38 Best Games Like Skyrim in 2026: Open-World RPGs to Play After Skyrim

Looking for games like Skyrim? Here are 38 open-world RPGs that recreate what made the fifth Elder Scrolls special: total freedom, a world you can wander for hundreds of hours, dragons, guilds and the urge to see what sits beyond the next mountain. If you only have time for ten, start with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, The Witcher 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Elden Ring, Dragon's Dogma 2, Fallout 4, Avowed, Crimson Desert, The Blood of Dawnwalker and Enderal — between them they cover nearly every reason people still play Skyrim almost fifteen years after release.

The rest of the list is split by what you loved most about Skyrim. First come the games closest to it: first-person fantasy RPGs, including Bethesda's own earlier work and a free mod that grew into a full game. Then story-driven open worlds, realistic medieval RPGs, action RPGs with sharper combat than Skyrim ever had, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic RPGs built on the same formula, multiplayer games like Skyrim, picks for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 and, finally, underrated RPGs that hardly ever show up in lists like this. Every game here runs on PC, PS5, Xbox or Switch — platforms are noted in each entry — and none of them asks you to wait for The Elder Scrolls VI.

If the question is "what game is most like Skyrim", the answer is in this section. These are first-person fantasy RPGs with the same core loop: you pick a direction, walk there, stumble into a dungeon, a quest and a faction, and an hour later you have forgotten where you were heading. Two of them are Elder Scrolls games from before Skyrim, one is a total conversion of Skyrim itself, and the rest are the closest modern relatives — open-world fantasy games with magic, sword-and-board combat and a world that rewards curiosity rather than a checklist.

The most obvious game to play after Skyrim is the one that came right before it. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, released by Bethesda and Virtuos in April 2025, keeps the original 2006 game logic but rebuilds everything you see on Unreal Engine 5, so Cyrodiil finally looks the way people remember it. The structure will feel instantly familiar to any Skyrim player: a crisis at the heart of the empire, gates to the demonic realm of Oblivion tearing open across the province, and a main quest you can ignore for weeks while you climb the ranks of the Thieves Guild, the Mages Guild or the Dark Brotherhood. Many fans still consider Oblivion's guild questlines stronger than Skyrim's — the Dark Brotherhood arc in particular. The remaster also smooths out the old leveling system, adds a sprint button and bundles the Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine expansions. What it does not change is the charm of the original: the famously awkward persuasion minigame is still there, NPCs still gossip about mudcrabs, and the Arena in the Imperial City is still the best place to test a new build. It is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and since August 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2.

Before Skyrim and Oblivion there was Morrowind, and for a certain kind of player it is still the best Elder Scrolls game. Released in 2002 for PC and the original Xbox, it drops you on the alien island of Vvardenfell, a land of giant mushrooms, ash storms and silt striders — huge insects used as public transport. There are no quest markers: NPCs give directions like "follow the road east until you see a rock shaped like a fist," and you read your journal to find the way. That sounds harsh, but it turns every trip into real exploration, which is exactly what many Skyrim players miss. Factions matter more than in later games, the Great Houses lock each other out, and the story of the Nerevarine is still one of the series' best. The original looks rough today, but the free open-source OpenMW engine runs it smoothly on modern PCs.

Some mods add a sword. Enderal replaces the entire game. Built by the German team SureAI on top of Skyrim, it is a total conversion with its own continent, its own lore and a fully voiced story that has nothing to do with Tamriel — you play a stranger plagued by visions in a world heading towards a cyclical catastrophe called the Cleansing. The skill system has no fixed classes, and casting too much magic risks Arcane Fever, so even familiar mechanics feel different. The writing is darker and more personal than in Skyrim, and the main quest is the kind people finish and immediately recommend to friends. Enderal is free on Steam: you only need to own Skyrim or Skyrim Special Edition on the same account. If you have already played Skyrim to death, this is the closest thing to playing it for the first time again.

