Summary
Bethesda is widely recognized for itsmastery in creating open-world games, offering immersive experiences that emphasize freedom and customization, whether within the games themselves or through mods. These titles allow each player to uniquely shape their journey, whether through main missions or because of the enormous optional content the games have to offer.
When exploring Bethesda’s games with the best replayability, this list’s selection focuses on titles capable of engaging the player for countless hours or instigating the desire to revisit them. These games stand out due to their rich content, varied customization possibilities, and vast worlds that encourage exploration, ensuring a renewed experience with each playthrough.
Prey, published by Bethesda and developed by Arkane Studios in 2017, places players in the role of Morgan Yu in ascience fiction thriller set aboard the spacestation Talos I. The game blends elements of RPG, exploration, and combat against aliens known as the Typhon, while the protagonist uncovers mysteries about secret experiments and their own memories.
TheMooncrashDLC expands thePreyexperience with a roguelite approach, presenting challenges on a lunar base. Although it doesn’t add to the main narrative, this mode offers dynamic missions, variable layouts, and unique objectives, greatly enhancing replayability. This addition allows revisiting the core mechanics of the game from a new perspective, testing players' creativity in unpredictable situations.
Set in a vast universe,Starfieldinvites players to traverse star systems with unique planets and space stations full of mysteries to solve. Like other Bethesda games, this title offers great replayability due to the freedom given to players in exploring maps and customizing characters.
Starfieldalso features an enjoyable system for customizing spaceships, and much of the map exploration is procedural, making each landing on the game’s dozens of different planets a unique experience. Additionally, the game includes varied missions, numerous characters to interact with, multiple play styles through character builds, anda lot of different mods. Additionally, the game offers a novel new game plus mode that brings an array of changes, offering unique variety through multiple playthroughs.
Being one of Bethesda’s most popular franchises,The Elder Scrollshas received several different titles, withMorrowindoffering the best experience for those who enjoy old-school fantasy games. Besides featuring a well-crafted setting with tons of depth, the title was also a landmark in the video game industry.
This is because it is an RPG that offers great replayability while making little effort to guide players during exploration. Missions lack many visual cues about what should be done, requiring players to pay close attention to dialogues.Morrowindalso boasts an incredible narrative that greatly contributes to the entire mythology of Tamriel. It might not play as smoothly as the latter entries in the series, butMorrowindstill definesThe Elder Scrollsfranchise for countless fans.
The radical change that theFalloutfranchise underwent was a bold move by the developers but served to popularize the games even more among players, leaving the isometric style behind tofocus on exploration in 3D environments. Thus,Fallout 3takes Bethesda’s philosophy seriously, offering great replayability and quite a lot of content to be discovered.
In the Capital Wasteland, players have a new story to uncover, full of morally gray characters where most choices never positively impact all those affected. Moreover, the setting ofFallout 3is very well executed, effectively conveying the feeling of exploring a world devastated by nuclear war.
4Fallout 76
An Online Experience In The Fallout Universe
One of the first truly online games produced by Bethesda wasFallout 76, which takes players to explore the post-apocalyptic Appalachian region, offering a multiplayer experience where it’s possible to explore the open world, build settlements, and face various threats together with friends. The gamemaintains part of the franchise’s essence, such as character customization and map exploration, but adapted to be played with other players.
As an online game that offers great replayability,Fallout 76also stands out for the constant addition of new content, seasonal events, and expansions that add new experiences to Bethesda’s title. Interaction with other players is another strong point, combining each player’s freedom with the chaos of surviving in a post-apocalyptic universe. The game might have launched in a rough state, but with years of updates and improvements, the game is in a strong state to enjoy for countless hours.
Oblivion, one of Bethesda’s most popular releases, is widely recognized as one ofthe greatest open-world RPGsof its generation. Set in the region of Cyrodiil, one of the various provinces that form the world of Tamriel, the game offers players an immersive experience with vast landscapes to explore and one of Bethesda’s best narratives to date.
The replayability ofOblivionis one of the main attractions that draws players, and despite the gameplay seeming a bit outdated nowadays, the title is still capable of capturing attention, nearly two decades after its official release. This is due to the detailed attention to characters, the large number of side quests, and great support for mods that allow revisiting theOblivionexperience multiple times.
Fallout 4is a game that stands out for the immense freedom of exploration it offers players. Set in the devastated region of Boston and its surroundings, the game allows players to explore every corner of the map, discovering secrets, facing challenges, andinteracting with a variety of charactersand factions — or even creating their own settlements across the map.
The great replayability ofFallout 4is another strong point, mainly due to the excellent support from the community, which creates mods that enhance or even transform the game’s gameplay in different aspects, always adding new things to discover. Furthermore, the game also features numerous side missions that keep interest in the game alive for long periods.
The release ofSkyrimwas a major milestone for Bethesda, elevating the developer’s philosophies to a new level by offering players a huge open world and great freedom of exploration. All this replayability, in asetting based on Norse mythology, madeSkyrimone of the most popular games among players for many years.
Despite having an interesting main quest about the return of dragons to Tamriel, the true highlight ofThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimis in the staggering variety of content. From hidden-away side missions with incredible storytelling to hunting down dragons across the map, these are just scratching the surface of the amazing things players can do when embarking on a journey through the game.
