Open-World RPGs That Let You Play At Your Own Pace

One important thing that open-world RPGs have to do is justify the enormous size of their world maps. There’s nothing worse than a great, empty expanse of land. Players will typically bypass a lot of this through fast travel, of course, but that can be detrimental to the experience in a well-designed open-world game. We want high-stakes narratives that threaten a whole realm, but also need to be able to put those stakes on the back-burner so we can hoover up some sidequests.