Avowed is Obsidian's answer to "what if Skyrim had sharper writing and better spell combat". You play an envoy of the Aedyran Empire sent to the Living Lands, a wild frontier of the Pillars of Eternity universe, to investigate a plague that drives people mad. Combat is first-person and lets you mix anything in either hand: a sword and a pistol, a grimoire and a wand, a shield and a spear. Companions follow you through the region, comment on your choices and fight alongside you. The world is not a single seamless map but several large open zones packed with hidden loot, side quests and climbable ruins, which keeps exploration dense rather than empty. It came out in February 2025 on PC and Xbox Series X|S, with a PS5 version in February 2026.

Of all the games compared to Skyrim since 2025, this is the one players mention most often in "what should I play next" threads. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon from Questline is a first-person open-world RPG set on a dying Avalon, long after King Arthur has gone and a disease called the Wyrdness has started rotting the island. You get the familiar Skyrim structure — free exploration, stealth, archery, magic, crafting and dozens of hand-placed dungeons — wrapped in a much grimmer take on Arthurian legend, where knights are bitter and the Round Table has fallen apart. Questline is a small studio, so the polish is not AAA, but the world is more handcrafted than procedural. The game left early access in May 2025 and is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S; you can switch to a third-person camera if you prefer.

Long before Dishonored, Arkane made Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, a 2006 first-person action RPG on the Source engine that does one thing better than Skyrim ever did: physical combat. Every fight is a toy box. You kick orcs into spike walls, cut ropes to drop crates on goblins, freeze floors so enemies slide off ledges and set oil puddles on fire. It is not an open world — the game moves through a chain of levels in the Might and Magic world of Ashan — but if your favorite Skyrim moments were the brawls in Nordic ruins, this is the purest version of that feeling. The story about a young mage named Sareth and his role in a demonic prophecy is simple but well paced. Dark Messiah runs on any modern PC and costs very little.

Skyrim lets you write your own story; these games hand you a better-written one while keeping the open world. They suit players who loved Skyrim's civil war, the Dark Brotherhood or the Daedric quests and wished the rest of the writing reached that level. Expect strong characters, choices with consequences and quests that turn into small novels — with plenty of room to explore between main story beats. Several of them also come up whenever people ask about games like Skyrim on PS5 or Xbox.

If there is one game that sits next to Skyrim on every list, it is The Witcher 3. CD Projekt Red's 2015 RPG puts you in the boots of Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter for hire searching for his adopted daughter Ciri while the Wild Hunt — a host of spectral riders — chases her across the world. Where Skyrim gives you a blank-slate hero, The Witcher 3 gives you a defined character, and that lets every side quest land with real weight: a simple contract on a village beast can turn into a family tragedy. Skyrim fans will feel at home in Skellige, a Nordic archipelago of fjords, clans and longships that feels like a sister to the Jarls' holds. Two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, are each the size of a full game. Combat is more about preparation than in Skyrim: you brew potions and oils, read up on a monster in the bestiary and choose signs — simple spells — before a fight, which makes even a routine contract feel like a hunt. The 2022 next-gen update improved the visuals on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

If Geralt's story is what hooked you, see our picks for games similar to The Witcher 3.

The Blood of Dawnwalker comes from Rebel Wolves, a studio founded by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, director of The Witcher 3, and the lineage is obvious from the first village. It is a dark fantasy RPG set in the mid-14th century in Vale Sangora, a fictional valley in the Carpathians ruled by a vampire lord. The hero, Coen, is human during the day and a vampire at night, and the two halves play differently: by day you talk, investigate and use a sword, by night you get supernatural powers and the world changes its rules. The story is built as a narrative sandbox — you choose which threads to pull and in what order, and the ending shifts accordingly. It launched in September 2026 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S and sold a million copies in its first three days.

We went through the day-and-night system in detail in our review of The Blood of Dawnwalker.

