I want an open world game that's all side quests. A game for people with executive dysfunction looking for productive tasks to help avoid the main task they don't really feel like doing. Is that so much to ask for
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This is Skyrim. Two hours in, your quest journal is 400 items long, from the sublime (kill Alduin the World Eater) to the ridiculous (bring Calcelmo a Dwarven Arrow).
I've tried to explain that video games appeal to ADHD because it gives you small, achievable tasks with clear goals and resolution and usually step by step instructions of what to do next.
Elite Dangerous on Solo mode is basically all side quests, and except for the economy (and first discovery of systems/planets) you'll never cross paths with other players.
Just Cause 4. If you count the hundreds of little mini tasks as side quests you can spend like 40+ hours in the game without even having started the first non-intro story quest lol
Kenshi is pretty great for this. There isn't a main quest, so the whole game is just whatever you make of it basically. Very fun game that encourages you to go out, pick a fight, and get your ass handed to you so many times that you become a kung fu god that can kick people's limbs off.
Mungin: "Helped a baker locate his stolen starter. Banished a constipation demon from an abbey outhouse. Found a kid's stuffed animal. Made 271 pairs of sandals for orphans." (Surrounded by pearly glow, ascends)
I mean, elder scrolls games can certainly be played this way. When I first played oblivion I diverged from the main quest as soon as I was out of the tutorial and by the time i got back to it I was so high level everyone i was supposed to save kept dying to the level-scaled daedra immediately😆
But you also don't have to do it, and with an infinite amount of procedurally generated sidequests, you can just wander around and get up to random adventures that are of lite consequences
I like the idea of your hero being predestined to save the world, so you can't ever *fail*, you're just not doing it *yet*. The actual main quest is just the videogame equivalent of filling out a spreadsheet, and, no matter how long you grind for, it'll always take just long enough to be tedious.
Every so often, a villager might express worry about their imminent doom, or ask if you've gotten around to defeating ultimate evil yet, but you can always just say "I'm predestined to do it" and they immediately chill out and maybe even offer you some treat as pre-emptive thanks for saving them.
Tell the villager something like this:
"I know I'm the right person for sabotaging Big Evil. I'm also the right person for all these other jobs. And that's how my crew and I get our gear and intel. Once we're in the area, we'll take out their bases."
I think I want to start playing that again, but from the beginning again. Hoping I spawn in a more hospitable planet. I remember it feeling like endless side quests, and that being what I liked about it
FYI you will always spawn on a planet with some sort of environmental hazard (hot/cold/toxic/radioactive). I spawned on a hot planet but flew to a paradise planet in the same system after fixing my ship.
Huh, that’s good to know. I think mine had all the hazards. At least if I started again I could avoid building my home base on a toxic world. Felt like such a dumbass when I finally stumbled on a paradise planet after investing so much time building up my wasteland empire.
yeah i loooove this. there are a few different primary storylines, or events/missions will crop up, or scheduled expeditions, or you can just build a base or manage a freighter or run around adopting alien pets. sometimes i load it up just to fly around in my ship for 10 minutes
At least you get to be fake outside and the people murdering you aren't trying to sell you anything. And it's pretty. And sometimes you make friends, albeit briefly.
Multiple openworld games I have tons of hours in and barely halfway through the storylines. I'm not a completionist either, I just can't let sidequests go unquested
I have this MP game concept where you start in your household and you're an operative that has tasks given to you via email and they are rated by overtness required to complete them because all other players are trying to identify each other and assassinate each other.
so you just want to be a guy that is an adventurer and do jobs that are posted on the board and on off days just hang around the adventurer's guild talking with others. all the while the hero and their party is doing their thing
I've never finished the main story line in either Skyrim or fallout 4 despite sinking sooo many hours into both. Either of those kinds of games without the story would be pretty cool, you're right. I could just make up my own story really
I know you're getting a lot of suggestions but I'm going to throw Yakuza in. It's a gritty crime drama but you can ignore all that and dive into the fever dream of singing, dancing, fishing, car racing, telephone dating, cabaret club management, underground wrestling...
Old School Runescape is pretty good for this. I know what I should be working on in that game, but I'd much rather just chat with people and chop trees.
You should play Skyrim! It doesn't have a storyline at all, just a bunch of cities you wander between while selling off several thousand daggers you crafted. And sometimes dragons attack, and you drink them. Fairly weird economics simulator, honestly
Dying Light 1 and 2. By the time I get to the hard quests, I'm way overpowered from running around, completing everything but the story.
Horrible if you have ADHD, though.
Play Minecraft. I have successfully avoided even looking for the End Portal, let alone defeating the Ender Dragon, for something like 13 years and counting.
The main quests are always shithouse anyway!
The best parts are always the worldbuilding, the side missions, the exploration and little interactions.
RPGs would be fantastic without all the chosen one this and save the world that.
I love it. Especially if there are bunches of rumors and tales of some very serious thing that other people are managing as you gather 10 marsh carrots or something, and you occasionally come across the the aftermath of a world altering battle.
