Best Open-World Games With Interesting Ways To Travel

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home February 5, 2025 93 Views 13 Min Read
Best Open-World Games With Interesting Ways To Travel



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Summary

  • Open-world games often lack innovative travel; games like Horizon Forbidden West offer mounts with multiple purposes.
  • Pokémon Scarlet & Violet introduce legendary mounts with versatile abilities for easier exploration.
  • Games like Death Stranding offer realistic, challenging terrain and fun tools for immersive travel experiences.

For all the stunning scenery and interesting locations that can be found in open-world games, traveling from A to B can make for some of the most arduous gameplay. While some mounts and vehicles can be unique, simply running, driving, or flying to destinations isn’t made any less tedious by their cosmetic designs.

No Mans Sky Elden Ring Horizon Forbidden West

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The vast expanses of open-world games often necessitate a mount for getting around. These games take that idea and get creative with their mounts.

As such, many players are left dreading the trek across the map, with many open-world games having expansive maps that can take a lot of time to explore and traverse. Fortunately, some offer innovative ways of traveling, making long journeys much more fun; this list contains just a handful of open-world games with interesting and exciting ways to travel.

This list doesn’t include MMOs or games where the sole purpose of the game is travel (for example, Microsoft Flight Simulator).

10

Horizon Forbidden West

Mounts Have Multiple Purposes

The majority of open-world games utilize mounts of some kind, be it a humble horse or a completely made-up fantasy creature. Regardless of their unwavering usefulness in getting to and from different locations faster, oftentimes this is their only purpose, leaving the travel gameplay a little flat.

As such, some open-world games give players’ mounts a little extra pizzaz. In Horizon Forbidden West, Aloy is able to override the animal-like machines to tame and ride them. Each of these mechanical beasts will fight alongside the player in battle, and the Sunwing can even swoop in to pick the player up when summoned.

9

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

Pokemon’s Jump Into The Open-World Genre Opens New Possibilities

Pokemon is one of the biggest, best-selling franchises of all time, boasting upwards of 100 games, as well as extending into anime, manga, and films. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet marked the mainline series’ first significant step into open-world gaming, and as such opened new ways to explore the universe.

Fairly early on, players respectively have access to either Koraidon or Miraidon — the Legendary Dragon-type Pokemon — which serve as their mounts throughout the rest of the game. Both can shift into a bike on land, glide in the air, or swim through water, making exploring the world exponentially easier and more expansive.

8

Outer Wilds

Step Into The Shoes Of A Space Explorer

Outer Wilds Tag Page Cover Art
Systems
PlayStation-1


Xbox-1

Released

May 28, 2019

Developer(s)

Mobius Digital

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

Over the past decade, space exploration games have had somewhat of a resurgence. Titles like Star Citizen and No Man’s Sky allow players to fly through space to different planets. With so many similar titles out there, games set in space have to do something interesting to stand out.

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What makes Outer Wilds unique is the ship-flying mechanics. Players have to grapple with physics like gravity, momentum, and velocity when using their ship, as well as manage the ship’s status, keeping the player occupied, even when traveling between planets. With a focus on story and exploration-based mysteries, Outer Wilds is a super engaging addition to the genre.

7

Terraria

A 2D Sandbox With Lots To Explore

Terraria is a 16-bit side-scroller complete with everything that is expected of a sandbox game: base-building, crafting, fighting — even the entire randomly-generated world is destructible. Thrown straight into the gameplay, players are free to adventure however they choose, learning as they go.

With an emphasis on platforming, Terraria has a variety of ways to explore beyond the left-right-jump mechanics of similar titles. From setting shortcuts with the portal gun to swinging over lava with a grappling hook, it is certainly a hard feat to get bored traveling through Terraria’s many biomes.

6

Subnautica

Players Can Explore The Ocean With Lots Of Tech At Their Disposal

With the release of Subnautica 2 just around the corner, many gamers are returning to the original Subnautica, and for good reason — the 2014 title has aged incredibly well. After crash-landing on planet 4546B, the player must survive long enough to uncover the secrets of the planet and escape.

Set mostly underwater, there are plenty of different resources and blueprints to be found that allow the player to craft bases and modes of transport. The Prawn Suit effectively turns its wearer into a mech, able to explore deeper and easily mine materials, while the Cyclops is a fortified, moving base that can be used for safer travel. For quick excursions, the Seaglide lets players zoom around at will.

5

Batman: Arkham Knight

Rid Arkham City Of Criminals And Supervillains

Batman: Arkham is a game franchise based on the titular DC hero, Batman. With 11 games in total (four of which are part of the main series), it is clear that something keeps drawing players back for more. Batman: Arkham Knight is the fourth main game, this time with Scarecrow as the primary antagonist.

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Players can freely explore Gotham City with a variety of methods. Among other cool gadgets like the voice synthesizer and iconic batarangs, Batman can use his cape to glide across the city, using the grapnel gun to switch directions. Unlike previous entries, the player can also drive the Batmobile, which is an exhilarating ride in itself.

4

Dying Light 2 Stay Human

Satisfying Ways Of Traversing A Zombie-Infested World

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is an open-world survival horror following Aiden Calwell, a wanderer looking for his sister in the post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden city of Villedor. Players must navigate the world while surviving both dangerous infected and conflicting control-hungry factions.

The Dying Light franchise stands out for its fluid parkour mechanics comprised of thousands of different animations. But even beyond the freerunning, Stay Human integrates other methods of travel such as a grappling hook and a paraglider. There are also two Easter eggs — the flying broomstick and the hoverboard — both of which can be found and exploited for permanent modes of travel.

The Assassin’s Creed games and Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst also have great open worlds with parkour mechanics, but they lack the additional modes of travel that Dying Light does.

3

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Players Can Build Their Own Vehicles

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Tag Page Cover Art
Systems
super greyscale 8-bit logo

Released

May 12, 2023

Developer(s)

Nintendo

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the eighteenth entry (by release) in the iconic video game series. After the incredibly influential success of the preceding title Breath of the Wild, Nintendo continued their venture into open-world gaming, focusing on improving the landscapes and mechanics while allowing players to be more creative.

In Tears of the Kingdom, players are able to build their own vehicles using scavenged resources and the Ultrahand ability. While traveling by car in open-world games is nothing new, there is no doubt that zooming around in their own over-the-top creations is much more rewarding for players.

2

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Swing & Glide Across New York City

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sees players return to New York City, this time going toe-to-toe with villains such as Venom and The Lizard. The sequel improved upon much of the first game’s content, notably the graphics and depth of side quests, as well as integrating new fighting mechanics.

Alongside the new combat features is the addition of web wings that can be used for gliding, but a lot of appeal remains in the web-swinging of the first game. Both of these methods of traversing feel weighted and are super satisfying to pull off; much more exciting than walking the streets!

1

Death Stranding

Adds Realistic Challenges With Each Type Of Terrain

Death Stranding has some of the most immersive travel of open-world games. If the trek through the snow in Red Dead Redemption 2′s introduction wasn’t grueling enough, following Sam Bridges on his quest to deliver cargo and re-unite America requires significantly more effort.

This is not to say that Death Stranding is boring or arduous, however. From having to balance cargo to avoid falling to snowboarding back down mountains, Kojima Productions clearly put a lot of emphasis on making traveling semi-realistic and interesting, while also adding some wonderful touches (like building out a satisfying zip-line system). Almost every terrain has its challenges, be it pebbles, river currents, or rocky peaks, but once players get to grip with the controls, Death Stranding is a beautiful game. For gamers who enjoy slower-paced titles that focus on the environment, this is a must-play.

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