Travel toy: 6 virtual worlds to which you can go directly from the room

Everyone goes on vacation in the summer, but you can give yourself an unforgettable experience without leaving home — it's worth opening one of the games with a well-developed world. Read about the best projects where you can see ancient kingdoms shrouded in fog and alien oceans full of mysteries in the Izvestia article.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Genre: Action, RPG
Release year: 2017
Developer: Nintendo
What to play on: Nintendo Switch, Wii U

Breath of the Wild has gotten rid of annoying conventions, level-restricted zones, and invisible walls, giving players mechanics that encourage experimentation.

Screenshot from the game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Photo: Nintendo EPD

Exploring Hyrule, you have to think not only about achieving your goal, but also about how to get to it. You can climb a snow-covered peak, having spent all the supplies, and not find anything, or you can pick up a random stone on the road and open a secret passage to a giant dungeon filled with enemies, weapons and resources.

The research turns into a series of improvised solutions, and the world rewards the player for creativity. A huge plus is the realism of natural physics and a variety of ways to use it in your adventures. Fire burns grass, metal conducts electricity, and cold depletes stamina if Link's hero is not wearing warm clothes.

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Years later, gamers are still finding new mechanics and secrets in Breath Of The Wild. And the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, developed the best ideas of its predecessor.

Elden Ring

Genre: RPG, action, souls-like
Release year: 2022
Developer: FromSoftware
What to play on: PC, Play Station 4, Play Station 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series

The Limgrave starting location is full of ruins, catacombs and mini-bosses, but this is only a small part of everything that can be found in the game. Underground lies Nokron, a twilight city with ghostly warriors, and to the north lies Kaelid with rotting wastelands.

Screenshot from the Elden Ring game

Photo: FromSoftware

The good thing about exploring the Elden Ring is that the player is left to face the process one-on-one. There are no quest logs and icons, behind every turn, as in life, there may be a surprise or death.

The project rewards curiosity: the door behind the statue will require a key that can be found on the other side of the world, and the reward will be a rare artifact, weapon, or cutscene that opens the veil of mystery over the history of this world.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Genre: RPG
Year of release: 2011 (reissues: 2016, 2021)
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
What to play on: PC, Play Station 3, Play Station 4, Play Station 5, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch

An ageless classic that Todd Howard has sold numerous times on various platforms. The world of Skyrim does not age due to its modularity: a cave on a mountain can hide a whole mini-story with ghosts, traps and unique weapons, a random lair of bandits leads to a quest that will turn into a political conspiracy.

Screenshot from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim game

Photo: Bethesda Game Studios

Thanks to this and the clever behavior of the enemies, no playthrough will be like any other. Skyrim's geography includes regions with unique cultures, politics, and landscapes, from snowy plains to volcanoes and autumnal forests. And numerous player mods expand the space beyond the boundaries of the original map.

No Man’s Sky

Genre: Sandbox
Release year: 2016 (updated)
Developer: Hello Games
What to play on: PC, Play Station 4, Play Station 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, Mac

At the start, No Man's Sky became famous in the gaming community for having nothing in it. Users were faced with almost empty planets and a lack of interesting activities.

Screenshot from the game No Man's Sky

Photo: Hello Games

Unexpectedly for everyone, Hello Games has done a lot of work on bugs, redesigned the game for years and turned it into one of the best open worlds. Gamers can now explore planets with unique weather conditions, biomes, and hidden alien technology.

Procedural generation works great, creating fantastic creatures and landscapes. The main advantages of No Man's Sky are the scale of the world and freedom. The player can discover new ways to interact with the universe, using a variety of vehicles and building bases.

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The storylines enrich the project, but do not limit it: nothing prevents you from spending hours climbing caves or searching for rare minerals, hunting flying jellyfish, if this process is enjoyable.

Subnautica

Genre: Survival
Release year: 2018
Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
What to play on: PC, Play Station 4, Play Station 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch

Subnautica throws players into an alien ocean with only a spacesuit in their inventory. Planet 4546B is a reference example of storytelling through the environment. The biomes here are arranged in such a way that the longer the hero can survive, the more interesting it is to explore the underwater world.

Screenshot from the Subnautica game

Photo: Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Instead of mountains and plains, the user is surrounded by coral reefs, volcanic faults, and glowing caves. Subnautica is distinguished from most of the "survivors" by its delicately hidden secrets. A broken capsule or artifact can look like a decoration or be the beginning of an interesting and big story.

Outer Wilds

Genre: Adventure,
Release year: 2019
Developer: Mobius Digital
What to play on: PC, Play Station 4, Play Station 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch

Outer Wilds isn't exactly a traditional open—world game, but the Solar System here is one of the most intricate geographies.

Screenshot from the Outer Wilds game

Photo: Mobius Digital

Each planet is, in fact, a puzzle that can be solved not by logic, but by understanding the structure of this universe. Exploration in Outer Wilds is not focused on finding loot and completing quests, but on chasing a big secret through crumbling caves, quantum moons and orbital anomalies.

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All the discoveries made on one planet can help us understand another. There are no dead locations, every place in the game has a story and meaning. The world of planets is changing in real time — for example, flowing sand on a desert planet opens up new passages. Outer Wilds does not lead the player by the handle: it does not have a classic task log, only a ship log, which is updated according to the player's observation.