One of the most essential ingredients for a solid single-player game is often its story. Some of the most beloved games in recent years pack a narrative punch, from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to Baldur’s Gate 3 and beyond. But while the main story of a narrative-driven game is important, many gamers also love a good side quest. In fact, some of us collect side quests like it’s our job, to the point that we forget about the main story. In my opinion, some of the best games make the side quests so compelling that you forget all about finishing the main story arc.
As a longtime side quest hoarder, some of my favorite games are the ones that deliver engaging side quests. Sure, I like to finish a game and see those end credits roll. But I also like a quest log full of random shenanigans to get into. Side quests not only add in great additional gameplay hours, they can also expand on the story and world in meaningful ways. These 5 games deliver so many great side quests, it’s easy to forget you’ve got a world to save or a dragon to defeat.
Before the Insomniac Spider-Man games, we had the movie tie-in renditions from the aughts. Spider-Man 2, in particular, was a core gaming memory for me. I think it was one of the first open-world games I played, and I fell in love with the random encounters you could run across in its version of New York City. From saving a kid’s lost balloon to stopping robberies and, of course, delivering pizzas, this game had a ton of fun, repeatable side quests.
To this day, I remember the side quests from Spider-Man 2. In particular, I think about delivering those pizzas way more than I probably should. This game’s main story followed the Tobey Maguire movie of the same name, with some extra scenes and villains added in. With voice acting from much of the film’s cast and great narration from Bruce Campbell, the main story was a gem. But the best quips and most enjoyable moments definitely lived in the side quests.
The open-world Breath of the Wild gets a lot of the side quest street cred for the Legend of Zelda franchise. But before Nintendo’s stunning open-world masterpiece, they delivered another game packed with impactful side quests. Majora’s Mask has a ton of interconnected side quests, many of them connected to the doomed citizens of Termina. They serve both as fun additional gameplay content and as an added emotional layer to the game’s overarching story.
Many of the Majora’s Mask side quests center on helping the citizens of Termina, the game’s alternate universe Hyrule. They vary greatly in length, but each side quest offers an interesting story and, often, a use case for finding yet another Mask. Multi-day side quests like Anju & Kafei or The Gilded Sword stand right alongside shorter but memorable adventures like teaching citizens to dance or composing a new song. Arguably, the side quests in Majora’s Mask form its true heart, giving players all the more reason to want to stop the end of the world.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the kind of expansive CRPG that’s so big, it’s hard to tell where the main story ends and the side quests begin. Indeed, aside from a few key plot points, much of the game’s content is basically a complex web of side quests that move and shape the main story. No two playthroughs of Baldur’s Gate 3 are the same, and that’s a good bit of the fun. From missable moments that do impact the main story to smaller, less impactful side quests, there’s a ton to do as you explore Faerun in Larian’s award-winning RPG.
With its branching narrative and massive cast of characters, Baldur’s Gate 3 blurs the line between side quest and main story. Everything you do is, in a sense, part of that story’s playthrough. But side quest-style moments like rescuing the baby Owlbear to lifting the Shadow Curse before heading to the city of Baldur’s Gate have real emotional heft. They’re also easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re looking for, making Baldur’s Gate 3 one of the games you can easily get lost in without ever hitting Act 3.
Next to our top entry on this list, The Witcher 3 is arguably one of the RPGs with the most beloved roster of side quests. In sheer number alone, this installment in the iconic fantasy RPG series delivers a staggering number of side quests. And some of them are often regarded as more compelling and more interesting than the game’s main story, making it easy to get sidetracked chasing down B plots.
Most of the side quests in The Witcher 3 come with their own fairly fleshed-out mini stories, giving players additional lore in addition to actual quest rewards. Though not essential for the main story, the quests do add something to the overall flow of the narrative, and that means many players spend plenty of time tracking down all those loose ends. Whether you’re a devoted side quest collector or not, it’s well worth going off the beaten path in The Witcher 3.
Bethesda honestly knocks it out of the park with their side quests in most of their RPGs, from The Elder Scrolls to Fallout. But Skyrim in particular delivers an open world packed with weird and wonderful side quests, to the point that many players may never see the game’s conclusion. There are simply too many nooks and crannies to explore first, and honestly, some of those side quests are so good, they eclipse the Dragonborn’s arc anyway.
In Skyrim, filling up on side quests and running across random ones is a good part of the fun. Subsequent DLC added even more content for players to get lost in, making this one of the most side-quest-heavy games in recent RPG memory. From horrifying nightmares to in-game mysteries to helping settle a love triangle, you can easily get lost in Skyrim for hours on end without progressing the main story. And most of us wouldn’t have it any other way.
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