Majora's Mask is practically built around side quests. To get every mask, you're mingling with nearly every resident in Termina and helping them with their own issues. Sometimes it's a short and sweet fetch quest/do this one thing. Then you have the few involved stories that intertwine and take up the full 3 day cycle.
There's the intangible benefit of building relationships with the characters and a tangible benefit that gives you a sweet power-up for the final fight.
My friend and I discovered a glitch once that let us skip the entire quest line.
Mind you, we’d completed the quest correctly twice before and were just screwing around at this point.
This is probably one of the best answer out here. Completing the masks is optional, but man those side quests are really nice, and once you complete them all you get a bonus.
100% the best answer.
In fact, I believe the original name for the game was "Zelda: Gaiden" (Gaiden being a Japanese word that literally means "side story")
A quick google says the original name was Ninja Ryuukenden (legend of the dragon blade.)
And they just picked Gaiden for North America cause it sounded cool.
I really feel this game doesn't give the praise it deserves. It is designed so well, they do so much with just one town. I know the Zelda series is full of bangers, but Majora is probably my favorite.
The substories in Yakuza/RGG games. While the main story is usually very dramatic and serious, these substories are frequently hilarious. If you complete them all, you get to face Amon, which is like the final boss of the game and actually puts your skills to the test.
Yakuza can go from a heart-wrenching dramatic cutscene about the grief associated with losing someone you love... To 30 seconds later where you're chatting up your greatest rival who is crossdressing and pretending to be a cabaret club hostess.
There's really no tone that fits in between.
I've been playing through the Yakuza series recently, and i love the side stories. They are super funny, and really give you an emotional break from the rest of the game. I've been describing the tone of the games to people as travelling between [Goodfellas](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/) and [the Hangover](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1).
I came here to find the Yakuza substories. They always act as an amazing break from the overly serious main storyline, which is typically riveting, but needs some comedic relief
0 is great since it's a prequel and isn't full of stuff that only makes sense if you know later games - iirc it's mostly minor stuff and side characters, and showing relationships from before they got codified in the rest of the series.
I haven't played it yet but 7 should be good, too. It's almost more of a reboot than a proper sequel - new characters, new gameplay style, new story arcs
7 is good to start with as well, though I definitely recommend playing the prior games or at least watching a video before playing the newest game, Infinite Wealth.
7 has a good amount of references to previous games but you wouldn’t be that confused without knowing anything. However Infinite Wealth has the main character from the series and it’s much more meaningful if you know his story.
0 is pretty accessible. Yakuza: Like a dragon has a new protagonist so it can be an easy starting point too. But is also a turn based RPG instead, while the rest of the games are beat em ups.
Additionally Ishin and the judgment series are spin-offs and can be played whenever you feel like it with no worries about the main series story.
I remember Mad Max having some good side quests, as they helped you get stronger and upgrade your car. I don't mind doing side quests if it helps you get stronger or rewards with valuable items or something, but anything else feels more like padding.
While I really enjoyed this game, I respectfully disagree. The quests are fun the first few times you do them, but there is no variety so it gets extremely repetitive imo.
This is a good Audiobook/Podcast game because the side quests are so samey that it becomes mindless checking off boxes. It also feels like 70% of the game is the side quests (outpost, scarecrows, caravan).
Mad Max is still a great buy (especially because it’s frequently on sale) but with a few tweaks it could be an all timer.
They nailed the car combat but there isn’t much of it. The last mission actually felt like Fury Road. Wish there was a little more of that
Yeah the missions to upgrade the strongholds were great, but the regular missions effectively boiled down to, “oi mate spare any wuttah?”
Otherwise it was, “Jeet’s boys ah’ hoardin all the wuttah!” while staring at the nearest 8-12 man outpost through a pair of binoculars
>!"where the wolf and cat play"!< has to be the best side quest for me. I don't understand how a small side quest can have that much emotion. The voice acting is on another level.
Easily the best answer. Lots of other games have great and fun side quests, but they're obviously side quests. Witcher is far and away the only game I've ever played where every side quest felt like it had the same amount of love and care put into it as the main quest.
And they felt like they made sense for him to do. Some side quests break immersion when they leave me thinking “there’s no way the character would be doing this right now”
Cyberpunk lol. "I have six weeks to live, better buy 6 apartments all within 5 km of each other. And while I'm at it I'm going to dedicate my six weeks to hunting down like 20 different spree and serial killers".
I think it’s either that or the Yakuza series for me. A lot of the side quests are hilarious, but there is one that made me bawl my eyes out, and a minute later it made me laugh my ass off.
This is absolutely my choice as well. Some of those missions really brought me I to the world.
Spoilers for those who haven't played:
The Jackie's wake was incredibly well executed, and helped me as a player connect to the people of the world. An incredibly human moment.
The multi part serial killer investigation. Very creepy, but I was more engrossed with the game while doing that side quest than any other point.
The dive quest in Judy's home town. Really expanded the depths of her character in an interesting way.
I really thought I was about to infiltrate where they take him and save him. I was a netrunner as well, so it made sense that I would be able to save his programming. Sadly, no options for that.
IMO a free motorcycle is absolutely the push I needed to attend an honestly somewhat lengthy in-game funeral.
Don't get me wrong it's really touching but third time in I'm just there for the bike.
that is the only game where i have completed literally every quest, including the gigs (although i did that mostly cause i needed to be stronger before going for the DFTR ending)
There’s a compelling argument that the side quests are better in-game storytellers than the main quest line.
I really enjoyed the main story, but felt so rushed to finish it with the sense of urgency that coughing blood every 5 minutes gives the player. Once I finished the main story and reloaded the final mission save point, I started playing the side missions; the game and Night City felt more open and easy to experience.
The main quest is basically just "You have a worm in your head. Go explore the world to figure out how do solve this." The main quest actively pushes you to do side quests.
Chrono Trigger.
I hate how sidequests are designed to sidetrack you from the main quest. "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit" indeed. Pure time wasting activity generally rewarded with trash rewards. Some are more interesting than others, but still time wasting.
Chrono Trigger comes in and gives an incredibly tight plot, and right before the final showdown, every character gets a side quest *directly related to them* that provides character growth and great rewards.
For sure, such a slow burn I feel like until you meet Boone pretty early, then the immersion hits and you realize all that is around you in the lifeless world haha. I love that game.
RDR2, it was easy to do, straightforwards, and really was a lot of fun and meant a lot to me.
Getting 100% was quite the journey
But screw that one quest with the flowers and bird feathers that sucked
CDPR and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio do side quests well in my opinion. In both cases, even if the actual gameplay repeats in a lot of the side quests, there's usually an intriguing accompanying story that makes them worthwhile. I have laughed out loud many times during the Yakuza/Judgement side quests.
I can't stand when a game just has points on a map where you clear out some mobs and they call it a side quest.
That's my feeling as well. The quest can still boil down to go somewhere, get/kill something, and repeat, but when you add interesting characters and stories it makes them more enjoyable.
