Favorite exploration games (and why)

Games
21

Not to mention that at the start of the game (and still) it was the ONLY game I have ever played that let you learn SPELLS from observing what your ENEMIES did.

Me and a friend entered a house in the wilderness, which was inhabited by some zombie-like creature… and we were close enough to observe its spellcasting and hear the words, for some acid-bolt it shot at it. Quickly back in the city we went about re-creating the spell… and voila… we had learned a new spell.

Ah, I recently found all my map notes for this game. Loved it on the AMiGA.
They dont make them like they used to.

22

Earth and Beyond, because you actually got XP for exploring new areas.

Ultima 7, all sorts of cool things you could find by looking in not so obvious places.

Divine Divinity, uncovering the vastly large map was part of the fun of this game. Lots of secrets and hidden things.

Sacred, same as Div Div.

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Gothic 2, because just jogging through the woods could really be a fascinating (and sometimes terrifying) experience.

24

Baldurs Gate Beautiful and varied environments, the great sense of threat and discovery you had exploring new areas, day/night cycles and fatigue, and cool encounters and characters to run into.

25

So true

26

I’m going to go a bit off the beaten path, here. Having done a bit of table top, pencil and paper role-playing, I have to say that my favorite part of the game never was the combat. It was always exploring the ideas the GM had about the world he or she was trying to convey to the players. There’s nothing quite as interesting as trying to picture a fantasy world through the filter of dramatic description.

27

The Quest for Glory series, all of 'em, but especially 1 and 4. 1 and 4 have the same ‘go from room to room’ setup as most Sierra games, but while you had random monsters wandering around ready to kill you as in any RPG, it lacked (most of) Sierra’s more random death elements where walking into a room without having picked up a rope two hours ago would kill you. QFG1, especially, allowed you wander around freely. If the frost giant demanded something of you he wasn’t going to bash your face in for not having it. He’s a reasonable fellow. While the game does have plenty of trick battles (Baba Yaga and the Brigand’s Lair come to mind) you’re not going to get to them by accident. 4 had a similar setup, but until you got the map 2’s city alleyways could be a huge pain in the shitter and 3’s wide-open world map with small, closed in city locations reduced exploration. That said, all four games had amazing things you could run across if you just went wandering. I remember how flabbergasted I was to run across a certain Earth Pig or Laurel and Hardy in QFG3.

(Also, look for the moose and the Maltese Falcon in every game.)

28

Most of my favorites have been mentioned (Gothic, Elder Scrolls/Fallout, almost any 4x game that takes place on a world). But I’ll add the Might and Magic games, which were only indirectly mentioned. Finding a new little treasure or group of monsters to farm for xp was a lot of fun. The random treasure chests in 6-8 were great, too, as were the secret doors.

29

I wasn’t sure why I liked exploration in STALKER so much until I read about urban exploration. We have lots of games that explore an outdoor map, and we have lots of corridor shooters, but I don’t think game designers know about the untapped potential of urbex. For me, picking through spooky abandoned builings and labs is more tense and interesting than all these other games.

30

I’m going to second (or third) these.

U7 had some brilliant exploration. It was a huge world with tons to see and do with different terrain pallets and so forth. It felt “real”. Loved encountering the house with the wisps and being told to get out. I loved finding the guy in the tree. I remember a waterfall hidden in the mountains. There’s so much I remember about that game since I largely just tramped around the world for the first 20 or so hours rather than following the story closely.

DD was another good exploration game. I didn’t encounter as much “stuff” in Div Div, but it was still fun to uncover the black on the map.

The original Sacred was probably one of the best exploration games. There was stuff squirreled away all over the place. I remember finding the secret dragon caches of stuff as I explored up the rivers. The only downside was the constant fighting on your way back due to the respawn. Given the lack of a good story in Sacred, it was the exploration that compelled me to finish (and really enjoy) this game.

I also thought the exploration in Fallout 3 was well done - perhaps the best part of the game. It helps that I’m very familiar with the DC area, so in some ways it was like exploring the wreckage of my own neighborhood. But besides the endless sewers, there was some really fun stuff to find, see and do out in the Wasteland…something I think New Vegas didn’t get right since you’re pushed in one direction due to the difficulty of the monsters the other way.

31

Divine Divinity - Huge environments, quests in unlikely places, lots of cool lore. For the thousandth time, this is NOT a Diablo clone.