BioWare's 2014 RPG is the Dragon Age game most similar to Skyrim. Dragon Age: Inquisition trades the corridors of earlier entries for a string of large open regions — the Hinterlands, the Exalted Plains, the Hissing Wastes — that you explore on horseback, closing rifts and gathering power for your Inquisition. Skyrim's dragons got a worthy rival here: ten high dragons are hidden across the map, each a proper boss fight that rewards preparation. The difference is the party. You travel with three companions, manage relationships and romances, and run a fortress called Skyhold that grows as your influence spreads. The Trespasser DLC is essential, since it closes the story and sets up the sequel. Inquisition runs on PC, PS4, Xbox One and older consoles.

Strictly speaking, Baldur's Gate 3 is not an open world, and its combat is turn-based. Yet it constantly appears among games like Skyrim, and for a good reason: it shares the same philosophy of freedom, only applied to every single encounter instead of the map. Larian's 2023 RPG, built on Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rules, starts with a mind flayer parasite in your head and then lets you solve problems almost any way you can think of — talk your way past a boss, push it off a cliff, turn invisible and steal the key, or simply kill the quest giver. Companions are among the best written in the genre, and the game reacts to choices that most RPGs would ignore. It is available on PC, Mac, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with split-screen co-op on consoles.

Larian's design is broken down in our Baldur's Gate 3 review.

Skyrim's College of Winterhold left a lot of players wanting a whole game about magic school. Hogwarts Legacy is that game. Set in the 1890s, a century before Harry Potter, it casts you as a fifth-year student with a rare gift for ancient magic, and lets you explore the castle, Hogsmeade and the Scottish Highlands on foot, on a broom or on a hippogriff. Spell combat is fast and flashy, you brew potions and grow plants, and the Room of Requirement becomes your personal workshop. The open world is full of puzzles, caves and bandit camps, very much in Skyrim's spirit of "there is always something over the next hill". Hogwarts Legacy came out in 2023 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, then on older consoles, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Fans of the wizarding world should also check out our list of games similar to Hogwarts Legacy.

Not every game like Skyrim needs swords and spells. Horizon Forbidden West from Guerrilla is a post-post-apocalyptic adventure in which tribes of humans live among giant robotic animals, and its appeal is close to Skyrim's: a huge, beautiful world, dozens of side stories and the joy of climbing the nearest peak to see what is on the other side. Aloy, the hunter-heroine, travels west across ruined Utah and California to stop a blight killing the land. Machines replace dragons — you study their weak points, tear off armor plates and steal their weapons — and later you can ride them, fly them and dive underwater. It came out in 2022 on PS4 and PS5, with a PC version in 2024 that includes the Burning Shores expansion.

Some players want Skyrim's freedom without the magic: no dragons, no shouts, just a sword, a horse and a world that pushes back. This section collects realistic medieval RPGs and sandboxes where you have to learn to fight, read, haggle and survive, and where a peasant with a rusty blade is a genuine threat. They are slower than Skyrim, sometimes brutally so, but the reward is a sense of growth that a fantasy power fantasy rarely matches.

Of all medieval RPGs, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is the one that delivers Skyrim's sense of a living world most convincingly. Warhorse Studios continues the story of Henry of Skalitz, a blacksmith's son caught up in the civil war in Bohemia in 1403, and gives him two huge regions to explore: the countryside around Trosky castle and the bustling silver-mining city of Kuttenberg. Everything runs on simulation — NPCs follow daily routines, crimes get witnessed and remembered, clothing affects how people speak to you, and you get better at swordplay, lockpicking or reading by actually doing them. Combat is first-person and directional, demanding but satisfying once it clicks. The writing is funny and grounded, and the quests often have several solutions. Many Skyrim players are struck by how alive the towns feel: blacksmiths take apprentices, bathhouses and taverns have their own small stories, and a drunken night out can end with Henry waking up somewhere unexpected and a quest you did not know you had started. The game came out in February 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

For more realistic adventures in the same vein, see our list of games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

The 2018 original is rougher than its sequel, but it is where Henry's story begins, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a complete experience on its own. Your village is burned by mercenaries in the first hour, and you start as someone who cannot fight, cannot read and is beaten by the first bandit you meet. Over time you train with a captain in Rattay, learn to brew potions in a slow, step-by-step alchemy minigame and build a reputation town by town. For Skyrim players, the most surprising thing is how much stronger the sense of progress feels: going from helpless to dangerous in a world with no magic shortcuts is deeply rewarding. The Royal Edition with all DLC is the version to get on PC, PS4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch.