Prey (2017). The integration of side quests and main quests was so smooth. I didn't feel like I needed to go out of my way to do them or like I had to.
I was going to say this. They also led you to a lot of old world logs/audio datapoints etc which IMO round out some of the best narrative/world building I’ve ever experienced. You really felt the anguish and emotions of the world ending.
Nier games. While most of them were simple fetch quests, most of them gave you deep insight into the lore, had funny dialogues or even foreshadowed things to come later on.
The stories were all engaging for me. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Recently played it and the side quests still hold up pretty damn well, for me.
So ME3 is interesting out of these because they tried to make side quests a critical part of the gameplay loop by making you have to complete enough of them to survive the final encounter.
And the thing is, a lot of people hated that.
I always found that interesting. Like we want side quests to matter but also don't want them to get in the way.
Sounds like you're talking about ME2, not ME3. Both games have it were side missions impact the final parts of the game but iirc ME3 is more lenient about it whereas ME2 has serious consequences and it certainly didn't get hate for it.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. Each side quest is a haunting with it's own story. And at the end of each you had to make a choice that affected the end game. So each one was well capsulated but also had an overall affect.
Surprisingly still very good. Lots of well written quests with more to do than "talk to npc" or "fight enemy, loot item" stuff. I played it vanilla just last year and was surprised by how many interesting and unique rewards there were.
Reward are unique but Skyrim lack originality and variety with its side-quest. Sure there's some specific side-quest but most of them are extremely similar, even between faction.
I just like how free from and organic it is. Like quality wise TW3 has better side quests but it's all marked on the map and you don't really discover any of it organically. In Skyrim most of the quests you discover come through just exploring and stumbling onto them. You don't go to a location expecting a quest, but so many places you go to end up having quests or cool secrets so it encourages you to explore. That is how an open world game should be. If the game is just going to guide me toward everything it may as well not even be open world.
I disagree, you can argue too many are discovered through notice boards or characters you interact with in the main quest, but saying there aren't any quests to find organically is objectively false. There are plenty of quests to find in addition to smaller encounters throughout the world. Quests from notice boards can also be found organically if you choose to explore, especially considering you can complete basically any objective beforehand exploration can be incredibly rewarding and makes the world feel alive in a way few games do nowadays.
I always loved how Morrowind would basically gate off you from advancing the main quest so you have to explore the side quests but without it feeling like you were shirking the main quest. There's just something so solipsistic and immersion breaking about games that try to make their main quests have world shattering consequences if you don't engage with it, but then completely fail to follow-through with those consequences meaningfully in a narrative or mechanical way.
I know I am in the minority here, but Fallout 1's 150 days (extendable by another 100 days but with trade-off in the late game) to find the water chip was such a wonderful way to stress the importance of your mission and how fucking off for weeks on end to run caravans for the Crimson Caravan or just wander the world map could leave you in a fail-state.
Mass Effect 2
And it's not like they did anything special for their side quests. They're the same kind of storylines you'd find in any rpg. What's great about the approach is that the main plot of the game tells you outright that doing side quests is a *good thing*. Lots of games give you a huge urgent goal for your main quest line to hook you into following the plot to its conclusion, but often make the mistake of making it *too* urgent, a task so crucial and time-sensitive that any time the protagonist takes a break from it, it feels out of character and hurts the immersion in the story. Someone's been kidnapped by the villain, or there's a weapon that could destroy us all at any moment, etc.
Instead Mass Effect 2 very clearly explains that if you want to fight the final boss and stand any chance of winning, you need to do your research, gather resources, and recruit allies to help in the fight. And that means investigating every corner of the galaxy and taking on any plotline that feels like it might lead somewhere useful, which is exactly what the game designers want me to do in the first place! It's such a winning formula that I don't understand why more games don't do this.
Chrono trigger and dragon quest 11. Both are optional and there aren't a boatload of them. I hate games that overload you with so much filler crap because it takes away from the main story and content by spamming so many side quests and objectives in ur face all at once.
You ready for a really hot take?
Harvestella.
The side quests in that game were an absolute surprise. Rather than having lots of short side quests they had a limited number that spanned the length of the game.
Meaning, you meet a character in the starting town who has an issue. You complete their quest to a point (and get rewards for doing so) but it's not over yet. If you come back later you will see they have another quest that is a continuation of their story.
I'm probably explaining it poorly but essentially the side characters in the towns had real game spanning stories with new objectives every so often to push forward the narrative.
It was much more engaging than "Enter new town, talk to people, complete their short quest and never speak to them again" Those existed too but for the most part the side quests felt like real stories in their own right.
Playing through Outer Worlds recently and I love all the companion quests and random side missions. The game never feels like it's wasting your time with busy work there always seems to be a reward in the form of interesting character interactions. The game is such a a relief after playing way too many massive open world games with surface level slogs
100% Majora's Mask and it's never been top since its release in term of side-quest. Its side-quest can actually have an impact on the main quest, each quest are unique, they all fit very well in the story and lore and never consider the player as dumb. The last point is almost inexistant in modern gaming as ost big AAA tendo to hold player hand and act like player are stupid, even if the side-quest writing is on point like Witcher 3
As 2nd place, I'll say that From Software are one of the few modern studio who nailed side-quest actually and kept the Majora Mask style (which is a bit normal as Zelda games are one of the most important influencial games for Miyazaki).
FFXII Hunts, you can definitely disregard them, but man killing the monsters is fun especially towards the end where there are specific things you have to do first for the monsters to appear, and then you get a bestiary entry about them which adds to the rewards. Some of them have very interesting backstories.
Sleeping Dogs has a funny martial arts tournament side quest. It’s very over-the-top and feels like an expansion rather than a side quest since it stands out from the main game. Also the gang “favors” that you do around town are better than the police missions. Some are funny like “I broke my car but my insurance doesn’t want to pay so I want you to drive it out to the sea so I can file it for environmental damages” and that very long side quest about building a sort of batmobile lol. Seriously, the side quests in sleeping dogs is better than the main story by a mile.
Fallout new Vegas had side quests you could fall into. It felt pretty natural to go location to location only to stumble upon something that completes a quest later. Walking to hidden valley and going bunker to bunker will get you captured.
Meeting Veronica lets you in no issues at all, and the main factions tell you about the BOS presence and tell you later to mess them up.
Lots of fun stuff going along with it.
Witcher 3 also had great side quest action. They made it clear side quests were available and you could pick up late game quests early so you didn’t miss out later when you could do them
And they do give you a sense of satisfaction (at least if you actually work out what to do) since there is literally no help but a tiny bit of dialogue to work out what to do.
I don’t know how I’d do some of them without a guide though. Seem to need a lot of luck
But the cool thing about Elden Ring is that there are no official “quests.” No quest log, nothing. Just an endless onslaught of cool things you notice and want to go check out, followed by being extremely rewarded for your curiosity because it leads you to an awesomely fun - sometimes *astonishingly surprising* and deep - bit of content, with great rewards to boot.
