5 indie games with the best open-world design

In the past decade or so, indie games have had a huge surge in popularity, primarily for their open-world design. Who can refuse the freedom of being able to go anywhere or do anything while exploring vast, mysterious worlds. However, this genre has become over-saturated in the past few years, and it's becoming more and more difficult to find games that live up to the hype. Indie games can provide a fresh take on this genre by honing in on what makes them truly unique.

An open-world game, as the name suggests, is a game where the world is fully explorable almost from the get-go. Players can venture out anywhere they want, irrespective of the storyline. That said, here are five indie games that have a really well-designed open-world environment.

Note: This article reflects the opinions of the writer.

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Top 5 indie games with an amazing open-world to explore

5) Kenshi

Kenshi takes place 1,000 years after an apocalyptic event that no one remembers, with society being taken back to a technological dark age. Venturing out into this world is very dangerous as it's teeming with bandits, slavers, beasts, and cannibals.

Players will have to learn to deal with all of these dangers as they go out and explore various ruins that are overflowing with loot or stumble upon bases housing some of Kenshi’s most dangerous outlaws.

It can be easy to miss noticing Kenshi's beautiful wastelands because of the constant threats that players will have to face. The environments feature twilight pouring over desert dunes, the blue waters of the leviathan coast, and the odd yet entrancing fauna of the floodlands. However, the sights themselves become a reward for players after they learn to deal with the dangers of those lands.

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4) The Pathless

As important as the world of an open-world game is, so is the way that players get to traverse it. Think of Link’s glider or GTA V's great car physics and vehicle variety. These features can make exploring and moving from point to point in an open-world much more fun, and this is where an indie game called The Pathless shines.

The biomes of The Pathless stretch long and wide, with target points dotted across them. These points give players a boost in speed and stamina. Players are rarely meant to stop in The Pathless. Instead, they are meant to enter a flow state as they glide across the map and move from objective to objective.

This flow state can often be so entrancing that players often find themselves forgetting that they have reached their location. The only time gameplay comes to a standstill is when solving puzzles or encountering bosses, both of which are used as pacing mechanics.

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3) The Outer Wilds

In Outer Wilds, players are given a spaceship to fly, and they are free to explore the outer reaches of space propelled by their curiosity and jet engines. This game doesn’t have a traditional story. As players travel around in space discovering places, solving mysteries, and meeting people, they will put together a vast interconnected story that is less like a book and more like a jigsaw puzzle. As they discover pieces and put them in their place, players will start uncovering the bigger picture.

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2) Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a challenging 2D action-adventure indie game with an intricately interconnected world that slowly becomes available to players as they unlock more power-ups. The areas of Hollow Knight are designed to give players a unique exploration experience.

Most of the areas in the game have multiple entrances or exits, secrets, and power-ups to find. Players are also not provided with the map of an area as soon as they enter it. Instead, they need to find Cornifer the cartographer, who gives them a rough sketch of the land. Only when they sit on a bench do they get a properly drawn map. The world also has several unlockable doors, lifts, and other pathways that first require going through challenging areas to unlock them. This interconnectedness, along with the grueling difficulty, is the reason why Hollow Knight's gameplay is often compared to that of Dark Souls.

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1) Subnautica

Subnautica has everything anyone might want from an open-world survival game. It boasts a complex crafting system, personalized base building, and a beautiful underwater world with over 30 biomes to explore. It's almost hard to believe that it's an indie game.

Similar to Hollow Knight, in Subnautica, players need upgrades before they can explore more biomes and delve deeper into the game's world. However, instead of finding these upgrades as they explore the world, players will be required to collect resources and craft them.

As players progress deeper, Subnautica starts letting the true horror of the ocean settle in. Unknown creatures lurk in the darker parts of the water and obscure shadows appear in the distance. All of this is complemented by beautiful underwater environments that no other indie game has even come close to creating, making Subnautica an unparalleled experience.