Highlights
- Open-world games immerse players in intricate political systems, where their decisions directly impact the world and characters they encounter.
- While not all games offer complete player freedom, the political details and immersive experiences remain intact.
- From Star Wars to The Elder Scrolls, players have the power to shape political landscapes, forge alliances, and influence the fate of the game world.
In these open-world games, politics are intricately woven into the narrative of the game. Player decisions will directly, or indirectly, influence the world that they explore. Whether it’s in the behavior and relationship of other characters and NPCs, or the details from within the world. These best open-world games have political systems that although initially confusing, help to immerse players into a world where their opinion matters.
Although not all of these open-world games have complete freedom of choice, and their political systems may be rigged so that the game doesn’t break based on the choice of the player, it doesn’t stop the overall experience from being fairly immersive and politically detailed.
5 Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
By the time players make their way to the galaxy far, far away in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, they will have a story of their own to make. The events of Knights of the Old Republic take place thousands of years before the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker, meaning there is creative freedom in the adventures and characters within. As such, players might face an intricate political system involving the Jedi and the Sith.
Players have the freedom of choice to be their character, and as someone sensitive to the Force, decisions hold power, and power corrupts. Players can align themselves with the Sith to further destroy the dying Jedi Order, or try to bring hope back to the galaxy against the might of the Dark Side. The decision is theirs.
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Once Geralt of Rivia makes his way to the ravished and war-torn lands of Novigrad, players will see how politics have reached The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The invasion of the Nilfgaardian Empire has left many towns and villages desecrated and the opinions of those that remain alive soured, and turned. However, Witchers are always neutral, which makes the moral decisions of The Witcher 3 that much more difficult.
However, players still have their own decisions to make. As war ravishes the lands, it’s hard not to help those in need, and even harder to ignore the cries for the skills of a Witcher. Players can be careful enough to remain neutral but still influence the decisions of kings and emperors to make things better for the lands that they inhabit. The Witcher 3 does a great job in its display of politics, family and monsters, and all those that are woven together.
3 Fallout: New Vegas
There is a confusing introduction to politics in Fallout: New Vegas. When players wake up as a lost courier who has been shot in the head, they will find themselves involved in a faction war between multiple different political systems, each with their desires and rules for mastering and controlling the Mojave Wasteland. Despite the whimsical wasteland and the joyous music, Fallout: New Vegas has a fairly intricate political system with multiple factions to divide opinions and morals.
Players can interact with and affect their relationship with Mr. House, the NCR, Brotherhood of Steel, and Caesar’s Legion. The delicacy and intricacy of Fallout: New Vegas’ political systems means that players will have a hard time choosing what is both right for them as an independent, and the majority of the Wasteland.
2 Dying Light 2
Although Dying Light 2 doesn’t have just the political leanings of left or right, Dying Light 2 does have the post-apocalyptic factions of the Peacekeepers and Survivors. Each of these factions provides players with unique benefits, depending on if the player chooses to help them or not. The actions of the player, and the faction they align with, will directly change and alter the world that they inhabit to an ambitious degree.
While choosing a faction in Dying Light 2 may not have a blatant effect on the story, missions, and endings, it does affect the morality of those that exist in the world and the gameplay. Factions can control certain districts, dividing those that just want to survive against zombies rather than the only survivors left in the world.
1 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
When players awaken in Skyrim, they will find themselves tied up amid a civil war that has ravished the lands. The Imperials and the Stormcloaks are locked into battle over the worship of Talos, and Thalmor intervention. Many characters that they find in Skyrim will have their allegiance to either Stormcloaks or Imperials or even neutral with no opinion on the war or politics in Tamriel.
Players can directly influence the war by choosing a side if they join either Imperial or Stormcloaks. Depending on what side the player is on, their relationship with other characters might be affected, and one of the major cities could be ravished or prosperous based on the political systems of Skyrim. Players can determine for themselves what is right for Skyrim simply by interacting with people in the different holds and seeing the treatment of elves and Nords. However, the civil war is certainly at a bad time considering the dragon attacks.