Open-world games promise vast landscapes and endless freedom, but the best ones go far beyond a big map. They fill their worlds with side activities that are so compelling you might forget the main story exists. From hunting legendary beasts to running a cabaret club, these diversions add depth, humor, and countless hours of gameplay. If you are looking for games where the detours are just as rewarding as the destination, here are the open-world titles that truly deliver.
What Makes Side Activities Great in Open-World Games?
Not all side content is created equal. The finest side activities feel like a natural part of the world, not just filler. They offer meaningful rewards, whether that is a unique weapon, a deeper narrative, or simply a memorable experience. Great side activities are varied, surprising, and often weave themselves into the fabric of the game’s lore. They give you a reason to explore every corner of the map and can change how you see the world and its characters. Ultimately, they make the game world feel alive and worth investing in.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar’s western epic sets a gold standard for side activities. The sheer volume and quality are staggering. You can spend hours hunting legendary animals, fishing in serene lakes, or playing poker in a dusty saloon. The stranger missions are fully voiced short stories that rival the main campaign, introducing tragic, hilarious, and eerie characters. Bounty hunting, robbing homesteads, and even searching for dinosaur bones add layers of immersion. The world reacts to your choices, and the dynamic events you encounter while riding from town to town ensure no two play sessions feel the same.
Hunting and Crafting
The hunting system is deep, requiring you to track animals, use the right weapons, and preserve pelts. Turning those pelts into upgraded satchels or camp decorations at Pearson’s wagon gives a tangible sense of progression outside the main story.
Gambling and Mini-Games
Whether it’s five finger fillet, blackjack in Saint Denis, or dominoes at camp, the gambling mini-games are beautifully detailed. Winning a tense hand of poker after bluffing your way through feels as thrilling as any shootout.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red packed The Witcher 3 with side content that rivals full RPGs. The monster contracts are more than simple hunts; they are detective stories where you must investigate clues, prepare potions, and often make moral decisions. Gwent, the in-universe card game, became a phenomenon in its own right, with players obsessing over collecting every card and building unbeatable decks. Treasure hunts reveal Witcher gear diagrams, while minor side quests unfold into multi-part sagas that can impact the world in startling ways.
Gwent
Gwent is a strategic card game with four distinct factions. Tournaments, unique hero cards, and random NPCs willing to play turn exploration into a collector’s dream. Many players spend more time playing Gwent than slaying monsters.
Monster Contracts and Secondary Quests
Each contract feels handcrafted, often with twists that challenge your ethics. Secondary quests like the Bloody Baron’s family drama or the political intrigue in Novigrad could easily headline other games.
Grand Theft Auto V
GTA V’s Los Santos is a playground of distractions. Beyond the main heists, you can play a full round of golf, race street cars, skydive, go to the movies, or manage a strip club. Random encounters pop up across the city, from muggings to celebrity sightings. The strangers and freaks missions introduce bizarre characters like a cult leader or a paranoid conspiracy theorist, blending satire with gameplay. Online expansions added entire businesses, heists, and racing leagues, turning side hustles into core experiences.
Sports and Leisure
Tennis, darts, yoga, and triathlons offer surprisingly polished mechanics. The game even has an entire underwater world to explore with a submarine, filled with collectibles and eerie secrets.
Stock Market and Property Management
Investing in the stock market or buying properties like cinemas and scrapyards generates passive income and unlocks new missions. It adds a layer of tycoon management rarely seen in action games.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Nintendo reinvented open-world exploration with Breath of the Wild, and its side activities encourage organic discovery. The 120 shrines are bite-sized physics puzzles or combat trials scattered across Hyrule, each rewarding you with spirit orbs to upgrade health or stamina. Korok seeds hide under every rock and treetop, nudging you to scrutinize the landscape. Side quests often rely on environmental storytelling and clever use of the game’s physics engine, while activities like shield surfing, cooking, and house building add a cozy, personal touch.
Shrine Quests and Shrines
Many shrines are locked behind shrine quests that demand riddles or specific actions during weather conditions or time of day. Solving them feels like unraveling the world’s mysteries yourself.
