Elden Ring was released to widespread critical acclaim and adoration over a month ago. It proved how open worlds that emphasize discovery and exploration engage and immerse players more than a world that just feels like a hub for a checklist of missions and collectibles. Unfortunately, Elden Ring isn’t a game for everyone, myself included, due to its crushing difficulty and some other questionable design choices.
Thankfully, Elden Ring isn’t the only game to contain an open world that enables that much player freedom. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the easiest comparison to make, but an underrated indie game from 2021 also gives Elden Ring’s open world a run for its money. The best part: It’s more relaxing than Elden Ring because it doesn’t contain an ounce of combat.
That game in question is Sable from Shedworks and Raw Fury. Released for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S in September 2021, Sable uses an open world with immense freedom to tell a coming-of-age story that’s as long or short as the player wants it to be. Whether you’re a fan of Elden Ring looking for a similar game to sink your teeth into or someone who likes the freedom of Elden Ring’s open world but can’t get past its eccentricities, Sable should be the next game you play.
In Sable, you play as the titular character, a young girl from the Ibex tribe on the giant desert planet of Midden who must go on a journey across the planet to collect masks. When Sable is ready, she can return to the village and choose a mask to determine what she’ll do for the rest of her life. After a somewhat confined beginning where the player learns to float in the air and also creates a hoverbike called a Glider, they then set off into Midden’s vast deserts, free
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