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Top 15 Games With the Most Side Quests

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - June 25th 2026, 19:00 GMT+2

Assassins Creed Valhalla — 15. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (2020) — 128 World Events

*Assassin’s Creed Valhalla* changed the usual Ubisoft side-quest formula by turning optional stories into World Events, which are shorter, stranger, and often funnier than the main saga around them. One minute Eivor is raiding monasteries and shaping English politics; the next, they are helping a nudist cult, solving a tiny local mystery, or getting dragged into someone’s deeply avoidable personal problem. It makes the world feel less like a checklist and more like a country full of weirdos waiting near haystacks. | © Ubisoft

METAL GEAR SOLID V THE PHANTOM PAIN — 14. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) — 157 Side Ops

*Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain* turns military busywork into a strangely addictive ritual, with 157 Side Ops scattered across Afghanistan and Central Africa. These missions are smaller than the main operations, but they still feed directly into the game’s best systems: Fulton extractions, base-building, weapon development, and the slow transformation of Big Boss into the world’s most overqualified kidnapper of sheep, soldiers, and armored vehicles. It is open-world stealth with a to-do list written by a tactical maniac. | © Konami

Cropped tears of the kingdom — 13. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) — 199 Side Quests and Side Adventures

*The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* gives Hyrule so many optional problems that saving the kingdom can start to feel like a scheduling conflict. Between Side Quests and Side Adventures, Link can become a journalist, engineer, monster hunter, delivery guy, local therapist, cave explorer, and unpaid municipal worker before remembering there is a demon king involved. The best part is how organic it all feels, because almost every distraction is tied to a place, a person, or a bizarre contraption begging to explode. | © Nintendo

Cropped Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning — 12. Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning (2020) — 200+ Side Quests

*Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning* has the kind of quest log that looks like it was designed by someone who feared empty space. Its world is stuffed with faction storylines, regional conflicts, village errands, dungeon requests, and optional adventures that constantly pull the player away from the main plot. The writing can be pulpy in the best fantasy-paperback way, but the sheer volume is the real hook: every road seems to lead to another person with a sword, a secret, and a problem they are making your problem. | © THQ Nordic

Monster Hunter Wilds — 11. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2016) — 200+ Optional Quests and Activities

*The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition* is not just packed with side quests; it is packed with side quests that regularly ambush the main story in terms of emotional weight. A monster contract can become a moral disaster, a village errand can end in tragedy, and a card game can somehow consume an adult human’s entire evening. Between secondary quests, Witcher contracts, treasure hunts, races, fistfights, and Gwent-related distractions, Geralt’s freelance lifestyle looks less like adventure and more like medieval burnout with swords. | © CD Projekt Red

10. Starfield (2023) — 220+ Side and Optional Quests

*Starfield* spreads its optional missions across cities, factions, planets, space stations, and random encounters, which means the main story often has to compete with a very noisy galaxy. The best side content comes from the faction questlines, where corporate espionage, space policing, piracy, and political intrigue all offer different flavors of Bethesda chaos. Even the smaller Activities and Miscellaneous missions can spiral into longer detours, because apparently exploring the stars also means accepting errands from everyone with a clipboard and unresolved baggage. | © Bethesda Game Studios

9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) — 244 Quests

*The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* became a cultural punchline for a reason: you can start by chasing dragons and somehow end the night solving a murder, joining a guild, becoming a werewolf, helping a Daedric prince, and stealing cheese from someone’s basement. Its side content is not just large in number, but absurdly easy to stumble into. The quest log grows like mold in a damp tavern, and that is exactly why players are still getting lost in it more than a decade later. | © Bethesda Game Studios

8. Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition (2017) — 272 Quests

*Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition* turns post-apocalyptic Boston into a giant network of faction conflicts, settlement problems, companion stories, vault experiments, and morally questionable favors. The main quest wants you to find your missing son, but the Commonwealth keeps interrupting with robots, cults, raiders, synth drama, and people who need help rebuilding a society one dangerously exposed settlement at a time. Add the DLC questlines, and the game becomes less about surviving the wasteland and more about managing a nuclear-powered inbox. | © Bethesda Game Studios

Baldurs Gate 3 — 7. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) — 288 Quests

*Baldur’s Gate 3* does not treat side quests like disposable extras; it treats them like loaded dice thrown directly at your conscience. Optional stories can reshape companion arcs, unlock entire locations, kill important characters, or turn one tiny decision into a disaster three hours later. The number is impressive on paper, but the real madness is how reactive everything feels. A side quest in this game rarely stays in its lane, which is why “I’ll just check one thing” remains one of the most dangerous lies in modern RPGs. | © Larian Studios

