History Main / QuicksandBox

** The game's editor is an extreme example of this. After loads of updates, in version 2.1, the editor has became so complicated that it really scares off many newcomers. The editor here is way more complex than in Mario Maker since you can make literal custom designs and minigames out of existing blocks and features. And it's all fully available right from the start, with not really helpful guide. In 2.2, this becomes even more extreme since the editor is going to get 6 years of new features in a moment.

** The game's editor is an extreme example of this. After loads of updates, in version 2.1, the editor has became so complicated that it really scares off many newcomers. The editor here is way more complex than in Mario Maker since you can make literal custom designs and minigames out of existing blocks and features. And it's all fully available right from the start, with not really helpful guide. In 2.2, this becomes even more extreme since the editor is going to get 6 years of new features in a moment.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom Tears of the Kingdom]]'', being a sequel to ''Breath of the Wild'', follows the same route: After completing the tutorial and getting your new powers, you're dumped in Hyrule Field, and while the game [[PlayerNudge plunks down a few objective markers for you]], you're free to do whatever you want. And you get to do it in an overworld that's even more sidequest-dense, and massively expanded due to the introduction of the Sky Islands [[spoiler: and the Depths, which are comparable in size to the primary overworld]].

Efforts to avoid this in sequels or current (as of 2020) games may actually be [[UnwantedAssistance seen as overly-pampering.]] [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Openness is not bad]]; some players prefer the risk of getting lost to being [[{{Railroading}} railroaded]]. Well-designed games would often find remedy in an AchievementSystem which provides inspiration and impulse to the player. Compare AltItis, which largely focuses on differing character abilities and options, and SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer, which may overlap. Contrast NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' was benefitted by this. After you get your characters out of a character creator where the only limit on customization was "no asymetrical costumes" you now had to get through your starting mission path. Unlike most MMOs which will have you do one story mission chain. CoH at launch you had to choose one of two starting zones and from there, had a choice of five starting mission contacts... per zone... And that's if you want to do the story mission, you can go to level cap by repeated missions and pick up group teams and never do lore stuff at all. The Devs actually cut an entire zone worth of content and City of Villains launched with a tighter chain (one zone and two initial contacts... that gave at least three choices in the unrelated next content, but the wide open story content was back enforce with Going Rogue expansion, which introduced another starting zone for both factions, which had two factions to choose from in that zone... and then had two sub-factions within them and offered the option to defect from any level of factions. You would need four characters to do each mission chain when appropriately leveled. As a rule, no matter what level you were in City of Heroes, you couldn't do every level appropriate mission without freezing your xp-gain (and they even offered a system to "go back" in time and do the missions again.). That said, mechanically, the missions didn't differ all that much and many players did have paths that would show missions that offered superior story, settings, and effects.

* Back in 2007, Capcom's Keiji Inafune suggested that the effect of this trope, combined with his perception of the Japanese desire to be guided, explains the relative lack of success that WideOpenSandbox titles had in Japan at the time. There was a mention of Western attitudes towards free-roaming gameplay being similar to going deer hunting and bagging a bear instead.

Efforts to avoid this in sequels may actually be [[AnnoyingVideogameHelper seen as overly-pampering.]] [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Openness is not bad]]; some players prefer the risk of getting lost to being [[{{Railroading}} railroaded]]. Well-designed games would often find remedy in an AchievementSystem which provides inspiration and impulse to the player. Compare AltItis, which largely focuses on differing character abilities and options, and SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer, which may overlap. Contrast NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom.

Efforts to avoid this in sequels may actually be [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks seen as overly-pampering.]] [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Openness is not bad]]; some players prefer the risk of getting lost to being [[{{Railroading}} railroaded]]. Well-designed games would often find remedy in an AchievementSystem which provides inspiration and impulse to the player. Compare AltItis, which largely focuses on differing character abilities and options, and SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer, which may overlap. Contrast NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom.

* A similar game on PC and mobiles, ''VideoGame/GeometryDash'' is an extreme example of this for just its editor. After loads of updates, in version 2.1, the editor has became so complicated that it really scares off many newcomers. The editor here is way more complex than in Mario Maker since you can make literal custom designs and minigames out of existing blocks and features. And it's all fully available right from the start, with not really helpful guide. In 2.2, this becomes even more extreme since the editor is going to get 6 years of new features in a moment.

* Most early {{Creator/Sierra}} adventure games. Particularly the games that used a text parser, which were infamous for dropping you in a room without so much as an introductory message, while the later point-and-click games had at least some sort of introduction giving you some clues. The original ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest'' was particularly infamous: at the start of the game, you're dressed in your police uniform in the main hall of the station. If you don't figure out that you need to attend your morning briefing within the first three minutes of the game, you'd get HaveANiceDeath when you finally walked into the briefing room.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' would drop you in a starter town with a level 1 weapon suited to your class, unless you were a Monk, in which case you got your fists, ''unless'' you were a Warrior in which case they gave you a one-handed sword, even though a one-handed axe would be far better suited to Warrior (there is no indication that WARs are better with axe than sword). Then they'd point you at either Saruta-Baruta, Gustaberg, or Ronfaure, depending on the city you started in, and wished you the best of luck in a game that would come to include 20 jobs, a subjob function, 99 levels, 8 crafts not counting fishing, fishing, and much more. Thank God there was a wiki.

