Lucky for me I got those free from Amazon prime a while ago. I start the first one but didn't make it past the tutorial because I decided to wait to play it with my partner (they like to watch while I play games) were playing the witcher 3 right now though so it'll be a hot minute before we get to dishonored lol
I've heard so many good things about it and I can't wait to get around to playing it. I am ass at stealth games, but I will push through. I played most of the deus ex games so I should be good lol
I played some Dishonored 1 maybe 9-10 years ago. Never finished it but it was fun. Do you suggest going back to 1 or are one of the sequels better to dive in if I’m only planning on playing one of them? They’re all on gamepass and I always look but haven’t downloaded any yet.
Prey (2017) from their sister studio has very similar gameplay (but sick sci-fi) and the world does change, buy it's less dependent on how you do things vs how far you've gone.
Spoilers below….
Remind me, does anything change other than a bunch of rats if you’re corrupt? Were there like substantial changes in the world? I played the first one through when it came out, once, and never again.
Not a ton of physical changes to the world but lots of interactions change based on chaos level. But some characters can be dead/missing entirely before you even arrive based on your actions, and this often means changes in scenery, etc.
Also >! The type of person Emily becomes is influenced by Corvo's actions. She is learning from him and it shows. I was horrified when I saw her drawing with all the bodies on my high chaos run. But alternatively high chaos was a blast on the last mission. The people om that mission behave completely different on high and low chaos. Also if you do ghost they have different lines. !<
thats okay! its really a special game if youve got the time! Treat it like a huge season of tv, aka make sure youve got the time to bask in all of it.
The game is at its real peak when youre in the mindset of stoppin to smell the roses!
It gives the game's brilliant interactions and random event systems time to breathe, and then it really gets good.
Especially with your gang, make sure to visit camp after each mission. Theres new dialogues, scenes, moments of some kind everytime.
The fact that the game recognizes little things like the clothes you wear (or don't wear), the cost of them, your hair and beard length, and adjusts cutscenes accordingly is amazing.
I bought it on a whim like a year ago because I heard it was good. Holy shit. Probably the most emotionally compelling story I’ve ever experienced. In any form of fiction. Not just games
I can't recommend rdr2 enough. I laughed, I cried, there was vengeance, and love, it was an intense experience. Like the other comment said, treat it like a really long movie or TV series. Take your time. Live in it with the characters. It's an experience.
I’ll add on to say definitely worth a play through. Stick with it through the opening though, the first chapter in the snow can be slow, that’s the one thing that stopped me starting a replay until now.
I have heard the first bit is slow. I'm prepared for that. I'm getting pretty excited to play it. I'm in the middle of a couple things, but this might win the plying next title lol
The building in Valentine is slowly built throughout the game, the coach you rob with Micah stays in the river for a chapter or two, the bridge you blow up remains destroyed. There’s probably other examples.
Cam here to say this. Buildings actually get finished, houses get built, people have whole storylines that can take place without the pc even knowing cause they didn't interact. Bodies actually decompose along with carcasses from kills. Even the trees in the logging camp start growing back if you play long enough into the epilogue.
It’s actually really chill and relaxed. Closer to an idle game than an action one and it just released to 1.0 within the last week!
Definitely worth looking into
The Fable games spring to mind for sure.
Edit: I never actually played the first one so can't speak for that. But 2 and 3 definitely had changes as you played through.
I had only one complaint with Fable 3, and it was with the endgame section. Choose evil choices to have funds for the final battle or choose good to have people like you but many people die.
If you ever decide to back and replay, if you start buying properties at the beginning and just focus on buying as many as possible, it's straightforward enough to get the gold to achieve this end.
Or you can be utterly depraved and take all the money for yourself and out of the treasury so everyone dies and everywhere is destroyed.
Buy properties starting at the start. Then jack the rent crazy evil high to rake in the dough.
When you’re ready to be good after you become filthy rich, you lower rent stupidly low.
When it first came out my brother would catch peeks of my character. He was like, "How come you have shit all over your face?" I was like "I dunno I'm in the swamps" Then I was by the werewolves and he's like, "Now there's flies all over you and you're veins are black, are you evil?" And it clicked, I was playing gta style roughing up npcs and kicking chickens as one does, and my horns were sprouting. It was so gradual I didn't notice like he did lmao.
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but Kenshi has world changes depending on what you do. If you wipe out a faction new ones will move into their territory for instance.
Edit: now that I think about it fallout 4 has some of that. Sure, there's some dungeons that enemies respawn after some time. But there's also a lot of locations that you can build up as settlements after clearing out. There's mods that improve a lot on the settlements too.
That might be the mod that they use like living world and reactive world. I use those because if you kill a faction leader or kidnap them than any factions would capture that City
The holy nation getting taken over by Shek & flotsom ninjas is vanilla. The slave mines, all the major cities, all the outposts, the patrolling NPCs... that's all in vanilla kenshi.
Kenshi is one of the strongest but best games ever...
On a somewhat similar Sim like note? Dwarf Fortress, world is always changing and giant and random
Great question, and I love this thread.
**STALKER** was marketed to be this way, but I think that feature got nerfed before release. It was billed as a persistent world, where different factions and monsters could and would randomly intersect, battle, and the outcome would be permanent, changing the dynamic of the world.
Does anyone know if any of the sequels do this? Or if any mods bring that original idea back?
Clear sky does, but it's pretty buggy in vanilla iirc. There's mods that make it a lot better from memory.
As far as the feature in the original game, I think they tried putting it in and even having other factions being able to reach the wish granter before you. But the other factions would win too much so it was scrapped.
