Video games are often discussed in terms of challenge, competition, or productivity. Many genres reward efficiency: complete the quest, defeat the opponent, reach the next level.
Yet some games are functionally different. They invite wandering. We have explored the functionality and proposed purpose of cosy games and FPS games. But there is one more to discuss.
Exploratory role-playing games and sandbox games such as Fable, Valheim and Minecraft place players within expansive environments filled with forests, villages, ruins, caves and distant horizons. The world is not a simple backdrop for objectives, but something that can be approached slowly, investigated and discovered.
In these games, progress is rarely about speed. But instead, it emerges through exploration, curiosity and experimentation.
Players follow rivers to see where they lead, descend into caves to uncover hidden resources, or wander across unfamiliar terrain simply to find out what lies beyond.
But why does wandering through digital worlds feel so rewarding?
Exploratory games appear to activate a deep psychological impulse, the human drive to explore the unknown.
Many traditional games rely heavily on external motivation. Players are guided through clearly defined objectives, rewarded with points, achievements, or progress markers that signify success. The structure is explicit: complete the mission, defeat the opponent, collect x amount of y, unlock the next stage.
Exploratory RPGs and sandbox games operate instead by presenting players with large environments that can be approached from multiple directions, rather than a predetermined path. Progress often comes from interaction with the environment itself instead of strict objectives.
This design places far greater emphasis on internal motivations, where the activity itself becomes rewarding.
A useful framework for understanding this dynamic is the Self-Determination Theory. As mentioned before, their research suggests that human motivation is strongly influenced by three core psychological needs:
- Autonomy - feeling in control of one's actions
- Competence - seeing evidence of progress or skill
- Relatedness - feeling connected, even symbolically
Exploratory games tend to satisfy all three needs simultaneously.
In Valheim, players begin with very little knowledge of the world. Biomes differ dramatically in climate, danger, and available resources, and survival requires careful observation and gradual experimentation. As players learn how the environment functions, they develop a growing sense of competence.
Similarly, Fable presents a narrative world that responds to the player's moral choices and actions. Side characters, towns, and hidden areas encourage exploration beyond the main storyline, allowing players to shape their experience according to personal curiosity.
Meanwhile, Minecraft provides perhaps the most striking example of autonomy of the games presented. Players enter a procedurally generated world with minimal guidance and are free to explore caves, build structures, farm resources, or travel vast distances to see what lies beyond the next hill or biome.
It's important to mention that these systems do not force exploration. Instead, they create environments rich enough to invite curiosity naturally. The landscape itself becomes the motivator.
Players may notice an unusual rock formation on the horizon, a forest biome that differs from the surrounding terrain, or a cave entrance hinting at hidden resources below. These subtle environmental cues create questions that the player is naturally inclined to answer.
Over time, the player will develop familiarity with the world's geography and patterns. Rivers become navigational guides, mountain ranges act as landmarks, and previously explored areas become part of a mental map.
Because of this, exploratory games shift the player's role. Rather than simply completing tasks designed by the developer, the player becomes something closer to an explorer within a dynamic landscape. Progress is measured less by speed or efficiency, and more by the gradual accumulation of knowledge about the world itself.
Among the experiences had in exploratory games, one of the most compelling has to be when players stop following explicit goals entirely.
A player sailing across the ocean in Valheim may notice an island emerging on the horizon. There may be no quest marker pointing towards it, and no guarantee of reward, but the instinct to investigate remains powerful.
Similarly, a player in Minecraft may enter a small cave in search of coal or iron, only to discover a vast cavern system filled with lava and rare minerals. What began as a quick look becomes an extended expedition.
In Fable, a quiet forest path might reveal a demon door or an unexpected character whose story unfolds outside of the main questline. These discoveries reward players who choose to wander rather than stick to a fixed path.
Moments like these mark a shift in motivation. Instead of progressing through explicit instructions or dedicated plotlines, the player begins to follow curiosity itself.
Psychologists describe curiosity as a response to information gaps. Research suggests that curiosity emerges when individuals recognise a gap between what they know and what they want to know.