Gradually became a DiscreditedTrope as internet access for guides became easier, game developers are quicker to user feedbacks, and general implementations of AntiFrustrationFeatures that became standard, such as objective markers, in modern videogames since late 2010s.

* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' gives you a wide-open world to explore once you've completed the tutorial. Sure, there's something about tracking down the people who massacred your village, but first why not go check out some ancient ruins for artifacts, or climb a Tallneck, or hunt some machines for parts, or...
* ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' downplays this by staggering out OpeningTheSandbox so that the player gets two "starting areas" to explore before heading out into Tenakth territory, which is where the real meat of the game is. Still, it's easy to get bowled over by options even in the Daunt alone, where there are collectible items, numerous sidequests and a multitude of things to do and buy in Chainscrape and Barren Light. Then the Utaru territory is even worse, being much larger in all directions with oodles more stuff to do. Then Aloy ''finally'' reaches Tenakth territory on the other side of the mountains containing the Zero Dawn facility, and she has ''three separate directions'' to go in for the main quest alone, each one taking her through a gigantic swath of the western U.S. with hundreds of machines to kill and side objectives to complete.

* ''VideoGame/{{Turgor}}'' (aka ''The Void'') doesn't hold your hand, rarely tells you where to go, and when it does tell you what to do, it doesn't tell you in what order or how best to do so. It is very much a game of trial and error, and you can expect to die several times even before fighting a Brother through simple resource mismanagement.

* The ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'' may have started with a relatively linear {{Metroidvania}}, but the future games opened up immensely. Gotham tends to be filled with side content, but the most notable is probably the Riddler collectibles. The Riddler in each game can distract you for a good percentage of the game's playtime, something that can be extremely daunting if you want to achieve OneHundredPercentCompletion, or at least just see the resolution of his plot. The actual main story, however, is consistently and clearly signposted, so once you decide to actually finish the game, you know what to do.
* ''Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' might consist of small sections per mission, but the many activities, limited-time events, and sidestories to do can be overwhelming to an average gamer. There's also the fact that large amount of content can be gained without the need to pay or use paid content.

* Most early {{Creator/Sierra}} adventure games. Particularly the games that used a text parser, which were infamous for dropping you in a room without so much as an introductory message, while the later point-and-click games had at least some sort of introduction giving you some clues. The original ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest'' was particularly infamous: at the start of the game, you're dressed in your police uniform in the main hall of the station. If you don't figure out that you need to attend your morning briefing within the first three minutes of the game, you'd get HaveANiceDeath when you finally walked into the briefing room.

* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedUnderground 2'', after you're stuck into searching for secret races or [[EventFlag need to complete specially hard DVD/magazine covers]].

* ''VideoGame/SecondLife''. When the question to "what can I do?" can more or less be answered by "anything", this is a big stumbling block for newbies. It also gets overwhelming when you look up tutorials on how to even build things from prims or how to make a script. And then there's the in world currency (mostly gotten with real money) where you can use it for almost "anything"... God help us if ''Second Life'' and ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'' have a child.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies'' allowed players to level up several skills across 30+ professions, explore one of the largest MMO gaming worlds ever created, and fly (and fight) in space. Most of the planets allowed players to create and run cities, decorate them (and the planets) with various Storyteller objects, and decorate multiplayer ships.

