Divinity 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Witcher 3, and those are just the most popular/universally acclaimed. I feel all three of them offer the same sense of adventure and exploration in an open world map, with actually interesting side content, engaging combat system, and voice acting that doesn’t scream “we’re being held in the recording room against our will, please save us”. They are also relatively bug-free, or at least not broken the way Bethesda titles are.
Back in the days, I think Gothic had the same clunky combat system but at least offered a much deeper worldbuilding and more interesting choices.
You can also widen the search by changing the parameters. The thing that sets Oblivion apart is that it attempted to do a lot of things, but everything is either shallow, poorly executed, or outright bugged. If you take a look at other titles that did some of the things Oblivion did, there are countless that executed those ideas a lot better. Fable 2, Dragon Age, Avowed for example, and again, I’m only mentioning the most famous ones.
DeathsEmbrace@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Probably just false sense. Staples in the game industry for a reason. Bethesda fell on there sword with Fallout 76 but these games still don’t have good competition or you wouldn’t have so many Skyrim reruns?
Oka@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Skyrim (2008), Skyrim (2012), Skyrim (2016), Skyrim (2020), Skyrim (2022), and Skyrim (2024)
(My years may be off)