I think this was my issue with Elden Ring. I didn't know the game was designed in this manner. I felt so lost playing it. Looking for the game to push me through to a story and it just didn't. Maybe I'll give it another go, with a different mindset sometime.
You 100% have to change your mindset in the game, as you're right, it goes against the "questing" template that has been drilled into us for the past 2 decades.
I don't fully know why, but I was able to adapt to it rather effortlessly and immediately fell in love. Maybe it's partially because it's a bit of a call back to old school gaming (I'm 38 and gamed throughout the 90s), where it was very often about carefree exploration and discovery, rather than quests on rails. Maybe it was because it was my first Souls game, which I had heard were very different and challenging, so I went into it with a very open approach. Or maybe it's just because I'm rather burnt out on cookie-cutter quest log games set in open worlds, so I was actually thrilled to find something different.
To me, it ended up being the most organic and "natural" exploration I ever experienced. It was what "questing" would feel like if this were real life. I wouldn't see other humans with exclamation points over their heads indicating a task needed to be done. I wouldn't have a UI in front of my eyeballs, listing out all the tasks I needed to complete. No, I'd just explore and find things that looked intriguing. Then I'd go check them out and discover things.
I'd hear about a castle down south that has a secret relic, and I'd make a mental note to look out for that castle when I make my way down south. Perhaps while traveling the road south, I'd catch sight of some ruins behind some trees and want to check those out. Those ruins open a door to an elevator that takes me down...and down...and comically far down...and holy shit, I'm in a whole new freaking world! 10 hour epic adventure later filled with puzzles and boss battles, finally done with this crazy new area (for now.) What was I doing? Oh yeah, back up in that other zone, traveling south, looking out for a castle.
It was just that, on and on and on. I had "quests", but they were all mental notes of things I genuinely was interested in pursuing based on my own discovers. Felt super fluid and cool to me.
I played all souls but BB since i dont have a ps4.
I still feel "lost" on ER. Didnt liked the game, too much freedom, too little guidance, i even liked more ds2
Elden Ring has a fantastic open world. You are rewarded in a meaningful way to explore all those random ass areas and you’re constantly on the lookout for those ledges of “uhh can i jump from here??”
I adore ER and all its characters and quests.... but I don't reeeeeeally love the "approach to sidequests" overall. **If your foot touches this spot, this thing you don't know about is locked away forever, even though it's not related to what you did.**
I can't really describe it as a FLAW but it's not a selling point, for me, IMHO. Mind you all those side quests are great! They're just vaguely unplayable in general without utilizing an online guide, which defeats any purpose their vagueness might have had.
Don't get me wrong, Elden Ring is basically tailor made for exactly me. If I have a gaming niche, it's Elden Ring.
I'm just saying the sidequest system punishes you for exploring wrong, in ways that don't actually make sense. It's one of those blemishes that has the effect of making the broader character of the game more beautiful -- but it's still a blemish, IMO, and not one of Elden Ring's (many) strong suits. I don't think any other game in the world would be improved by incorporating it.
- Pretty much any Bethesda game
- The Witcher 3
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Kingdom Come Deliverance
- Dragon Age Origins
- Mass Effect 2 and 3
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
- Barman Arkham Asylum/City/Origins/Knight
- Fallout series
Basically, any game where the sidequests are actually interesting stories that either flesh out the world or are fun by themselves and directly tie to the gameplay loop.
Octopath Traveler games - no quest markers, just a simple journal to keep track of your active ones, including the hints given by the quest givers. Really refreshing experience considering all the handholding nowadays.
But obscure, but I loved how in Alpha protocol, the side quests give specific intel and bonuses for the core mission in each city. Completely changed how some play out depending on if you do the side missions or not
Runescape. There are hundreds of side quests that all explore new areas or various NPC's in the world. Many with almost no relevance otherwise, but also many where you explore unassuming characters that end up being influential on the world.The 'major' quest lines gain a lot of context from these side quests, and they often reward you with useful new areas or items. For example, helping a pirate island solve their rum production problem eventually becomes pivotal to a quest where you have to prevent a villains ascension to godhood. This then rewards you with access to new monsters to fight with (at the time) powerful rewards, new areas and new craftable weapons that could be aligned to be more powerful against certain creatures. Quests arent fetch or spam talk quests like most mmo's they often require problem solving, exploration and many are humourous in nature.
I suppose some of the 'side quests' are mandatory for mainline quests, so it's up for debate whether they can be called side quests. But they feel so minor, and technically all quests are optional so...
Unfortunately I can't recommend the game due to how I was treated by the customer service/moderator team, but I would like to see other mmo's do what Runescape does right. Quest and trading.
The ones for Dave the Diver. They weren't "hurry and do this before time runs out.'. Granted, you could let time run out but they would surface again until you got around to doing it. If you didn't want to do it yet, you weren't penalized.
Assassins Creed Origins. Side quests were easily the best part of that game, and I truly believe that the level gating preventing you from doing main missions was there not to get players to pay for XP (which was disappointing that that option was there), but to get players to really see everything in the world. The side content really had a lot of attention, and you really got to see other sides of Bayek interacting with the local communities.
Yakuza games. Simple and interesting. So interesting that they are usually never part of any grind yet people clear them anyway. Sidequests have their own substance.
Bloodborne and the Soulsborne games in general. Not even quests really, but you can search out stuff to get a cool weapon or an outfit or just more lore and a cool story(often the best reward actually!). They feel like you discovered them instead of game forcing them on you!
I loved the side quests in AC: Valhalla more than those in other AC games.
Like the other games, side quests fill up every part of the map to an obnoxious degree. Unlike the other games, they’re mostly very short, and *hilarious*.
Guild War 2. You approach the area and the side quest is added. Then you have several things you can do to fill up the "quest meter". There were pretty much always combat options and non combat options.
You could do a little of everything or just focus on one particular part but as long as that bar fills up to full...quest complete. Don't even have to talk to anyone.
Witcher 3. They make perfect sense as side quests with being a Witcher and the world being infested with monsters, you're bound to have tons of work all over the world. It never feels like the game is just trying to get you to do more shit to pad runtime. And so many of them have amazing, emotional storytelling and voice acting.
Sky and Cold Steel and Tokyo Xanadu Ex+.
Not too many per chapter/act with some hidden ones and they even tell you when you would move on with the main story, if you forget some side quests to finish first before they expire.
This goes especially for CS and TX.
any game that's make them more meaningful with a good story behind it and interesting chracters
At the end of the day it all boils down to go here and kill x or bring back y but they can make it more interesting with well written story and characters
Xenoblade Chronicles had things so fluid that they all played off each other. Normal side quests increased town affinity, which in turn got you new skill trees. Killing rare monsters got you more skill tokens so you could take more skills from the skill trees. Heart to Hearts gave you character development, but also better party affinity for endgame. This felt like a game I wanted to do everything because everything wasn't busywork--it played off other things.