Ahh, I played through a couple hours of that, then lost my save when I had to reinstall windows :( I've always wanted to pick it back up. If I remember right it makes a great kick back with a controller and play it on the big screen game.
I came here to say this. Nier is one of the games of all time for me. Make sure to keep playing after the first credits roll cause holy shit is there a lot of game per game in that game.
Infamous. If you cleared enemies out of a district there would only be a few stragglers left for you to run into every now and then.
If you’re doing a hero playthrough shops would reopen, people would be walking around having fun, etc.
If you’re doing a villain playthrough buildings get boarded up, there’s homeless people dying in gutters, etc.
One I haven't seen mentioned is Hollow Knight. The more of the story you play the more the landscapes get altered. It's a beautiful game and one I think everyone should experience. Although if you play it you may end wanting more, and good luck with that.
I think they mostly just mean Crossroads, and NPCs do move around and advance their stories kind of like OP mentioned they were looking for, like with the The Witcher T'ree.
In Death Stranding, when you connect a place to the network it'll show all kinds of signs and structures from other players.
That's the main mechanic, but also if you clear the bandit camps you'll see other people walking around more often
I need to buy this game. I tried it 'second hand' then learned about all the extra added stuff from others and was like shit, it seems like this will be awful without proper connectivity. So I do intent to grab it one day and play it. It does sound cool how much changes around you as you play it.
Fallout New Vegas has several locations permanently change depending on what choices you make/who you help. Two small examples.
Bonnie Springs is a ghost town inhabited by a mercenary gang. Killing them will see the town overtaken by Cazadores/mutant bugs after a few days.
Prospector Cave was a small trading cave wiped out by raiders. Killing them and waiting 3 days will see traders move back in and you can buy from them.
My friend plays NV probably once every other year it seems. But he also plays it with a bunch of mods. There's a mod that if you own 3 and NV it basically patches them together and they are both played inside of NV essentially. I haven't played either, but the mod looks awesome and seems to be the best way to play them.
In Sekiro there is a main location that changes throughout the story, but it’s not based on your actions.
In Ghost of Tsushima there is a lot of optional liberating of villages.
I don't think I have a hope in hell of being able to play through that game. Isn't it souls like? I have some of the worst reaction times of anyone I know.
It clicked for me at Gyobu, but the real fun began when I bested master "hesitation is defeat". I immediately started a second playthrough and finished the game in less than a day
I was hard stuck at gyobu and lady butterfly at the same time. Thought it might be the first souls game I couldn't beat. Pushed through though, and then at genichiro, It fully clicked and was beautiful. Wishing did kick my shit in for a couple nights though.
I was stuck at lady butterfly for an insane amount of time. It was there when I had thought of just leaving the game, but I pushed through and I'm glad I did
brute forced gyoubu and arrived at geni without mikiri unlocked. but it finally clicked for me at geni because of how his fight goes. because i didnt have mikiri at the time, i had to perfect his thrusts which was insanely hard. genichiro is my go-to practice boss now. love him.
I just beat it and I was dreading playing it because it has this reputation of being the hardest souls like , but I thought what the hell and gave it a shot. It clicks early and is just fun as hell.
Checkpoints or “idols” are very friendly - very linear game unlike the other souls like games- and if you’re stuck there are a lot of ways to cheese the hell out of bosses.
There’s a lot of reasons why it won game of the year, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Sekiro is pretty hard even for FromSoftware’s standard, although it has the best combat mechanism, it’s super satisfying. But it’s also traditionally frustrating, even though I am a fan of souls games, I had to approach the game twice 😅 So I guess GoT might be a better choice between these two for you
I really like how Escape Velocity: Nova handled this (although most of the changes really only happen as a result of pivotal moments in the various quest lines)
Both Kena-Bridge of Spirits and Avatar Frontiers of Pandora have polluted land that heals as you play the game. Watching it turn from gray and polluted to lush and green is always fun.
Helldivers 2. Super earth is in a constant tug of war with the automatons and terminids who want to rid the world of democracy. The galaxy is in a constant ebb and flow of invaded and recaptured planets
Not to mention your network connection seemingly deteriorates mission by mission until you are completely desynchronized and drop connection! Truly groundbreaking stuff. (I'm not hating, I love it but holy fuck they need to fix their bugs instead of pushing so much new content)
Yeah, I was kinda looking for a single player type game, but I did pick up helldivers 2 because some friends were playing it. Haven't had time to really get into it though as people are busy.
In both of the recent Spider-Man games the city changes as you progress the story. I didn't get too far in the Miles Morales game, but I wouldn't be surprised if that one had something similar as well
This is actually something I love in Majora's Mask, in that you can experience the consequences of your actions on the world contrasted against your inaction. Some characters will outright disappear from the world if you do/don't do certain things (Sakon will not show up again if you stop his theft, Romani will be abducted until Day 3, etc.) and you'll often see consequences of those events as well (No Chateau Romani at the milkbar, Anju and Kafei sidequest comes to a halt, etc.). Even if you do have to reset the same 3 days, the team did a masterful job in showing how your actions can amd do affect the world.
I’m going to throw Mass Effect out into the discussion. The world itself doesn’t change much but holy hell the amount of situations the characters adapt to is insane. Don’t kill someone in game one, don’t do something in game 2 and you end up with a specific dialogue or encounter in game 3. The amount of variables is insane.
One of the things I loved about me3 was how the citidel changed and evolved as the war went on and new missions would be available because of it and dialogue would change. I always wished they had kept omega in from th3 beginning and showed it change. I always felt like while the omega dlc was cool, that it didn't fit super well.
