Summary
With the widespread boom of open-world games in the 2010s, it’s no surprise that the beloved subgenre has flourished into many different pockets of gaming, but there’s a small crop of open-world games that have gone out of their way to be sincerely strange to stand out from the crowd.
Whether unusual due to their approach to the mechanics of open-world games, or if they’re just plain weird in terms of content, there are plenty of unusual open-world games to explore for gamers looking to take a walk on the path less trodden.
Outer Wildsis one of the best games released in the past decade, without a doubt, and one great reason is because of its unusual open world. The game simulates an entire solar system with a fully functioning gravity system tying them together, meaning the planets aren’t orbiting based on a pre-programmed response, but because the game’s gravity system makes them, meaningbeginner players have a lot to learnonce they jump in.
Yet, despite the hard science ofOuter Wildsthat governs its systems, when examined closely, it’s easy to say that the world is absurdly small in actuality. It’s actually more of a toybox than a real solar system, with a few kilometers separating planets rather than millions of miles. There are plenty of strange things to uncover in the solar system too, making it one of the more unusual open-world games released.
It would be difficult not to put Kojima’s latest effort somewhere on this list. InDeath Stranding,players take control of Sam Bridges, a courier who ferrets packages across a barren post-apocalyptic world to people who live in bunkers disconnected from each otherplayed by acting and gaming royalty. It sounds dull, but it is sincerely one of the most touching open-world games ever made, particularly post-COVID.
That doesn’t get around how unusual the world is. You better believe that there are hanging goo ghosts in strange places, rain that makes characters old, dancing puppets, and dreams set in the trenches of World War 1. It’s utterly bizarre as expected of Kojima, but a great game at the same time.
Where most open-world games will let the player inhabit the role of an actual person,Maneatergoes the exact opposite direction and offers players the possibility of being a ravenous and very dangerous shark lurking in the waters and constantly hunting new and more dangerous prey. It’s a wild concept that is a hell of a lot of funfull to the brim with delightful secrets.
The open world map spans from swamps, and sewers, all the way to the bay of an actual city where the titular shark causes absolute mayhem. It’s even got some really robust RPG mechanics too, making it a great choice for someone looking for an unusual open-world game with some mechanical heft as well.
Not many game series have the fearsome reputation thatPathologichas, to such an extent that it’s quite difficult to adequately encapsulate what the series is about. In short, the player usually takes control of a character trying to prevent a plague from overtaking a town. However, that radically undersells the actuality of what these games are.
Pathologic 2is the long-awaited sequel to the original and retains the brutal difficulty, strange offbeat story, foreboding atmosphere, and unabated surrealism throughouta sincerely length story. Trying to make sense ofPathologic2’s unusual open world is an absolute folly, but it’s still a blast to play and soak in the utterly strange atmosphere.
While some games in this list are merely unusual,Goat Simulator 3’s prime directive seems to be taking anything strange or offbeat and pumping it full of steroids. What results is an absolutely absurd game full to bursting with jokes and silly humor that oozes out of every pixelfull of things for a player to achieve and wreak havoc around.
The world ofGoat Simulator 3is similarly wild, with absurd characters and sight gags jutting out at every angle. As the titular goat, players must navigate the world with their hilarious ragdoll physics to achieve a series of silly tasks. When it comes to getting a laugh out of a strange open world, it’s hard to one-upGoat Simulator 3.
