Assassin's Creed For the first time, the series ventures into truly open-world action RPG territory. Assassin's Creed OriginsBut not until then Assassin's Creed Odyssey The series transitioned into a full RPG, with players choosing two playable protagonists and featuring branching choice-based quests and dialogue rather than static cutscenes. Despite all that, few expected any real depth. AC OdysseyIt actually took the game to its advantage, catching some players off guard and providing a nice picture of player-driven results in the opening minutes.

Choosing either Kassandra or Alexios, all players start on the small island of Kefalonia and spend the first hour of the game running quests and errands for the locals. In a quest called “The Blood Fever,” players encounter families quarantined by an epidemic and can kill or spare them in their quest to find a cure. Choosing mercy will result in the player unintentionally destroying the entire island and, off-screen, being destroyed by a plague. Some players may never know the outcome. However, if the player chooses to return to Kefalonia after rescuing the patient later in the story, they will be greeted by a desolate graveyard filled with skeletal corpses and abandoned houses. In this case, subtlety works wonders. Because it's a completely optional side quest. Assassin's Creed Odyssey Players can miss or skip them, and the game doesn't force them to go back to witness the aftermath.

Dragon's Dogma 2

Hidden Dragonsplague Mechanic Can Turn Play into Hell

On the surface, it is familiar, Dragon's Dogma 2 takes a different approach to many typical open-world RPG mechanics, including its own interpretation of companions (also known as pawns), no immediate fast travel options, and a sharp separation between day and night, which impacts gameplay and exploration. Dragon's Dogma 2 It doesn't reveal all its secrets to players, so many will find themselves baffled by Dragonsplague's mechanics. This pawn-only disease occurs randomly during dragon fights, and players may unwittingly recruit infected pawns without any apparent signs. Over time, more symptoms of the disease become noticeable but can be easy to miss. If players do not pay attention to their companions, there is a risk that a terrifying dragon plague will break out, causing their pawns to turn into rabid dragons that will run amok and slaughter entire villages or settlements while the players rest.

Many players report how shocked they were when they first encountered Dragonsplague. A bustling hub has been turned into a ghost town littered with corpses, with all NPCs and quests gone. The game's auto-save mechanism makes reloading impossible and shocking outcomes averted, adding to the memorable nature of these events. Above the Dragonsplague, Dragon's Dogma 2 The endgame is also special, thrusting players into the dark Unmoored World where monsters are constantly attacking settlements and villages, and at just the right time they can permanently destroy the settlement and all its inhabitants. If the player takes the time to provide help or is busy exploring elsewhere, all side content for that area will be lost.

fallout 3

fallout 3 It leaves a lot of the agenda up to the players. The reputation system allows them to perform good or bad actions, each of which has its own benefits for that particular role. In the game's twisted world, players can do truly terrible things, including wiping out entire cities and settlements. As with many Bethesda open-world RPGs, players can kill almost any NPC in the game, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are many bigger twists in Evil Geniuses. One of the most memorable moments fallout 3 is undoubtedly the optional side quest “The Power of the Atom”. This quest allows players to detonate an atomic bomb in the heart of Megaton City, one of the first hubs encountered in the game.

It's hard to argue that a player could accidentally trigger Megaton's destruction, but with all cards prior to that point in the game revealed, this world-changing event still stands out in the genre. When a bomb explodes, entire villages can be wiped off the map, turning once-busy settlements into radioactive ruins, dozens of NPCs along with their quests are vaporized, and even trigger certain random encounters if the player chooses to do so. some majors fallout 3 The characters also provide their own perspective on the player's actions as they learn about them later. Hey, at least the explosion looks pretty cool. From a safe distance.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Geralt is meant to kill monsters, not to distrust them.

producer the witcher The series always values ​​choices and consequences, even going to extremes. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game offers a complete replacement for much of Act 2, depending on the player's initial choices. As a result, players find themselves in different parts of the world surrounded by opposing coalition forces. because The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The trilogy's grand finale, with its true open-world structure, doesn't offer similar non-linear sequences, but almost every quest has more than one solution, constantly drawing moral dilemmas for Geralt with the player choosing to do the right thing. furthermore, The Witcher 3 The complexity of the world is pushed through ambiguous situations where players cannot predict how their split-second decisions will backfire or how significant the consequences will be.

in The Witcher 3Players can restore many small settlements, freeing them from bandits and monsters, and then watch their people return home, but vice versa. During the “Whispering Hills” quest, players discover a tormented and seemingly innocent spirit trapped in a tree who promises safety to orphaned children. If the player decides that compassion is the way to get here and decides to liberate it, the spirit goes on a rampage slaughtering everyone in the nearby town of Downwarren, leaving it a smoldering corpse and ruined cabin for the rest of play. Furthermore, this mistake could greatly impact 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 Cornobyl

Everything and everyone can get lost due to the dangers of the zone

while stalker 2 It has some decent RPG elements, but it's not yet a full-fledged open world RPG. Nonetheless, the examples are too powerful not to include in this list.

Stalker 2: Heart of Cornobyl Although it's primarily an open-world FPS game, it still features some decent RPG mechanics, including branching quests, dialogue choices, a faction system, multiple endings, and wide-ranging consequences for the player's decisions during play. Playing as Skif, players can choose between allies and enemies at almost any time, and there are several opportunities to switch sides entirely or even betray certain factions. Additionally, several major events unfold throughout the story that dramatically change large areas of the game, such as Wild Island, SIRCAA, and Duga.

On the other hand, most stalker 2 Major world-shaping events are unavoidable and sometimes dependent on the player's actions (or inactions). One of the most impressive and memorable events occurs about halfway through the story, when the brainwashed Monolith returns to the sector and simultaneously attacks the camps and bases of the Stalkers and the military. Players receive a call for help from the first friendly hub in Zalissya, where the Monolith is launching a full-scale assault on the rookie Stalker's location. The game does not directly state that this quest is very time sensitive, and if the player does not rush to help Zalissya and decides to go elsewhere first, the attack will soon end and almost all friendly members of the camp will be killed, leaving what was once a peaceful village a grim graveyard for the rest of play. Turns out it's too much stalker 2 Players learned that lesson too late, and as a result lost one of the better foundations in the game.