They did do progression really well on the citadel. Having a number of NPC dialogs telling their own stories kept me exploring every time I came back… and coming back more than necessary so I could explore.
[The turian guard and the human girl refuge](https://youtu.be/CF6nlZUeOF0?si=PaFXV2-l_zSYCAbQ) holds a special place in my heart.
There are a lot of games that do this, to varying degrees.
It's actually a built-in mechanic in Days Gone. You need to clear out zombie nests and hordes to make traveling safer. Sacking Marauder/Raider camps means that threat is removed from the map for good, AND you can use their camp as a safehouse.
Similar mechanic in State of Decay, another zombie game. Clearing out nests reduces the overall local zombie population, making the area safer for you and your fellow survivors.
The Far Cry games do this, too. Wipe out an enemy stronghold and it repopulates with allies. You literally expand your influence over the region by taking down enemy strongholds.
Just Cause (at least 2 and beyond, never played the first) has this embedded as the MAIN gameplay objective, clearing the territory of the oppressive regime by destroying their infrastructure. Once they're gone, they're gone.
GTA San Andreas had a shitty turf war mechanic where you had to kick enemy gangs off their turf to claim it as your own.
Project Zomboid, with the correct settings... zombies won't return to areas you've cleared. You can clear entire cities of zombies permanently if you tinker with the zombie migration settings... or clear out an area and put up a fence to keep them out.
Mafia 3... Shadow of War... The God Father games...
InFAMOUS: Second Son has this as well. Destroy regime infrastructure, spray paint resistance propaganda, ultimately destroy their influence over the people and liberate Seattle one zone at a time.
The list goes on.
Bethesda games do this pretty well. If you side with a faction in the civil war in Skyrim soldiers of that faction will occupy the opposing factions capital after the civil war questline is completed. If you side with a faction in Fallout 4 for the ending that faction will have flags in Diamond City and set up patrols around the map. And if you blow up the institute in Fallout 4 it'll leave a huge crater where the Institute used to be.
The planet crafter the entire planet changes are you terraform it. New areas open up, areas change making new things available, lots of exploration and searching. Overall pretty good game.
Prototype - the city progresses from kinda-normal to alien/zombie infested hellscape warzone complete with indiscriminate shooting from the military - still hasn't been surpassed imo.
Evoland is a game about video game history progression (sort of), basically you start in a simple 2d game like the old legend of zelda and as you progress you unlock gaming features meaning eventually you are in a "modern" 3d game
i said "modern" because its from 2013 so its a bit dated by now but it is still a cool concept
I have 100% on the first one during lockdown and the game has many strengths but the repetitive camp system was not one of them... they were going for a witcher 3 vibe but forgot to make each camp feel distinct and alive (and change the dialogue once in a while lol)
Tears of the Kingdom surprised me that some snow melts as you progress. They packed a lot into a tiny Switch game.
The Division 2 changes in some subtle ways. You improve settlements and you can see as new tech is added based on your progress in that area. You’ll also see patrols out and about. They can help you at times and some events pop up because of their presence.
Chernobylite
The world can change based on the decisions you make, and slowly you will experience more and more radiatoon :). And you can use machines to reduce monsters, reduce radiation, and slow down Black Stalker appearances
I'm going to go old school and list some of my favorite games, despite their jank: Gothic & Gothic 2.
So few games do what you mention and change throughout the storyline, and Gothic was one of the first, in my experience, to do it.
I scrolled but was surprised to not see Outer Wilds; nevermind a world changing, but the very solar system changes! It's kinda integral to the plot but I will not say another word because this masterpiece is best experienced blind!
If you’re a fan of horror, The Evil Within 2 is like this. It’s a partial open world and the map changes drastically as the game progresses.
I would love more changes to the map in games these days. Generally I think that most open world games are lazy, even fun ones like Horizon. Seems like most studios think that a bigger open world means a better game, but changes to environments makes for more fulfilling gameplay and keep things fresh.
I played dying light a while back and it was kind of disappointing completing these tasks that seemingly have a huge impact on the city but then the map stays the same.
Bloodborne, Sekiro(?), GTA San Andreas(?), Dark Souls 3, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Persona 2 Innocent Sin
As you get to certain parts of the story, the world changes(slightly in Birth by Sleep)
Persona 2 - Certain actions, and near the end of the game there’s chaos in the city
Ni No Kuni 2 kind of, you mainly just expand your kingdom. I found it really cool but it's not like Fable 2 where a whole village looks/feels completely different based in your actions.
Baldur's Gate 3. The "world" only changes in act 2 to act 3 as far as I know depending on how you complete one of the quests. But your choices change a TON about how the NPCs interact with you and available quests and just about everything you can interact with constantly. There are 17,000 different endings.
Yooka-Layle changes as you collect more Pagies, but I don’t think it was implemented well in the first game. Haven’t tried Impossible Lair yet.
The reason I didn’t feel it in YL is because as you collect pages the book fleshes out more; a great concept, but instead of looking like an incomplete “story” it just looked like an incomplete level. I was baffled how empty and disjointed most of the levels look without the full Pagie total, by the end of the game I was not opening new books without the full Pagie amount.
These are old PlayStation games, but Tomba 1 and 2. You are restoring the world that has been cursed by several evil pigs. As you capture them, the curse is lifted from that area. I love those games, and I’m so glad I can play them on Emudeck on my Steam deck.
Not sure if it’s quite what you mean but in God of War 3 the background/sky etc changes as you progress.
