You know that feeling. You’ve finished Skyrim for the tenth time. You’ve modded it until it broke, fixed it, and then spent eighty hours wandering the Reach just to look at the fog. Now you’re staring at your library, desperate for that specific hit of dopamine only Bethesda seems to provide. Finding Elder Scrolls similar games is actually a nightmare because nobody really makes games like Todd Howard does. It’s a weirdly specific sub-genre. You want the "see that mountain? You can climb it" freedom, but you also want the clunky charm, the deep lore books, and the ability to ignore the world-ending threat because you're too busy collecting cheese wheels.
Most people point you toward The Witcher 3. Honestly? That's a mistake if you're looking for a true sandbox. Geralt is a pre-defined character with a pre-defined soul. You can't just decide he's a stealth-archer who hates everyone. To find something that actually scratches the itch, we have to look at the mechanics of "first-person immersive exploration" rather than just "fantasy RPG."
The DNA of an Elder Scrolls experience
What are we actually looking for here? It’s not just dragons. It’s the autonomy. It's that moment you step out of a sewer or a cave and the game says, "Go ahead, ruin your life."
The industry calls these "Immersive Sims" or "Open World Sandboxes," but those labels are kinda sterile. For a game to feel like Morrowind or Oblivion, it needs three things. First, a world that exists regardless of whether you’re there. Second, a "use-based" or at least highly flexible progression system. Third, an absurd amount of interactable junk. If I can't pick up a plate and throw it at a guard, is it even an RPG?
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance curve
If you want the "clunky but deep" feeling of Oblivion, you have to play Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It’s a historical RPG set in 15th-century Bohemia. There is no magic. No elves. Just you, Henry, a blacksmith's son who is remarkably bad at everything.
This is the closest a modern game has ever gotten to the Morrowind philosophy of "you are a nobody." In Skyrim, you’re the Dragonborn within twenty minutes. In Kingdom Come, if you try to fight two bandits at once in the first five hours, you will die. You have to learn to read. Literally. Your character looks at a book and the letters are scrambled until you put points into the literacy skill. It’s frustrating. It’s brilliant.
The alchemy system is the best in the business. You don't just click "craft." You stand at a bench, grind herbs in a mortar, pour wine into a cauldron, and pull the bellows to heat it for a specific amount of time. It’s tactile. It’s immersive. It’s exactly the kind of friction that makes Elder Scrolls similar games actually worth playing.
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The Obsidian factor: Avowed and the New Vegas legacy
We can't talk about Bethesda without talking about Obsidian Entertainment. They’re like the divorced parents of the first-person RPG. When Fallout: New Vegas came out, it used the Oblivion engine but added actual consequences to your choices.
The Outer Worlds was marketed as "Fallout in space," but it felt a bit small. A bit directed. However, Obsidian’s newest project, Avowed, is explicitly aiming for that Skyrim density. Set in the world of Pillars of Eternity, it’s a first-person, magic-heavy RPG.
Is it a one-to-one replacement? Maybe not. Obsidian tends to focus more on branching dialogue and faction reputation than Bethesda's "go anywhere, do anything" philosophy. But if your favorite part of The Elder Scrolls is the political maneuvering between the Great Houses of Morrowind or the Civil War in Skyrim, Avowed is the primary contender for your time in 2026.
Why Dragon's Dogma 2 is a trap (and why you'll love it anyway)
A lot of lists will put Dragon's Dogma 2 right at the top. Be careful. If you go in expecting Skyrim, you’re going to be annoyed.
The quest design is obtuse. The fast travel is intentionally restrictive. There isn't a "sneaking" system that lets you wipe out a whole camp with a bow. But—and this is a big but—the sense of adventure is unparalleled. In Skyrim, you walk toward a marker. In Dragon's Dogma 2, you set out for a town, get jumped by a Griffin, fall off a cliff into a cave you didn't see, and spend three days trying to find your way back to the road.
It captures the feeling of a journey better than almost any other game. The "Pawn" system, where you hire AI companions created by other players, fills that void of loneliness you often feel in Bethesda games. They chatter, they point out treasure, and they actually help in a fight. It’s less of a "Life Simulator" and more of a "Heroism Simulator."