* ''The Saga of VideoGame/{{Ryzom}}'' has a relatively wide-open tutorial area, and you can do the four or five quest chains to learn the game's various skills in any order you like. Then you go to the mainland, which is ''huge'', and some players are just so awed by the hugeness that they make a new character and stay on the tutorial island for a while longer.
* Earlier incarnations of ''A Tale in the Desert'' were much like this. You were plonked down next to some schools in a ''vast'' world, told to grab some flax and to build a few materials to get started - and then you were left wondering what to do next. Research crossbreeding? Build art? Take over the world? Yeah.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' would drop you in a starter town with a level 1 weapon suited to your class, unless you were a Monk, in which case you got your fists, ''unless'' you were a Warrior in which case they gave you a one-handed sword, even though a one-handed axe would be far better suited to Warrior (there is no indication that WARs are better with axe than sword). Then they'd point you at either Saruta-Baruta, Gustaberg, or Ronfaure, depending on the city you started in, and wished you the best of luck in a game that would come to include 20 jobs, a subjob function, 99 levels, 8 crafts not counting fishing, fishing, and much more. Thank God there was a wiki.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' was benefitted by this. After you get your characters out of a character creator where the only limit on customization was "no asymetrical costumes" you now had to get through your starting mission path. Unlike most MMOs which will have you do one story mission chain. CoH at launch you had to choose one of two starting zones and from there, had a choice of five starting mission contacts... per zone... And that's if you want to do the story mission, you can go to level cap by repeated missions and pick up group teams and never do lore stuff at all. The Devs actually cut an entire zone worth of content and City of Villains launched with a tighter chain (one zone and two initial contacts... that gave at least three choices in the unrelated next content, but the wide open story content was back enforce with Going Rogue expansion, which introduced another starting zone for both factions, which had two factions to choose from in that zone... and then had two sub-factions within them and offered the option to defect from any level of factions. You would need four characters to do each mission chain when appropriately leveled. As a rule, no matter what level you were in City of Heroes, you couldn't do every level appropriate mission without freezing your xp-gain (and they even offered a system to "go back" in time and do the missions again.). That said, mechanically, the missions didn't differ all that much and many players did have paths that would show missions that offered superior story, settings, and effects.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' doesn't have this problem at the start, as the game makes it very clear what you need to do and how you need to do it. However, the vast majority of the game's content is only available (or only feasible) after you complete the main quest... and you're not told how to find ''any'' of it. [[spoiler:The house with the smoking chimney]] might point you to the Sea, but that's it.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'': The game starts off by dropping you into Dracula's Castle; and not telling the player where to go. The hints you get are few and far in between, and even then they just give you a broad goal. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'' takes a step to avert this trope by having a screen where you can consult a character who gives you a hint on what you can probably do next.
* ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'', once you reach open waters.

* ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' essentially ''has'' no goals. You just get dumped into the world and told to make your own fun.
** Its MissionPackSequel / UpdatedRerelease, ''Warband'', gives players the option to do a starting quest that has a small, simple storyline and conclusion, introducing them to some of the mechanics and the setting...at which point they are again dumped into the world and left to their devices.
** While most user-made mods add only different weapons and textures, there are a precious few which add a storyline, or at least a long-term goal.

* Once the ''VideoGame/{{SaGa|RPG}}'' games went onto consoles, every single one suffered from this. ''VideoGame/{{SaGa Frontier}}'' plays the trope straight and averts it because of AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Lute and Blue had the most "open" quests (and Blue had "learn magic" as a guidepost), while the other five playable characters had relatively linear stories. Depending on who you chose to play as, you had your pick of linearity.
* Several games in the ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series are like this. Especially ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaV''.

* ''Metal Max'' and ''VideoGame/MetalSaga''. You're dumped into an enormous world with no more guidance than "See those monsters on the wanted posters? Kill them", and the occasional mention of places you can go now.
* ''VideoGame/YumeNikki''. The start menu says you're looking for "effects", but there's no explanation where to find them, no word of what they are, and no in-game reason for you to do anything. Plus you can wander for hours without finding anything and just wonder if the game is some LSD-induced MindScrew.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Gothic}} Gothic III]]'' does this far more so than the previous games in the series. At the start you're dropped into an overrun town and must liberate it, but then other than some far distant goal of meeting up with an old friend ''somewhere'' and the vague notion that it'd ''probably'' be a good idea to liberate the rest of the country and see if the King is still holding up, no real direction is provided. Exactly what you do and how you do it are left up to the player to decide, with consequences for your actions learned the hard way.
* ''VideoGame/{{Darklands}}'' hardly even ''had'' a main plot, just random quests. Technically, you're supposed to stop the apocalypse by defeating Baphomet, but that only entailed doing two quests to find the location of the final fortress then beating the fortress itself. There were no hints in game or in the manual that that was supposed to be your goal.
* For the people who love to aim for HundredPercentCompletion, ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' can be like this. Beat the Gym Leaders, unlock the [=NationalDex=], explore the world, and [[GottaCatchEmAll catch them all]]! Sounds simple, except sometimes, the games don't tell you where certain things are (like rare Pokémon) or how to access them.
** To a lesser extent, exploring the region could become a case of this as well. The regions became less linear until [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Sinnoh]], after which, from [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Unova]] and onward, the games either follow along a direct path from beginning to end (Unova, [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Alola]]) or the games make aggressive use of {{NPC Roadblock}}s who tell you where to go next ([[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Kalos]], [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Galar]]). Though Creator/GameFreak has never stated why this is the case, the most common theory is that they came from complaints from players about getting lost and growing frustrated.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'' takes a break from the increasingly linear gameplay of its predecessors by dividing the Hisui region into several enormous sandboxes, like larger versions of Galar's Wild Area. While the game does attempt to prod you in the right direction to continue the story, there is surprisingly little hand-holding--you're free to, for example, encounter and challenge Alpha Pokémon before you even know what they ''are'', much less before you're able to defeat one.
* While the bulk of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is in fact NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom, the one exception, Gran Pulse is this trope. You are dumped into a field, given a short tutorial about Cie'th Stone giving missions... and that's it. The next step to continue the story is a red X of in an unrevealed section of the map.