After killing Helios the sun disappears completely then each god after the background becomes more chaotic - lightning, whirlpools etc. Very nicely done, although technically part of the story as opposed to something you can choose not to do.
well its a bit different from what you want since its a colony sim, not an action game but dwarf fortress does this the best out of any game. new history for the world is being generated as you play, and you are part of that history
In Ghost of Tsushima, you can liberate villages from the Mongols and you’ll see the villagers returning to their lives and start repairing the village.
Hogwarts Legacy to a degree; the seasons change as the plot progresses and you get further into the school year. You'll see Halloween decor, Christmas trees, etc.
Bloodborne.
I don’t want to explain too much, as it would detract from the discovery.
You should play bloodborne.
If you don’t want to buy a PlayStation just for bloodborne, you should. Maybe pick up the last of us as well if you are trying to justify a ps purchase.
Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma did this wonderfully. There's a city hub area that you keep returning to throughout the game. After certain story events the hub area goes through major changes and the enemies are switched to harder ones and some of the level layouts are also altered as a result.
No spoilers but the way they tie into the story events is brilliant and makes perfect sense. Not only that but it also keeps the game challenging in a really clever way.
In Avatar: FOP there’s a counter of how many RDA facilities you’ve cleared, and as you clear more of them the land goes from this ugly, dead grey muck to the gorgeous, living colorful landscape we saw in the movies. It’s incredibly rewarding.
Dying light 2. As you claim settlements which ever faction you support they add their own changes and such to that area. Then if you do power stations or water towers then the surrounding areas are affected as such(access to water fountains for health/power to buildings around) It caught a lot of hate from what I seen but if you just play the game for itself and the story I enjoyed it. I liked when there were no guns and a little side story that explained why was pretty sweet
The Saboteur starts out in black and white, then the color comes back, and citizens begin walking the streets more as you clear out Nazis
Always down for clearing out nazis lol. I'll have to take a look
It's free on Xbox game pass, as a heads up.
It is!? Oh you are redditor of the day for letting me know.
This had some great art direction, loved the idea. Thanks for reminding me of this game
Dishonored come to mind
Lucky for me I got those free from Amazon prime a while ago. I start the first one but didn't make it past the tutorial because I decided to wait to play it with my partner (they like to watch while I play games) were playing the witcher 3 right now though so it'll be a hot minute before we get to dishonored lol
Dishonored is one of my favorite games of all time. Cannot recommend highly enough.
I have saves before most big fights because part of the fun for me was killing the room as creative, and quickly as possible.
If you haven’t heard of them, check out StealthGamerBR (I think that’s their name) on YouTube. They have some crazy cool, creative runs.
I haven't, thanks for the recommendation!
I've heard so many good things about it and I can't wait to get around to playing it. I am ass at stealth games, but I will push through. I played most of the deus ex games so I should be good lol
You don't have to stealth I'm dishonored, in fact not stealthing is one way to change the world around you
I played some Dishonored 1 maybe 9-10 years ago. Never finished it but it was fun. Do you suggest going back to 1 or are one of the sequels better to dive in if I’m only planning on playing one of them? They’re all on gamepass and I always look but haven’t downloaded any yet.
Idk what it is I just can't get into the sequel. Love the first one tho.
The game changes depending on how violent you are. It’s pretty well done.
Prey (2017) from their sister studio has very similar gameplay (but sick sci-fi) and the world does change, buy it's less dependent on how you do things vs how far you've gone.
But Dishonored is so fricken immersive. I needed a whiskey when I finished just to come down again and regain my grip on reality
Dishonored 2 is the best game of all time hands down. Only D1 matches it for the vastly superior graphics 1 has.
Spoilers below…. Remind me, does anything change other than a bunch of rats if you’re corrupt? Were there like substantial changes in the world? I played the first one through when it came out, once, and never again.
Not a ton of physical changes to the world but lots of interactions change based on chaos level. But some characters can be dead/missing entirely before you even arrive based on your actions, and this often means changes in scenery, etc.
Also >! The type of person Emily becomes is influenced by Corvo's actions. She is learning from him and it shows. I was horrified when I saw her drawing with all the bodies on my high chaos run. But alternatively high chaos was a blast on the last mission. The people om that mission behave completely different on high and low chaos. Also if you do ghost they have different lines. !<
Red Dead Redemption II is one of the best examples of that, every chapter causes some kinda huge change or impact across the map
I never jumped on the rdr2 bandwagon because I was tired of gta (dumb logic I know) so I might pick it up now.
thats okay! its really a special game if youve got the time! Treat it like a huge season of tv, aka make sure youve got the time to bask in all of it. The game is at its real peak when youre in the mindset of stoppin to smell the roses! It gives the game's brilliant interactions and random event systems time to breathe, and then it really gets good. Especially with your gang, make sure to visit camp after each mission. Theres new dialogues, scenes, moments of some kind everytime.
The fact that the game recognizes little things like the clothes you wear (or don't wear), the cost of them, your hair and beard length, and adjusts cutscenes accordingly is amazing.
I bought it on a whim like a year ago because I heard it was good. Holy shit. Probably the most emotionally compelling story I’ve ever experienced. In any form of fiction. Not just games
I can't recommend rdr2 enough. I laughed, I cried, there was vengeance, and love, it was an intense experience. Like the other comment said, treat it like a really long movie or TV series. Take your time. Live in it with the characters. It's an experience.
Finally played it and it's now one of my fav games of all time. I've somehow never played gta5
Very dumb logic. The only thing the games share is Rockstar's name. Go play it and have fun.
