Joining the other Necromacers and saying Darksiders 1 2 and 3 are all great options... If you're ok streacthing the rules of the formula then ELEX is a great option, along with Arcania, Dragons Dogma, and Divinity II.... All available here ;)

If you want a top down variant Grim Dawn uses item locks and back tracking to corral the game into tight sections.

It's really an awesome game, isn't it?

I see this attitude a lot but it really comes down to what you're into. If you're an open world RPG guy then Breath of the Wild is a lot more up your alley than the previous Zelda games. If you want another Zelda though, and don't like the open world PC RPG style, then you're going to not like it as much.

For me linear gameplay is a killer for pretty much every genre, though I can tolerate it for FPS games sometimes. The Zelda game I've liked were the more open ones (Link to the Past, Wind Waker) and the ones I've disliked were the more linear ones (Twilight Princess, which has the worst opening 5 hours of any game ever, maybe). Breath of the Wild is much more "my type of game" than any Zelda before it.

Aren't the Darksiders games much more like actual Zelda games than Breath of the Wild is? If someone is after something like Breath of the Wild then Zelda-like games aren't what they're after. :P

Thing is, BotW could have been made into a good game. They just chose not to. It's filled with bad decisions that, if they'd gone another way...

The insanity of the weapon breaking as it is. The total void of interesting things to do in the oversized open world (another seed puzzle; there are 900+? of them! doesn't count as "interesting thing"). The horrible interface you have to deal with when actually cooking, which, sadly, has to be done a lot. (It should have been menu driven after the first time, rather than always the stupid little schtick of "put things in the pot"). There are constant tiny rewards... that don't amount to anything except in huge aggregate numbers (if at all; watching my friends play it, they'd roll their eyes at another chest with a weapon of some-sort. Your game is badly designed if the players feel irritation at your rewards!).

And while it's up to most players as an individual, I feel the art direction/plot [the scifi-shit with the "slate" 4th wall] is atrocious and 100% not a Zelda game.

There's a lot good to be said. The game has one of the best on-boarding experiences in any game. The actual art quality is great [despite the direction]. And most would say the game's scant couple of actual dungeons are good.

Hahaha, okay bro. It's not that you're just not into what it's doing, it's that it's a bad game. If you say so.

I would say there is no true replacement but there are great open world games like
Monster hunter worlds

Darksiders, especially the first one, is generally considered to be a great Zelda game. Darksiders 2 merged the formula with Diablo, so if you enjoy Lootfilled Hack&Slashes check that one out as well.

Have not really played the second one, but Two Worlds is kind of similar in a certain sense. Not quite as free, but very similar.



He wanted a game like that and if you progress though the 3 it will open up exactly like the onboard of BotW. That said i stand by what i said.

Thinking about how BotW works Skyrim would fit, and so would Witcher 3. But Darsiders 1 through 3 and more closely ELEX are the closest to BotW with segregated zones and areas with quests...

The very first Zelda was "kinda" like Breath of the Wild, with the freedom and all that, but it had dungeons. If BotW had dungeons (and no, hundreds of "puzzle size" shrines don't count as dungeons) and actual items, it would be THE Zelda. Sadly it's just another one in the long list. I loved Ocarina of Time at the time, now can't stand it. Never could bring myself to finish A Link to the Past (once I got to the Dark World was like... "whaaaat? I have to do all that sh17 again?!"), Link's Awakening i freaking LOVED, but again, I can't play it nowadays (and the remake I just can't come to terms with the aesthetics... hopely I will?).

But anyway... The OP asked for games like BotW specifically, NOT Zelda-like. So it has to be open world. Basically, every Elder Scrolls games from 3 (I can't remember if 2 was open world or not), The Witcher 3 (though it is darker), and maaaaaaaaaaybe some of the Assassin's Creed games...

And reading the years of the OP, this was posted years ago... I guess this became a Zelda debate thread now...

I love this thing. XD

Monster Hunter World is not open world. It's Instance based.