* Common throughout ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, in large part because of how early the games [[OpeningTheSandbox Open The Sandbox]] for you. Typically, after a brief tutorial and a tip on where to go next for the main quest, you're free to go wherever you want and do whatever you want. There are LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests, as well as full blown [[SidequestSidestory Sidequest Sidestories]] (some of which, particularly the faction questlines, are nearly as expansive as the main quest). By game:
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' has a nigh-infinite (though with significant [[ProceduralGeneration procedural generation]] and [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels Randomly Designed Dungeons]]) game world. After escaping the NoobCave [[ForcedTutorial tutorial dungeon]], you're told to use fast-travel to head to Daggerfall itself but the game otherwise leaves you to your own devices. Given how big the world is, it's ''very'' easy to get lost. If you follow Daggerfall's main quest, you explore maybe a dozen towns and dungeons. The rest of the ''15,000'' locations are optional.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', though thousands of times smaller in terms of raw square footage than its predecessor, trades away the procedurally and randomly generated sections for a hand-built game world while still being ''far'' larger than most video game settings. Vvardenfell, the island the game plays on is huge, and it takes almost 45 real-time minutes to walk from one end to the other (and that is without stopping to explore along the way). In the (short but extant) tutorial, you learn in about five minutes how to use the controls, then the game kicks you out of the door, hands you a couple of coins and says: "Here, this is the world, have fun" while only giving you a direction for where to go to continue the main quest. {{Beef Gate}}s and the rare PlotLock are the only impediments to going wherever you want and doing whatever your want. The game also doesn't do much hand-holding in your quest log, forcing you to remember people and places from quests you might have received weeks ago in real time.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' continue the trend of large and (mostly) hand-built game worlds. After the tutorial in each, other than a direction on where to go next for the main quest, there is nothing stopping you from immediately going and exploring the entirety of those game worlds. On the one hand, these worlds are huge (compared to other [=RPGs=]) and are incredibly detailed, with dozens upon dozens of quests. On the other, nearly all the quests are neatly catalogued in your character menu with reminders of what you're doing and geographic markers to where the next objective is located, and each individual quest can activated or deactivated from that menu.
* The later ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' games, VII and 8 especially, have quite a bit of this. You're dumped onto an alien planet with only the broad outlines of what's going on and are expected to figure out what to do from there. If you import from the previous game, you might be immediately greeted with a questline to follow... that's probably far too hard for your level. Good luck figuring out where you're supposed to go and when - the plot of these games tends towards the labyrinthine...

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' throws you into the land of Lordran with no clear goal beyond "ring the two Bells of Awakening". You don't know what will happen when you do, or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d_iUub7bYg even where their locations are]]. At the very first stages you can find yourself in locations that have enemies you can't possibly damage without fulfilling special conditions that you're not told. (The most common advice to new players is, "If you're fighting skeletons, you went the wrong way.") Generally the game doesn't give the player any hand holding, expecting them to read through item descriptions to get hints of where to go next.
** Despite statements from the developers on making it easier to find out where to go and fan fears, [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsII its sequel]] can be much worse than the original when it comes to this, as all the player is told is to find the four Old Ones and kill them for their souls. Where the player goes from there is up to them, though most get confused as to where to go after defeating what is usually their first boss, the Last Giant, as it gives no indication of what do next.
* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' is Creator/FromSoftware's truly open world Main/SoulsLikeRPG. Combining the nebulous nature of the ''Dark Souls'' games with a massive world to explore means players can spend hours combing Limgrave, the game's starting area, for equipment, collectables, and levels. This is by design, however, [[BeefGate as Margit is an extremely difficult first major boss to fell,]] and your time in Limgrave will prepare you for him.
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', the first explorable zone, the Hinterlands, is also the largest, with tons of side quests, landmarks, and other stuff to do. This has been known to cause players to lose sight of the next main quest and completely immerse themselves in exploring every nook and cranny of the zone, and then complain that there is too much to do and the plot is moving too slowly (especially if they forget what the next main quest even ''is'', having set a side quest as active by accident). This especially plagues players desiring OneHundredPercentCompletion and used to Creator/BioWare's "don't move on until you've completely cleared a zone" formula. "Still in the Hinterlands" has become a meme. What the game actually expects you to do is to clear the low-level areas of a zone first, do a main quest, and then comes back at higher levels.
-->"[[http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/631230-dragon-age-inquisition/70943067 Your problem is you're still in the hinterlands.]]

-->The gameplay for DAI is amazing, but there's no neon sign saying, "Leave Hinterlands. Come back in 5 levels. Bring pie."

-->Leave at level six or seven, come back at ten, leave at twelve, come back at 15, kill the dragon, be happy.