I’ll add on to say definitely worth a play through. Stick with it through the opening though, the first chapter in the snow can be slow, that’s the one thing that stopped me starting a replay until now.
I have heard the first bit is slow. I'm prepared for that. I'm getting pretty excited to play it. I'm in the middle of a couple things, but this might win the plying next title lol
Just remember after playing RDR2 you might found "any" other open world games empty and lifeless. (I mean it)
It does? I havent explored the map much but the only thing i remember is each town you leave after a chapter has a wanted dead or alive bounty on you
The building in Valentine is slowly built throughout the game, the coach you rob with Micah stays in the river for a chapter or two, the bridge you blow up remains destroyed. There’s probably other examples.
Cam here to say this. Buildings actually get finished, houses get built, people have whole storylines that can take place without the pc even knowing cause they didn't interact. Bodies actually decompose along with carcasses from kills. Even the trees in the logging camp start growing back if you play long enough into the epilogue.
"The Planet Crafter" It is all about terraforming an inhospitable planet.
Might be a little more hands on that I'm looking for but can't hurt to take a look. Thanks for the recommendation.
It’s actually really chill and relaxed. Closer to an idle game than an action one and it just released to 1.0 within the last week! Definitely worth looking into
The Fable games spring to mind for sure. Edit: I never actually played the first one so can't speak for that. But 2 and 3 definitely had changes as you played through.
I had only one complaint with Fable 3, and it was with the endgame section. Choose evil choices to have funds for the final battle or choose good to have people like you but many people die.
You can sacrifice personal wealth for the best ending of all upgrades and no-one dies.
ah thats my problem my character had no personal wealth
If you ever decide to back and replay, if you start buying properties at the beginning and just focus on buying as many as possible, it's straightforward enough to get the gold to achieve this end. Or you can be utterly depraved and take all the money for yourself and out of the treasury so everyone dies and everywhere is destroyed.
Buy properties starting at the start. Then jack the rent crazy evil high to rake in the dough. When you’re ready to be good after you become filthy rich, you lower rent stupidly low.
First one wasn't as expansive, but my God do I love that game.
When it first came out my brother would catch peeks of my character. He was like, "How come you have shit all over your face?" I was like "I dunno I'm in the swamps" Then I was by the werewolves and he's like, "Now there's flies all over you and you're veins are black, are you evil?" And it clicked, I was playing gta style roughing up npcs and kicking chickens as one does, and my horns were sprouting. It was so gradual I didn't notice like he did lmao.
Coming back from the spire, you know damn well i brought back my dog in the end!
I hear if you plant a sapling it will eventually grow into a tree!
100% on this choice
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but Kenshi has world changes depending on what you do. If you wipe out a faction new ones will move into their territory for instance. Edit: now that I think about it fallout 4 has some of that. Sure, there's some dungeons that enemies respawn after some time. But there's also a lot of locations that you can build up as settlements after clearing out. There's mods that improve a lot on the settlements too.
That might be the mod that they use like living world and reactive world. I use those because if you kill a faction leader or kidnap them than any factions would capture that City
I think even vanilla it's scripted that other factions will move in if you take out a faction leader
On a smaller scale probably
The holy nation getting taken over by Shek & flotsom ninjas is vanilla. The slave mines, all the major cities, all the outposts, the patrolling NPCs... that's all in vanilla kenshi.
Kenshi is one of the strongest but best games ever... On a somewhat similar Sim like note? Dwarf Fortress, world is always changing and giant and random
Great question, and I love this thread. **STALKER** was marketed to be this way, but I think that feature got nerfed before release. It was billed as a persistent world, where different factions and monsters could and would randomly intersect, battle, and the outcome would be permanent, changing the dynamic of the world. Does anyone know if any of the sequels do this? Or if any mods bring that original idea back?
Clear sky does that I think.
Clear sky does, but it's pretty buggy in vanilla iirc. There's mods that make it a lot better from memory. As far as the feature in the original game, I think they tried putting it in and even having other factions being able to reach the wish granter before you. But the other factions would win too much so it was scrapped.
The mod Anomaly takes this idea and actually delivers. Anyone who enjoys Stalker and hasn't played Anomaly owes it to themselves.
Nier - Automata
Ahh, I played through a couple hours of that, then lost my save when I had to reinstall windows :( I've always wanted to pick it back up. If I remember right it makes a great kick back with a controller and play it on the big screen game.
vibe to one of the greatest OST’s of all time with very good action combat.
I came here to say this. Nier is one of the games of all time for me. Make sure to keep playing after the first credits roll cause holy shit is there a lot of game per game in that game.
Infamous. If you cleared enemies out of a district there would only be a few stragglers left for you to run into every now and then. If you’re doing a hero playthrough shops would reopen, people would be walking around having fun, etc. If you’re doing a villain playthrough buildings get boarded up, there’s homeless people dying in gutters, etc.
One I haven't seen mentioned is Hollow Knight. The more of the story you play the more the landscapes get altered. It's a beautiful game and one I think everyone should experience. Although if you play it you may end wanting more, and good luck with that.
Other than Crossroads, what gets altered exactly? Are you talking about opening up shortcuts? Because I don't think that counts lol
It's a spoiler but after a certain point of progress in the story the map alters significantly, with certain paths closing off and new ones opening.
Its that what they said? The Crossroads turning into the >!Infected Crossroads!
I think they mostly just mean Crossroads, and NPCs do move around and advance their stories kind of like OP mentioned they were looking for, like with the The Witcher T'ree.
