These days, there are plenty of games where you can pretty much choose the type of adventure you’d like. That means there may be 100s of hours of content, but if you only want to mainline the story, that’s on the table too.
Games that give you the option to experience them at your own pace are a huge blessing when you don’t want to worry about being shepherded from one thing to another.
Being able to experience the parts of the game that you want to experience is something that many games have figured out, but only a handful have executed to perfection.
10 Open World Games With Extensive End-Game Content
From Horizon: Forbidden West to No Man’s Sky, explore open-world games packed with endless post-campaign content to keep you hooked.
We’re going to check out the best games that manage to make almost everything in the game optional.
By optional, we’re talking about content that is not required to finish the game, but there to make the experience even better if you participate in it.
10Grand Theft Auto V
The City Is Yours
Grand Theft Auto 5
Grand Theft Auto 5is one of the more groundbreaking games of all time, and that’s because of the amazing amount of freedom you have. The city of Los Santos is all yours to explore.
There is so much to find here, but you could miss almost all of it if you just stick to the story. There is a ton of stuff to do in this game, and it’s all pretty much optional. You can play tennis, rob banks, explore alien conspiracies, get a haircut, get in street races, purchase stocks, and the list goes on and on.
There isn’t much of an urgency to the story, so that leaves you free to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Each of the three characters that you play as has a bunch of side activities to engage in, but really, the whole city is your oyster. You’ll never know what you might find when you turn a corner, and exploring in Los Santos is one of the more fun and surprising places in gaming.
9Dragon’s Dogma 2
You’re On The Clock
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Fextralife Wiki
Dragon’s Dogma 2gives you a ton of things to do, but almost all of it is on you to go find. That’s not an option, but rather, a promise, because little known to you, you’re on the clock from Step One into this world.
There are certain events that are just going to happen in the story when it’s time for them to happen, so everything you do in between is completely on you to experience it. If you want to go exploring, that’s up to you, and if you want to stand in place for 30 hours and let the game world progress on its own, that’s up to you, too.
You’re not required to do anything here, but I advise that you do, because the side quests build into the main quests in a legitimately interesting way, and the fact that all of it can be skipped means there is a unique sort of freedom in this game.
8The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Side Quests Are Endless
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3is a legendary game, and while the story is a huge drawing point, it’s far from a must. You can find plenty of other ways to entertain yourself in this game, thankfully, and that’s because of the amazing side content.
Practically everything you’re able to do in this game is optional, and luckily, that optional content is fantastic. There are hours upon hours of side quests to check out that can be quick little takes to entire, branching storylines in themselves.
you’re able to live up to your name as a Witcher, or you can just explore the world, fighting random bandits and wolves and looting ruins.There is an enormous amount of optional contentto take part in here, and several, vast regions to get lost in whenever something on the horizon catches your eye.
Explore At Your Leisure
Elex 2 is a game I think didn’t get a fair shake, and I think part of it is because of how aimless and open-ended it can be. But for those who want games where basically everything is optional, this is a gold mine for that type of gameplay.
You can explore anywhere you want from the moment the game starts, and that can be overwhelming to a lot of people. But that openness allows you to do anything. You aren’t glued to the story in any way. You can explore, find different factions to join, build up your reputation, ruin your reputation, whatever you’d like.
There is a ton of great stuff to find here; almost none of it is required to play the game. You could just do the rather lackluster main story if you really want, but it’s the side content that’s the best here, and you can find hours of great stuff.
It may not be as extensive as other games, but there is a lot of optional stuff here worth checking out, and I think that was ignored by many people when the game first came out.
6Baldur’s Gate 3
It’s Your Story
Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3was the gaming darling of 2023, and one of its biggest features was the freedom the game offered. From the moment you crash-land in the spaceship, you’re able to do pretty much anything you want.
While there are a handful of party members available to recruit, none of them are required for the game to work. you may just kill them all if you so please, or just ignore their presence entirely. If you want to just spend the whole quest wandering around and ruining everyone’s lives, you can do that.
It’s hard to even figure out what isn’t optional in Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s D&D in gaming form to the fullest, which means no matter what you feel like doing, the game will adapt to you. That means you can beeline the story, ignore it completely, kill everyone, rob everyone, shape-shift; the possibilities are almost endless, and it’s all optional.