-->Makes the game flow a lot better than spending 30 hours in hinterlands like I did, and being overleveled for the rest of the playthrough on Nightmare."
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' gives you a wide-open world to explore once you've completed the tutorial. Sure, there's something about tracking down the people who massacred your village, but first why not go check out some ancient ruins for artifacts, or climb a Tallneck, or hunt some machines for parts, or...
* ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' downplays this by staggering out OpeningTheSandbox so that the player gets two "starting areas" to explore before heading out into Tenakth territory, which is where the real meat of the game is. Still, it's easy to get bowled over by options even in the Daunt alone, where there are collectible items, numerous sidequests and a multitude of things to do and buy in Chainscrape and Barren Light. Then the Utaru territory is even worse, being much larger in all directions with oodles more stuff to do. Then Aloy ''finally'' reaches Tenakth territory on the other side of the mountains containing the Zero Dawn facility, and she has ''three separate directions'' to go in for the main quest alone, each one taking her through a gigantic swath of the western U.S. with hundreds of machines to kill and side objectives to complete.
* While all of the ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games were set in open locations, the side content was usually limited to optional [[GottaCatchThemAll collectibles]] and stock missions. ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'', however, marked a shift into an open world RPG. In Origins, after the prologue and aside from the occasional BeefGate, you're let loose upon almost the entirety of ancient Egypt, filled to the brim with forts to capture, landmarks to explore, treasure to discover, and side quests to complete. ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' takes this even further with the entirety of ancient Greece and all new systems and optional objectives to complete. The game even subtly encourages you to take your time, extending the playtime so much that it would be easy to retire from the game tens of hours in without ever having completed the story.
* ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'', in noticeable contrast to its [[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 two]] [[VideoGame/Mother3 successors]], has little-to-no handholding whatsoever. The overworld is very open, lacks a map, and has a lot of identical settings due to graphical limitations. The gameplay itself is also incredibly nonlinear; besides finding the Eight Melodies (which in and of itself suffers from GuideDangIt), you have to figure out what you need to be doing on your own.

* The ''VideoGame/SimCity'' series have no goal at all other than what the player sets for himself. "Build the highest population city you can" is a pretty popular one. Though each game has a handful of scenarios with actual win/lose conditions.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims'' series can be summed up as "You die, you lose. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Maybe.]] Start playing." The sequels starting with ''2'' at least include a system for short-term and long-term goals.
* The ''VideoGame/RollerCoasterTycoon'' series, although almost all of the stages do have objectives to fulfill. After you complete them, then it wanders off into this territory.

* ''VideoGame/StardewValley'', the SpiritualSuccessor to ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'', often causes this to new players. The player is given a small bit of exposition, but it drops a ''lot'' of content available to you at once. (Various character stats, exploring the mine, farming, foraging, unlocking the bus, relationships, fishing, unlocking more areas to explore, rebuilding the community centre) Virtually no explanation is given to you as which of these is important or even ''how'' you can go about doing this, or ''when''. The sheer amount of content available at the start, as well as [[EarlyGameHell your tiny wallet]] can make players feel almost ''stressed''.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is possibly the only game to encompass geology, weather patterns, genetics, city building, tactical combat, individual psychology, item crafting and the effects of a punctured lung all in the same game setting. This is made worse by the fact that the author is continually adding new features to the game, making it much more complicated every year. This causes most prospective players to quit in the first week. Once you can make it past the learning stage, [[EarnYourFun the game is immensely fun]]. Consulting [[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page the wiki]] regularly is almost mandatory for new players, and many veteran players still check in every so often.
* ''VideoGame/DeadInVinland'' originally had an overall-game time limit that it didn't tell you about until you ran afoul of it. Fortunately [[AuthorsSavingThrow the devs patched this out after release]]. [[NintendoHard It's hard enough without it.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheDeadLinger'' throws you into a zombie-infested world, gives you a small prompt on how the controls work... and that's it. The game has no definitive end, but since your goal is to survive the ZombieApocalypse, you're probably always on the run, evading zombies and trying to scavenge food. But still, if you get lucky with the random world and item generation, you could just find the biggest backpack, fill it to the brim with food and stay in the town you probably started in (or near), without ever going out to explore the more interesting places in the procedurally generated world.

* ''VideoGame/DayZ''. At the start you absolutely need to find a gun, but once you have a gun and some ammo and you know where to hide you are more or less done with the mandatory tasks, leaving you in the middle of a giant map with no objectives and nothing to do. You can gank players, take their cars and powerful guns, then use those to gank more players until you get ganked in turn and have to reroll a new character.
* ''VideoGame/CursedTrilogy'': 2 and 3 can fall into this with how much of the game world becomes open to exploration at the beginning, but little to no hint(s) are provided as to what ''specifically'' the player needs to (or should) be doing. It's easy for a player to pick up item(s), but not have any idea on where they should be used. Confounding this are the amount of items that have no use. As a result, it's very easy to spend a lot of time poking around before trying to find an item that will open up more of the game world, or to get a hint as to ''why'' they need to pick certain item(s) up.