Gothic was the German cult RPG that shaped a whole generation of European open worlds, and Gothic 1 Remake rebuilds it from the ground up. You are a nameless prisoner thrown into the Valley of Mines, a penal colony sealed under a magic Barrier, where three rival camps — the Old Camp, the New Camp and the Swamp Camp — have built their own societies. Nobody cares about you, every wolf can kill you, and you earn respect by choosing a side and doing its dirty work. That is the opposite of Skyrim's "you are the Dragonborn" welcome, and it is why old fans love it. Alkimia Interactive kept the hand-placed world and the faction system and modernized the combat and visuals. The remake launched in June 2026 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Our Gothic 1 Remake review covers how much of the original survived.

Skyrim's civil war was a few staged battles. In Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, war is the whole game. TaleWorlds drops you into Calradia, a continent of rival kingdoms fighting over the ruins of a fallen empire, as a nobody with a horse. From there you recruit troops, trade between towns, marry into a clan, swear fealty to a king or found your own kingdom, then lead armies of hundreds in sieges where you fight in person at the front. It is less of a story RPG and more of a medieval life simulator, and the mod scene — including total conversions such as the Game of Thrones–inspired Realm of Thrones — keeps it alive. Bannerlord left early access in October 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Skyrim's melee combat has always been its weakest part: you swing, the enemy swings, and whoever has the higher numbers wins. The action RPGs in this section keep the open world and the fantasy setting but make every fight matter — dodges, parries, stamina, big bosses and tough choices about build. Some of them are Soulslike, others lean on spectacular spectacle, but they all answer the common request for a game like Skyrim with better combat.

Elden Ring is what happens when FromSoftware takes the Skyrim formula and runs it through the Dark Souls filter. The Lands Between is a vast open world you can explore in almost any order on Torrent, a spectral horse with a double jump, and almost every ruin, cave and castle hides a secret, a boss or a fragment of a mythology written together with George R. R. Martin. Unlike Skyrim, the game does not scale to you: wander into the wrong area and a dragon will end you in two hits. That is exactly the point — every victory is earned. Builds are deep, from pure strength to sorcery and incantations, and the 2024 Shadow of the Erdtree expansion adds an entire new region. Elden Ring runs on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, and since August 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2 as the Tarnished Edition.

If the difficulty hooked you, continue with our list of games similar to Dark Souls.

Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of the few games that captures Skyrim's best emergent moments: a griffin swoops in mid-fight, a cyclops wanders onto the road, night falls and your lantern runs out of oil. You play the Arisen, a hero whose heart was taken by a dragon, traveling through the kingdoms of Vermund and Battahl with a party of pawns — AI companions that learn enemy weaknesses and can be shared with other players online. The signature mechanic is climbing: you can grab onto a giant monster and hack at its eye while it tries to shake you off. Fast travel is deliberately limited, so journeys become adventures in their own right. The game came out in March 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The first Dragon's Dogma is worth playing even if you loved the sequel, and some players still prefer it. Dark Arisen is the definitive edition of the 2012 original: it includes Bitterblack Isle, a punishing endgame dungeon full of monsters you will not meet anywhere else. The land of Gransys is smaller than Vermund, but tighter and more focused, and the story takes a strange philosophical turn in its final act that people still debate. Combat is the same mix of climbing, magic and pawn tactics, and the vocations — Magick Archer, Mystic Knight, Assassin — play very differently. It runs on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and older consoles, which makes it one of the easiest games like Skyrim to pick up on Switch.

Crimson Desert from Pearl Abyss is the most spectacular action game on this list and a strong answer to "games like Skyrim 2026". You play Kliff, a mercenary of the Greymanes, fighting to rebuild his scattered band across the continent of Pywel, a huge single-player open world of cities, forests, deserts and mountains. Combat feels closer to a brawler than to Skyrim: you chain sword strikes, grapple and throw enemies, fight on horseback and take on giant bosses that can fill half the screen. Between fights, the world is packed with side activities, hidden spots and smaller stories. It launched in March 2026 on PC, Mac, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

We explained why it stands out among this year's releases in our Crimson Desert review.

