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15 Open-World Games Ruined by Useless Collectibles

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Zero fun.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

Gaming - October 14th 2026, 15:30 GMT+2

Cropped Assassins Creed IV Black Flag — 15. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)
Floating in the ocean air around every Caribbean island in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag are little glowing fragments that do almost nothing for the story. Collecting them unlocks bonus lore clips about the Animus itself, content so disconnected from Edward Kenway's pirate life that most players skip it entirely. You can spend hours sailing toward shimmering dots only to get a paragraph of sci-fi text nobody asked for. Fighting actual naval battles was the good part, and the fragments just slow that down. | © Ubisoft

Cropped Crackdown — 14. Crackdown (2007)
Eight hundred agility orbs sit scattered across Pacific City in Crackdown, and chasing every one turns a superhero power fantasy into a chore. The orbs do boost your jump height, so there's a reason to grab the early ones. Past a certain point though the rewards flatten out and you're just leaping rooftops for a counter. Agent jumping across a city never needed a spreadsheet attached to it. | © Microsoft Game Studios

Cropped Saints Row IV — 13. Saints Row IV (2013)
Clusters are everywhere in Saints Row IV, tucked into every corner of a simulated Steelport that's already packed with superpowers and chaos. Grabbing them upgrades your abilities, which sounds useful until you realize how many there are to find. The game hands you super speed and telekinesis, then buries progression behind pickup hunting anyway. It's a strange contradiction for a game built on not taking itself seriously. | © Deep Silver

Just Cause 2 — 12. Just Cause 2 (2010)
Panau Island in Just Cause 2 is stuffed with thousands of collectibles, from resource crates to hidden stunt locations. Rico Rodriguez can grapple and parachute across the entire map, which makes exploring feel incredible in short bursts. The pickups just don't match that energy, offering tiny stat boosts for finding things buried in jungle terrain nobody will ever fully explore. The traversal was the real reward, and the collectibles were just filler stapled onto it. | © Square Enix

Cropped Infamous — 11. inFAMOUS (2009)
Blast Shards turn Empire City into a scavenger hunt in inFAMOUS, and there are way too many of them to make the search feel fun. Cole MacGrath climbs buildings and zaps enemies with genuine style, but then the game asks you to comb every rooftop for glowing shards that only pad out your energy meter. Side content should feel optional, not mandatory busywork disguised as exploration. A power fantasy shouldn't require a checklist this long to actually feel powerful. | © Sony Computer Entertainment

Grand Theft Auto V — 10. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Thirty spaceship parts hidden across Los Santos is the kind of detail that sounds charming until you actually start looking. Grand Theft Auto V buries them on rooftops, ocean floors, and mountain ridges with zero in-game guidance beyond a vague hint. Trevor delivers one dry line about aliens once you finish, and that's the entire payoff. A game this detailed with its satire didn't need a scavenger hunt this cryptic bolted onto it. | © Rockstar Games

Far Cry 3 — 9. Far Cry 3 (2012)
Vaas Montenegro gets all the praise, but the memory system attached to Far Cry 3 gets ignored for good reason. Relics scattered across Rook and Amanaki islands exist purely to unlock bigger wallets and ammo pouches. Nothing about climbing a cliff to grab one feels connected to the story burning up everywhere else. It's busywork wearing the costume of exploration. | © Ubisoft

Marvels Spider Man — 8. Marvel's Spider-Man (2018)
A city as alive as Manhattan deserved better than backpacks. Marvel's Spider-Man hides fifty-five of them, each stuffed with a trinket from Peter Parker's past that plays like a museum placard. Swinging between skyscrapers sells the fantasy instantly, so stopping to scan rooftops for a bag feels like a chore someone forgot to cut. The web-slinging alone justified the game's reputation. | © Sony Interactive Entertainment

Hogwarts Legacy — 7. Hogwarts Legacy (2023)
Three hundred Merlin Trials wait inside Hogwarts Legacy, and nearly all of them boil down to the same four puzzle types. Move a brazier, lift a rock, bowl a ball through a ring, repeat across the entire map. The castle itself is dense with detail and personality, which makes the overworld's padding sting even more. Wizards apparently spend centuries perfecting magic just to leave rock puzzles everywhere. | © Warner Bros. Games

Cropped Assassins Creed II — 6. Assassin's Creed II (2009)
Flying machines, tombs, and a conspiracy about the Apple of Eden all compete for attention in Assassin's Creed II, yet somehow a hundred feathers made the cut too. Ezio climbs every tower in Italy only to be told a bird's plumage is worth chasing next. There's no payoff beyond a cutscene at the very end, long after the hunt stopped being fun. Renaissance Italy deserved a better reward system than pigeon feathers. | © Ubisoft

Assassins Creed Unity — 5. Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)
Paris in Assassin's Creed Unity is buried under chests that open to reveal basically nothing. Pick a few francs or a dye swap, then move on to the next one glowing on the map. The city itself, with its packed crowds and reconstructed cathedral, deserved better than a loot system this hollow. Climbing Notre Dame never needed a side job collecting furniture money. | © Ubisoft

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild — 4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
Nine hundred. That's how many Korok seeds Nintendo scattered across Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the reward for most of them is a single extra slot of pocket space. Players solved rock puzzles and chased balloons for hours only to realize the payoff barely moves the needle. The open world itself is the triumph here, full of weather systems and physics puzzles nobody asked for but everyone loved. Hyrule's seeds just end up proving that more isn't always more. | © Nintendo

Cropped Grand Theft Auto IV — 3. Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Rockstar built Liberty City with a level of detail that still holds up, then decided it needed two hundred hidden pigeons. Finding them means checking rooftops and alleyways block by block, in a game where the main story already runs twenty hours deep. Niko Bellic has murders to solve and debts to settle, not birds to chase for a trophy. Grand Theft Auto IV earned its reputation through everything except that one side quest. | © Rockstar Games

Batman Arkham City — 2. Batman: Arkham City (2011)
Riddler trophies do not just sit in the open waiting to be grabbed in Batman: Arkham City. Each one demands a puzzle, a gadget, or a specific vantage point, and there are over four hundred of them hiding in Gotham's prison yard. Combat and gliding carried this game to greatness, yet somehow a green question mark became its most exhausting symbol. Nobody finishes that list and feels like a detective, just tired. | © Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Assassin's Creed — 1. Assassin's Creed (2007)
Flags. Hundreds of them, nailed to rooftops across Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem, doing absolutely nothing once collected in Assassin's Creed. Altair's story about faith, control, and assassin politics was ambitious for 2007, which makes the flag grind feel like an afterthought bolted on for padding. There's no reward, no unlock, nothing but the satisfaction of knowing a rooftop is now flag-free. | © Ubisoft

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Open worlds shine when exploration feels meaningful, and collapse when the map is cluttered with pointless collectibles that exist only to pad the runtime. Here are 15 open-world games ruined by useless collectibles.

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Open worlds shine when exploration feels meaningful, and collapse when the map is cluttered with pointless collectibles that exist only to pad the runtime. Here are 15 open-world games ruined by useless collectibles.