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Hidden gems: The Indie scene’s take on the formula
Sometimes the big AAA studios are too scared to be weird. That’s where the indie devs come in. If you want that crunchy, old-school Daggerfall or Morrowind vibe, you have to look at Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.
It’s currently in Early Access, but it’s the most blatant "love letter" to The Elder Scrolls on the market. It’s dark, it’s moody, and it’s set in a twisted version of Arthurian legend. The world is bleak. The monsters are horrifying. But the freedom to build a character and just wander into a forest you aren't prepared for is totally there.
Then there’s Dread Delusion.
The graphics look like a PS1 fever dream. It’s neon, it’s jagged, and it’s beautiful. You play in a world where the surface of the earth is cursed and humanity lives on floating islands. It uses a very Morrowind-esque approach to world-building where everything is alien and nothing is explained. You just have to exist in it. It’s a reminder that Elder Scrolls similar games don’t need a hundred-million-dollar budget to be engaging; they just need a strong sense of place.
The Gothic and ELEX rabbit hole
Piranha Bytes is a developer you either love or hate. There is no middle ground. Their Gothic series—specifically Gothic 2—was the European rival to The Elder Scrolls back in the day.
Their more recent stuff, like ELEX II, is... janky. Let's be honest. The combat feels like fighting underwater with a pool noodle. The voice acting is hit-or-miss. But the world-building is fascinating. It’s a "Science-Fantasy" setting where you have knights with swords, outlaws with shotguns, and mages with mana, all fighting over a meteor-spawned resource.
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The progression is the draw here. You start as a total weakling. A giant rat can kill you. But by the end of the game, you’re jetpacking over mountains and raining fire on entire armies. That "Zero to Hero" arc is much more pronounced than in Skyrim, where you start out pretty capable.
What about the "Immersive Sim" cousins?
If you realized that what you actually liked about Skyrim was breaking into houses and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, you shouldn't be looking at RPGs. You should be looking at Dishonored or Prey (2017).
Arkane Studios are the masters of the "contained sandbox." These aren't open worlds. They are series of large, open levels. But the level of interactivity is staggering. In Prey, you can turn into a coffee cup to hide from an alien. You can find twenty different ways into a locked room.
It’s the same "player agency" that makes The Elder Scrolls great, just condensed into a smaller, more polished package. If you haven't played Cyberpunk 2077 since its 2.0 update and the Phantom Liberty expansion, that’s another one. It finally feels like a lived-in world. You can just cruise the streets, take on random gigs, and build a character that feels unique. It’s the "Urban Elder Scrolls" we never got.
Actionable steps for your next adventure
Don't just go out and buy five games. You’ll get overwhelmed and go back to Skyrim anyway. Instead, try this approach to find your next obsession:
- Identify your "Anchor": Why do you play The Elder Scrolls? If it’s for the modding, look at Fallout 4 or Starfield. If it’s for the exploration, go with Elden Ring. If it’s for the immersion/life sim aspects, get Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
- Check the "Euro-Jank" bin: Games like GreedFall or Outward are often on sale for under $10. They have more heart and complex RPG systems than most $70 blockbusters. Outward, specifically, is a co-op survival RPG that is brutally difficult but incredibly rewarding.
- Give the classics a shot: If you started with Skyrim, go back to Morrowind. Use the "OpenMW" engine to make it run smoothly on modern hardware. It’s a totally different beast—no quest markers, no fast travel, just you and a journal. It’s the purest version of the formula.
- Watch the "Warthog" developers: Keep an eye on The Wayward Realms. It’s being developed by Ted Peterson and Julian Lefay—the original creators of The Elder Scrolls. They are trying to build a "Grand RPG" that returns to the massive, procedurally generated scale of Daggerfall.
The reality is that there isn't a single "Skyrim-killer." Bethesda’s formula is a mix of high-budget spectacle and weird, systemic quirks that are hard to replicate. But by branching out into historical sims like Kingdom Come or weird indie projects like Dread Delusion, you might find that you don't actually need The Elder Scrolls VI as badly as you thought. You just needed a world that respects your curiosity.
Go pick one. Stop staring at the Skyrim main menu. Henry is waiting for you in Rattay, and he really needs to learn how to hold a sword.