Here is a fact that surprises many Skyrim fans: the lead designer of Kingdoms of Amalur was Ken Rolston, who also led design on Morrowind and Oblivion. You can feel it in the structure — a large world split into regions, faction questlines and an endless supply of side quests — but the combat is pure action game, closer to God of War than to anything Bethesda made. You can switch weapons mid-combo, mix sorcery with daggers and use the Fate system to change your class at any time. Your character, the Fateless One, is the only person in the world without a predetermined destiny, which justifies all that freedom in the story. Re-Reckoning, the 2020 remaster, sharpens the visuals and balance and later received the Fatesworn expansion. It runs on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

For Skyrim players who spent more time at war with bandits than on the main quest, Middle-earth: Shadow of War turns that conflict into its central system. Monolith's 2017 game follows Talion, a ranger bound to the elven wraith Celebrimbor, as he fights Sauron's armies in Mordor. Its Nemesis System gives every orc captain a name, a personality and a memory: an orc who kills you gets promoted and remembers it, one you burned comes back scarred and furious. You can dominate captains, build your own army and storm fortresses in large sieges. Combat is fast and rhythmic in the style of the Batman Arkham games. It is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Outward answers a question few RPGs dare to ask: what if you were not the hero? In the world of Aurai you are an ordinary adventurer in debt, with no special destiny. You need to eat, sleep, keep warm and carry a backpack that limits what you can haul — Skyrim's survival mode, but built into the design. Magic is learned from trainers and requires preparation, combat punishes careless swings, and death does not reload a save: you wake up somewhere else, robbed, rescued or captured, and the story continues. The real bonus is co-op: the entire game can be played together, online or in split-screen. Nine Dots released Outward in 2019, and the 2022 Definitive Edition with all DLC is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The most common follow-up to "games like Skyrim" is "games like Skyrim and Fallout", and that link is no accident: Bethesda uses the same structure in both. This section is for anyone who wants Skyrim with guns, Skyrim in space or Skyrim after the bombs — first-person RPGs with open exploration, factions and branching quests, only in post-apocalyptic wastelands, colony planets or a quarantined corner of 1960s England.

Fallout 4 is the closest thing to Skyrim with guns, and not just because it uses the same Creation Engine. Bethesda's 2015 RPG sends the Sole Survivor out of a vault into the ruins of Boston — the Commonwealth — two hundred years after a nuclear war, to search for a kidnapped son. The structure will feel right at home: random encounters on the road, dungeons hidden in subway tunnels and office towers, factions like the Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad competing for your loyalty. On top of that, the settlement system lets you build entire towns, and the power armor works like a personal tank. Modding support is as deep as Skyrim's. Fallout 4 runs on PC, PS4, Xbox One, with next-gen upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and since February 2026 on Switch 2 as the Anniversary Edition.

It also made our list of the best post-apocalyptic games.

Ask Fallout fans which entry has the best writing and most of them will say Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian built it in 2010 on Bethesda's engine, and it plays like a Skyrim-style open world with the choices of a classic RPG. You are the Courier, shot in the head and left in a grave in the Mojave Desert, and the hunt for the man who did it pulls you into a war for the Hoover Dam between the New California Republic, Caesar's Legion and the mysterious Mr. House. Almost every faction can be allied with or destroyed, many quests can be talked through, and the four DLC packs are among the best in the series. The game looks dated, but it runs on any PC and is also playable on PS3 and Xbox 360, with backward compatibility on Xbox One and Series X|S.