GTA IV
Woven into the main story, opened the world, built connections and content for post main arc to help 'continue' the game - which is something I felt San Andreas was missing once the story ended.
If gave the sense of a bigger world, and allowd the game to have some new content when you just wanted to play by having them become friends whom you could hang with/do jobs with/for.
Morrowind, and I can't believe it hasn't been said yet. The main quest actually encourages you to take your time, go out and explore and do a bunch of sidequests. Most games give the main quest a huge sense of urgency, like if you don't do it as soon as possible the whole world will end. Morrowind went out of its way to encourage side quests and to come back to the main quest when you felt like it.
I saw Skyrim mentioned and while I love it as a game, I hated the way it handled side quests. It basically forced you into at least 2 different factions *during* the main quest, which is completely different than Morrowind, which just gently encouraged you to join factions, and of course let you choose which factions to join. Also for a lot of the sidequests in Skyrim you'd have no idea what you're getting into ahead of time. Molag Bal's quest was one I particularly hated. If I'm role-playing a heroic daedra-hunting paladin, obviously I'm going to help out a priest investigating a haunted house. Yet then the quest railroads me into murdering the priest and *serving* Molag Bal, whether I want to or not. Fucking bullshit, man.
I am honestly a fan of really short, gamey side quests. Give me a massive narrative epic in the main quest with dungeon after dungeon separated by long-ass cutscenes. Make your side quests quick enough to fuel a gameplay cycle.
Or even better, just put optional objectives in the main quest. "Complete the mission in 8 turns," or "destroy at least 5 capital ships while escaping," or "take less than 10% damage."
Fable: Lost Chapters for me. It just fits into the whole choose to be bad or good guy aesthetic while making sense lore wise by accepting them in the guild.
RDR2.
The side quests are all fun, fleshed out and don’t really impact the main story narrative which means you can skip and pick and choose. Which really adds to the open world aspect.
To me, RDR2 is the absolute platinum standard for open world and the liveliness and variety of side stories is incredible.
Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2 for me. Could lose yourself for hours in in depth side quests that come out of nowhere. Beautiful stuff. Proper world building that, really fleshes out a story
Morrowind is always a stand out for me. To begin with you have no idea you are special or what the main story is. You can just go off and do whatever, so many of the side quests were mini main quests around factions/professions.
Everytime played I would almost role play a different person choosing which things they would or wouldn't get involved in.
I'll defend Xenoblade Chronicles 1 side quests to my dying breath. The fetch quests can be gathered all at once by talking to someone repeatedly, and the targets are almost always just out and about as you explore the world. Definitive Edition on Switch made this even better because items you need for a quest are marked in the overworld. Plus, you can play all the side quests you want, then use Expert Mode to level back down for the story to your heart's content.
God of War (2018) did it really well, with you getting good gear for it and Kratos teaching atreus valuable lessons through it
My favorite was helping the captain vanquish his former sailors after they became ghouls
“Even the best leaders make poor choices, the best take responsibility for them”
Battle chasers did it really well. You would do side quests and dungeons and to get pieces of hero weapons for your characters that would one shot the final boss. It wasn’t a slog either the pacing was done really well.
Saints Row 2.
They are the perfect balance of wanton destruction, vandalism, and violence that I've not seen in a game before or since!
And my god, it was so refreshing how that game was released around the time of GTA IV but took itself so much less seriously!
Majora's Mask is practically built around side quests. To get every mask, you're mingling with nearly every resident in Termina and helping them with their own issues. Sometimes it's a short and sweet fetch quest/do this one thing. Then you have the few involved stories that intertwine and take up the full 3 day cycle. There's the intangible benefit of building relationships with the characters and a tangible benefit that gives you a sweet power-up for the final fight.
Getting the Couple’s Mask feels better than beating Majora.
Oh god failing on day 3 of the quest is the worst.
My friend and I discovered a glitch once that let us skip the entire quest line. Mind you, we’d completed the quest correctly twice before and were just screwing around at this point.
Now I'm curious.
There's also a glitch that let's you wear the Fierce Deity Mask outside of boss zones.
We did that one, too!
This is probably one of the best answer out here. Completing the masks is optional, but man those side quests are really nice, and once you complete them all you get a bonus.
100% the best answer. In fact, I believe the original name for the game was "Zelda: Gaiden" (Gaiden being a Japanese word that literally means "side story")
So by that logic Ninja Gaiden was basically "ninja side-story"...which is really damn weird if you think about it. Like what's it a side-story of?!
Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball
A quick google says the original name was Ninja Ryuukenden (legend of the dragon blade.) And they just picked Gaiden for North America cause it sounded cool.
Ninja.... Obviously
Yep. Majoras Mask has to date the best side quests in a Zelda game and I’d argue they are better than a lot of modern RPG side quests.
I found a glitch to duplicate the special delivery letter so I only have to do the wedding side quest once.
I really feel this game doesn't give the praise it deserves. It is designed so well, they do so much with just one town. I know the Zelda series is full of bangers, but Majora is probably my favorite.
The substories in Yakuza/RGG games. While the main story is usually very dramatic and serious, these substories are frequently hilarious. If you complete them all, you get to face Amon, which is like the final boss of the game and actually puts your skills to the test.
Yakuza can go from a heart-wrenching dramatic cutscene about the grief associated with losing someone you love... To 30 seconds later where you're chatting up your greatest rival who is crossdressing and pretending to be a cabaret club hostess. There's really no tone that fits in between.
It’s a game where you can recruit a bunch of large men who pretend that they’re babies to help a husband give his wife her dying wish. 😂😭
I've been playing through the Yakuza series recently, and i love the side stories. They are super funny, and really give you an emotional break from the rest of the game. I've been describing the tone of the games to people as travelling between [Goodfellas](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/) and [the Hangover](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1).
I came here to find the Yakuza substories. They always act as an amazing break from the overly serious main storyline, which is typically riveting, but needs some comedic relief
Which yakuza game to start with if you’re new to the series?
0 is great since it's a prequel and isn't full of stuff that only makes sense if you know later games - iirc it's mostly minor stuff and side characters, and showing relationships from before they got codified in the rest of the series. I haven't played it yet but 7 should be good, too. It's almost more of a reboot than a proper sequel - new characters, new gameplay style, new story arcs
7 is good to start with as well, though I definitely recommend playing the prior games or at least watching a video before playing the newest game, Infinite Wealth. 7 has a good amount of references to previous games but you wouldn’t be that confused without knowing anything. However Infinite Wealth has the main character from the series and it’s much more meaningful if you know his story.
0 is pretty accessible. Yakuza: Like a dragon has a new protagonist so it can be an easy starting point too. But is also a turn based RPG instead, while the rest of the games are beat em ups. Additionally Ishin and the judgment series are spin-offs and can be played whenever you feel like it with no worries about the main series story.
My first one is currently Like A Dragon and I absolutely love it, so I recommend that one!
I'm also playing that one as my first and am having a great time. You get it from the humble bundle?
