When I played Assassin's Creed I spent almost as much time sightseeing as doing the actual missions.

...and then there are people who say that games are not some kind of art!

No Man's Sky
After getting your first ship and learning to make fuel, the galaxy is your oyster. There are occasional space pirate(s), but you can always run away. As long as you stay away from aggressive sentinels planets you should be fine. I like to check out the 2 windows in space stations for the views.

Ultima 7
While you can't switch off the monsters, nothing forces you to follow the plot. You can just wander the world, seeing all the sights. Especially after you stumble across the magic carpet you can go on a vacation anywhere, without understanding what the different plot elements mean that are standing around.

Yeah, ain't that so. But what is wandering in peace in games like this but an admiration of the artistry of design?

My understanding is that they only appear if you reach a certain point in the main quest, and you can choose to avoid the main quest and not have any dragon attacks.

It's really not that unusual for TES players to just disregard the main quest and do other stuff instead.

NMS even has a Creative Mode with unlimited health und zero costs for crafting and building.

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force has a sightseeing mode, where you can explore the ship, talk to the crew and scan stuff with your tricorder.

Would figure that STV would have a sightseeing mode.

:D
I did not notice that. I'm off to play a game of Civ4!

Also, whilst not directly relevant to the OP, I really like the combat tutorial in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. (I think you can enter the alternate mode at any time; but I have uninstalled the game so I can't readily check this.) There is no way to die, but the mode is limited to the immediate surroundings. The ability to practise hiding behind cover and leaping over it to attack is probably the best tutorial I can remember playing.

this is horrible , like walking without aim , has to be a nightmare

or you can just cast the Armageddon spell. heh.

likewise, you can cast that spell in most Ultima games, which pretty much "empties out" the whole game world.

I remember reading a series which was called something like "Life as an NPC". This was about someone who tried to live in TES4 Oblivion as an NPC. So he slept in a bed at night, ate a few meals a day and had to brush off everyone who would offer him quests or anything related to combat.

Sounds pretty boring but the whole journey was actually very fun and interesting to read.

There's only 2 Ultima games that have that spell.

(Also, if you are going to cast this spell, make sure to save before you cast it, and *not* to save after.)


There's the occasional JRPG that has a section like that.

Perhaps the most famous example (or at least the one that I'm familiar with) is in Dragon Quest 4, specifically Chapter 3. At the start of that chapter, you can literally just wake up, go to work at the shop, work until night fall, get paid, go back to sleep, and repeat until you have as much money as you want, no combat involved.

Let's see, is that Torneko/Taloon?