ES III: Morrowind + BLoodmoon & Tribunal - Beautiful, unique and highly atmospheric environment to explore + tons of dungeons and caves. Oblivion was more polished and had improved combat but Morrowind had the magic.

Baldur’s Gate - BG2 was a much better game all around but the one thing BG did arguably better was the exploration aspect, due to larger wilderness environments.

Fallout 3 - Exploration MADE this game for me. The ravished and desolate landscape along with pretty tough encounters made exploration extremely tense and rewarding.

32

Most of mine have already been mentioned:

Starflight 1 and 2: Few games have given me that amazing feeling of exploration and discovery as these two, but some have come close.

Frontier: Elite II: You could purchase a specialized ship made just for exploration – the Imperial Explorer I believe – and just GO. The universe was huge too, but sadly much of it was empty.

Conquest of the New World: I loved this one. LOVED it. It really gave one a feeling of wonder as you found new rivers and mountains and then got to name them. Slowly uncovering the map was a true joy.

Just Cause 2: Such a huge world with so many nooks and crannies, so much fun to explore, then blow crap up.

Nomad: This was a space adventure game taking place in a HUGE universe of inhabited and uninhabited planets. You might hear about something going on at an uninhabited planet, check it out, and if you won the combat, you not only got money and fame, but you could scan the planet for minerals to mine. Such fun.

Daggerfall: I’ve dived into this game many times over the years and I don’t think I’ll ever see it all. The best Elder Scrolls game, IMO.

Noctis: Exploration is the whole point of the game, as there are no weapons or battles to speak of. You have a huge universe to explore, and you can go nearly anywhere, then land on planets and explore them too. A really amazing game.

Freelancer: While it seemed pretty linear in a lot of ways, Freelancer rewarded exploration with some great battles and hidden treasures, like derelict ships and the like.

33

When I think of an exploration game it’s more like e.g. the Tomb Raider series, where I walk into a new cave or temple and discover a new structure no one else has ever seen (except a zillion other players but never mind that).

One of the best feelings of discovering something really secret was that area in Arx Fatalis where I had to get an egg from a dragon. I had a hard time jumping up there which made the area feel so much more secret and fantastic when I finally reached it. A genuine sense of wonder.

Some other games with great exploration, or at least the illusion of great exploration because of the atmosphere: The Dig, Drakan, the Elder Scrolls series (especially Morrowind), Fallout 3, the Gothic series, the first Half-Life game, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, the Jedi Knight series, the Legacy of Kain series (especially the first Soul Reaver), Omikron: The Nomad Soul, Outcast (loved that game), Project Eden (great collaboration puzzles), Rama, Severance: Blade of Darkness, Shadow Man, the Syberia series, the System Shock series, the Thief series, as mentioned the Tomb Raider series, the first Unreal game, Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal - and on PS2; ICO. (Perhaps I’m leaning too much on atmosphere than exploration in some of these, but there you go.)

EDIT: Forgot a good one: Anachronox.

34

Was going to put Tomb Raider on my list but thought: TOO OBVIOUS. Actually, I’m sure all the Zeldas qualify as well, as exploration is a huge part of the series. I just automatically think RPGs when I think exploration.

But hell, how can I forget two of the greatest: Super Metroid & Castlevania Symphony Of The Night. Both of those games are exceptional entries in the adventure/exploration genre and two of my favorite games of all time.

35

Merchant Prince/Machiavelli - I loved the way the world wasn’t just a blank map when it was unexplored. It was filled with old-world cartography notes and inaccurate map features.

Oblivion/Fallout 3/New Vegas - Best SP first-person explorable world games by a mile. Packed with detail and interesting stuff to do. Buggy, but once it has its hooks in you, it is tough to think of anything else.

Just Cause 2 - Silly, explosive, and fun. While it can get repetitive, nothing feels as good as coming across a new airbase and laying waste to it by hijacking a jet.

36

Edit: Damn you, Relayer, for stealing half my thunder as I’m typing it. :p

I’m detecting a distinct lack of Roguelikes and Metroidvanias in this thread. Super Metroid, or Castlevania: SotN heavily feature exploration (even on multiple playthroughs, unless you have a photographic memory), and Nethack and other procedurally generated roguelikes (leading up to Diablo, etc) are different every time you play, although admittedly the maps are often nothing to write home about.

Or, if you want to combine both, how about Spelunky? (C’mon, come out for XBLA already!)