Cropped Assassins Creed Odyssey The Fate of Atlantis 2019 hades — 6. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018) — 300+ Quests

*Assassin’s Creed Odyssey* is so packed with quests that ancient Greece starts to feel like a beautiful vacation destination designed entirely by people asking for favors. Kassandra or Alexios can hunt cultists, settle family feuds, chase mythical creatures, work through island politics, take mercenary contracts, and accidentally become involved in yet another argument between rich people with boats. The quantity is massive, but the game’s real trick is using that volume to sell the fantasy of being a legendary wanderer with absolutely no ability to say no. | © Ubisoft

5. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition (2023) — 331 Optional Jobs and Activities

*Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition* fills Night City with Side Jobs, Gigs, NCPD Scanner Hustles, and Phantom Liberty assignments that turn every district into a neon-lit pile of bad decisions. The smaller jobs might begin as clean mercenary work, but the best ones usually reveal something uglier: corporate cruelty, broken families, desperate criminals, or fixers treating human misery like a business expense. V can chase the main story, sure, but the city keeps calling, texting, and bribing them into one more job. | © CD Projekt Red

Cropped Death Stranding 2 — 4. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025) — 425+ Optional Orders

*Death Stranding 2: On the Beach* continues Kojima’s grand experiment in making delivery work feel like mythology, therapy, and a logistics spreadsheet all at once. Its optional Sub Orders and Standard Orders send Sam across hostile terrain with cargo that is usually fragile, strange, important, or all three. The catch is that Standard Orders repeat after cooldown, so the number is less about unique mini-stories and more about a huge catalogue of structured delivery challenges. Still, in terms of optional mission volume, Sam remains brutally employed. | © Kojima Productions

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition 2020 — 3. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (2020) — 449+ Optional Quests

*Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition* has a quest log that can humble even the most confident completionist. The Bionis and Mechonis are already enormous, but the real time sink comes from the hundreds of optional quests tied to colonies, named NPCs, timed windows, monster hunts, item gathering, and relationship-building across the world. Some quests are simple errands, others quietly flesh out entire communities, and together they make the adventure feel less like a straight path and more like a continent-sized chore board with heart. | © Nintendo / Monolith Soft

Death Stranding Directors Cut — 2. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut (2021) — 540 Standard Orders

*Death Stranding: Director’s Cut* earns its absurd placement with 540 Standard Order types, though the fine print matters: these are repeatable delivery missions, not 540 unique narrative side stories. That distinction does not make the number any less intimidating, because each order still asks players to plan routes, manage cargo, avoid danger, and obsess over delivery grades like a post-apocalyptic courier with performance anxiety. The game turns optional work into its own meditative loop, where every mountain crossed feels like both a victory and an HR violation. | © Kojima Productions

Cropped Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition — 1. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition (2025) — 578+ Optional Mission Structures

*Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition* sits at the top because Mira is not just an open world; it is a full-time administrative burden with alien wildlife. Between Basic Missions, Normal Missions, and Support Missions, the game throws players into surveys, monster hunts, rescue operations, faction requests, character stories, and enough optional objectives to make the main campaign feel like something you visit on weekends. The scale is ridiculous, but it fits the premise perfectly: humanity is rebuilding on a hostile planet, and apparently that means everyone needs something done immediately. | © Nintendo / Monolith Soft

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A good side mission can make you forget the main story exists, which is either great design or a very polite trap. These games took that idea and ran a marathon with it, filling their worlds with optional quests, errands, contracts, strange NPC requests, and entire storylines hiding off the critical path. From RPGs that treat your quest log like a second job to open-world games that refuse to let any corner of the map stay quiet, these are the titles with the most side missions in gaming. Just don’t blame us if your “quick completionist run” suddenly turns into a 200-hour personal crisis.

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A good side mission can make you forget the main story exists, which is either great design or a very polite trap. These games took that idea and ran a marathon with it, filling their worlds with optional quests, errands, contracts, strange NPC requests, and entire storylines hiding off the critical path. From RPGs that treat your quest log like a second job to open-world games that refuse to let any corner of the map stay quiet, these are the titles with the most side missions in gaming. Just don’t blame us if your “quick completionist run” suddenly turns into a 200-hour personal crisis.