One of the elements about large-scale open-world RPGs that might be holding you back is the endless number of side quests that can overwhelm you. Sorry to disappoint, but oftentimes, they’re simply unavoidable, whether to progress the story or to get the full enjoyment out of the game.
If you’re not a fan of side quests in RPGs, then turn away now, because it will be a detriment to your experience if you avoid taking side quests in the games mentioned below. These will take up a lot of your time, probably more than a hundred hours of it if you’re a full completionist, but it will be worth it.
Fallout 76 had a rocky start compared to its predecessors, but it’s since gotten to a much better state and launched numerous expansions that keep the deadly wasteland narrative going. When you first step into Fallout 76, it’s actually hard to discern what the main quest really is, and you’re soon undertaking one side quest after the next, thinking this is the path to completing the main story.
Fallout 76 is the most side quest-centered Fallout game, where you might not even know how to proceed without doing them. It even offers what are known as Event Quests, where players can complete these together, though only for a limited amount of time before they disappear.
7The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Probably a no-brainer with The Witcher 3, because why even bother playing this game without engaging with all the NPCs and taking up most of the side quests? The writers and quest designers at CD Projekt Redcrafted some excellent questlines for Geraltin The Wild Hunt, and all the optional ones are better than the previous games, with a lot more thought and emphasis put into them.
One of the best examples isthe Sorceress character Keira Metz, whose fate in the story depends on whether you decide to do her side quests and the choices you make in them. Some side quests are also tied to the romance system and are just plain interesting and fun, so you’ll ruin the experience by missing out on them, like the ‘Ghosts of the Past’ sidequest, which sees a reunion between Geralt and Letho from The Witcher 2.
This goes for all the modernAssassin’s Creed RPGs with large map sizes, but it was incredibly awful in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. If you don’t complete any of the side content or optional quests to gain experience, good luck proceeding further in the story. You might as well throw yourself in the River Styx right away and condemn your protagonist.
The unfortunate part about Odyssey is that, although the environments of Ancient Greece are gorgeous and breathtaking, they are super grindy, and you will sometimes need to reach up to four levels before you can take on the next set of main quests. On the bright side, AC Odyssey is a well-written game (in my opinion, the last best Assassin’s Creed), with fun side quests like ‘Family Values.’
Similar to what CD Projekt Red did with side quests in The Witcher 3, where they can affect other characters' storylines and endings, theside quests in Cyberpunk 2077 will affect the kind of ending you receive. Therefore, if you want all the possible ending paths to unlock in Cyberpunk 2077, you’d better saddle up as V and get to side-questing around Night City.
The character designs in this futuristic world are honestly so unique and awesome that you’ll want to know what everyone is about here and what their side quests have to offer. And if you do take on only the main storyline, it’s not as compelling a story and quite bland. Thus, you’ll also be expanding the narrative and making things more interesting through other NPCs and side quests, while acquiring some better loot.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered has the same number of overall quests as the original game, though it gloriously updates the graphics and visuals to make a more stunning experience. Like all Bethesda games, especially the Elder Scrolls series, the side quests are just too many and too fun to miss.
There areway more side quests in Oblivion Remasteredthan the normal main quests, so that alone tells you what you need to be doing more of. Otherwise, the world and narrative would go largely unexplored, leaving the experience empty and unfulfilled.
Side quests are Dragon’s Dogma 2’s middle name. With such a sprawling world strictly built on environmental storytelling that it wants you to literally explore every inch of the map to unlock new areas and discouragethe need for fast travel(to the point where it’s tied to microtransactions), then it should probably spell to you that side quests are crucial to the experience.
In a similar fashion to Baldur’s Gate 3, the story and your engagement with Dragon’s Dogma 2 will be largely shapedby completing side quests, as it’s more than just going around and slaying monsters. You might even find the main storyline to be dry without exploring the optional content to build on the lore. Even more interesting within the systems of Dragon’s Dogma 2 are failing side quests by taking too long on them and having NPCs die.
Without side quests, you’re able to’t really say that you’ve fully experienced Skyrim. There’s a reason why you can put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into this game, as this world and its characters view it as one of the most iconicand important fantasy games to have ever been created.
It’s not like you won’t be able to complete the game without the side quests, unlike most of the others here, but they are very valuable to the world-building and lore. Since it’s been over a decade, you should know by now what you’re getting into with Skyrim, as a no-side quest request is impossible to fulfill with what Bethesda has designed. So, go on, Dragonborn, quest on and prosper.
If there’s one RPG that absolutely doesn’t allow you to ignore side quests, it’s Baldur’s Gate 3. Like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, certain main mission areas are level-locked, soyou need to do all the side quests in each Actto gain experience, or those boss fights will get pretty punishing. And BG3 is an even more complex and sprawling RPG than any mentioned here, so the quest writing is the most quintessential to the experience.
At a certain point, your quest menu will start to look like a tangled web of questlines, where you might even get confused about which ones are the main and optional quests. These are all incredibly memorable, though, especially helping free Mayrina from Auntie Ethle and that whole side quest, as well as the Githyanki egg. They are truly like main storylines within themselves.