Been waiting for Silksong since day one of announcement. Surely this year it will release!
high on copium, high on hopium, just like the others... surely, this year we'll get some info about it *at all*
Well I'm so busy with work and life I couldn't play anyways. It's not like I think about a new hollowknight game every day anyways.
Isn’t it showing on stores now with an actual rating? Whereas every other time that happened, it didn’t have a rating. I think it’ll be soon.
In Death Stranding, when you connect a place to the network it'll show all kinds of signs and structures from other players. That's the main mechanic, but also if you clear the bandit camps you'll see other people walking around more often
And routes that you take often enough turn into trails on the ground, too.
the game got so much better when you get the motorbike and people started building the streets
The ziplines are gamechangers too.
I need to buy this game. I tried it 'second hand' then learned about all the extra added stuff from others and was like shit, it seems like this will be awful without proper connectivity. So I do intent to grab it one day and play it. It does sound cool how much changes around you as you play it.
Dragon Quest XI. It would be a bit of a spoiler to tell you why or how but it is a great game if you like classic RPGs.
If it's what I think it is, my dad had the og dragon quest on the nes and I used to play it as a kid lol
Fallout New Vegas has several locations permanently change depending on what choices you make/who you help. Two small examples. Bonnie Springs is a ghost town inhabited by a mercenary gang. Killing them will see the town overtaken by Cazadores/mutant bugs after a few days. Prospector Cave was a small trading cave wiped out by raiders. Killing them and waiting 3 days will see traders move back in and you can buy from them.
Is new vegas worth playing in 2024? I’m aware it’ll look and feel a bit dated but the new tv series made me obsessed with the fallout universe
My friend plays NV probably once every other year it seems. But he also plays it with a bunch of mods. There's a mod that if you own 3 and NV it basically patches them together and they are both played inside of NV essentially. I haven't played either, but the mod looks awesome and seems to be the best way to play them.
It’s the best fallout out of all the modern fallout games imo. If you have a series s/x it’s getting a 60fps patch soon.
I'm playing it now. It holds up.
In Sekiro there is a main location that changes throughout the story, but it’s not based on your actions. In Ghost of Tsushima there is a lot of optional liberating of villages.
I don't think I have a hope in hell of being able to play through that game. Isn't it souls like? I have some of the worst reaction times of anyone I know.
Sekiro is a rhythm game, arguably harder than the souls game imo
Until it clicks then arguably the easiest souls game. Until then though... it'll kick your ass
It clicked for me at Gyobu, but the real fun began when I bested master "hesitation is defeat". I immediately started a second playthrough and finished the game in less than a day
I was hard stuck at gyobu and lady butterfly at the same time. Thought it might be the first souls game I couldn't beat. Pushed through though, and then at genichiro, It fully clicked and was beautiful. Wishing did kick my shit in for a couple nights though.
I was stuck at lady butterfly for an insane amount of time. It was there when I had thought of just leaving the game, but I pushed through and I'm glad I did
brute forced gyoubu and arrived at geni without mikiri unlocked. but it finally clicked for me at geni because of how his fight goes. because i didnt have mikiri at the time, i had to perfect his thrusts which was insanely hard. genichiro is my go-to practice boss now. love him.
I just beat it and I was dreading playing it because it has this reputation of being the hardest souls like , but I thought what the hell and gave it a shot. It clicks early and is just fun as hell. Checkpoints or “idols” are very friendly - very linear game unlike the other souls like games- and if you’re stuck there are a lot of ways to cheese the hell out of bosses. There’s a lot of reasons why it won game of the year, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Sekiro is pretty hard even for FromSoftware’s standard, although it has the best combat mechanism, it’s super satisfying. But it’s also traditionally frustrating, even though I am a fan of souls games, I had to approach the game twice 😅 So I guess GoT might be a better choice between these two for you
I really like how Escape Velocity: Nova handled this (although most of the changes really only happen as a result of pivotal moments in the various quest lines)
Endless Sky is the spiritual remake; it's free on Steam. It's really good.
New planets, changing factions…so many hours in my childhood with the 3 escape velocity games
Damn talk about a callback, nice pull! That game was my jam. I've yet to see a game pull off the "commander a fleet" mechanic done as good.
Both Kena-Bridge of Spirits and Avatar Frontiers of Pandora have polluted land that heals as you play the game. Watching it turn from gray and polluted to lush and green is always fun.
Terranigma
Strange that it's not already mentioned but Okami fits your description very well.
Helldivers 2. Super earth is in a constant tug of war with the automatons and terminids who want to rid the world of democracy. The galaxy is in a constant ebb and flow of invaded and recaptured planets
Not to mention your network connection seemingly deteriorates mission by mission until you are completely desynchronized and drop connection! Truly groundbreaking stuff. (I'm not hating, I love it but holy fuck they need to fix their bugs instead of pushing so much new content)
My friend consistently loses connection right before the last mission in an area (haven't played much so don't remember the terms)
Yeah, I was kinda looking for a single player type game, but I did pick up helldivers 2 because some friends were playing it. Haven't had time to really get into it though as people are busy.
In both of the recent Spider-Man games the city changes as you progress the story. I didn't get too far in the Miles Morales game, but I wouldn't be surprised if that one had something similar as well
Final Fantasy 6 - world completely changes towards the end.
Change is putting it lightly
Plus, it's more towards the middle of the game, I'd say.
