5 Games Like Crimson Desert But With Much Better Exploration

Crimson Desert is all about exploring a vast, open world, and in many ways, it takes this concept further than other games have managed. There’s a vast wealth of things to do, and a robust array of features and mechanics provides plenty of unique ways to uncover its world. At the same time, Crimson Desert‘s sense of exploration has some serious limitations.

For all the variety of content available, it too often feels, well, like content, and not like a world with truly unique sensibilities or depths of character. Luckily, a number of other games scratch a similar itch without the same limitations. Crimson Desert may have its own strengths that these games are sometimes lacking, but when it comes to the overall sense of exploration and discovery, you’re more likely to walk away satisfied with the best alternatives that the market has to offer.

The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3‘s traversal and sense of exploratory freedom is admittedly limited compared to Crimson Desert. While it set a high bar for open-world games, it was never as interested in sheer scale as some competitors, with more of an emphasis on a discrete character story than on total sandbox potential.

That being said, The Witcher 3‘s story blows Crimson Desert‘s out of the water, and the benefits of that quality writing can actually make the exploration feel more rewarding as a whole. The world of The Witcher is a rich landscape of flawed characters, political intrigues, and memorable twists on classic tropes, preventing any material from ever feeling like it’s just there to fill space.

Hopefully, The Witcher 4 will take things even further, potentially going head-to-head with Crimson Desert in some ways that The Witcher 3 can’t. Until then, though, The Witcher 3 still promises an experience that’s more deliberately focused on rewarding players for their time with genuine artistry to be found around every corner.

Oblivion City — City in a landscape from Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion.

It’s hard not to talk about The Elder Scrolls in any conversation about open-world fantasy RPGs, and 20 years later, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remains a perfect alternative to Crimson Desert. While it lacks some of Crimson Desert‘s more ambitious gameplay systems — combat in The Elder Scrolls comes down to aggressive clicking or button-mashing all too often — it more than makes up for it in other regards.

The best reason to check out Oblivion is if you found the characters of Crimson Desert underwhelming. For all the detail and variety in Crimson Desert‘s world, it’s populated by NPCs that usually have little to no personality, which can prevent it from feeling truly alive. Oblivion, on the other hand, is filled to the brim with truly unique individuals, and discovering and interacting with its cast of eccentrics can be one of the greatest pleasures gaming has to offer.

If you’re looking for something closer to Crimson Desert in graphical fidelity, Oblivion Remastered might be the way to go. For all of its blurry textures and potato-like faces, though, the original Oblivion retains a certain ethereal atmosphere that Remastered struggles to recreate. Either way, it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the world of Cyrodiil for dozens or even hundreds of hours, with something new to uncover around every corner.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Once it gets past its long period of tutorialization, Crimson Desert avoids a lot of the hand-holding that most open-world games feature. If that appeals to you, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game that takes the same concept to an even more immersive destination, focusing on giving players a true sense of exploration in a world full of interesting quests and minimal filler.

Rather than a setting that centers around the protagonist, the Dragon’s Dogma games build one that feels genuinely real, even when aspects like enemy variety and story can be a bit underwhelming. From travel systems that are subject to ambushes to urgent quests that fail if you act too slowly, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has little interest in traditional safety nets.

If Crimson Desert‘s limited approach to companions feels underwhelming, Dragon’s Dogma 2 also delivers significantly more in that department. The “pawns” system provides companions capable of collaborating on tasks, and their mishaps tend to feel charmingly human rather than like simple failures of AI. You can’t go wrong with either Dragon’s Dogma game, but if you want something closer to Crimson Desert on a technical level, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is significantly more up-to-date.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring developer FromSoft is known for its challenging games, and exploring the world of Elden Ring can be predictably tough. Persevere through its trap-laden dungeons and brutal bosses, however, and you’ll find a consistently rewarding game where all the rewards feel like they actually matter.

From interesting weapons that provide unique ways to overcome its trials to tidbits of lore that reveal pieces of a fascinating story, Elden Ring‘s bounty is bursting at the seams. With fights providing challenges of widely varying natures, switching out gear can be highly strategic, granting significance to a new piece of armor even if you already have one that you love. A minimal approach to player guidance enhances the sense of gratification at every discovery, as you rarely feel like the game simply shoved something in your face.

On top of all of that, the best thing about exploring Elden Ring lies, quite simply, in its atmosphere. It’s occasionally hard to think of Crimson Desert‘s world as anything more than a video game backdrop, even with some impressive weather systems and an undeniable sense of scale. The Lands Between, on the other hand, feel like the true remnants of a world that was once full of splendor, and even its most routine moments of exploration carry a rich sense of solitude.

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

zelda totk key art — *Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* key art.

When it comes to open-world exploration, the bar set by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, has yet to be surpassed. Both games truly embody the mentality of being to head in any direction and find something meaningful to do, buoyed by the “open-air” concept of glider-assisted travel.

For my money, Breath of the Wild remains the more special experience, but Tears of the Kingdom is the perfect option to truly put Crimson Desert‘s exploration to shame. Like Breath of the Wild, exploring Hyrule is a sheer joy, and the sequel offers even more ways to do so. The Zonai powers offered by Tears of the Kingdom open up plenty of possibilities for gadgets and makeshift vehicles, and the addition of both sky islands and underground depths opens up two entirely new facets of exploration.

Some of the rewards for exploration in Tears of the Kingdom are trivial — uncovering Korok seeds quickly becomes routine — but the act of discovery itself never loses the sense that something special is happening. The game has a perfect understanding of player impulses, rewarding curiosity and cleverness rather than scattering loot and activities at random. If Crimson Desert‘s entertainments occasionally come across as arbitrary, Tears of the Kingdom is the perfect way to uncover a world that always feels bespoke.