5Cyberpunk 2077
So Much To See
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077has over 100 hours worth of things to do, but the actual story is only around 20 hours long.That means there is hours and hours of optional contentthat you can choose to participate in or not.
It’s all up to you, as the game only requires a small amount of time to actually be completed. If you want to join the Aldecados, that’s up to you. If you want to help Solomon Reed out in his mission? You can do that. If you want to let Johnny Silverhand take over your body and storm Arasaka Tower one last time? That’s on you.
It’s so fascinating because the side quests, in many ways, are fully integral to the full story. Panam is a huge part of this story, but if you don’t feel like going outside the city to help her out, you would never know she existed. You’d never find your ride or die partner.
The same thing goes for several other side quests there, and overall, the majority of the content in this game is optional.
4Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
The Entirety Of Ancient Greece
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed: Odysseyis a massive game, but the actual story itself can take you around just 25 hours or so if you know what you’re doing.
That is far from the only content in the game, though, because there are a damn near endless amount of side quests. You can find literally100s of hours of contentin this game if you want, and the majority of the activities are optional. You could go through the entire game thinking this is a world based heavily in reality, or you could explore the mythic content and fight The Minotaur and Medusa and get a way different experience than another player.
There is so much to see here, from hunting down the order to siding with one group or the other in the big war between Sparta and Athens. The game can be anything you want it to be in that way. You can also hunt legendary animals, take down the various bounty hunters that are slowly trying to hunt you throughout the game, or just become a sea captain and attack ships whenever you feel like it.
It’s such an open-ended experience that you can make it anything you want it to be, and for those 100% players out there, well, you have your work cut out for you, to say the least.
3Elden Ring
The Map Is More Than Meets The Eye
Elden Ring
Fextralife
Elden Ringis a game that tricks you at first. That first trick is told to you by the director of the game, Hidetaki Miyazaki, who said it was around 20-30 hours long. Ha! That’s a good one in retrospect.
This is one of the most content-packed games I’ve ever seen. The story can indeed be completed in a rather short amount of time, but the side content is easily 100 hours plus on its own. There are countless secret caves, optional dungeons, secret bosses, optional weapons, items, spells, and side quests to take part in.
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You can run through the game with your first weapon and armor set if you’re good enough, but the amount of optional stuff here is simply outrageous. You can get lost for hours and hours in secret dungeons, optional lands, or hunting down obscure sidequests, and it’s almost another game unto itself.
With a 20-hour main story at its core, the fact that there is a 100-plus hours of optional content on the side is hard to make good, and yet,Elden Ring pulled it off.
2The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
An Endless Adventure
Skyrimis an incredible experience, and although it’s 14 years old, it is still one of the best games of all time. Part of that experience is made up by a simply enormous amount of optional content.
I’ll give you an example. I have played Skyrim since its release, and I have over 800 hours in that game, over flat screen and VR versions. I have never beaten the game. I repeat, 800 hours, game not finished.
The reason is that it is so easy to lose yourself in the optional content in the game. You don’t have to even start the main quest if you don’t want, as your first steps outside the first dungeon give you endless freedom to do what you want.
It’s an amazing amount of freedom, and the optional content here is simply the stuff of legend, with huge side quests like the Stormcloaks and Imperials' war or the Dark Brotherhood, or the Thieves guild to check out if you’re looking for ways to spend your time.
This is one of the first “The world is your oyster” games, and it’s still one of the best out there.
1Starfield
Your Journey Through Space Is Full Of Possibilities
Starfieldis a game of wonder, and the journey you take is completely up to you. While there is a main story, it’s pretty underwhelming, very short, and not at all required to enjoy the game. You have a universe worth of possibilities to explore, and all of it is up to you to find.
There are massive side quests where you can find hours and hours of content, but despite them being key pieces to building the world you’re in, none of it is required.
There are also tons of smaller quests, procedural dungeons to explore, space battles you can choose to engage in or ignore, and nearly an endless amount of content that you can miss if you just decide to do the story and nothing else.