If you have ever searched for "Skyrim in space", Bethesda built it. Starfield takes the studio's formula — factions, guild-style questlines, lockpicking, stealing everything that is not nailed down — and spreads it across the Settled Systems, with more than a thousand planets to land on. You join Constellation, the last group of space explorers, to collect mysterious artifacts, while side questlines let you infiltrate a pirate syndicate, work as a corporate spy or serve in a planetary militia. Ship building is a game in itself, and outposts echo Fallout 4's settlements. The structure is more fragmented than Skyrim's because of loading screens between planets, but the faction quests are among Bethesda's best. Starfield came out in 2023 on PC and Xbox Series X|S, and on PS5 in April 2026; the Shattered Space expansion adds a handcrafted alien city.

For more adventures among the stars, see our list of the best space games for PC.

Obsidian's The Outer Worlds 2 is a satirical sci-fi RPG for people who enjoyed Skyrim's freedom but wanted sharper dialogue. You play an agent of the Earth Directorate sent to the colony of Arcadia, where a rift in space threatens the whole sector and corporations, cults and a technocratic regime all claim to have the answer. The first-person shooting is solid, but the real game is in conversations: skills and perks unlock new options, and the Flaws system offers permanent bonuses in exchange for quirky drawbacks the game notices you developing. Companions have their own agendas and may leave if you cross them. It is smaller and denser than a Bethesda world, and that is its strength. It launched in October 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Atomfall is the strangest pick on this list and one of the most refreshing. Rebellion set it in a quarantine zone in Cumbria, northern England, five years after the real Windscale nuclear disaster of 1957, and filled it with cultists, rogue soldiers, villagers and a mysterious power source buried underground. What links it to Skyrim is the way it handles exploration: there are no quest markers, only Leads — notes, rumors and conversations you follow on your own, in any order, until the pieces fit. Combat mixes cricket bats and bows with rare firearms, and resources are scarce. It is short compared with a Bethesda game, but a compact world full of secrets suits it. Atomfall came out in March 2025 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Skyrim never had official multiplayer, and the question "is there a co-op game like Skyrim" comes up constantly. The answer is yes — two very different ones. The first is an MMO set in the Elder Scrolls universe that includes Skyrim itself; the second is a Viking survival game you can play with friends from day one. Outward from the combat section above also supports full co-op, and for Skyrim proper there is a fan mod that adds online play.

The Elder Scrolls Online is the only way to explore Tamriel with friends in an official game, and it covers far more of it than any single-player entry. ZeniMax Online's MMO launched in 2014 and has since grown to include almost the whole continent: Morrowind, Summerset, Elsweyr, Cyrodiil and Skyrim itself — the Greymoor chapter brings back western Skyrim and the city of Solitude, centuries before the Dragonborn. Every zone has its own storyline, many quests are fully voiced, and the game can be played almost entirely solo if you just want more Elder Scrolls content. Groups handle dungeons and trials, and Cyrodiil hosts large-scale PvP sieges. Since 2025 the game has moved from yearly chapters to seasonal updates. It runs on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

For many people, the best multiplayer game like Skyrim is not an RPG at all. Valheim from Iron Gate is a co-op survival game set in a Viking afterlife: you are a fallen warrior sent to the tenth world to defeat the enemies of Odin. Up to ten players build longhouses, craft gear, sail longships across a procedurally generated sea and take on bosses that unlock each new biome. The Norse atmosphere — mountains, draugr, troll attacks at dusk — is the closest any game gets to Skyrim's mood, and it is far more fun with friends. After five years in early access, Valheim reached version 1.0 in September 2026 and arrived on PS5 and Switch 2 alongside PC and Xbox, with crossplay.

We revisited the game for its full release in our Valheim review, and it also features among the best Viking and Norse mythology games.

Skyrim itself has been on Switch since 2017, and many games in this list have since reached Nintendo consoles: Oblivion Remastered, Elden Ring and Fallout 4 on Switch 2, Hogwarts Legacy and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on both. But two Nintendo-exclusive games deserve their own section, because for many players they are the best games like Skyrim on Switch — and the best open worlds on any platform.

