#exploration games

Outer Wilds (2019) is an open-world exploration/mystery/xenoarchaeology game set in a hand-crafted, constantly-changing miniature solar system. You play as the newest member of your species's space program, setting off on your first journey into space.

Your character carries the first-ever translator tool that will allow you to read the writings of an ancient alien species that lived in your solar system thousands of years ago. As you explore the ruins they left behind throughout the solar system and talk with your fellow travelers on other planets, you will discover questions and piece together the answers in a compelling and moving story accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack (and hints of cosmic horror — space is big and dangerous and you are small and fragile).

This is not a "puzzle game" in the common use of the term. It's more like a jigsaw puzzle without the box, where you have to find the pieces and see how they fit together before you know what picture you're building up.

The game is available on Steam, Epic, Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, and Xbox.

Some Notes About the Gameplay

This is a non-linear, open-world game without much explicit direction. The tutorial shows you a handful of plot threads, but it's up to you to follow them and see where they lead. Some people find this overwhelming at first, but if you follow your curiosity, you'll almost always find something interesting! And if you get stuck chasing one thread, you can always take a break from it and explore elsewhere. Everything is interconnected, with any one area often having clues for progressing in multiple other areas.

There is no combat and no need for super-fast reflexes. Your biggest nemeses will be inertia and gravity, as both are simulated continuously in real-time — and much more accurately than in most games: gravity is always acting on you (even in space; "zero-g" is really just freefall, after all), there is effectively no maximum speed in space aside from the limit imposed by how long you can accelerate, and you can only slow down by accelerating in the opposing direction (your ship's autopilot is very helpful and does that for you if you use it). There are no upgrades or progress gates after the tutorial; the only limits to your exploration are physics and knowledge.

Because knowledge is simultaneously the only thing you unlock and the only key needed to progress, spoilers directly detract from the experience of discovering things for yourself. Be careful when looking up anything about the game if you think you might play it!

The solar system is constantly changing as time passes, so you often need to figure out not just where to go, but when to be there to find what you're looking for (if you need to wait for something, you can sleep at any campfire to quickly pass time).

Game 39: Terraria Apr2025 Terraria is not my kind of game. It's incredibly massive, has a ton of mods to play with, the notable one I played was Calamity MOD, and supports multiplayer. Ascetically, it's akin to a 2D Minecraft, and doesn't really have much of a story to work with outside of exploration. From my understanding there is a lot of lore and various things you can do in terms of side quests, but they boil down to exploration. In more ways than I like to count, I don't factually like this game on paper, I kinda don't even like the game on a personal level, but I would be wrong to say it's a bad game because it's just not my game.

Randomly generated map designs can be pretty awful, but I would be lying if I didn't think Terraria was one of the better games to utilize that mechanic. On top of each game being particularly unique, sometimes with lame features, you often get a ton of different biomes to explore and different map sizes to play with each individual game. In a lot of ways, Terraria is the game that keeps on giving in terms of exploration, and on an aesthetic level I kinda dig it more than Minecraft. Don't worry, that's just the old lady in me that likes 2D worlds, but at the least I will say the game feels easier to explore and interact with than Minecraft appears to be. In truth, a lot of this comes down to personal preference, but if I were to choose one of the two games, it be Terraria.

Minecraft might be able to beat Terraria in terms of exploration, but it's combat is certainly on a different level. The game is 1littered with a ton of bosses, and equipment to craft and acquire that really emphasizes it's more RPG roots that it has going for it. Acquiring various villagers and shop owners means that you also have quicker access to items you normally wouldn't have either. So while Minecraft is more about expression in my eyes, Terraria is more about combat. There is just too many unique abilities, builds, weapons, and bosses to not shy away from that aspect. It's also one that makes the game more appealing to me in terms of gameplay loops. If you're not trying to decorate your area, you got a whole other task list of upgrades to get, buffs to snatch, and crafts to get crafting.

A game that is Star Trek meets No Man's Sky where you get to explore a procedurally generated universe in search of other intelligent species that wish to join the budding ranks of the equivalent of the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek.

Kid A Mnesia Exhibition

Teaser Trailer