Fast Travel is one of the best QOL improvements we’ve seen over the past 20 years, and it’s almost a must when it comes to open world games. However, there are some games where it would be even better if we didn’t have it at all.
Now, this only becomes the case when an open world is just so compelling that you simply miss out on so much by having the option to fast travel.
This is due to amazing design, a great sense of place, and most importantly, interesting encounters that can happen throughout the game world. More games need to believe in their game worlds not to have fast travel, because you can often miss what makes a game special if you’re just jumping around from point to point.
We’re going to check out a bunch of games where fast travel should’ve been left on the cutting room floor.
10 Oblivion: Remastered
Let The World Breathe
Oblivion: Remastered shocked the world when its shadow dropped this year, and it reintroduced the gaming universe to one of the best open world RPGs ever made.
The problem is that to make it seem less overwhelming, fast travel is available to all the major cities from the first minute of the game.
This is convenient for sure, but it also robs you of the exploration aspect, as there is no reason to initially be exploring this vast, gorgeous world. Of course, it’s optional, but that doesn’t make it any less enticing to use it.
It’s unfortunate because exploring the world of Cyrodiil is an incredible experience, with tons of optional dungeons to find, people to encounter and quests to embark on. It’s a world from when Bethesda still had their magic, and it’s one of the most engrossing open worlds ever made.
9 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Immersed in the Dark Fantasy
The Witcher 3 has possibly the most iconic open world that there is. Fast travel here requires you getting to a sign post before you can do it, which at least helps make you explore a bit more, but really, it should be gone all together.
The reason is that this world is absolutely packed with things to discover. From bandit camps, to castle ruins, to monster lairs, to entirely optional villages to explore, it’s crazy the amount of variety there is and how fun it can be just be in the world.
There are so many investigations to take part in and, honestly, just wandering around hearing that music swell is more than enough to justify the journey from place to place throughout the game.
No wonder most games have since tried to mimic The Witcher 3’s take on an open world game. And without fast travel, I think we might appreciate it even more than we already do.
8 Red Dead Redemption 2
Embrace the Old Days
The whole point of Red Dead Redemption 2 is to immerse yourself in the old west. From the graphics, to the music, to the environments, the game just wants you to live in the world.
While you don’t have fast travel initially, it does become an option fairly early in the game, and it’s honestly not needed. Yes, the horseback rides and carriage rides can be long, but that’s all part of this. You’re either all in with the immersion or not. I think by adding fast travel you ruin it.
You add videogame-y things into a game that clearly doesn’t need the help. The world in Red Dead Redemption 2 is just an endless joy to explore. You’ll find emergent events, random side quests and activities to take part in and, hell, the hunting is almost an entire game unto itself.
The bottom line is that while it’s a convenience, it takes away the need to explore this incredible open world, which, even to this day, is one of the most amazing things to witness in a game.
7 Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Ancient Bohemia Is Real
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has one of the most stunning open worlds I’ve ever seen. From the lush forests, to the burnt-down villages, incredible vistas and an impressive number of emergent events and quests that can pop up, there are few medieval paradises like this in the gaming world.
There is, however, fast travel, which can actually be interrupted by various bandit ambushes and things of that nature, but you’re honestly not missing much by skipping those.
What you are missing a ton of though, is jaw-dropping scenery, realistic wildlife, fantastic horseback riding mechanics, getting to forage for plants and other materials for potions, discovering the joy of finding a lone bed in a shack as Henry’s eyes start to shutter from exhaustion.
It’s just such a full experience to not use fast travel in the game that the option of it could rob so many players of not getting the experience of Henry himself, which the game relies fully on to get the most possible enjoyment out of it.
6 Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
No Need For Subways
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has possibly the best recreation of New York City ever seen in a videogame. It’s simply enormous, but luckily, between Peter and Miles, you don’t have to worry about getting around thanks to wing suits and web slinging. And yet, still, there is a fast travel option in this game.
Why? You are Spider-Man. Despite the hilarious cutscene Insomniac has where Spider-Man is riding the subway, it’s just a disservice to the character. Peter and Miles take the subway, and Spider-Man takes to the skies. Or rooftops, but I digress. The fast travel option here takes away what it means to be Spider-Man.
The swinging in this game is outrageously fun, and there is a ton of cool stuff that is fun to explore that is completely optional and very easy to miss if you’re just fast traveling from different areas rather than engaging with a great swinging system.
Fast Travel also just plain doesn’t make sense here, as you can get pretty much anywhere on the game’s map in less than 2 minutes.
5 Fallout 4
The Wasteland Beckons
Fallout 4 is an amazing game world to explore. Those first moments walking out of the vault is a watershed moment for many gamers out there who hadn’t played the previous titles and just seeing how vast and terrifying the world felt like something truly special.
