Open-World Games With The Best Random Encounters, Ranked

Key Takeaways

• Immersive open-world games use random encounters to make worlds feel dynamic and alive, like in Cyberpunk 2077.
• The detailing and reactive nature of random encounters heighten experiences in games like Red Dead Redemption 2.
• Random encounters in games such as Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas enhance storytelling and add a sense of danger and wonder.

What is it that makes open-world games truly feel alive? The answer, from game to game, never remains the same. For some titles, the size of the map is the main draw, with a scale that leaves plenty of opportunities for exploration and wandering. Other titles use the open world as a sandbox for a more intimate narrative, think Grand Theft Auto 4 and the like. The aesthetics and sub-genre of a game beyond its open-world status are integral to how that open-world plays.

What matters is that the most immersive open-world games will always be the ones that feel the most alive. In many games, random encounters are used for this effect. A world certainly does feel more alive when it’s taking a more reactive stance to the player, as opposed to having set locations where set things always happen, which can put players more in mind of a tourist, or a passenger on a ride. These open-world titles use random encounters to great effect, making their worlds feel dynamic and vital – the more variation and creativity there is behind each game’s random encounters, they higher they have been placed on this list.

8 Cyberpunk 2077

Encounters Embody The Chaos Of Night City

After a host of patches and updates, Night City is as alive as ever, and finally in a state that captures the glory of what those initial, incredibly hyped trailers promised fans. Random encounters, especially with the DLC, are endemic to this.

Maelstrom gangers will be setting cars on fire at night, turning the city into an apocalyptic, smoky haze. Players might find Tyger Claws duking it out with unaffiliated gangers for turf. The game feels more alive – and more dangerous – than ever, and V should always be prepared for things to take a dark turn in Night City.

7 Skyrim

Encounters Add A Sense Of Danger And Wonder

Players have been losing themselves in the open world of Skyrim for years, now, with a perpetual sense of wanderlust, augmented by mods or creation club addons. Random encounters are an excellent part of the iterative storytelling that helps The Elder Scrolls stand out as a series.

Happening upon something as simple and uneventful as wandering merchants or nobles makes the world seem truly lived in, while bandits, robberies, wild animals, and of course, dragons, stand to make any trip more perilous.

6 Fallout: New Vegas

A Plethora Of Amazing Random Encounters

Among the many impressive things about this game is Fallout: New Vegas’ way of taking itself seriously while still imbuing a good deal of humor into its writing and storytelling. Characters and quests are written with wit and emotion.

No better is this seen than with the Wild Wasteland encounters that provide bizarre, delightfully absurd random encounters to the game and make exploration just that bit more unhinged and difficult to prepare for.

5 Red Dead Redemption 2

The Game’s Detail Is Exemplified In Random Encounters

What really appeals to people playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is its sense of detail. It’s the minutiae of this world, the fact that every little thing is reactive and immersive, that makes the game stand out among open-world titles.

Random encounters are just another part of this detail, with simple, uneventful wanderers of the road or ruthless bandit attacks all adding to the composition of Arthur’s journey in different ways.

4 Dragon’s Dogma 2

Encounters Give A Sense Of Danger

Power fantasies are often a bit of a double-edged sword in video games. Feeling like some kind of omnipotent god-king is fun for about five minutes before the lack of conflict gets boring. But feeling a surge of power after a hard-won battle? That’s the kind of power fantasy that will never get old.

Coming back from a quest in Dragon’s Dogma 2 only to find a huge cyclops terrorizing the forest and blocking the path is just one example of the cinematic random encounters that put players’ vocations to the test and allow them to fell foes on the fly.

3 Terraria

Invasions And Surprise Bosses Keep Players On Their Tones

The world of Terraria is one caught up in the balance of light and dark, of doom and whimsy, chaos and order. All of these things, light, dark, whimsy, the whole lot, want to kill the player. Luckily, the things that want to kill them can sometimes drop some great gear.

In comes the random encounters in this game, which can briefly turn Terraria into a base defense game as goblins assail the walls, or test players in an impromptu boss fight as enemies like the Eye of Cthulu spawn randomly at night.

2 Pokemon Scarlet And Violet

Random Encounters Articulate A Classic Pokemon Fantasy

Taking on more of an open-world approach than any other mainline game before it, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is a significant departure from the series in many ways, including the freeform way it lets players tackle the main quest.

Random encounters used to be relegated to tall grass, but now, in a cathartic moment of realizing what was surely many childhood dreams, players can spot a rare or powerful Pokemon randomly appearing in the overworld, and charge straight at them without the need to run around in the grass.

1 Battle Brothers

Encounters Give The Chance To Roleplay

What kind of mercenary company do players want to run? Battle Brothers gives players many ways to answer this question and not least of all is through the variety of random encounters or contract complications.

A merchant’s wheel breaks down on the road. Do players help them for a reputation boost in town, or rob them blind for goods? A barbarian is cruelly locked up in a cage by someone parading them in a circus. Do they free them, conscript them, or leave them to their fate? Random encounters in this game help color the player’s mercenary company.