How to play a huge open world without clearing every icon

You don't have to clear every icon on an open-world map, and almost nobody does. On Steam, only 2.8% of Red Dead Redemption 2 players have the achievement for 100% completion. Only about one in four have reached the end of its main story. The numbers look much the same for GTA V, The Witcher 3, Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy.

So the best way to play a huge open world is to treat the story as your main path, do side content only when it interests you, hide what you don't care about, and set a goal for each session instead of the whole map. With GTA 6 arriving on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, here's how to do that and why the map makes it feel so hard.

How many players actually finish open-world games?

Steam publishes the share of each game's players who have earned each achievement. Here's what that data showed for some of the biggest open worlds on November 1, 2026:

A caveat: these percentages count everyone who owns the game on Steam, including people who bought it in a sale and never launched it. The real completion rate among people who started playing is higher. But the shape is the same in every game. Each step toward "everything" loses most of the people who were still there.

The point isn't that people are failing. It's that clearing the map is a niche way to play, even in some of the most loved games of the last decade. If you've ever felt behind because your map still has question marks on it, you're in the large majority.

Why open-world maps feel like a to-do list

Open worlds are designed to always offer something else to do. That's their appeal and also the problem. A map full of markers can make it feel like the game has a list of chores and you're behind on all of them.

Developers know this. When Nintendo explained how it built the map for Breath of the Wild at the CEDEC conference in 2017, it said an early approach of spreading towers across the map with events between them guided players too much and made the game feel too linear. The team switched to what it called "gravity": landmarks of different sizes and importance placed so they pull players in different directions and let them get sidetracked. It also used triangle-shaped hills and mountains, which give you the choice of going over or around and hide what's behind them until you get close.

Ubisoft tried something similar with Assassin's Creed Odyssey in 2018. Its Exploration Mode removed automatic objective markers, so players found quest targets by talking to characters and following clues, and Ubisoft presented that as the intended way to play.

Both point to the same idea. A world is more fun when you're following your curiosity than when you're following a checklist. You can't redesign the game, but you can change how you use the map.

Follow the main story first

The simplest approach is to treat the main story as your spine. Play the main missions and only step off the path when something catches your attention.

Most open-world games are balanced so you can finish the story without doing everything else. You might be a bit underpowered or miss some extra context, but you won't hit a wall. If you do, that's the game telling you to do some side content, and you can pick whatever sounds most fun.

This is also how you actually see the ending. Look at the table again: in most of these games, fewer than a third of players got to the final mission. A lot of people run out of steam three regions into clearing everything.

Do side content because you want to

When you do leave the path, pick things that interest you, not things that happen to be nearest. If a side quest has a character you like, follow it. If a type of activity bores you, skip every one of them.

A useful test: before starting something, ask whether you'd do it if there were no reward. If yes, do it. If you're only doing it for experience points or a trophy, it can wait, or never happen. Our beginner's guide to trophy hunting is there for when you do want to chase them on purpose.

Rockstar's games in particular reward wandering. A lot of the best moments in GTA and Red Dead Redemption aren't on the map at all. They're a strange conversation you overheard, or something that happened while you were driving somewhere else.

Turn off the markers you don't need

Many open-world games let you reduce what's on screen. Minimap options, HUD settings and marker filters can make a busy world feel much calmer. Check the settings menu in your first hour, before habits set in.

Hiding markers you don't care about takes the pressure off, because you can't feel behind on a list you can't see. If a game offers a mode with fewer objective markers, like Odyssey's Exploration Mode, try it for a few sessions. You can usually switch back from the options menu if it gets frustrating.

Set a session goal, not a completion goal

Instead of aiming to clear a region, decide what you want from a session before you start:

1. "Do the next two story missions."
2. "Ride to the north of the map and see what's there."
3. "Finish that one side story I liked."

Small goals make a session feel complete, even if the map is still covered in icons. They also make it easier to stop. Open worlds don't have natural stopping points, so you have to make your own. Write the goal down, and write one line about what happened when you stop. Next time you'll know exactly where to pick up.

Take breaks from the big game

It's fine to play something else in the middle of a long open-world game. A short indie or a puzzle game for a few evenings can reset your energy, and when you come back the world feels fresh again.

If you're worried about losing your place, leave a quick note before you step away: where you are, what you were doing and what you wanted to do next. That's the same habit we recommend in our guide to clearing your backlog before GTA 6. In Perthro you can keep that note with the game, so it's waiting when you come back.

How to play GTA 6 without burning out

GTA 6 is set in Leonida, Rockstar's take on Florida, built around a modern Vice City. Pre-loading opens on November 10 for digital pre-orders, so you can be playing the moment it unlocks on November 19. Rockstar says the download needs up to 212 GB, so leave yourself room. Our pre-load guide has the details.

A few things to decide before you start:

• Ignore the race to 100%. Plenty of people online will try to clear the map in the first week. Their pace has nothing to do with yours.
• Pick your one thing. Story first, or wandering first. Either works. Doing both at full speed is how people burn out.
• Check the HUD settings early. Turn off what you don't want to see before the map fills up.
• Expect to stop before the end of the list. If GTA 6 follows GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, most players will never see 100%, and that's fine.

Know when you're done

You're allowed to finish the story and stop. You're also allowed to play for 200 hours and never finish it. Neither is the wrong way to play an open-world game.

The only wrong way is the one that makes you stop enjoying it. If you're dreading loading up a game you were excited about a month ago, that's a sign to change how you're playing it or take a break. Our guide on when to stop playing a game goes into the signs.

GTA 6 will be huge. Follow the story, do what interests you, turn off what doesn't and give yourself a goal for each session. The world will still be there next week.

Sources

• Steam global achievements: Red Dead Redemption 2
• Steam global achievements: Grand Theft Auto V Legacy
• Steam global achievements: Cyberpunk 2077
• Steam global achievements: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Steam global achievements: Elden Ring
• Steam global achievements: Hogwarts Legacy
• Nintendo Everything: Nintendo on the behind-the-scenes creation of Breath of the Wild (CEDEC 2017)
• Push Square: Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Exploration Mode turns off objective markers
• Rockstar Games pre-order announcement via Game Developer
• Rockstar Newswire: Grand Theft Auto VI pre-load begins on November 10