Thread 718048613

What are some games in this style with real route variety, paths that can make a playthrough feel completely different to another, not one specific path for reaching many key objectives, etc?
I know of Hollow Knight, Rain World, Environmental Station Alpha and part of Dark Souls 1, i would like to know more. DS2 is good but its more about branching paths than interconnection

I know the metroid-like genre is practically known primarily for this so i expect a lot of replies with those, but in the contrary i find most of them to lack route variety. A bit too much "A to B, A to C, A to D" situations, or maybe a game where the route variety completely depends on skips that destroy the sense of progression and/or are impractical for a first blind playthrough. (as opposed to something like HK where the world is built for allowing many skips without fucking up the journey). I also wanna see more 3D on this list

Elden Ring DLC has DS1 like level design, I wish they'd do more like that instead of the basically-linear seen in DS3, etc.

>>718048613 (OP)
I'd rather like to know where you draw the line between full sandbox open-world and non-linear interconnectivity.
Obviously, something like GTA doesn't fit the definition, but what about games like Echo Point Nova where, technically, there are no absolute restrictions or gate-key checks and you can complete all levels in any order, but some of them area clearly designed to be easier with specific upgrades/perks?

>>718049516
i have barely played any open world games to begin with, let alone any that border the line between both of those so i cant really give examples
but while i havent found any game like this, i dont necessarily mind if its a fully open world, in theory it could still match the desired feeling. It just needs to have good sense of progression and "depth", being in deeper or shallower areas, stuff that takes some more effort to traverse than just holding W in the general direction, feeling like interconnection rather than everything being open towards everywhere, etc. The closest ive played to that is Elden Ring but it doesnt really fit at all

why the fuck is this autosage are jannies insane