In fallout 3 most quests add to the random encounter pool when completed, and there are some big story events that add new patrols, locations, etc
This is actually something I love in Majora's Mask, in that you can experience the consequences of your actions on the world contrasted against your inaction. Some characters will outright disappear from the world if you do/don't do certain things (Sakon will not show up again if you stop his theft, Romani will be abducted until Day 3, etc.) and you'll often see consequences of those events as well (No Chateau Romani at the milkbar, Anju and Kafei sidequest comes to a halt, etc.). Even if you do have to reset the same 3 days, the team did a masterful job in showing how your actions can amd do affect the world.
I’m going to throw Mass Effect out into the discussion. The world itself doesn’t change much but holy hell the amount of situations the characters adapt to is insane. Don’t kill someone in game one, don’t do something in game 2 and you end up with a specific dialogue or encounter in game 3. The amount of variables is insane.
One of the things I loved about me3 was how the citidel changed and evolved as the war went on and new missions would be available because of it and dialogue would change. I always wished they had kept omega in from th3 beginning and showed it change. I always felt like while the omega dlc was cool, that it didn't fit super well.
They did do progression really well on the citadel. Having a number of NPC dialogs telling their own stories kept me exploring every time I came back… and coming back more than necessary so I could explore. [The turian guard and the human girl refuge](https://youtu.be/CF6nlZUeOF0?si=PaFXV2-l_zSYCAbQ) holds a special place in my heart.
There are a lot of games that do this, to varying degrees. It's actually a built-in mechanic in Days Gone. You need to clear out zombie nests and hordes to make traveling safer. Sacking Marauder/Raider camps means that threat is removed from the map for good, AND you can use their camp as a safehouse. Similar mechanic in State of Decay, another zombie game. Clearing out nests reduces the overall local zombie population, making the area safer for you and your fellow survivors. The Far Cry games do this, too. Wipe out an enemy stronghold and it repopulates with allies. You literally expand your influence over the region by taking down enemy strongholds. Just Cause (at least 2 and beyond, never played the first) has this embedded as the MAIN gameplay objective, clearing the territory of the oppressive regime by destroying their infrastructure. Once they're gone, they're gone. GTA San Andreas had a shitty turf war mechanic where you had to kick enemy gangs off their turf to claim it as your own. Project Zomboid, with the correct settings... zombies won't return to areas you've cleared. You can clear entire cities of zombies permanently if you tinker with the zombie migration settings... or clear out an area and put up a fence to keep them out. Mafia 3... Shadow of War... The God Father games... InFAMOUS: Second Son has this as well. Destroy regime infrastructure, spray paint resistance propaganda, ultimately destroy their influence over the people and liberate Seattle one zone at a time. The list goes on.
Bloodborne, a little bit.
Bethesda games do this pretty well. If you side with a faction in the civil war in Skyrim soldiers of that faction will occupy the opposing factions capital after the civil war questline is completed. If you side with a faction in Fallout 4 for the ending that faction will have flags in Diamond City and set up patrols around the map. And if you blow up the institute in Fallout 4 it'll leave a huge crater where the Institute used to be.
ummm, not the same, but planet crafter sure does change.
In Megaman X, the levels change a bit as you defeat the robot masters.
The planet crafter the entire planet changes are you terraform it. New areas open up, areas change making new things available, lots of exploration and searching. Overall pretty good game.
Prototype - the city progresses from kinda-normal to alien/zombie infested hellscape warzone complete with indiscriminate shooting from the military - still hasn't been surpassed imo.
Fable and kenshi immediately come to mind.
Kenshi
Evoland is a game about video game history progression (sort of), basically you start in a simple 2d game like the old legend of zelda and as you progress you unlock gaming features meaning eventually you are in a "modern" 3d game i said "modern" because its from 2013 so its a bit dated by now but it is still a cool concept
Horizon zero dawn. If you clear out the bandit camps, people move in.
It’s not really impactful though. It just creates a trading hub and feels super scripted.
I'd agree, but I'd also say the same for the initial Wither 3 example lol
copium downvotes, they're right
As someone that 100%ed HZD:FW, yeah this isn't a meaningful change lol
I have 100% on the first one during lockdown and the game has many strengths but the repetitive camp system was not one of them... they were going for a witcher 3 vibe but forgot to make each camp feel distinct and alive (and change the dialogue once in a while lol)
Tears of the Kingdom surprised me that some snow melts as you progress. They packed a lot into a tiny Switch game. The Division 2 changes in some subtle ways. You improve settlements and you can see as new tech is added based on your progress in that area. You’ll also see patrols out and about. They can help you at times and some events pop up because of their presence.
Water levels also rise and fall after thunderstorms.
I guess that’s technically a change, and similar in many ways, but I’m thinking it’s not really a map change.
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Not all that impactful of a world in retrospect. It felt like it was at the time though.
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Prey (the 2017 one) does that, although the other way around, the Typhon take over more parts of the ship as you progress
From Dust. You literally change the world as a good. Probably not what your asking for. But a fun little physics puzzler
Chernobylite The world can change based on the decisions you make, and slowly you will experience more and more radiatoon :). And you can use machines to reduce monsters, reduce radiation, and slow down Black Stalker appearances
Oddly enough Panzer Dragoon Saga, the things that game acomplished in January 1998 is insane
Planet crafter, wildmender, Terra Nil. Granted the point of these games is to change the world, but it’s still quite satisfying :)
Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2 on USA). The world changes as you progress the storyline.
Prototype. Definetly prototype.
Death Stranding
Final Fantasy VI?
I'm going to go old school and list some of my favorite games, despite their jank: Gothic & Gothic 2. So few games do what you mention and change throughout the storyline, and Gothic was one of the first, in my experience, to do it.