Tears of the Kingdom is the 2023 sequel to Breath of the Wild, and it adds two layers to Hyrule: islands floating in the sky and the Depths, a vast dark underworld beneath the map. The new Ultrahand ability lets you glue objects together into vehicles, bridges, flying machines and weapons, so every obstacle becomes a physics puzzle with dozens of solutions. Fusing items onto swords and arrows creates thousands of combinations. The story of Link searching for a vanished Zelda is told through memories scattered around the world, much like Skyrim's lore tucked away in books and ruins. It is available on Nintendo Switch and, as an enhanced Switch 2 Edition, on Switch 2.

More Nintendo picks are waiting in our list of the best Nintendo Switch 2 games.

Where Skyrim says "see that mountain? You can climb it", The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild actually lets you climb almost every surface in the world. The 2017 game reinvented open-world design: Link wakes up after a hundred years of sleep, receives a glider and a few tools in the first hour, and can then walk straight to the final boss or spend a hundred hours exploring. Shrines hide puzzles, weather affects combat — metal weapons draw lightning during storms — and cooking replaces potions. It is a gentler and more colorful world than Skyrim, but the feeling of complete freedom is the same. Breath of the Wild runs on Wii U, Switch and, as a Switch 2 Edition, on Switch 2.

These are the games that come up in Reddit threads about games like Skyrim but rarely in big editorial lists. Some are European RPGs with rough edges and a loyal fanbase, some are indie experiments, and one is a sandbox where you never become a hero at all. None has Bethesda's budget, but each does something Skyrim does not — and players who finished every Elder Scrolls game often end up loving them.

GreedFall from the French studio Spiders is a fantasy RPG set in an unusual time — an alternate 17th century of musketeers, colonial trading companies and baroque costumes. You play De Sardet, a diplomat sent to the island of Teer Fradee to find a cure for a plague, and quickly get caught between the native islanders, a religious order, scientists and merchant factions. Every faction has its own questlines, and diplomacy, stealth or force can solve most problems. The open zones are smaller than in Skyrim, and the budget shows in places, but the setting and companion stories have earned the game a devoted following. It came out in 2019 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, with a Gold Edition for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The sequel to GreedFall, GreedFall: The Dying World, is actually a prequel set three years before the first game, and it flips the perspective. This time you play a native of Teer Fradee, taken against your will to the old continent, where a malichor plague is killing the land. The big change is combat: instead of action, the game uses real-time battles with pause, so you give orders to your party and plan fights more like a classic CRPG. There are Tactical, Hybrid and Focused modes depending on how much control you want. Spiders left early access in March 2026, and the full version is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

After the Gothic series, Piranha Bytes made Risen in 2009, and it remains one of the purest examples of the studio's style. You wash ashore on the volcanic island of Faranga after a shipwreck, with nothing, and you have to choose who to serve: the Inquisition, which has seized the island's city, or the bandits of Don Esteban hiding in the swamp. The world is small by Skyrim standards, but dense, hand-built and full of shortcuts, caves and tough monsters. Progress is slow and meaningful: you pay trainers to learn skills, and a new sword feels like a real event. Risen originally came out on PC and Xbox 360, and in 2023 it was ported to PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

ELEX II is the kind of game that only Piranha Bytes would make: a science-fantasy RPG where knights in power armor, mages, mutated outlaws and a technology-worshipping cult share one planet, Magalan. You play Jax, the hero of the first game, gathering these factions against an invasion from space. The big selling point for Skyrim fans is traversal: a jetpack lets you fly over mountains and reach almost any point, which makes exploration far faster and more vertical. The faction system is deep, the dialogue is famously blunt, and the world has that German-RPG feeling of being tough at first and rewarding later. ELEX II came out in March 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Kenshi is what Skyrim would look like if it removed the chosen one entirely. Developed for years almost single-handedly by Chris Hunt and released by Lo-Fi Games in 2018, it drops you into a harsh desert world as no one — a drifter with a few coins. You can become a trader, a thief, a slave, a bandit leader or the founder of a city with its own army, and nothing in the game tells you what to do. Combat is squad-based and controlled from above, and losing a fight might mean losing a limb, which you then replace with a robotic prosthetic. It looks plain, but the freedom is unmatched, and Reddit regularly calls it one of the best sandbox RPGs ever made. Kenshi is available on PC.