Exploratory games maintain this gap by revealing only partial information. A ruined structure hints at a past story, a distant biome suggests unfamiliar resources, and a cave entrance reveals darkness without showing what lies inside.
These clues generate questions that invite investigation:
- What lies inside that cave?
- What creatures inhabit that biome?
- What lies beyond those mountains?
Because the answers seem discoverable, curiosity becomes the player's primary motivation, and that is intrinsic to the gameplay model of progressing through investigating the small mysteries embedded throughout the landscape.
Exploratory gameplay highlights the importance of distinction between the different cognitive experiences that video games can produce.
As we have found, many games focus on fast reactions or structured task completion, but exploratory games emphasise curiosity, spatial awareness and discovery.
With this addition, we can divide gameplay into the different genres and mental states they activate:
- Cosy Games - emotional regulation and structured productivity
- FPS Games - rapid attention and sensorimotor coordination
- Exploratory RPGs - curiosity, spatial navigation and discovery
Research in cognitive neuroscience suggests thatnavigation relies heavily on the hippocampus, a region of the brain closely associated with memory formation and spatial learning. As players move through large digital environments, they gradually construct internal maps of the landscape, remembering landmarks, routes and environmental patterns.
In practical terms, players must learn to:
- recognise distinctive terrain and environmental cues
- remember safe routes and resource locations
- navigate between distant landmarks
- understand how different areas of the world connect together
Over time, this process transforms unfamiliar terrain into a recognisable mental landscape.
Games such as Minecraft, Valheim and Fable actively encourage this type of spatial learning by presenting large environments that reward observation and exploration rather than strict instruction.
This process mirrors how humans have historically learned to navigate real environments. Long before digital maps or GPS systems, people relied on landmarks, terrain features, and memory to move through forests, coastlines, and plains.
Exploratory games recreate this experience in digital form.
Players gradually learn how the world fits together, wandering through virtual worlds in a way that reflects deeply rooted human behaviours. The instincts to explore unfamiliar environments in search of knowledge, opportunity and understanding.
When I play these types of games, I rarely feel like I am pursuing efficiency or progression in a traditional sense. Instead, the experience feels like I am wandering with intention.
I have only recently started exploring Valheim, but what draws me most strongly to it is how instinctive the world feels. Exploration in its world often resembles a kind of digital hunter-gatherer mindset. You move through the meadows or forests looking for resources, raspberries and mushrooms, deer and birds, following the coastlines to better understand the terrain, and slowly learn which environments provide safety, food, or danger. Progress does not come from rushing through the terrain but from learning how the landscape works.
There is something deeply satisfying about the process, so much so that I managed to lose two hours and drown out the noise of message notifications and a phone call from my partner. You begin to recognise the signs of different biomes, learn which materials appear and where, and slowly build the knowledge needed to survive further from your starting point. The world becomes familiar, not because the game explains it, but because you have explored it yourself.
My experience in Fable is slightly different. It is the game of my childhood, and I often find myself returning to the comfort of the streets of Oakvale. Albion is filled with many small secrets tucked away, and the different moral choices and actions you take may mean that you miss out on them. A path off the questline could lead to a chest or a demon door. I often find myself walking away from the quest simply to see what might be hidden beyond a forest path.
In Minecraft, my curiosity tends to take a more creative, if somewhat mundane, direction. When I discover a village, I rarely leave it as I found it. Instead, I start to expand it: building additional houses, farms and pathways until the settlement grows into a much larger community. What begins as a small cluster of buildings quickly becomes something closer to a living town.
Across all three games, the appeal seems to come from the same place. Individual exploration and the desire to see all the world has to offer. These games offer that to us in terrains that are open, responsive and full of possibility. We are not simply moving through a pre-designed experience but actively learning how that environment works.
I think that, perhaps, is why wandering through these worlds feels so compelling. It reflects that old instinct, the human drive to explore landscapes, discover resources, and gradually turn something unfamiliar into territory that is understood.
References and Sources - Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Self-Determination Theory. | Kidd, C., & Hayden, B. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron. | Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games. Motivation and Emotion. | O’Keefe, J., & Nadel, L. (1978). The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map.
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