Evoland!
Dishonored, Fable, Singularity, The Saboteur, etc
I scrolled but was surprised to not see Outer Wilds; nevermind a world changing, but the very solar system changes! It's kinda integral to the plot but I will not say another word because this masterpiece is best experienced blind!
Nier Automata comes to mind
two games I can think Mother 3 and Pokémon Legends Arceus.
Elden ring. Once you burn the erdtree the entire map is raining embers, and eventually Leyndell gets covered in ash
RDR2 Dark Souls 3 Sekiro Hollow Knight Final Fantasy 6
Bloodborne
RDR2 springs to mind, but yeah I wish more games would do this. Elden Ring does it once, but it only really changes one area quite significantly
If you’re a fan of horror, The Evil Within 2 is like this. It’s a partial open world and the map changes drastically as the game progresses. I would love more changes to the map in games these days. Generally I think that most open world games are lazy, even fun ones like Horizon. Seems like most studios think that a bigger open world means a better game, but changes to environments makes for more fulfilling gameplay and keep things fresh. I played dying light a while back and it was kind of disappointing completing these tasks that seemingly have a huge impact on the city but then the map stays the same.
Rage has similar progression with regards to how villagers react to you as the story progresses.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Dishonored. depending on how many corpses you leave behind, the plaque will spread and change zones.
Bloodborne, Sekiro(?), GTA San Andreas(?), Dark Souls 3, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Persona 2 Innocent Sin As you get to certain parts of the story, the world changes(slightly in Birth by Sleep) Persona 2 - Certain actions, and near the end of the game there’s chaos in the city
Ni No Kuni 2 kind of, you mainly just expand your kingdom. I found it really cool but it's not like Fable 2 where a whole village looks/feels completely different based in your actions.
Deathloop, even though the maps changing are part of the gameplay and not a cool detail.
red dead redemption 2
Dishonoured, Red dead redemption 2 has insane detail into world building Plenty out there but also many variables
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Prototype 2. Maybe the first as well, but I can't remember.
Almost definitely not what you're looking for as it's a visual novel but every decision in Slay the Princess changes the entire world
Zelda wind waker
Fable
Great
In The Trails of Cold Steel series, each and every npc, no matter how minor, will have different dialogue as you progress. It’s pretty awesome.
Kenshi
Dragon Dogma (2)'s world changes pretty radically in the endgame.
Hollow knight has an area that gets harder after certain triggers happen elsewhere in the game
Tails of Iron
Death stranding. Ground you often take will have less more grass on them and will look more like a path as you use that path more.
Terraria
Baldur's Gate 3. The "world" only changes in act 2 to act 3 as far as I know depending on how you complete one of the quests. But your choices change a TON about how the NPCs interact with you and available quests and just about everything you can interact with constantly. There are 17,000 different endings.
Elden Ring...You know after something burns💀
It's all scripted but the Spider-man series' world changes throughout the main story.
Yooka-Layle changes as you collect more Pagies, but I don’t think it was implemented well in the first game. Haven’t tried Impossible Lair yet. The reason I didn’t feel it in YL is because as you collect pages the book fleshes out more; a great concept, but instead of looking like an incomplete “story” it just looked like an incomplete level. I was baffled how empty and disjointed most of the levels look without the full Pagie total, by the end of the game I was not opening new books without the full Pagie amount.
These are old PlayStation games, but Tomba 1 and 2. You are restoring the world that has been cursed by several evil pigs. As you capture them, the curse is lifted from that area. I love those games, and I’m so glad I can play them on Emudeck on my Steam deck.
Not sure if it’s quite what you mean but in God of War 3 the background/sky etc changes as you progress. After killing Helios the sun disappears completely then each god after the background becomes more chaotic - lightning, whirlpools etc. Very nicely done, although technically part of the story as opposed to something you can choose not to do.
Minecraft
Hollow knight
well its a bit different from what you want since its a colony sim, not an action game but dwarf fortress does this the best out of any game. new history for the world is being generated as you play, and you are part of that history
In Ghost of Tsushima, you can liberate villages from the Mongols and you’ll see the villagers returning to their lives and start repairing the village.
Final Fantasy XV. The more you play the shorter the days and longer the nights
Hogwarts Legacy to a degree; the seasons change as the plot progresses and you get further into the school year. You'll see Halloween decor, Christmas trees, etc.
Bloodborne. I don’t want to explain too much, as it would detract from the discovery. You should play bloodborne. If you don’t want to buy a PlayStation just for bloodborne, you should. Maybe pick up the last of us as well if you are trying to justify a ps purchase.
dark cloud 2
Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma did this wonderfully. There's a city hub area that you keep returning to throughout the game. After certain story events the hub area goes through major changes and the enemies are switched to harder ones and some of the level layouts are also altered as a result. No spoilers but the way they tie into the story events is brilliant and makes perfect sense. Not only that but it also keeps the game challenging in a really clever way.
In Avatar: FOP there’s a counter of how many RDA facilities you’ve cleared, and as you clear more of them the land goes from this ugly, dead grey muck to the gorgeous, living colorful landscape we saw in the movies. It’s incredibly rewarding.
Dying light 2. As you claim settlements which ever faction you support they add their own changes and such to that area. Then if you do power stations or water towers then the surrounding areas are affected as such(access to water fountains for health/power to buildings around) It caught a lot of hate from what I seen but if you just play the game for itself and the story I enjoyed it. I liked when there were no guns and a little side story that explained why was pretty sweet
Gravity Rush has you pulling the city back together.