* The early VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe games hit this pretty hard; you're thrown in the universe with a mediocre/[[EarnYourFun bad]] ship, with no real goals aside from short plots. ''X3: Terran Conflict'' gives the players more clear goals and offers more plots to follow while making it somewhat easier to start.
* The ''[[VideoGame/JustCause Just Cause]]'' series. It's very easy to get lost, but the sheer amount of non-story related things makes it possible to have oodles of fun while completely ignoring the story. For ''Just Cause 2'', there is also how the game only has eight story missions but almost hundreds of side missions and activities that are required to unlock the story mission.
* ''VideoGame/MadMax2015'': There is some gating, but you get to drive around a sizeable wasteland that is absolutely full of optional content. It's extremely easy to intend to look for one upgrade part, only to realize you've spent hours away from the next story quest on various tasks.

* The Space Stage in ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' conveys the sheer immensity of space very well. Nothing beats watching a binary sunrise (Find a binary -two star- star system. Go to a non-dangerous, and preferably with a thin atmosphere, planet. Watch the suns rise.) Or, watch them set, preferably with the appropriate music. Mods make the game even more fun (infinite Staff of Life, for one).
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You are thrown into an enormous world without any defined goals at all - players can build huge structures, mine valuables from the ground, slaughter monsters, explore landscapes, become nomadic, construct railroads, seek out the [[spoiler:Ender Dragon (as the name implies, it's meant to be a FinalBoss of sorts, but beating it does ''not'' end the game)]] or do practically anything else. This was even worse before the game came with a list of achievements that encourage new players to learn the basics of mining, farming, construction, and combat. Then there's the sheer size of the map: you can wander in one direction and go on for hours never finding an end to it all; in one interview Notch said the potential size of the gameplay world can go up to eight times the surface area of '''Earth itself''' (although there isn't any major difference between different sections of the map). There are various environments all over the place, too (it is possible to see a snow biome right next to a desert in this game before the 1.8 update), giving you a variety of resources to use in building your desired constructions.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', you wander around looking for materials, but how you actually ''progress'' is confusing to a newer player.
* ''VideoGame/GarrysMod'' provides the player with access to every asset from every modern Valve game the player may have installed, tools with which to put said assets together in any way imaginable, and the default maps "gm_construct" and "gm_flatgrass" alongside all of the maps/levels from whatever Source Engine games you have installed. Knock yourself out. Addons available on the Steam Workshop and sites such as garrysmod.org allow for an effectively infinite number of new tools, maps, and assets to play with, both original and ported from other games.

* ''VideoGame/ConwaysGameOfLife'' is not so much a game as it is a visualized automaton of squares. It also happens to create a myriad of patterns and can be 'programmed' to produce simple computers.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', the game starts with the requisite tutorial missions, but then to progress in the story, you are required to earn "respect", with a lot of fun activities and challenges to do. The story itself can actually be this as it is very non-linear in its progression, allowing you to start any of the three basic gang story events at any time (with enough respect). And that doesn't even count the "stronghold missions" that have elements of story in them as well. Like ''Grand Theft Auto'', however, there is a clear indication on where and what to do, generally, visit any colored markers and do whatever you have to do.
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' and ''Videogame/SaintsRowIV'' are very linear. With rare exceptions, you usually have only one story quest to select at a time, and the game will periodically remind you to do it. You don't need Respect to unlock missions, either. Side activities and collectibles are also clearly introduced in story quests.
* In ''[[VideoGame/BoilingPointRoadtoHell Boiling Point]]'', the main quest is laid out pretty clearly. However, the story missions are all blocked by sizable [[CashGate cash gates]], leaving the player to wander around aimlessly until they figure out how to get a hold of some money.

* In ''{{VideoGame/Foxhole}}'', it can be daunting for a new player to figure out what to do and where to go; there is no in-game direction as to what you should be doing to win the war. Especially since you start only with a pistol and a hammer, just getting a basic rifle or finding the action takes some getting used to.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom]]'', being a sequel to ''Breath of the Wild'', follows the same route: After completing the tutorial and getting your new powers, you're dumped in Hyrule Field, and while the game [[PlayerNudge plunks down a few objective markers for you]], you're free to do whatever you want. And you get to do it in an overworld that's even more sidequest-dense, and massively expanded due to the introduction of the Sky Islands [[spoiler: and the Depths, which are comparable in size to the primary overworld]].

* ''[[VideoGame/TheGameOfLife Conway's Game of Life]]'' is not so much a game as it is a visualized automaton of squares. It also happens to create a myriad of patterns and can be 'programmed' to produce simple computers.

* Contrary to the ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' page image, ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' averts this problem for the most part. You go through a few training missions before getting the [[CoolSpaceship Normandy]] to freely fly around the universe, only to be restricted to one ship/planet/asteroid to explore within each star system. Story progression is rather straightforward, despite you being able to play a trio of core missions in whatever order you wish(with a fourth becoming available after the first two are finished), and a clear goal in mind. In addition, all active missions are logged in the pause menu -- even separated to required and optional missions -- so you never have to wonder what you're supposed to be doing. ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' is also an aversion in spite of more missions and a wider scope of freedom. It's still linear.