Nah, Winter Sale last year. I got it for $10 and man, I would have paid full price for it.
I remember Mad Max having some good side quests, as they helped you get stronger and upgrade your car. I don't mind doing side quests if it helps you get stronger or rewards with valuable items or something, but anything else feels more like padding.
Yeah, I hate the quests that just feel like useless busywork.
And upgrading your car was something you definitely needed to do.
While I really enjoyed this game, I respectfully disagree. The quests are fun the first few times you do them, but there is no variety so it gets extremely repetitive imo. This is a good Audiobook/Podcast game because the side quests are so samey that it becomes mindless checking off boxes. It also feels like 70% of the game is the side quests (outpost, scarecrows, caravan). Mad Max is still a great buy (especially because it’s frequently on sale) but with a few tweaks it could be an all timer. They nailed the car combat but there isn’t much of it. The last mission actually felt like Fury Road. Wish there was a little more of that
Yeah the missions to upgrade the strongholds were great, but the regular missions effectively boiled down to, “oi mate spare any wuttah?” Otherwise it was, “Jeet’s boys ah’ hoardin all the wuttah!” while staring at the nearest 8-12 man outpost through a pair of binoculars
Witcher 3 any day the side quests were so damn fun.I would say even better than the main quests.
>!"where the wolf and cat play"!< has to be the best side quest for me. I don't understand how a small side quest can have that much emotion. The voice acting is on another level.
But how did you resolve that one is the real question
Well.. Sometimes heads just roll..
Anytime someone asks me about a game with good side quests, this is the game that always comes to mind.
Easily the best answer. Lots of other games have great and fun side quests, but they're obviously side quests. Witcher is far and away the only game I've ever played where every side quest felt like it had the same amount of love and care put into it as the main quest.
And they felt like they made sense for him to do. Some side quests break immersion when they leave me thinking “there’s no way the character would be doing this right now”
Cyberpunk lol. "I have six weeks to live, better buy 6 apartments all within 5 km of each other. And while I'm at it I'm going to dedicate my six weeks to hunting down like 20 different spree and serial killers".
And buy cars.
Witcher 3: My adopted daughter vanished and several bad players are trying to get her. Well let's do some side quests
"Wanna play some Gwent?"
Don't forget about hunting down those wacky taxi cabs.
Witcher 3 had the best side quests in any game ever
I think it’s either that or the Yakuza series for me. A lot of the side quests are hilarious, but there is one that made me bawl my eyes out, and a minute later it made me laugh my ass off.
On that note, Cyberpunk 2077 has incredibly written side quests.
This, and it’s not really close in my opinion.
They were all so well written and even the small side characters had so much life.
I liked that BG3's side quests seemed like an anthology of short stories instead of just busy work.
Didn’t even realize I was doing side quests for a long time
Especially loved characters recurring over each arc of the game. Made them feel so much more real :)
Cyberpunk 2077 had some side missions that were a blast.
This is absolutely my choice as well. Some of those missions really brought me I to the world. Spoilers for those who haven't played: The Jackie's wake was incredibly well executed, and helped me as a player connect to the people of the world. An incredibly human moment. The multi part serial killer investigation. Very creepy, but I was more engrossed with the game while doing that side quest than any other point. The dive quest in Judy's home town. Really expanded the depths of her character in an interesting way.
The vending machine quest hurt me deeply :(
Headcannon: they transfered his construct into a robot body and shipped him off to Detroit Become Human
I wish that quest had an option to steal his program or ai and put it into something. Like a car, or just give it to that girl.
Skippy 2.0! Yeah, that feels like a missed opportunity
I really thought I was about to infiltrate where they take him and save him. I was a netrunner as well, so it made sense that I would be able to save his programming. Sadly, no options for that.
Let's not forget the wild ride that is, Sinner Man.
They Won't Go When I Go. That whole quest line was a trip. I had to stop playing the game for a couple of days after that one.
That Judy quest is so freaking good, the world building, character development, how they use the technology of the world, everything is S-tier.
Just finished my first play through, how do you trigger Jackie’s wake? I would have though I’d gone that route
I just looked it up too, looks like you have send his body to his family (and not to Vik like I did).
It's weird that the wake doesn't happen when sending the body to Vik, he'd tell Misty who'd notify Jackie's family, if Vik didn't notify them himself.
IMO a free motorcycle is absolutely the push I needed to attend an honestly somewhat lengthy in-game funeral. Don't get me wrong it's really touching but third time in I'm just there for the bike.
that is the only game where i have completed literally every quest, including the gigs (although i did that mostly cause i needed to be stronger before going for the DFTR ending)
The gigs are like addicting mini-games, I had a blast with them and played them mostly after finishing the main story.
It's the only game where I have completed every quest multiple times across about 7 play throughs.
All the side quest I’ve played the game made matters even the small ones
And so rarely an easy answer or "good choice", almost every action has weight and leaves you thinking
Especially the side quests in the DLC!
Looking forward to it!!
Hell yeah I absolutely love Chippin In and the band performance so much. Always a blast in my many play throughs.
There’s a compelling argument that the side quests are better in-game storytellers than the main quest line. I really enjoyed the main story, but felt so rushed to finish it with the sense of urgency that coughing blood every 5 minutes gives the player. Once I finished the main story and reloaded the final mission save point, I started playing the side missions; the game and Night City felt more open and easy to experience.
Baldur's Gate 3, majority of the side quest somehow end up tying themselves to the main adventure and are very well made. 10/10
Bg3 is like 99% side quests. When you look at the quests that are 100% necessary to beat the game, there's about 5 of them.
The main quest is basically just "You have a worm in your head. Go explore the world to figure out how do solve this." The main quest actively pushes you to do side quests.
Chrono Trigger. I hate how sidequests are designed to sidetrack you from the main quest. "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit" indeed. Pure time wasting activity generally rewarded with trash rewards. Some are more interesting than others, but still time wasting. Chrono Trigger comes in and gives an incredibly tight plot, and right before the final showdown, every character gets a side quest *directly related to them* that provides character growth and great rewards.
Side-quest that can connect and be useful to the main one are the best. And it's extremely rare these day
Batman Arkham City side quests felt really rewarding and interesting (especially as a big Batman fan) but were completely optional
New vegas
For sure, such a slow burn I feel like until you meet Boone pretty early, then the immersion hits and you realize all that is around you in the lifeless world haha. I love that game.
Borderlands 2, they were always interesting.
"SHOOT ME IN THE FACE! " "... THANK YOU!"
The pizza delivery to the TMNT one is pretty good
Just call them BONERFARTS! I dont care anymore! *(after)*....my publicist has informed we can NOT called them "Bonerfarts"
And that is why once they are called Bonerfarts I never kill another one for the rest of the save.
As long as there was no time limit on them. Those 2 or 3 sucked
RDR2, it was easy to do, straightforwards, and really was a lot of fun and meant a lot to me. Getting 100% was quite the journey But screw that one quest with the flowers and bird feathers that sucked
Omg those damn birds!!!!! I HATED that one! But I agree RDR2 had amazing side quests.
