I’ve always felt like traveling is like playing an open-world video game. But instead of being guided by some main storyline or quest list, you get to choose your own adventure, save up resources so you can go to the parts of the world you want to explore, try to visit as many places as possible by breezing through or stay longer so you can explore each place ore thoroughly. Every person has their own style of gaming and traveling, and that’s ok. But going on these virtual adventures can sometimes inspire you to look for real-world equivalents.
Pretty much every action-adventure or role-playing game (RPG) game I’ve played has inspired me to travel from Legend of Legaia and Spyro to Diablo and The Last of Us. But if I had to pick just a few, these are those that really stood out and inspired me to travel and embark on personal travel quests in real life. If you’re stuck at home, here are some video games you can play to get a travel fix.
Table of Contents
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider was one of the first adventure video games I ever played on the PlayStation 1 back in 1996 and probably shaped how I view travel and adventure in general. This series of action-adventure video games features Lara Croft, a fictional British archaeologist who travels around the world searching for lost artifacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins. The gameplay focuses mainly on the exploration of environments, solving puzzles, navigating hostile environments filled with traps, and fighting enemies.
Even those who haven’t played the video games are familiar with Lara’s adventure through popular movies Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft: Cradle of Life (2003). The 2013 Tomb Raider video game reboot features Lara’s origin story in classic settings like lush forests, temples and scattered ruins of the fictional island of Yamatai.
While many video games feature male protagonists, Tomb Raider was one of the first that showed that women can travel around the world on their own and kick-ass. This video game was the main reason I wanted to travel to Cambodia and why I like exploring jungles, ancient temples, old-world ruins, and off-the-beaten-path destinations compared to big cities.
Journey
Journey is an indie adventure game released for the PlayStation 3 and ported to PlayStation 4. In Journey, the player controls a robed figure in a vast desert, traveling towards a mountain in the distance. Other players can be discovered but there’s no dialogue with speech or text. The only form of communication is a musical chime, which transforms pieces of cloth found throughout levels, affecting the game world and allowing the player to progress through the levels.
The music responds to every action, heightening the drama. I felt very emotionally connected to the character while playing this. The game’s themes of exploration and minimalism and creative use of stylistic art manages to capture the beauty of the endless desert and evokes a sense of wonder and curiosity.
It may be a short game, but you really get a quality experience over hours of gameplay. Playing Journey is one of those rare profound gaming experiences. This game will stick with you and inspire you to go on your own adventure and seek out the great unknown in real life. Or at least inspire you to seek out desert landscapes like that in Morocco, Jordan, Mui Ne or sand dunes of Paoay.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is part of a series of action role-playing video games featuring open-world exploration and quests. The game’s setting combines pre-medieval real-world elements with high fantasy, limited technology, widespread magic use, and the existence of mythological creatures. Skyrim just draws you in because of the beautiful locations and level of detail all around the virtual world.
With more than 300 points of interest to uncover on the map and 9 topographically distinct areas, it’s very easy to get lost and lose focus of your main quest. In fact, you can travel anywhere here and completely ignore or postpone the main story. Each area has its own diverse fauna and flora so exploring the landscapes and villages felt like a visual treat. It’s the type of game that will make you want to head outdoors in search of similar landscapes and scenery (minus the monsters, necromancers, and fire-breathing dragons).
While playing this, I found myself randomly exploring and enjoying walking around different villages on the map just trying to help every random townsperson I came across. In a way, it sort of inspired me to veer from the path and interact with locals more, which somehow felt more rewarding and interesting than sticking to the main quest checklist.
Ōkami
I absolutely love this video game! I played Okami back when it was first released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006, and replayed it when it was released for PS3. Okami is a highly-stylized action-adventure video game set in classical Japan that combines Japanese mythology and folklore to tell the story of how the land was saved from darkness by the Shinto sun goddess, named Amaterasu, who took the form of a white wolf. You play the white wolf in the game.
This game’s style features distinct Sumi-e inspired cel-shaded visual drawings and animation and an innovative Celestial Brush calligraphic system for special moves. In the game, you have to travel all around the stunning world, visiting shrines, forests, and villages.
Your main goal is to remove curses, protect trees and restore nature from evil elements. Along the way, you can hunt for hidden treasure and gain love by feeding stray animals you encounter. This game is so visually inspiring and beautiful that it will make anyone who plays it want to pack their bags and head to Japan to see those cherry blossoms and Shinto shrines.
Uncharted Series
Uncharted is an action-adventure third-person shooter platform video game series that follows modern-day treasure hunter Nathan “Nate” Drake and a cast of other companions as they travel around the world. I’ve played all the games in the main series including Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and enjoyed every minute of virtual exploration.
The game is set in a shared real universe so you get to explore places like the jungles of the Amazon, snow-capped mountain villages in Tibet, jungles of Borneo, urban streets of Nepal, a castle in Syria, and the sprawling deserts and sand dunes of Rub’ al Khali, the largest sand desert in the world. Each game usually involves a hunt for a major quest item, searching for clues leading to the treasure in various locations, and the discovery of a legendary lost city (interspersed with cool movie-style cutscenes and fight scenes with bad guys).
Playing Uncharted is the next best thing to actually traveling around the world because of all the amazing details put into the game locations and the exploration and discovery aspect. This game has even inspired me to seek out mythical destinations and travel to rarely-visited, offbeat and hidden spots right in my home country.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic real-world setting, where humans live in scattered tribes with limited access to technology. You play the game as Aloy, a hunter in this world overrun by machines, whose primary mission is to uncover her past. As Aloy, you can explore the open world to discover locations and take on numerous sidequests. A large part of the game mechanics is hunting for resources and crafting items like ammo, traps, and health potions essential to survival in the wild.
Visually, this game is just amazing. The world map of Horizon Zero Dawn takes you to various settings like forests, jungles, deserts, and snowy mountain regions with their own set of unique living and mechanical creatures.
The main story quest requires you to travel all around the world, interacting with characters from different tribes and leveling up skills and equipment. The open-world exploration aspect of the game gives you the flexibility to spend as much time in certain places and explore areas you want to in between dealing with the main story and challenging combat scenes. Horizon Zero Dawn is a very fulfilling game with stunning natural scenery that will make you wish you had unlimited mountains, dungeons, and high vantage points to explore in real life.
Final Fantasy Series
My personal pick for the number one game that will inspire you to travel is Final Fantasy. This Japanese series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing games features a group of heroes battling some ancient evil. Players command a travel party of characters with different skills and progress by exploring the game world and defeating opponents.
Final Fantasy offers completely new worlds for each game getting inspiration from worlds and creatures from science fiction, real-world myth, and folklore. Starting with Final Fantasy VIII, the series adopted a photo-realistic look for the game design, which really adds to the feeling of travel. The virtual worlds of Final Fantasy are vast, which makes them great for that feeling of travel and exploration.
The game series has several recurring elements, including airships and chocobos, flightless birds that allow characters to explore areas faster than if they would go on foot. Like most RPGs, the Final Fantasy games use an experience level system to track progress.
The Final Fantasy series has had a huge influence on me and what I love about travel. The name of my blog “Travel Up” was inspired by the whole video game concept of “Leveling Up.” I named my first scooter Chocobo and my custom bike Fenrir after Cloud’s bike from FFVII: Advent Children. I really consider every trip and ride as a way to earn experience points. This game series is also the basis of why I like collecting random stuff and doing unusual sidequests when I travel.
How about you? Has any video game ever inspired you to travel?