Exploration

Significant emphasis on discovering underwater areas, fauna, wrecks, and collectibles driven by curiosity.

Game encourages discovering new islands, secrets, and upgrading ship for better traversal.

Game features multiple islands, hidden secrets, puzzles, and new areas unlocked progressively; exploration is a key…

Nonlinear castle with two overlapping versions encourages discovery and re-exploration.

Game encourages thorough exploration of environments and discovery of hidden objects and story elements.

Exploration of diverse islands, dungeons, and biomes is a core gameplay element.

Game encourages discovering secrets, collectibles, and multiple areas with varied environments.

Large interconnected map with secrets, backtracking, and discovery; exploration is a core gameplay element.

Large maps with multiple zones encourage discovery and curiosity-driven exploration.

Strong emphasis on discovering new areas, secrets, and lore through exploration and puzzle solving.

Core activity is discovering the Mars base, reading descriptions, and finding hidden astronauts.

The game features a large open city with many hidden areas, secrets, and non-linear paths to discover.

Exploring a small open island and uncovering story through environmental cues and notes.

Large world with many hidden areas, secrets, and quests encourages exploration and discovery.

Exploration of a large stylized map of America and discovery of hundreds of unique stories and characters.

Exploration is player-directed through tile placement, discovering new biomes and resources.

Open world with diverse environments, seasonal changes, and many secrets encourages discovery.

Exploration of interconnected areas with backtracking and secret discovery is a core gameplay element.

Open world design with multiple regions and collectibles motivates curiosity-driven discovery.

Large, diverse courses with multiple branching paths and hidden routes promote exploration.

Open world with many explorable areas, hidden quests, and loot encourages discovery

Metroidvania structure encourages discovering new areas, secrets, and backtracking with new abilities.

Large map with over 200 cities and many factions invites discovery and exploration of historical East Asia.

Game encourages discovering new environments, collecting resources, and exploring alien worlds.