Collectathons and Mini-Games
From the golf-like West Necluda game to horseback archery, these mini-games offer tangible rewards like rupees or gear. The compendium encourages you to photograph every creature and weapon, functioning as a Pokédex of Hyrule.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Over a decade after release, Skyrim’s side content remains a benchmark for RPG freedom. The faction questlines (Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, College of Winterhold) are essentially entire games within the game, complete with their own story arcs and powerful rewards. Daedric quests send you on twisted moral adventures that yield unique artifacts. Crafting, enchanting, and alchemy systems let you grind skills endlessly. Even simple activities like chopping wood or mining ore feel grounding in the harsh northern province.
Guilds and Faction Storylines
Becoming the leader of the Thieves Guild requires not just quest completion but rebuilding the guild’s influence through radiant jobs, making your promotion feel earned. The Dark Brotherhood’s questline is a fan favorite for its dark humor and memorable characters.
Radiant Quests and Exploration
The radiant system generates infinite tasks, but it is the handcrafted caves, dwemer ruins, and dragon priest lairs that reward wandering. Reading a book on a shelf might trigger a quest to find a lost artifact, making the world feel reactive.
Yakuza Series (Like a Dragon)
No series does side activities quite like Yakuza. From full-blown business management sims to karaoke rhythm games, the absurdity and depth are unmatched. In Yakuza 0, you can run a hostess club or a real estate empire, complete with storyline arcs and character recruitment. Later entries let you manage a cabaret club, race pocket circuit cars, or play classic SEGA arcade games. Substories are often laugh-out-loud funny, tackling everything from fighting a giant roomba to helping a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Business Minigames
The cabaret club minigame in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2 is a fully realized management sim with its own upgrade paths and emotional narratives. It is so good you might forget about the main yakuza drama.
Arcade and Classic Games
Multiple titles feature working arcades with games like Virtua Fighter 5, Out Run, and Fantasy Zone. These are faithful ports with online leaderboards, adding retro gaming sessions to the already packed map.
Horizon Forbidden West
Guerrilla Games’ sequel amplifies the original’s side content with rich tribal culture. Relic ruins require environmental puzzles to unlock, vista points reconstruct the old world in holographic glory, and salvage contracts challenge your combat and looting. Melee pits and hunting grounds test specific skills, while the Machine Strike board game lets you challenge NPCs across the map. Side quests frequently involve multi-stage journeys with full voice acting and companion banter, filling in backstory for both allies and enemies.
Cauldrons and Tallnecks
Cauldrons are atmospheric dungeons culminating in unique machine unlocks. Overriding a Tallneck to reveal the map is always a breathtaking climbing puzzle, often guarded by dangerous machines.
Machine Strike and Arena
Machine Strike is a chess-like strategy game with pieces based on machines you have scanned. The arena offers escalating wave-based battles for legendary gear, adding replayable challenge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which open-world game has the most side activities?
It is hard to quantify precisely, but games like The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the Yakuza series are frequently cited for sheer volume and variety. The Yakuza franchise in particular packs an astonishing number of minigames and substories into dense city maps, easily providing over 100 hours of side content alone.
Are side activities important in open-world games?
Absolutely. They provide pacing breaks, character development, and world-building. Good side content can make the game world feel lived-in and responsive, while also granting rewards that enhance the main story progression. For many players, side activities become the main reason they log in.
What are some underrated open-world games with great side activities?
Titles like Watch Dogs 2, with its parkour puzzles and drone racing, or Mad Max, with its convoy assaults and wasteland car combat, often fly under the radar yet deliver excellent side content. Cyberpunk 2077’s gigs, post-update, offer handcrafted stealth and combat encounters that rival full missions.
How do side activities affect the main story in these games?
In many games, side activities are optional but can influence the ending or character relationships. The Witcher 3’s side quests can determine the fate of entire regions. In Red Dead Redemption 2, honourable deeds shape Arthur’s journey. Even in Skyrim, faction questlines alter how NPCs react to you. They often add narrative weight that enriches the climax.
Side activities are the heart and soul of the best open-world games. They transform a map from a simple backdrop into a world teeming with stories, challenges, and charm. Whether you are playing cards in a fantasy tavern or running a cabaret club in 1980s Japan, these diversions remind us why we love getting lost in virtual worlds. So next time you boot up an open-world epic, take a detour from the critical path. You might just find your new favorite hobby hidden in the wilds.