* From the first minutes of {{VideoGame/Scratches}}, your have an access to almost every room of a huge three-story Victorian mansion, and no clear goals besides "Explore this place before going to sleep". Needless to say, there is a ''lot'' of PixelHunt and GuideDangIt early in the game.

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', after you get the four main runes (bombs and [[MagnetismManipulation the power to manipulate metal objects]], [[TimeStandsStill paralyze objects]] and [[AnIcePerson turn water into ice]]) and learn the basic backstory and goal of the game, you're able to do whatever you wish to do, with the only limitation on where you can travel being your own skill and resourcefulness. You learn what your main goals are early on, but once you've left the Great Plateau there is ''zero'' hand-holding as to how you're supposed to go about achieving them (and there's usually more than one way to do anything that needs doing). Once you've found a side-quest, the game does keep track of your current objectives and pinpoints where you're supposed to go to complete them, so at least you're not ''completely'' lost in doing them.

* ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'', in noticeable contrast to its [[VideoGame/EarthBound two]] [[VideoGame/Mother3 successors]], has little-to-no handholding whatsoever. The overworld is very open, lacks a map, and has a lot of identical settings due to graphical limitations. The gameplay itself is also incredibly nonlinear; besides finding the Eight Melodies (which in and of itself suffers from GuideDangIt), you have to figure out what you need to be doing on your own.

** In the original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'', you're basically sent out with little idea what to do and especially where to go leading to some early deaths. ([[WithThisHerring "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!"]])

* ''VideoGame/BurnoutParadise'' suffered from this a fair bit. You're tossed into a large open world where events are unlocked at every intersection with traffic lights, and drive-throughs like Junkyards, Billboards, Shortcuts, Auto-Repairs and Paint Shops to find (not to mention the Speed and Crash Road Rules on all 70+ roads on the map). The entire game world is unlocked from the start. It can be a nightmare to navigate the game world when you're unfamiliar with it, as events often finish on the other side of the map from where they started. To cap it all off, after finishing a licence, all events are reset and you can win them ''again''.
* While the first ''Videogame/{{Forza}}'' ''Horizon'' tries to avert this with clear progression design, the sequels play this straight in order to not confine the player. In particular, ''Forza Horizon 4'' gave you supercars from the get-go, increasingly numerous events to play, and single-player events that ends with pretty much AWinnerIsYou extremely short celebrations.

* ''VideoGame/RuneScape,'' full stop. Fortunately, there is an in-game list of quests that help newbies explore the areas.

* Most of the ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' games are like this. Depending on which game you play and which faction you play as, you'll probably occasionally be assigned missions from some authority like the Pope or the Roman Senate, but aside from that you're pretty much cut loose to do whatever you want. Conquer the world, become a trade superpower and then conquer the world, spread your religion across the map and [[RuleOfThree then conquer the world]], or just burn it all to the ground and let the rebels have it. [[RunningGag And then conquer the world.]]

* ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' essentially ''has'' no goals. You just get dumped into the world and basically told to make your own fun.

** To a lesser extent, exploring the region could become a case of this as well. Of note is the fact that the regions became less linear until [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Sinnoh]], after which, from [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Unova]] and onward, the games either follow along a direct path from beginning to end (Unova, [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Alola]]) or the games make aggressive use of {{NPC Roadblock}}s who tell you where to go next ([[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Kalos]], [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Galar]]). Though Creator/GameFreak has never stated why this is the case, the most common theory is that they came from complaints from players about getting lost and growing frustrated.

* Common throughout ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, in large part because of how early the games [[OpeningTheSandbox Open The Sandbox]] for you. Typically, after a brief tutorial and a tip on where to go next for the main quest, you're free to go wherever you want and do whatever you want. There are LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests, as well as full blown [[SidequestSidestory Sidequest Sidestories]] (some of which, particularly the faction questlines, are nearly as expansive as the main quest). To note, specifically by game:

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', though thousands of times smaller in terms of raw square footage than its predecessor, trades away the procedurally and randomly generated sections for an entirely hand-built game world while still being ''far'' larger than most video game settings. Vvardenfell, the island the game plays on is huge, and it takes almost 45 real-time minutes to walk from one end to the other (and that is without stopping to explore along the way). In the (short but extant) tutorial, you learn in about five minutes how to use the controls, then the game kicks you out of the door, hands you a couple of coins and basically says: "Here, this is the world, have fun" while only giving you a direction for where to go to continue the main quest. {{Beef Gate}}s and the rare PlotLock are the only impediments to going wherever you want and doing whatever your want. The game also doesn't do much hand-holding in your quest log, forcing you to remember people and places from quests you might have received weeks ago in real time.

* ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'', in noticeable contrast to its [[VideoGame/EarthBound two]] [[VideoGame/Mother3 successors]], has little-to-no handholding whatsoever. The overworld is very open, lacks a map, and has a lot of identical settings due to graphical limitations. The gameplay itself is also incredibly nonlinear; besides finding the Eight Melodies (which in and of itself suffers from GuideDangIt), you pretty much have to figure out what you need to be doing on your own.

* The ''VideoGame/RollerCoasterTycoon'' series, although almost all of the stages do have objectives to fulfill. After you complete them, then it pretty much wanders off into this territory.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is possibly the only game to encompass geology, weather patterns, genetics, city building, tactical combat, individual psychology, item crafting and the effects of a punctured lung all in the same game setting. This is made worse by the fact that the author is continually adding new features to the game, making it much more complicated every year. This causes most prospective players to quit in the first week. Once you can make it past the learning stage, [[EarnYourFun the game is immensely fun]]. Consulting [[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page the wiki]] regularly is pretty much mandatory for new players, and even veteran players still check in every so often.
* ''VideoGame/DeadInVinland'' used to be similar to ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' above, with an overall-game time limit that it didn't tell you about until you ran afoul of it. Fortunately [[AuthorsSavingThrow the devs patched this out after release]]. [[NintendoHard It's hard enough without it.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheDeadLinger'' throws you into a zombie-infested world, gives you a small prompt on how the controls work... and that's pretty much it. The game has no definitive end, but since your goal is to survive the ZombieApocalypse, you're probably always on the run, evading zombies and trying to scavenge food. But still, if you get lucky with the random world and item generation, you could just find the biggest backpack, fill it to the brim with food and stay in the town you probably started in (or near), without ever going out to explore the more interesting places in the procedurally generated world.
* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' can do this to you, but you have to invoke it to a degree. Most of the games' immersion comes in when they go off-script, although the next goals are pretty much always marked out for you so the story can keep moving. In the first game you can at several points tell the guy who gives you your next mission to piss off and just run around the Zone killing people and hunting for artifacts until you're ready to move along with the story.

** ''VideoGame/MadMax2015'' by the same developers is in a similar situation. There is some gating, but you get to drive around a sizeable wasteland that is absolutely full of optional content. It's extremely easy to intend to look for one upgrade part, only to realize you've spent hours away from the next story quest on various tasks.
* ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'' has been accused of this, since it basically just gives you a list of 21 criminals who need to die, and then kicks you into the city to fend for yourself. It's balanced by the fact that you learn how to play the game eventually, and that it's quite fun to wander around getting things. Except those goddamn ''Orbs!''
* Capcom's ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' tries to avoid this with a strict timing for taking up missions, thus limiting the player's ability to roam blindly, but it also made some players frustrated at not figuring out which missions were more important, since missing a mission-time dooms the player to being unable to progress further with the story.
** Plus the weapons can be a mess at first. Many weapons are practically useless at low levels, and even the best ones don't last long. Some enjoyed the freedom and experimentation, though.

* The Space Stage in ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' conveys the sheer immensity of space very well. Possibly too well. Mods make the game even more fun (infinite Staff of Life, for one). Also, nothing beats watching a binary sunrise (Find a binary -two star- star system. Go to a non-dangerous, and preferably with a thin atmosphere, planet. Watch the suns rise.) Or, watch them set, preferably with the appropriate music.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You are thrown into an enormous world without any defined goals at all - players can build huge structures, mine valuables from the ground, slaughter monsters, explore landscapes, become nomadic, construct railroads, seek out the [[spoiler:Ender Dragon (as the name implies, it's meant to be a FinalBoss of sorts, but beating it does ''not'' end the game)]] or do practically anything else. This was even worse before the game came with a list of achievements that encourage new players to learn the basics of mining, farming, construction, and combat. Then there's the sheer size of the map: you can wander in one direction and go on for hours never finding an end to it all; in one interview Notch said the potential size of the gameplay world can go up to eight times the surface area of '''Earth itself''' (although there isn't any major difference between different sections of the map). Not to mention the various environments all over the place (it is possible to see a snow biome right next to a desert in this game before the 1.8 update) giving you a variety of resources to use in building your desired constructions.

* ''[[http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/ Falling Sand Game]]'' is quite a literal version of this, having different colored pixels that react differently to other pixels. That's basically it.

* ''Videogame/GenshinImpact'' can feel like this as it's by the same developer as (in the above Action Adventure section) ''Honkai Impact 3rd''. Granted, limited time, limited amount, and day-locked activities "help" to alleviate the confusion, but there's just a lot of things to do.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' and ''Videogame/SaintsRowIV'', on the other hand are much more linear. With rare exceptions you usually have only one story quest to select at a time, and the game will periodically remind you to do it. You no longer need Respect to unlock missions. Side activities and collectibles are also clearly introduced in story quests.