10 Unique Open-World Games With Awesome Mechanics

In a lot of ways, Ghost of Tsushima is far from unique. The UI is straight out of Assassin's Creed, you have the regular stealth, crafting and combat systems, and there are a bunch of repeated activities to complete. And, yet, it was immediately celebrated by fans when it dropped in 2020.

Part of that is the aesthetic. The Feudal Japan setting made for one of the most visually striking open worlds in recent memory, while its blistering sword-play made for brutal yet precise combat that only got better the more you played and more moves you unlocked.

Its most unique element apart from its setting, however, was the lack of a conventional waypoint system. Understanding that a lot of the environmental work that goes into open world design is wasted on games that encourage players to look at a compass marker rather than the lovingly crafted world around them, Ghost of Tsushima did things differently.

It introduced a wind mechanic where a swipe of a button would see a gust of wind on screen guide you to the nearest activity. This would edge you towards points of interest without totally breaking the immersion, making sure you were never stuck without anything to do but not going so far to transform the game into a straight slog from one map marker to the next.