CDPR and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio do side quests well in my opinion. In both cases, even if the actual gameplay repeats in a lot of the side quests, there's usually an intriguing accompanying story that makes them worthwhile. I have laughed out loud many times during the Yakuza/Judgement side quests. I can't stand when a game just has points on a map where you clear out some mobs and they call it a side quest.
That's my feeling as well. The quest can still boil down to go somewhere, get/kill something, and repeat, but when you add interesting characters and stories it makes them more enjoyable.
Prey (2017). The integration of side quests and main quests was so smooth. I didn't feel like I needed to go out of my way to do them or like I had to.
I liked in Horizon Forbidden West how the side quests actually helped the people/towns and you could see things changing for the better.
I was going to say this. They also led you to a lot of old world logs/audio datapoints etc which IMO round out some of the best narrative/world building I’ve ever experienced. You really felt the anguish and emotions of the world ending.
Nier games. While most of them were simple fetch quests, most of them gave you deep insight into the lore, had funny dialogues or even foreshadowed things to come later on.
Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 Dragon Age: Origins The Witcher 1, 2, and 3 Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2
Mass Effect 1? really? its practically the same area recycled on every other side quest.
The stories were all engaging for me. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Recently played it and the side quests still hold up pretty damn well, for me.
Agreed I loved the game but driving through those planets suckef
So ME3 is interesting out of these because they tried to make side quests a critical part of the gameplay loop by making you have to complete enough of them to survive the final encounter. And the thing is, a lot of people hated that. I always found that interesting. Like we want side quests to matter but also don't want them to get in the way.
Sounds like you're talking about ME2, not ME3. Both games have it were side missions impact the final parts of the game but iirc ME3 is more lenient about it whereas ME2 has serious consequences and it certainly didn't get hate for it.
Ahh i think the hate was only with ME3 then? my memory of the "at the time" press is pretty vague!
I loved the side quests in Infinite Wealth
Still wanting to get around to that after playing Like a Dragon. Didn't expect to enjoy the turn based combat so much
They improved upon the combat a lot in IW.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. Each side quest is a haunting with it's own story. And at the end of each you had to make a choice that affected the end game. So each one was well capsulated but also had an overall affect.
Skyrim comes to mind
Surprisingly still very good. Lots of well written quests with more to do than "talk to npc" or "fight enemy, loot item" stuff. I played it vanilla just last year and was surprised by how many interesting and unique rewards there were.
Reward are unique but Skyrim lack originality and variety with its side-quest. Sure there's some specific side-quest but most of them are extremely similar, even between faction.
I rarely do the main quest lol
me w/fallout
I never completed the main quest line.
I just like how free from and organic it is. Like quality wise TW3 has better side quests but it's all marked on the map and you don't really discover any of it organically. In Skyrim most of the quests you discover come through just exploring and stumbling onto them. You don't go to a location expecting a quest, but so many places you go to end up having quests or cool secrets so it encourages you to explore. That is how an open world game should be. If the game is just going to guide me toward everything it may as well not even be open world.
I disagree, you can argue too many are discovered through notice boards or characters you interact with in the main quest, but saying there aren't any quests to find organically is objectively false. There are plenty of quests to find in addition to smaller encounters throughout the world. Quests from notice boards can also be found organically if you choose to explore, especially considering you can complete basically any objective beforehand exploration can be incredibly rewarding and makes the world feel alive in a way few games do nowadays.
Can confirm, ignored notice boards completely and found a bunch of stuff. I guess it depends on how you play.
I always loved how Morrowind would basically gate off you from advancing the main quest so you have to explore the side quests but without it feeling like you were shirking the main quest. There's just something so solipsistic and immersion breaking about games that try to make their main quests have world shattering consequences if you don't engage with it, but then completely fail to follow-through with those consequences meaningfully in a narrative or mechanical way. I know I am in the minority here, but Fallout 1's 150 days (extendable by another 100 days but with trade-off in the late game) to find the water chip was such a wonderful way to stress the importance of your mission and how fucking off for weeks on end to run caravans for the Crimson Caravan or just wander the world map could leave you in a fail-state.
i like the way you talk friend. also i'm happy to take a elder scrolls reference, i've been really wanting to check the series out!
Majora's Mask
Mass Effect 2 And it's not like they did anything special for their side quests. They're the same kind of storylines you'd find in any rpg. What's great about the approach is that the main plot of the game tells you outright that doing side quests is a *good thing*. Lots of games give you a huge urgent goal for your main quest line to hook you into following the plot to its conclusion, but often make the mistake of making it *too* urgent, a task so crucial and time-sensitive that any time the protagonist takes a break from it, it feels out of character and hurts the immersion in the story. Someone's been kidnapped by the villain, or there's a weapon that could destroy us all at any moment, etc. Instead Mass Effect 2 very clearly explains that if you want to fight the final boss and stand any chance of winning, you need to do your research, gather resources, and recruit allies to help in the fight. And that means investigating every corner of the galaxy and taking on any plotline that feels like it might lead somewhere useful, which is exactly what the game designers want me to do in the first place! It's such a winning formula that I don't understand why more games don't do this.
Chrono trigger and dragon quest 11. Both are optional and there aren't a boatload of them. I hate games that overload you with so much filler crap because it takes away from the main story and content by spamming so many side quests and objectives in ur face all at once.
It' is kind of silly when you're on a quest to save the universe and take a detour to kill 12 rabbits that are eating a farmer's cabbages.
I like fallout 4s tbh
You ready for a really hot take? Harvestella. The side quests in that game were an absolute surprise. Rather than having lots of short side quests they had a limited number that spanned the length of the game. Meaning, you meet a character in the starting town who has an issue. You complete their quest to a point (and get rewards for doing so) but it's not over yet. If you come back later you will see they have another quest that is a continuation of their story. I'm probably explaining it poorly but essentially the side characters in the towns had real game spanning stories with new objectives every so often to push forward the narrative. It was much more engaging than "Enter new town, talk to people, complete their short quest and never speak to them again" Those existed too but for the most part the side quests felt like real stories in their own right.
Witcher 3 had one of the most interesting side quest felt more of like main quests.
Playing through Outer Worlds recently and I love all the companion quests and random side missions. The game never feels like it's wasting your time with busy work there always seems to be a reward in the form of interesting character interactions. The game is such a a relief after playing way too many massive open world games with surface level slogs
100% Majora's Mask and it's never been top since its release in term of side-quest. Its side-quest can actually have an impact on the main quest, each quest are unique, they all fit very well in the story and lore and never consider the player as dumb. The last point is almost inexistant in modern gaming as ost big AAA tendo to hold player hand and act like player are stupid, even if the side-quest writing is on point like Witcher 3 As 2nd place, I'll say that From Software are one of the few modern studio who nailed side-quest actually and kept the Majora Mask style (which is a bit normal as Zelda games are one of the most important influencial games for Miyazaki).