However, once you find locations, you can fast travel to them at any point. Soon, your map becomes cluttered with places to fast travel to and suddenly, the feeling of wonder and exploration that filled you when the game began, is now gone.
It’s really a shame, because if you do fast travel all the time, you’re going to be missing out on so many optional areas like stores, bandit camps, optional vaults, side quests, characters to recruit, and it goes on and on. Even if the distance seems empty from point A to point B, Fallout 4 is sure to have something in the middle of it to catch your attention.
Exploring the post-apocalyptic world is just not the same without that feeling of finding a new place, so if you’re zapping around the map, the game starts to feel far less interesting after a while.
4 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
A New Open World Standard
Breath of the Wild set a new standard for what an open world game could be and part of that is from allowing the player to truly go anywhere they see.
There are countless secrets to uncover about the world you’re in, but if you’re using the fast travel system to travel from shrine to shrine, you’re sadly only going to get part of what made this game so special.
Finding mountains to climb, new enemies to fight, new weapons, armor, and items are all a part of what you get from the exploration here, and with the fast travel system, you not only handicap yourself in terms of how prepared you’ll be for the tougher fights in the game, but you’re also missing out on the epic beauty this game presents the player.
It’s a simply gorgeous world that’s begging to have every inch of the map explored and there are few feelings in gaming like managing to climb a particularly tough mountain and seeing what reward might await you at the top of it.
You can spend hundreds of hours exploring this world and find something new every time and I don’t think fast travel helps it any way.
3 Horizon: Zero Dawn
Live the Era
Horizon: Zero Dawn is one of the most stunning looking games in existence. The game’s world in particular is absolutely incredible looking and exploring it is pure joy.
Part of that is due to the encounters you might have while exploring. There are tons of unique creatures to face off against and so many of them can be missed if you engage in the fast travel system.
More so than that, you can actually miss out on the incredible backstory of the game if you don’t do some exploring on your own. Without that lore, the game itself is a bit dull as it’s needed to give you context on why the world is how it is.
Plus, you’ll be missing out on the countless incredible sights the game has to offer. You can get places pretty fast once you unlock mounts in the game too, so nothing ever feels like it’s too far away and there is almost always something to catch your eye on your way to the next objective.
2 Cyberpunk 2077
Turn The Corner, Never Know What You’ll Find
-
- Released
- December 10, 2020
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Engine
- REDengine 4
- Cross-Platform Play
- ps, xbox, pc
- Cross Save
- yes
- Franchise
- Cyberpunk
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- yes
- PC Release Date
- December 10, 2020
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- February 15, 2022
- PS5 Release Date
- February 15, 2022
- Nintendo Switch 2 Release Date
- June 5, 2025
- How Long To Beat
- 25 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- Metascore
- 75
- PS Plus Availability
- Extra & Premium
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Night City is a veritable beast of an open world map to explore in Cyberpunk 2077. Though it doesn’t appear that massive on screen, there is just so much depth here that you can’t possibly understand the breadth of it based on the map alone.
There are an astounding number of side quests to discover in Night City, but, it’s completely on you to find them. If you’re zipping around from checkpoint to checkpoint, you are going to miss literally half of the game, and that’s not an exaggeration, because much of the game’s run time comes from the side content, as the main story is only about 30 hours long.
Exploring on your own though? It’s that special kind of open world where you never know what you’re going to see or find. Quests can pop up out of nowhere, you might get a call for a specific job based on the location you’re in, or find some mysterious person that you can talk with to reveal more about the world.
It’s so alive and packed with things to do and even driving along the busy roads can often show you something you haven’t seen before, as maybe a nearby police investigation could lead to a whole new questline. It’s a game that never needed fast travel and should’ve believed in its open world enough to have gone without it, because it didn’t need any help.
1 Death Stranding 2
It’s About the Journey
Death Stranding 2 gives you a few ways to fast travel in the game, and while I think it does have its uses, it does take away from one clear fact. Death Stranding 2 is not a game about the moment-to-moment gameplay, but the journey. If you fast traveled to every quest objective in the game, I think the reception would’ve been pretty poor.
Despite the desolate, open world, you get that adventurous feeling when you’re trudging up the side of a snowy mountain and can barely see your objective on the horizon. It’s the long trek back to the Magellan ship after a brutal fight. All of that is lost when you just go to a menu and click travel.
It’s a testament to what atmosphere can do for a game and when it comes to Death Stranding 2. Atmosphere is everything. If you take that away, you’re left with, at best, okay combat, and some pretty graphics. You need the journey here and fast travel removes that from the equation far too often.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
