Whether it is a post-apocalyptic dystopia filled to the brim with neon lights and genetically enhanced humans, or a medieval fantasy with manmade "gods", a properly designed game world is definitely one aspect that makes the player remember it and maybe embark on one more playthrough.
A properly set game world helps the player get immersed in the game and enhances the gaming experience. However, several things affect it negatively, such as the lack of inhabitants of a supposedly capital city, or the unnatural writing of NPC dialogues. Yet, there exist some games where getting lost fun.
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The pearl of its franchise, The Witcher 3 is no amateur when it comes to world design. There is a fast travel mechanic in the game that lets the player travel to places that they had explored beforehand, but the game generously rewards the player when they do not.
While traveling the roads with their trusty steed Roach, the player will come across countless unique encounters, and they are surely both well-written and well-planned. The thing about these encounters and side-quests is that they are not fetching quests put together poorly just to fill the world with unnecessary and fake stories, but they are situations that arose in an already present ecosystem, making the player feel like a part of the world upon solving them.
To put the cherry on top, all of these encounters will reward the player with something important in addition to experience points and a sense of accomplishment, such as unique items. Additionally, the atmosphere of the settlements big and small all add up to create a wonderful setting that just feels alive.
3 Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Although the combat seems hard to get used to, and has a steep learning curve, Kingdom Come: Deliverance does a great job of pulling the player into its world. If the player is familiar with RPGs, they will surely find themselves out in the world fighting for their life because they just stole cabbage from a broke villager.
What makes this game appealing is its attention to detail which effectively captivates the player. For instance, when the player got beaten up in a fight before, and needs to rest, an NPC they talk to will react to the state they are in, adding to the immersion of its world.
The level of immersion this game has is off the charts, and the life of the poor peasants seems to go on with or without the player, which makes a difference in how the player approaches the world around them, as it is implied that they are not the almighty protagonist like in other more commonly known RPGs.
2 Outward
An unexpected participant, yet a very well-earned one. Outward is a relatively hard open-world RPG game set in a fantasy world that has numerous biomes each with unique enemies and factions. The game has some mechanics that were borrowed from DnD, such as removing your backpack before getting into a fight with, say, an overgrown chicken that somehow has a bleeding effect on its attacks.
Additionally, the game supports co-op multiplayer, so players can spend hours trying to figure out how to take down an enemy that they were not even supposed to fight while trying to pay off a debt after barely surviving a ship crash. The game does not in any way prevent players from venturing too far from the road they are supposed to be on, so they are advised to first familiarize themselves with the mechanics and the world they are in, and then start their adventure.
The level of class variety also adds up to the experience the game provides. Players can choose to become a war mage, a warrior, a sorcerer, or one of many more possible builds in the game. Each build has its advantages as well as things to watch out for, such as equipment weight for fighters, sleep for mages, and stamina for archers. All in all, Outward is more than what it looks like on the outside.
1 Caves Of Qud
The unexplored rainforest of RPGs, the hidden gem of world design, Caves Of Qud provides never-ending entertainment for those who do not mind the graphics. As implied in the title, the game inhabits hundreds of underground caves filled with endemic creatures ranging from giant centipedes to acid-spewing moths and giant blind rabbits with mandibles of a mantis.
The game features one too many possibilities to start the game with. Players can choose either to start as one of the individual presets available or create a character of their own with unique physical and mental mutations. They can become a four-legged, fire-breathing, amphibious berserker that has developed quills on their back as a self-defense mechanism, or a simple pilgrim in the salt dunes, who does not in any way engage in combat, but rather convinces their enemies to go on their way peacefully.
The feeling of exploring seemingly endless caves that go deeper and deeper with every step downwards makes the player forget about their quest to bring back an obsidian amulet, that was passed down for generations, to a sentient gorilla who was cast out of the clan for being kind and then created a community which includes tortoises and speaking fish.