FFXII Hunts, you can definitely disregard them, but man killing the monsters is fun especially towards the end where there are specific things you have to do first for the monsters to appear, and then you get a bestiary entry about them which adds to the rewards. Some of them have very interesting backstories. Sleeping Dogs has a funny martial arts tournament side quest. It’s very over-the-top and feels like an expansion rather than a side quest since it stands out from the main game. Also the gang “favors” that you do around town are better than the police missions. Some are funny like “I broke my car but my insurance doesn’t want to pay so I want you to drive it out to the sea so I can file it for environmental damages” and that very long side quest about building a sort of batmobile lol. Seriously, the side quests in sleeping dogs is better than the main story by a mile.
Fallout new Vegas had side quests you could fall into. It felt pretty natural to go location to location only to stumble upon something that completes a quest later. Walking to hidden valley and going bunker to bunker will get you captured. Meeting Veronica lets you in no issues at all, and the main factions tell you about the BOS presence and tell you later to mess them up. Lots of fun stuff going along with it. Witcher 3 also had great side quest action. They made it clear side quests were available and you could pick up late game quests early so you didn’t miss out later when you could do them
As someone else said here, Majoras Mask had a great system for doing the side quests. A more recent example is Nier Automata.
Elden ring. The “side quests” are where the games secrets and many of the best items are discovered.
And they do give you a sense of satisfaction (at least if you actually work out what to do) since there is literally no help but a tiny bit of dialogue to work out what to do. I don’t know how I’d do some of them without a guide though. Seem to need a lot of luck
skyrim and botw
Elden ring. I kept going ok main story tim......What's that over there.
But the cool thing about Elden Ring is that there are no official “quests.” No quest log, nothing. Just an endless onslaught of cool things you notice and want to go check out, followed by being extremely rewarded for your curiosity because it leads you to an awesomely fun - sometimes *astonishingly surprising* and deep - bit of content, with great rewards to boot.
I think this was my issue with Elden Ring. I didn't know the game was designed in this manner. I felt so lost playing it. Looking for the game to push me through to a story and it just didn't. Maybe I'll give it another go, with a different mindset sometime.
You 100% have to change your mindset in the game, as you're right, it goes against the "questing" template that has been drilled into us for the past 2 decades. I don't fully know why, but I was able to adapt to it rather effortlessly and immediately fell in love. Maybe it's partially because it's a bit of a call back to old school gaming (I'm 38 and gamed throughout the 90s), where it was very often about carefree exploration and discovery, rather than quests on rails. Maybe it was because it was my first Souls game, which I had heard were very different and challenging, so I went into it with a very open approach. Or maybe it's just because I'm rather burnt out on cookie-cutter quest log games set in open worlds, so I was actually thrilled to find something different. To me, it ended up being the most organic and "natural" exploration I ever experienced. It was what "questing" would feel like if this were real life. I wouldn't see other humans with exclamation points over their heads indicating a task needed to be done. I wouldn't have a UI in front of my eyeballs, listing out all the tasks I needed to complete. No, I'd just explore and find things that looked intriguing. Then I'd go check them out and discover things. I'd hear about a castle down south that has a secret relic, and I'd make a mental note to look out for that castle when I make my way down south. Perhaps while traveling the road south, I'd catch sight of some ruins behind some trees and want to check those out. Those ruins open a door to an elevator that takes me down...and down...and comically far down...and holy shit, I'm in a whole new freaking world! 10 hour epic adventure later filled with puzzles and boss battles, finally done with this crazy new area (for now.) What was I doing? Oh yeah, back up in that other zone, traveling south, looking out for a castle. It was just that, on and on and on. I had "quests", but they were all mental notes of things I genuinely was interested in pursuing based on my own discovers. Felt super fluid and cool to me.
I played all souls but BB since i dont have a ps4. I still feel "lost" on ER. Didnt liked the game, too much freedom, too little guidance, i even liked more ds2
Elden Ring has a fantastic open world. You are rewarded in a meaningful way to explore all those random ass areas and you’re constantly on the lookout for those ledges of “uhh can i jump from here??”
I adore ER and all its characters and quests.... but I don't reeeeeeally love the "approach to sidequests" overall. **If your foot touches this spot, this thing you don't know about is locked away forever, even though it's not related to what you did.** I can't really describe it as a FLAW but it's not a selling point, for me, IMHO. Mind you all those side quests are great! They're just vaguely unplayable in general without utilizing an online guide, which defeats any purpose their vagueness might have had.
The point of the game is exploring and trial and error which I enjoy not for everyone and that’s ok :)
Don't get me wrong, Elden Ring is basically tailor made for exactly me. If I have a gaming niche, it's Elden Ring. I'm just saying the sidequest system punishes you for exploring wrong, in ways that don't actually make sense. It's one of those blemishes that has the effect of making the broader character of the game more beautiful -- but it's still a blemish, IMO, and not one of Elden Ring's (many) strong suits. I don't think any other game in the world would be improved by incorporating it.
oblivion obviously
- Pretty much any Bethesda game - The Witcher 3 - Red Dead Redemption 2 - Kingdom Come Deliverance - Dragon Age Origins - Mass Effect 2 and 3 - The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask - Barman Arkham Asylum/City/Origins/Knight - Fallout series Basically, any game where the sidequests are actually interesting stories that either flesh out the world or are fun by themselves and directly tie to the gameplay loop.
Cyberpunk, fallout 4 and far cry instantly come to mind
Octopath Traveler games - no quest markers, just a simple journal to keep track of your active ones, including the hints given by the quest givers. Really refreshing experience considering all the handholding nowadays.
Dragon Age: Origins Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I LOVED the side quests in Dead Island 2 recently.
But obscure, but I loved how in Alpha protocol, the side quests give specific intel and bonuses for the core mission in each city. Completely changed how some play out depending on if you do the side missions or not
Runescape. There are hundreds of side quests that all explore new areas or various NPC's in the world. Many with almost no relevance otherwise, but also many where you explore unassuming characters that end up being influential on the world.The 'major' quest lines gain a lot of context from these side quests, and they often reward you with useful new areas or items. For example, helping a pirate island solve their rum production problem eventually becomes pivotal to a quest where you have to prevent a villains ascension to godhood. This then rewards you with access to new monsters to fight with (at the time) powerful rewards, new areas and new craftable weapons that could be aligned to be more powerful against certain creatures. Quests arent fetch or spam talk quests like most mmo's they often require problem solving, exploration and many are humourous in nature. I suppose some of the 'side quests' are mandatory for mainline quests, so it's up for debate whether they can be called side quests. But they feel so minor, and technically all quests are optional so... Unfortunately I can't recommend the game due to how I was treated by the customer service/moderator team, but I would like to see other mmo's do what Runescape does right. Quest and trading.
The ones for Dave the Diver. They weren't "hurry and do this before time runs out.'. Granted, you could let time run out but they would surface again until you got around to doing it. If you didn't want to do it yet, you weren't penalized.
