The open-world genre has become an overwhelmingly popular structure for games of all kinds. From RPGs to TPS and FPS games, even many formerly linear franchises have moved to open-world settings. A good open-world gives players the opportunity to explore and then fulfills that exploration with interesting discoveries. There’s vast potential in open-world games, and we still see innovative games that move the genre forward.
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Some of these games focus on solo action heroes, while others use the open-world setting to tell the stories of multiple characters. A popular setup for an open-world structured game is assembling a team, maybe to perform a specific job, or maybe to unite against a world-ending threat. There are many takes on this formula, and some open-world games have really nailed the feeling of building a powerful team under the player’s command. These are the best open-world games that focus on building a team.
8
Watch Dogs Legion
Start the Process for a People’s Revolution
- Released
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October 29, 2020
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol
Watch Dogs Legion is the third installment in Ubisoft’s open-world hacking-action franchise. Set in London, the game focuses on assembling an underground Dedsec team from members of the local populace. Different citizens have different professions, sorting them into different archetypes that offer different skills in combat or in the open world.
The game features the option to play with permadeath enabled, meaning that any team members who die are lost forever. This adds a layer of tension to the gameplay, as team members with valuable skill sets can be difficult to replace quickly. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t fully fulfill its promise of an ever-changing urban army, with too many characters falling into similar archetypes and lacking real personality. Watch Dogs Legion is still a fun team-building open-world game though.
7
The Godfather 2
Growing The Crime Family
The Godfather II
One thing that The Godfather 2 does well is baking the mafia crime family theme into its gameplay systems. Recruiting and promoting Made Men is a major part of the gameplay, which mostly revolves around taking control of illicit businesses from other syndicates. Players can recruit four low-level goons, and eventually, they can promote their favorites, creating an underboss with two capos underneath them.
Promoted units gain new skills depending on their specializations, and players can take three men with them on missions and when roaming around. Building and developing these additional squad mates is essential as players fight to take control of the various businesses under a rival family’s control, with a final showdown at the rival family’s compound being the goal.
6
State of Decay 2
Become Vital to the Management of Survivors
State of Decay 2 is a unique take on recruiting and managing a group of survivors in an open-world zombie apocalypse scenario. Survivors have various traits that affect both their attributes in the base and their combat effectiveness. Players have to take care of the survivors’ needs, like morale and hunger, and develop their base to keep their survivors safe.
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Players can control any survivor, and they can take an AI-controlled companion with them when scavenging or doing missions. That means knowing a survivor’s strengths and weaknesses can have a meaningful effect on how players approach a challenge. There’s some encouragement to use different survivors too, as accomplishing tasks can improve survivor’s skills and their standing in the community. The team is an important part of State of Decay 2‘s gameplay loop.
5
Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War
Build a Warband of Orcs to Rival Sauron’s Army
- Released
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October 10, 2017
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- OpenCritic Rating
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Strong
Middle Earth: Shadow of War builds on Shadow of Mordor‘s Nemesis system, allowing the player to recruit an army of orcs of their own, with distinct personalities and abilities. The combinations that can be thrown up by the procedural character generation system are varied and often amusing, leading to some memorable rivals and companions.
Building an army of orcs under Talion’s control is also essential to undermine Sauron’s armies from within, and topple the various enemy strongholds around the game’s map. With the game’s original microtransaction system removed, and the process of building an orc army rebalanced, Shadow of War is a satisfying army-building open-world game, and the Nemesis system can keep it fresh for multiple playthroughs.
4
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Hired Assassins
- Released
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November 16, 2010
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was the first game in the franchise to put building a cadre of assassins in the player’s hands. As a follow-up to Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood tasked Ezio with recruiting a whole new guild of assassins to help with taking down the powerful Templars. Players do this by first liberating Borgia Towers, then recruiting from the local populace, usually by saving citizens from being harassed by guards.
Recruited assassins are used for both assistance in gameplay and for completing side-tasks via the Brotherhood system to gain experience and minor rewards for the player. While the characters all basically performed the same functions and lacked personality, the implementation of the Brotherhood system was unique for its time. It influenced many other team-based open-world games going forward.
3
Kenshi
Become a Wasteland Warlord and Battle Other Wasteland Warlords
The open-world sandbox of Kenshi puts progress and goal-setting in the hands of the player. A big part of a player’s overall strength is determined by the allies they can gather and the community they can build from them. Depending on their allegiances, players can have teammates as diverse as robots, fishermen, and samurai assassins.
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Kenshi works on a practice-to-improve basis for gaining experience and abilities, so players are in charge of how their recruits train and develop. For example, if players want to be stealthy, they have to practice sneaking around, picking locks, and so on. That means that players can build a team with unique specialties to help survive in the harsh open-world, and eventually build a wasteland outpost of their own to rule.
2
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Create a True Pawn Patrol to Battle Adversaries
- Released
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March 22, 2024
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Language, Sexual Themes, Violence
The pawns of Dragon’s Dogma 2 may be disposable characters, but building a team to fit around the player’s own job choices, and being able to change this as the player wants to try new roles, can be one of the most fun parts of the RPG’s gameplay loop. Despite the ever-changing rotation of pawns the player can end up using, they are injected with personality by their barks and voice lines.
The second game in the Dragon’s Dogma series also adds a complication to the pawn system with the addition of the Dragonsplague, an ailment that can only afflict pawns and comes with some devastating consequences. Since the ailment affects a pawn’s attitude and behavior, it means that players have to be extra mindful of the quirks of their team. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is also a very solid action RPG with a reactive and creative open world.
1
Baldur’s Gate 3
Get Tactical with a Quirky Team of Different Tactics
- Released
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August 3, 2023
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence
The overarching plot may contain world-ending levels of threat, but Baldur’s Gate 3 is really all about the player’s companions and the party they assemble. Players only need to look at any wider discussion of the game to see how much these party members have resonated with fans, and that’s a testament to the well-written characters and their reactivity to the player’s choices.
The average player may not love every member of the ensemble cast, but it’s hard to go through the game without picking some favorites. Choosing to dig into each of these characters’ stories can reveal more aspects of their personalities too, and will certainly cause some players to gain a new perspective on their companions as they progress through the game. The game complements the well-written story and characters with a well-designed turn-based battle system that translates D&D into video game format effortlessly, making it one of the best open-world team-based games.
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