‘Me too’ on Just Cause 2 (I cut myself off around 50% total completion), Elder Scrolls/FO3, Thief/SystemShock/Bioshock, ICO (missing Shadow of the Colossus, but still, good call), and Minecraft.

37

Exploration as gameplay element is one of my favorite things, especially in RPGs, and especially first and third person ones. Gothic 2 would be my favorite choice as well, along with their other games (the first Gothic, and Risen).

The Ultima Underworld games were fantastic examples of this back in their day. In some respects they’ve yet to be surpassed, especially in the way they evoked the best pnp roll(role ;-) playing experiences I had as a kid. I’d pay a lot to have one game along these lines every year. A lot! ;-)

System Shock 1+2. Loved both these games. Dangerous, slightly puzzly dungeon crawl to work through with fantastic atmosphere and a ton of diverse challenges.

Despite the mediocre to poor combat and uneven design decisions across the series, the Elder Scrolls games have many high points.

The original Everquest blew my mind when it came out - the combination of tension and fear of the unknown was incredible. Making that run through the minotaur patrolled canyon that connected the two coasts for the first time is one of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve had. Ditto accidentally finding, exploring, and ultimately dying in Paw (? the one off in the midst of a plain far from the beaten track) dungeon.

Many other MMORPG’s have worked for me on a similar level, though increasingly less so than Everquest did. I loved scoping out the original WoW especially though. Diverse, large, imaginative, colorful, and with a sense of fun, WoW was the most rewarding of the MMORPGs in terms of exploration.

As others have mentioned, Just Cause 2 is great - the world is vast, beautiful, and densely populated with opportunities for adventure. It’s a little shallow, but perfect for ‘I have 20 minutes to get in some fun’ gaming now and then. I really wish someone could take this engine and make an elder scrolls style game with it.

Demon Souls - fantastic, creepy world to wander in. A bit punishing and grindy/repetitive, but still, fantastic atmosphere and super challenging bosses as the ‘reward’ for exploration.

38

EverQuest 1, most assuredly. The zones were the most varied of any fantasy game I’d ever played up until that point, and exploration was often quite a rewarding experience. There is so much content in that game, to this day there are secrets and quests being revealed, or forgotten and rediscovered years after they went live.

This is perhaps the best MMO in terms of rewarding exploration I’ve ever played. Except for a couple specific shitty expansions, and a particularly instance-heavy expansion (Lost Dungeons of Norrath, which is still fun – though repetitive), the game always felt hand-crafted and chock full of detail. EQ didn’t suffer the same way rushed games like Asheron’s Call and Anarchy Online did, with their massive, generic, uninspired and seemingly algorithmically generated flatlands. Although those games had pretty good mechanics, they were anything but interesting to explore.

The Civilization series. Sometimes I get tired of slogging through the late stages of the games simply because there’s nothing new to discover, and I’ll just exit out and create a new world to explore.

Because so much of an individual play-through can rely on found resources and other discoveries, searching for them is quite a compelling endeavor. Civilization V seems the most fun game of the series in terms of exploration, especially because of the natural Wonders and City States that are scattered about (in addition to the continued use of barbarians, Resources, useful places to plop down settlers early etc).

Fallout 1. I loved the countdown timer for the main quest. Having this always created a sense of urgency that forced my hand to keep moving forward, and in the process made it so it was unlikely I would be able to experience all things on my first play-through, including exploration of all cities and areas, or completion of all tasks.

Because time itself was a resource I was constantly running out of, this made discoveries that much more important. Rewarding discoveries were that much more important, fruitless exploration that much more detrimental. Similar to the 4x genre, where your discoveries can play a significant role in the direction any particular play-through takes, Fallout 1 can be completed many different ways, with several different out-comes – often determined by the paths taken.

39

The STALKER games have superlative exploration in large, if a bit gated, environments.

40

Outcast — huge, open, dangerous, you can ask for directions and actually receive them, move through the crowds in a desert bazaar, hide in a rice paddy while a patrol passes, swim next to a boat with shark-sankar all over the place

San Andreas — on both the macro and micro scales; driving around looking for that last graffiti tag, flying low in a chopper looking for stuff, poking into the corners of shopping malls and backyards

Morrowind — exploring the vast map made the boring combat worthwhile, though the constant cliff racers made exploring much less fun

Nethack — if you play without hints, you really don’t know what’s coming

DWARF FORTRESS