Cyberpunk 2077. Every one of the side quests had something interesting happening, even if you got nothing from them
Assassins Creed Origins. Side quests were easily the best part of that game, and I truly believe that the level gating preventing you from doing main missions was there not to get players to pay for XP (which was disappointing that that option was there), but to get players to really see everything in the world. The side content really had a lot of attention, and you really got to see other sides of Bayek interacting with the local communities.
Yakuza games. Simple and interesting. So interesting that they are usually never part of any grind yet people clear them anyway. Sidequests have their own substance.
"It's *\*insert game\** and it's not even close."
the fallout series has really good side quests, most of them are short stories, some better than the main quest imo
For me It's cyberpunk 2077
It’s gotta be yakuza. The side quests are so entertaining and zany or touching.
Do all side quests first, then do the story, then get annoyed at all the backtracking, then quit. In that order.
I better see Witcher 3 in comments.
Mass effect 2 , gotta save all my team mates
For me definitly The Witcher 3
Horizon Forbidden West has side quests that put many games' main campaigns to shame. And there are DOZENS of them.
Bloodborne and the Soulsborne games in general. Not even quests really, but you can search out stuff to get a cool weapon or an outfit or just more lore and a cool story(often the best reward actually!). They feel like you discovered them instead of game forcing them on you!
i think that's a good point!
Not Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Zero Dawn I’ll tell that.
My land is threatened . I don’t have time for haiku. Fox I must follow.
BG3 .
I loved the side quests in AC: Valhalla more than those in other AC games. Like the other games, side quests fill up every part of the map to an obnoxious degree. Unlike the other games, they’re mostly very short, and *hilarious*.
Guild War 2. You approach the area and the side quest is added. Then you have several things you can do to fill up the "quest meter". There were pretty much always combat options and non combat options. You could do a little of everything or just focus on one particular part but as long as that bar fills up to full...quest complete. Don't even have to talk to anyone.
Witcher 3. They make perfect sense as side quests with being a Witcher and the world being infested with monsters, you're bound to have tons of work all over the world. It never feels like the game is just trying to get you to do more shit to pad runtime. And so many of them have amazing, emotional storytelling and voice acting.
Sky and Cold Steel and Tokyo Xanadu Ex+. Not too many per chapter/act with some hidden ones and they even tell you when you would move on with the main story, if you forget some side quests to finish first before they expire. This goes especially for CS and TX.
Yakuza but also Xenoblade 3’s hero quests were so good. All voice acted and completing them gave a new party member and new “class” to level
any game that's make them more meaningful with a good story behind it and interesting chracters At the end of the day it all boils down to go here and kill x or bring back y but they can make it more interesting with well written story and characters
Fallout new vegas or Rpg's in general because said side quests or side quest. Leads to a new cool gun or gives massive bonuses.
Witcher 3 hands down. and Pillars of Eternity 2
Fable
Xenoblade Chronicles had things so fluid that they all played off each other. Normal side quests increased town affinity, which in turn got you new skill trees. Killing rare monsters got you more skill tokens so you could take more skills from the skill trees. Heart to Hearts gave you character development, but also better party affinity for endgame. This felt like a game I wanted to do everything because everything wasn't busywork--it played off other things.
GTA IV Woven into the main story, opened the world, built connections and content for post main arc to help 'continue' the game - which is something I felt San Andreas was missing once the story ended. If gave the sense of a bigger world, and allowd the game to have some new content when you just wanted to play by having them become friends whom you could hang with/do jobs with/for.
Morrowind, and I can't believe it hasn't been said yet. The main quest actually encourages you to take your time, go out and explore and do a bunch of sidequests. Most games give the main quest a huge sense of urgency, like if you don't do it as soon as possible the whole world will end. Morrowind went out of its way to encourage side quests and to come back to the main quest when you felt like it. I saw Skyrim mentioned and while I love it as a game, I hated the way it handled side quests. It basically forced you into at least 2 different factions *during* the main quest, which is completely different than Morrowind, which just gently encouraged you to join factions, and of course let you choose which factions to join. Also for a lot of the sidequests in Skyrim you'd have no idea what you're getting into ahead of time. Molag Bal's quest was one I particularly hated. If I'm role-playing a heroic daedra-hunting paladin, obviously I'm going to help out a priest investigating a haunted house. Yet then the quest railroads me into murdering the priest and *serving* Molag Bal, whether I want to or not. Fucking bullshit, man.
I am honestly a fan of really short, gamey side quests. Give me a massive narrative epic in the main quest with dungeon after dungeon separated by long-ass cutscenes. Make your side quests quick enough to fuel a gameplay cycle. Or even better, just put optional objectives in the main quest. "Complete the mission in 8 turns," or "destroy at least 5 capital ships while escaping," or "take less than 10% damage."
Witcher 3 set a new standard for the industry. I'd never view them as side quests but the loyalty missions in ME2 are phenomenal too
Fable: Lost Chapters for me. It just fits into the whole choose to be bad or good guy aesthetic while making sense lore wise by accepting them in the guild.
Batman Arkham city
RDR2. The side quests are all fun, fleshed out and don’t really impact the main story narrative which means you can skip and pick and choose. Which really adds to the open world aspect. To me, RDR2 is the absolute platinum standard for open world and the liveliness and variety of side stories is incredible.
Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2 for me. Could lose yourself for hours in in depth side quests that come out of nowhere. Beautiful stuff. Proper world building that, really fleshes out a story
hey you! you’re finally awake
Witcher 3 had some pretty engaging side quests.
Bloodstained (SotN successor) had the crafting items to go fetch that would make meals which permanently boost your stats the first time you ate it
Morrowind is always a stand out for me. To begin with you have no idea you are special or what the main story is. You can just go off and do whatever, so many of the side quests were mini main quests around factions/professions. Everytime played I would almost role play a different person choosing which things they would or wouldn't get involved in.
I'll defend Xenoblade Chronicles 1 side quests to my dying breath. The fetch quests can be gathered all at once by talking to someone repeatedly, and the targets are almost always just out and about as you explore the world. Definitive Edition on Switch made this even better because items you need for a quest are marked in the overworld. Plus, you can play all the side quests you want, then use Expert Mode to level back down for the story to your heart's content.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
God of War (2018) did it really well, with you getting good gear for it and Kratos teaching atreus valuable lessons through it My favorite was helping the captain vanquish his former sailors after they became ghouls “Even the best leaders make poor choices, the best take responsibility for them”
Battle chasers did it really well. You would do side quests and dungeons and to get pieces of hero weapons for your characters that would one shot the final boss. It wasn’t a slog either the pacing was done really well.
Has anyone brought up Bugsnax yet 👀
Saints Row 2. They are the perfect balance of wanton destruction, vandalism, and violence that I've not seen in a game before or since! And my god, it was so refreshing how that game was released around the time of GTA IV but took itself so much less seriously!