GAMES LIKE GENSHIN IMPACT: OPEN WORLD ACTION RPGS

I've sunk something like 1,400 hours into Genshin Impact since launch, and the question I get asked most often by friends who watch me play is some variation of "okay but what else is like this." It's a fair question. Genshin carved out a weirdly specific niche. Anime-styled open world, party-based elemental combat, a free-to-play model that begs you to pull on banners, and a world that's actually fun to wander around in even when you're not doing quests. Not many games hit all those notes at once.

So here's my honest list. Some of these are direct competitors that want to eat Genshin's lunch. Some are spiritually similar without the gacha hooks. A couple are old-school JRPGs that scratch the same itch in completely different ways. I've played every game on this list for more than a token amount of time, and I'm going to tell you where each one wins and where Genshin still has the edge.

Wuthering Waves

This is the obvious one and it's at the top for a reason. Kuro Games clearly looked at Genshin, said "what if the combat was actually demanding," and built Wuthering Waves around that answer. The dodging is tighter, the parry windows feel meaningful, and the action ceiling is genuinely high. It plays like a character action game wearing a Genshin skin.

The world is also gorgeous. Solaris-3 has a more grounded, sci-fi-tinged aesthetic compared to Teyvat's storybook fantasy, and the traversal options are wild. You can wallrun, grappling-hook your way up cliffs, and the parkour just feels good in a way Genshin's gliding-and-climbing never quite manages. If movement annoys you in Genshin, you'll probably love this.

Where Genshin still wins: the writing and the world cohesion. Wuthering Waves had a famously rough launch on the story side, and even after rewrites and patches, it doesn't have the same weight of lore or the cast charm that Genshin's better regions deliver. Mondstadt and Sumeru still beat anything Wuthering Waves has shown me. But for moment-to-moment combat, this is the closest thing to a true Genshin successor.

Honkai Star Rail

I know, it's turn-based. Hear me out. Star Rail is made by Hoyoverse, the same studio behind Genshin, and the production value, the music, the character writing, and the world-building are all on that same absurdly polished tier. If you love Genshin for the vibes more than the action combat, Star Rail might actually scratch the itch better.

The combat is classic turn-based with a weakness-break system that's surprisingly engaging once you understand it. Battles are quick, there's no stamina bar gating exploration, and the pacing feels less grindy than Genshin in a lot of ways. The story is also legitimately one of the best things Hoyoverse has ever written. The Penacony arc had me sitting through cutscenes I'd normally skip, taking notes.

The trade-off is obvious. There's no open world. You're moving through linear-ish zones, not climbing mountains and gliding into hidden valleys. So if exploration is the thing you love about Genshin, this won't replace it. But the gacha rates are similar, the daily commission burden is lighter, and the writing is better. It's the easiest recommendation on this list.

Tower of Fantasy

I'll be upfront. Tower of Fantasy was the first big Genshin alternative back in 2022, and it has not aged gracefully. But it does one thing Genshin doesn't, and that's run as an actual MMO. You see other players in the open world, you can party up for events, there's PvP zones, and the social layer is something Genshin will probably never add.

Combat is faster than Genshin and more reliant on weapon-swapping combos, which is fun once you get the rhythm. The world is post-apocalyptic anime sci-fi, which I happen to love, and the early hours have some real charm. The problem is the monetization got more aggressive over time, the story ranges from forgettable to incomprehensible depending on which patch you're playing, and the global server has had a rough run with content droughts.

I'd recommend this only if the MMO angle specifically excites you. Otherwise, the next two entries on this list are doing more interesting things in the same general space.

Zenless Zone Zero

Hoyoverse's third major release, and the one that's been quietly getting better with every patch. ZZZ is not open world. It's a hub-and-mission structure built around an urban setting, and the combat is a tight, combo-driven action system with team swapping that feels closer to Devil May Cry than to Genshin. If you bounced off Genshin because you wanted more depth in the fights, ZZZ is doing exactly that.

The aesthetic is also incredible. Stylized urban dystopia with a soundtrack that mixes lo-fi beats and aggressive electronic, and a cast that leans heavier into character archetypes than Genshin does. The Bangboo companions are a stupidly cute hook that actually have gameplay relevance, which I respect.

Where Genshin wins: the sense of place. ZZZ's New Eridu is cool but it's not a world you live in the same way Teyvat is. Missions feel discrete, not like you're wandering somewhere and stumbling into stuff. For some people that's a feature, for me it means I keep bouncing back to Genshin when I want to just exist in a game.

Tales of Arise

Now we're getting into the non-gacha territory, and Tales of Arise is the easiest pivot. The Tales series has been doing party-based action RPG combat with anime-styled worlds for literally decades, and Arise is the most beautiful entry the franchise has ever produced. If you stripped Genshin's gacha out and replaced it with a focused 60-hour single-player JRPG, you'd get something close to this.

The combat is real-time, party-based, with character switching mid-battle and elemental affinities that matter for breaking enemy defenses. Sound familiar? The story is also a genuine highlight, dealing with class oppression and rebellion in a way that's surprisingly thoughtful for a JRPG. Alphen and Shionne have one of the better central duos in recent JRPG memory.

