10 Amazing Video Games With Terrible Open Worlds

Open world fatigue is real. We can never stop talking about how exhausted we are with their vast amounts of empty space, and lists of chore-I mean side-quests, to do.

...Until something like Breath Of The Wild comes out, and then we're all back on board, filled with hope by the promise of a seemingly endless horizon. Naturally things rotate around and one of the following games on this list comes along and ruins it again.

What feels, at first, like a fresh new frontier to explore, gets progressively smaller the more familiar you become with the game.

Soon, driving to that place you've already been to several times feels like going to the post office. The one that's out of your way. In a neighborhood you never visit for any other reason. And the neighborhood is up a winding mountain road protected by bad guys who respawn every time you go there, and it can't be fast-traveled to.

With that in mind, here are ten otherwise amazing games that essentially just replaced loading screens with small errands to run between real levels.

When you think about it, Middle-earth: Shadow Of Mordor was a major achievement.

Using the extended lore of the books as source material, it gave us a view of Middle-earth that expanded the world even further. It combined various elements borrowed from other games - most notably, Assassin's Creed - and the revolutionary Nemesis System to create something more than the sum of its parts. And it provided two entire maps to act as playgrounds for Orc-hunting.

Unfortunately, that's about all its maps provided.

For one, it turns out that Mordor isn't the most diverse region - at least not for the fairly limited scope of this game when compared to its sequel. We get the Mordor we know from the films - black, ashy dirt pockmarked by barely-standing ruins.

As a plus, we also get another, greener area of Mordor by the sea, but on the down side, it's basically more of the same, except replace the black with green and add some trees.

Ultimately, there wasn't much to look at in the world, and even less to do except ride your Caragor from one Orc target to the next.