A fantastic trend in modern games is the inclusion of massive open worlds— huge maps, tons of extra things to do, and tons of loot to gather. What is extra fantastic is when a game actually rewards the player for clearing the map, open world or not.
It doesn't have to be anything spectacular for it, either. Even just a little achievement or something is good enough to convince the completionists of the world to go for it. That, or hiding little Easter Eggs within gorgeous landscapes can be enough to make a player feel like they have actually found something and therefore are more willing to go about exploring for many hours on end.
10 Subnautica Is There To Be Gorgeous
There is so much to explore and to do within Subnautica and its newest Below Zero installment, and the game never once stops rewarding the player for going around and exploring. Despite the fact it taking place almost entirely underwater might make it seem like an easy trap for a whole lot of nothing, it never feels that way.
It's gorgeous and so full of life and challenges that every moment feels important and valuable within the massive oceanic map. It also makes sure to add optional content to help explain why the heck the player is actually doing what they are doing too.
9 No Man's Sky Always Has New Things To Discover
Planet after planet is out there, each with its own collection of things to survive, gather, and build with. Every single one has a metric ton of things to discover, regardless of how many people have already been there to reap the benefits.
Once upon a time, No Man's Sky would also reward explorers with the ability to name newly found planets if they were the first ones to land on it. That's why, every now and again, there are some really strange names that appear— but it is still a cool little note. Even during the rocky period following the game's initial release where many players felt it didn't live up to its promises, many still stuck around simply because it was an enjoyable game to just explore.
8 Escape From The Constant In Don't Starve
Exploring the sandbox world of the Constant within Don't Starve will reveal a number of means of escape. The Wooden Thing, Seaworthy, and Skyworthy are all ways to restart the map and will result in a You Escaped! message when put together and used. It also makes sure that the player will never actually run out of resources because some of those are actually finite.
Additionally, Maxwell's Door will open up Adventure Mode which grants the ability to run through a challenging series of worlds and finish up the storyline of the base game. Finishing up Adventure Mode will grant Maxwell as a playable character, but Wes is also hiding in there so it's worth looking around. In the DLC, there are plenty of other characters hiding within the worlds that require exploration and special tasks to add them to the player's available characters.
7 Find All Opponents In Age Of Empires
In addition to being able to actually see where an opponent's base is, how big it is, and what sort of resources they have monopolized, Age of Empires actually gives achievements to reward exploring an entire map, something that most strategy games don't really push or place much importance behind.
The prime example is The Earth is Flat! achievement in Age of Empires III in which the player needs to clear the multiplayer or skirmish map entirely. There are some easy tricks to get it to pop without much effort, but the sentiment is there.
6 Explore All Stories In Octopath Traveler
Octopath Traveler makes sure that it's extremely replayable with its eight entire storylines smashed into one game, one following each of the main characters. What it also does is give a massive world to explore and tons of side quests, options, and lore that can only be discovered if the player actively runs around with everyone.
Some lore might get missed here and there, and the game makes sure to constantly reward the effort of searching through it all. There's so much loot, lore, and plot hiding within it that requires the use of different character's unique skills to find it.
5 No Sudden Civilization Ambushes
There's plenty enough hiding about in the hexagonal fields of Civilization VI that the last thing the player needs is to let those dang scouts find a place to hide and alert other civilizations about.
Exploring also has plenty of other benefits such as finding new trading resources, natural wonders which will increase structures around it and finding tribes of people that the player can gain loot from. It's all worth it to actually go about and clear as much as possible, especially if one of the other civilizations is build-happy.
4 Morrowind Does Not Hold Hands
The Elder Scrolls had some good games and a few that just never happened as far as the fans are concerned. Morrowind was an amazing addition, one that really turned the tide for the series that had been previously pretty lackluster.
It comes from an era of games that didn't hold the player's hand with quest markers and easy to follow guidelines, so exploring the map and talking to NPCs was actually pretty crucial to the gameplay.
3 Golden Sun Awarded New Monsters
Exploring every single nook and cranny within Golden Sun was pretty much essential within the franchise. It rewarded the intense urge to clear the map with extra Djinni to bring onto the adventure, fancy new loot, and even occasionally massively powerful skills that would have been missed if just sticking to the set path.
The rewards aren't always the greatest, but there's always something for going so far out of the way, and that is fantastic, especially in the JRPG genre that is often criticized for being too linear and not encouraging much in the way of exploration.
2 Get All The Genes In Breath Of Fire III
Breath of Fire had already been an amazing game series for Capcom, but then they came around and introduced a new feature within the third instalment. Collecting genes would grant more combinations for Ryu's dragon transformations, so getting as many as possible were always beneficial.
The game also hid mentors around, some in some really weird question mark locations on the map which could grant their students extra special abilities they wouldn't have otherwise been able to learn. Score!
1 As If Battling Isn't Hard Enough In Dark Souls
There is such a massive world full of amazing weapons, armor, and other great loot just waiting to be found within the Dark Souls games if the player is willing to take their one-shot chances to the max. The games do not just reward the player for never dying by actually letting them continue with the story, they also reward exploration by making some of the best equipment available only well off the path.
So if the game has somehow finally made its way to being decently playable, wandering off to do some good exploring will either result in some awesome loot or some frustrating gameplay moments, but isn't that the point of the series?