You're not getting an open world here. The zones are large but they're zones, not seamless geography. But you also don't have a stamina bar, no daily resin, no banners to pull on. You just play the game. Sometimes that's exactly what you want. If you're putting together a list of games like Genshin Impact for someone who hates gacha, this is the first thing I'd hand them.

Granblue Fantasy Relink

Cygames spent something like seven years making this game and you can feel every one of them. Relink is a co-op action RPG with a four-character party, elemental combat that demands you actually pay attention to what you're equipping, and some of the best boss fights in the genre. The MSQ is short, like 15 hours short, and then the real game opens up as a Monster Hunter-style endgame loop with raid bosses, gear chasing, and character-specific weapon grinds.

The combat ceiling is high. Every character plays completely differently, the sigil system gives you real build flexibility, and the four-player co-op (with bots if you can't find people) is the kind of thing Genshin's coop mode wishes it could be. You and three friends can take down a Proto Bahamut and it actually feels like an event.

Where Genshin wins: there's no open world here either, and the storytelling, while charming, is structured more like a Monster Hunter narrative than a sweeping RPG epic. You're not exploring continents. You're picking missions from a board and fighting through them. But for the combat alone, Relink earns its spot on this list.

Eternights

Wildly different vibe but I'm including it because it scratches a specific Genshin itch nobody talks about: the social-sim adjacent character-bonding part. Eternights is part action RPG, part dating sim, set during a zombie-apocalypse-but-anime scenario. The combat is real-time and combo-driven, lighter than Genshin but with a satisfying flow, and the cast is the actual draw.

It's a short game, like 15 to 20 hours, and it's not going to replace Genshin as a hobby. But if you're someone who plays Genshin partly for the character interactions and the chance to spend time with people you've come to care about, Eternights gives you that in a focused, finite package. Sometimes a complete story you can finish in a weekend is exactly what you need after months of treadmill content.

Sword of Convallaria

This one's a left-field pick. Sword of Convallaria is a tactics RPG with gacha character collection, made by XD Inc. If you love Genshin for the gacha pull cycle and the constant influx of new characters but want something deeper than the standard ARPG combat, Convallaria runs an entire Final Fantasy Tactics-inspired grid combat system underneath the gacha layer.

The story mode, called Spiral of Destinies, is one of the best-written things in any gacha I've played. Multiple branching paths, a runback structure that rewards replay, and characters with actual interiority. The free-to-play economy is also genuinely generous compared to most modern gachas, which is the kind of thing I notice after years of pulling in Genshin.

It is not an open world game. It's not even an action game. But if the part of Genshin you love is the character collection and the worldbuilding and the writing, this is a hidden gem that absolutely earns a slot.

Going Without the Gacha

Look, I'll be honest. The biggest reason a lot of people want games like Genshin Impact is that they're tired of the gacha grind. The dailies, the resin, the banner anxiety when your favorite character is up and you're 40 pulls short of pity. I get it. I've been there. So here's what I tell people who want the Genshin experience without the slot machine attached.

The Tales series I already covered. The other two pillars are Ys and Trails. Ys games (start with Ys VIII or Ys IX) are fast-paced action RPGs with party-switching combat that feels closer to Genshin than people realize. They're shorter, more focused, and Falcom's music is some of the best in the medium. The Trails series (start with Trails in the Sky or Trails of Cold Steel depending on your tolerance for length) is a turn-based party RPG with the kind of dense, interconnected worldbuilding that makes Teyvat look casual. If you love Sumeru's lore rabbit holes, Trails will eat your year.

For pure open world action with no gacha and no anime aesthetic, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are still the gold standard. Genshin's exploration design is famously cribbed from BOTW, so playing the actual source is illuminating. If you've got a Switch, you already know. If you're on PC, emulation has gotten extremely good. I'm not your dad, do what you want.

I've written more about the broader open world space in my best open world games on PS5 roundup, which gets into the non-anime side of things in more detail.

Where Genshin Still Wins

I want to close on this because I think it's the honest take. Genshin has been getting beaten on individual axes by every game on this list. Wuthering Waves has better combat. Star Rail has better writing and music. ZZZ has better fight design. Tales of Arise gives you a complete story with no daily logins. Each of these games is doing one thing better than Genshin.

But Genshin still wins on the package. Five years of layered worldbuilding, a cast that runs into the hundreds at this point, regions that feel completely distinct from each other, and an exploration loop that hasn't been matched by any of its competitors at the actual map-roaming level. When I want to climb a mountain in a beautiful anime-styled world and find a hidden cave with a puzzle and a chest at the end, nothing else does it the way Genshin does it.

The right move, in my experience, is not to replace Genshin. It's to add to it. Star Rail for the story beats, Wuthering Waves for the combat fix, Tales of Arise when you need a finite experience with a real ending. Treat them as a rotation. That's how I've been playing the genre for the last two years and it works.

If any one of these clicks with you, you're set. If none of them do, that's its own answer. Maybe Genshin already gave you what you were looking for and the itch you're feeling is just wanting more of the same thing. That's allowed. Go run another Spiral Abyss. The new banner drops next week anyway.