Top 5 Isolating Open World Game Locations

Serving as the starting (but considerably expansive) area of TLoZ: Breath of the Wild, the Great Plateau is an isolated region that’s effectively devoid of anything outside of wildlife, monsters, and an old hermit who’s not exactly what he appears to be. While the location’s just an extended tutorial and “vertical slice” of the larger open world (much like the Great Sky Island in Tears of the Kingdom), the feeling of isolation in the Great Plateau is so profound because players won’t have any significant contact with other characters until finally receiving the paraglider to leave: but for that first chunk of the game, they’re effectively all alone and in the dark about what’s going on.

3. The Lands Between (Elden Ring, 2022)

Despite being much, much bigger – and considerably more populated – than my next two open world entries, the extremely dreary and foreboding Lands Between from 2022’s Elden Ring nonetheless has multiple stretches that are seemingly devoid of any occupants (human or otherwise). Just about everything in the astonishingly massive Lands Between is designed not only to overwhelm and get players lost in the game’s overabundance of things to do (both in and out of the main storyline campaign), but to also purposely lead them to remote, “uncharted” locations: tricking them into venturing into something they’ll most likely be very unprepared and under-leveled to deal with.

2. The United States (Death Stranding, 2019)

And being comparatively smaller and less populated than my previous entry, the decimated and now-unrecognizable version of the U.S. in Hideo Kojima‘s highly bizarre game Death Stranding is just so alien in how barren the open world feels while going on frequent (and sometimes very long) journeys to make postal deliveries to the few scattered pockets of humanity. The cataclysmic event featured in the game’s backstory didn’t just severely reduce the world’s population: it also effectively reverted the Earth back to a lifeless but beautiful void filled to the brim with very stunning natural scenery…not that you’re completely “safe” while exploring the sprawling post-apocalyptic wilderness.

1. Forbidden Lands (Shadow of the Colossus, 2005 / 2018)

Once again, diving into a title I simply can’t stop discussing at length, Shadow of the Colossus (both the 2005 original and 2018 remaster) is a genuinely beautiful and thought-provoking experience that I think everyone interested in the artistic possibilities of video games should at least play through (and complete) once. And even though SotC isn’t nearly as complex or nonlinear as most other, more advanced open world games have become in recent years, the sheer emptiness and unsettling sereness of the vast setting when not engaging with the game’s 16 colossi is simply mesmerizing, and leaves players to contemplate on the game’s palpable sense of isolation…and numerous mysteries.

Parting Thoughts

“A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” – Mandy Hale.

“Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone, and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich.

“All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot!” – Dr. Seuss.

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door…” – Fredric Brown (The World’s Shortest Horror Story).