I think I wasted like 40hrs just diving for treasure in the Witcher III. 😂 Plenty of stupid side quests for people like me to fall pray to in that game esp. with the expansion packs.
some 20 years ago I had, I guess you could call it a fever dream, for a game that sounds like it'd fit your requirements. It was open world with lots of little interactive environment stuff, you would start of as a little cantaloupe that sprouts legs.
Every time you die, you reincarnate as a different object/being, but you can't die on purpose. You would only die by accident, like almost fall off a ledge, but try to stop yourself by running away except momentum carried you to your death, and youd come back as a stapler.
Given the associated warcrimes possible within it, and the horrors lurking under the surface, I'd actually say the story generation of Rimworld is more masochistic than Dwarf Fortress.
I’m still playing Skyrim…the real game for me is how many mods I can add before it breaks. Playing the game is just testing different load outs and trying different things 🤣
So many good recommendations here .. but I would also add the Witcher 3. I am about 75 hours in and not even halfway through the main story. There is SO much to do, and the side quests are just as fun as the main story.
WoW has other people but you really don’t have to engage with them anymore if you don’t want to. It fills the niche you’re describing for me. I play it as a solo game most of the time now, farming mounts and pets and old achievements.
Outlaws is great! I do wish I could build like 30 different bases though, Fallout style. With my own syndicate, who only cheats mobsters, corrupt politicians and the Empire.
I understand that the launch was pretty rough, and it sucks that it's become common for a game to not be playable until weeks to months after release, but that being said, it seems to be running fine now
Yeah that shit is so embarrassing. I can't believe they still do that too, like they're such incels. They don't even realize how dumb they look and they won't stop...
Kinda, but people bug you about saving the princess all the time even though there’s not an irl timer or anything. TOTK is much more laid back in that most people are concerned more with their local difficulties and seem to assume that Zelda can look after herself until we get to it.
80% of Ghost of Tsushima is exactly that. Between the camps, the shrines, the mythical tales, the exploration, the varying NPC side quests and multiple quests important to the main story are more than enough
no man’s sky is the most sidequest ass game i’ve ever played. it’s all exploration, crafting, inventory management, and radiant quests. main task? what main task? go mine some copper
I just want one that's all collectibles. Specifically an Assassin's Creed game with absolutely no story whatsoever, just a bunch of stuff to find with super easy repetitive sidequests. I want the lazy satisfaction of finishing the game at 100% without the tedium of starting it.
Oblivion.
You can do all the side quests, faction quests, fetch quests etc. etc. before going to the town of Kvatch to start the Main Storyline quest.
I was already a great Hero and the leader of several factions before I ever had to deal with a single Oblivion gate.
If you just gaslight yourself into thinking you’re supposed to be working, you can play any game with ease just tell yourself you’re on the clock at work and it’s easy.
I’ve tried convincing myself I’m supposed to be playing video games while I’m at work but it doesn’t seem to have the same effect.
This is Diablo 4 (and 3), for me. There's a campaign, but you kind of play it once and then never again, and run around killing things in different places different ways, while getting stronger all the way. It's actually super relaxing for me.
I always thought that would be fun. Like, have there be a kind of vague overall goal but make it non-urgent and low stakes compared to the side quests you encounter. 😂
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The “main quest” is entirely what you make it. Or don’t. Either is fine.
https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0?si=v7hJ62SeuSQde7Wy
Abe: "I defeated a dragon."
Szalahad: "Killed a dark lord."
Mungin: "Helped a baker locate his stolen starter. Banished a constipation demon from an abbey outhouse. Found a kid's stuffed animal. Made 271 pairs of sandals for orphans." (Surrounded by pearly glow, ascends)
Skyrim has a main quest, but finishing it kinda makes you a completionist.
"I know I'm the right person for sabotaging Big Evil. I'm also the right person for all these other jobs. And that's how my crew and I get our gear and intel. Once we're in the area, we'll take out their bases."
Multiple openworld games I have tons of hours in and barely halfway through the storylines. I'm not a completionist either, I just can't let sidequests go unquested
If they find out, you'll get murdered.
But they can't do it overtly, so there would be a lot of subterfuge, stealth and guile.
I have over 700 hours put into skyrim and never bothered with the main quest, started it sure but attention drifts
All of the questlines are mostly sidequests, and if you play an Ironman much of the skill leveling feels like sidequests too.
I’m grinding for a dragon pickaxe right now, putting off completing my 4 remaining quests
Horrible if you have ADHD, though.
Not now, dammit! This fish isn't going to fish itself you know?
might not fit the description
but its good
The best parts are always the worldbuilding, the side missions, the exploration and little interactions.
RPGs would be fantastic without all the chosen one this and save the world that.
You'll just forget there's a story if you stop looking at it
Play at your own pace, do as much or as little as you want.
It's all side quests.
I hope it has a Zelda-inspired side quest of counting chickens.
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The only main quest is to survive 365 days without dying.
Everything else is a side quest, yours to do or not do without affecting your end goal. Stay tuned for updates 😊
You can do all the side quests, faction quests, fetch quests etc. etc. before going to the town of Kvatch to start the Main Storyline quest.
I was already a great Hero and the leader of several factions before I ever had to deal with a single Oblivion gate.
I’ve tried convincing myself I’m supposed to be playing video games while I’m at work but it doesn’t seem to have the same effect.
"What do you mean?"
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