Dread Delusion looks like a lost PS1 game, but its inspiration is pure Morrowind. Lovely Hellplace built a surreal open-world RPG set on the Oneiric Isles, floating islands where the gods have been overthrown and a strange new order has taken over. You explore in first person, take on quests from bizarre factions, find hidden dungeons and gradually build a character the way Elder Scrolls games do. The tone is strange and melancholic, and the world is small but crowded with ideas. It reached full release on PC in May 2024 after early access, and in March 2026 it came to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2. If you want the feel of a 2000s Elder Scrolls game in a weekend, this is it.

Below are short answers to the questions people ask most often when looking for their next game after Skyrim.

The game most like Skyrim is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered — same series, same studio, same structure of guilds, dungeons and free exploration. If you have already played it, the closest alternatives are Enderal (a free total conversion of Skyrim itself), Avowed and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon for first-person fantasy, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II if you want a realistic version of the same freedom.

On PS5, the strongest picks are Oblivion Remastered, The Witcher 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Elden Ring, Dragon's Dogma 2, Crimson Desert, The Blood of Dawnwalker and Avowed, which reached PS5 in 2026. Starfield also came to PS5 in April 2026, and Fallout 4 is available with a free next-gen update.

Yes — Xbox has most of the list, including Bethesda's own Oblivion Remastered, Fallout 4 and Starfield, Obsidian's Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, as well as Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Elden Ring, Dragon's Dogma 2 and Crimson Desert. Fallout: New Vegas also runs on Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility.

On Switch, the best options are The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, Hogwarts Legacy, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning and Risen. Switch 2 adds Oblivion Remastered, Elden Ring Tarnished Edition, Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, Valheim and Dread Delusion.

The Elder Scrolls Online is the official way to explore Tamriel — including Skyrim — with other players. For co-op with friends, Valheim and Outward are the best fits, and Baldur's Gate 3 supports co-op as well. Skyrim itself can be played online with fan mods; we collected them in our list of co-op mods for single-player games.

The best free option is Enderal: Forgotten Stories, a full RPG built on Skyrim's engine — it is free on Steam if you own Skyrim. Another way to get a fresh Skyrim experience at no cost is through mods; our guide to the best Skyrim mods in 2026 covers quest and overhaul mods that feel like new games.

Bethesda has not announced a release date for The Elder Scrolls VI. The game was revealed in 2018 and is still in development, and Bethesda has said it is a long way off. Until then, the games on this list are the best way to fill the gap.

Which game finally filled the Skyrim-shaped hole in your life — or are you still on your fifteenth Dragonborn? Tell us in the comments what we missed.

A few more games did not make the main list but are worth knowing about if you have played through the best games like Skyrim and still want more. One is an old cult RPG with a rough reputation, another is the dungeon crawler that led to Arkane's later work, and the third is an early Elder Scrolls game that fans have rebuilt for modern PCs. If you prefer something less demanding, our list of the best RPGs for low-end PCs and laptops includes plenty of open-world options, and the broader best open-world games list goes beyond fantasy.

A 2010 fantasy RPG from Reality Pump that many people remember for its rough edges, but which has aged into a cult favorite. The world of Antaloor is large and varied, magic is built from cards you combine into custom spells, and you can sail, ride and craft freely. It is clumsy in places, but few RPGs of its era offered this much freedom.

Arkane's 2002 debut is a first-person RPG set in an underground kingdom after the sun has died. You cast spells by drawing runes with the mouse, and the levels are full of secrets, simulation and sneaking. It is the ancestor of both Dark Messiah and Dishonored, and the free open-source Arx Libertatis port makes it easy to run today if you own the original game.

The 1996 Elder Scrolls game that tried to fit a whole region of Tamriel — thousands of towns, dungeons and villages — into one procedurally generated map. Bethesda gives the original away for free, and the fan-made Daggerfall Unity project recreates it in a modern engine with mouse look, bug fixes and mod support. Its labyrinthine dungeons and wild freedom are a fascinating look at where Skyrim's ideas started.