When comparing Just Cause 3 vs The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Slant community recommends The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for most people. In the question“What are the best open world games for PS4?” The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is ranked 4th while Just Cause 3 is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is:
You can set off to any of Skyrim's different towns and discover new storylines from interesting factions that flesh out the world and the lore, with great characters and their own absorbing narratives to get lost in. There are a good number of these factions, like the scholars at the snowy College of Winterhold, the secretive assassins of the Dark Brotherhood, or the cohort of rogues and bandits of the Thieves Guild. After picking whichever faction you want to learn more about, you can eventually become a Master of the guild and learn new skills for your character. Playing through each of their individual stories lets you really feel like a member of the faction you choose, like with how the Thieves Guild sends you on missions to pick locks and steal valuables without getting caught by the guards. And if you only get through some of the faction's story and decide you don't enjoy it, you can easily go find another one and play through that one instead. There are no limits on how you play through the plot, with Skyrim giving you the flexibility to pick up stories, set them down, and come back to them whenever you feel like it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro A really fun way of getting around
To explore have a wide selection of vehicles available to you, including bikes, sports cars, tanks, helicopters, and airplanes. However, all of the vehicles combined are nowhere near as fun as the combination of your grapple gun, wingsuit, and parachute. This combination gives you one of the most fun open-world traversal methods to date. You use the wingsuit for gliding, the parachute for gaining height and accurate steering while the grappling hook helps you latch onto various vehicles such as helicopters. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do, you'll probably not look back at regular vehicles.
Pro Entertaining over-the-top action
Just Cause 3 is all about going crazy in its open world environment. To help with this, your character has a wide variety of weapons, including assault rifles, rocket launchers, and even a limitless supply of C4 explosives.
You can stand on top of a plane as it flies over an enemy base and rain down fire and death down on it with your RPG. Or you can attach a C4 charge to everything you see, and watch the world's most colorful fireworks simulator. You even have a grapple gun that allows you to perform various hilarious shenanigans. This includes connecting two helicopters with a rope, causing them to spin out and tangle into a massive explosion.
Whatever you decide to do, it's guaranteed to be over-the-top action goodness.
Pro Massive open world
The total area of JC3 is 400 square miles (1,000 km2), which makes its world one of the largest in gaming. You can explore rural settlements, military bases, grassy plains, dense forests, damp subterranean caverns, and even snowy mountains. There's so much to explore it almost never feels like there's an end to it.
Pro Total freedom in how you choose to play through the world's different factions
You can set off to any of Skyrim's different towns and discover new storylines from interesting factions that flesh out the world and the lore, with great characters and their own absorbing narratives to get lost in. There are a good number of these factions, like the scholars at the snowy College of Winterhold, the secretive assassins of the Dark Brotherhood, or the cohort of rogues and bandits of the Thieves Guild. After picking whichever faction you want to learn more about, you can eventually become a Master of the guild and learn new skills for your character. Playing through each of their individual stories lets you really feel like a member of the faction you choose, like with how the Thieves Guild sends you on missions to pick locks and steal valuables without getting caught by the guards.
And if you only get through some of the faction's story and decide you don't enjoy it, you can easily go find another one and play through that one instead. There are no limits on how you play through the plot, with Skyrim giving you the flexibility to pick up stories, set them down, and come back to them whenever you feel like it.
Pro Massive sandbox to explore at your own pace
The in-game map is absolutely gigantic. There are so many places to go and so much to do in the world, easily giving you hundreds of hours of content.
Exploring the wide range of environments, from the snowy mountains to the richly-detailed towns and cities is such a joy because of how lush and beautiful everything is. Wandering around often surprises you with new side quests to find off the beaten path, with new characters to meet and history to learn about in whichever area you find yourself in. You can get into all sorts of battles with powerful enemies or stumble into hidden dungeons with awesome loot at the end. Or you can sneak around towns at night stealing peoples' stuff while they're asleep to sell everything off for money. And there's just a ton of other intriguing secrets and fun diversions to discover as you adventure throughout the world.
Pro Unrestrictive skill-based RPG system
Skyrim has no set character classes or equipment/spell limitations. Instead, it allows you to form your own class based on how you decide to play.
For example, sneaking increases your sneaking skill, hitting an enemy with a shortsword increases your one-handed skill, taking damage while wearing leather armor increases your light armor skill, and so forth. You can you play however you want and the resulting character will be a perfect match for your playstyle, giving Skyrim a different feel from other RPGs.
Pro Deep lore rivaling classic fantasy literature
Skyrim inherits the stories and world-building of The Elder Scrolls series, which stretches back 20 years. It has numerous stories surrounding the various races (orcs, elves, lizardmen, demons, etc.), mythical beasts, gods, cataclysmic events, parallel worlds, and just about any fantasy trope you could think off. What's even better you can read the lore in books found in-game, allowing you to immerse yourself for countless hours.
Pro Huge variety of mods
Bethesda Softworks has upheld a tradition of releasing their internal content-creation tools to the public since Morrowind (2002). Many modders transition to new Bethesda games as they are released, bringing their experience with them and helping newcomers through forums and wikis. As a result, Skyrim's mod selection is outstanding in both variety and quality.
Cons
Con Poorly optimized
Sometimes you might get sudden fps drops, even when there's practically nothing happening on screen. It can make playing the game very difficult, which is especially annoying during very intense moments.
Con Story missions feel tedious
Just Cause 3 severely lacks story mission variety, having mostly tower defense and escort missions that start getting really repetitive after a while. As a result, you might find yourself hoping a story mission ends sooner, so you can get back to the free-roam and destroy-at- your-own-leisure aspect.
Con Combat is too simple
Most of the time you can just whack an enemy until it dies and it involves very little strategy or planning to succeed.
For example, targeting specific body parts doesn't deal extra damage, nor can you cripple an enemy. There are no vulnerabilities, so you can't set furry forest animals ablaze easier than humans. The enemies also lack any real variation in how they attempt to fight you – they just run at you swinging wildly or attack you from afar.
Because of this the combat is very one-dimensional and can start feeling like a chore after a while. Luckily most of the combat issues can be fixed with mods, allowing you to enjoy a more varied and deeper combat experience.
Con Forgetful NPCs can break immersion
After completing certain story quests NPCs get new lines added to their dialogue based on your decisions. Sometimes the NPCs might become forgetful and return to their default dialogue, which can break immersion, especially if they talk about an event that's been long resolved.
Con Buggy and crash prone
While this game is not as buggy as it was upon release, there are still many people that encounter various bugs and crashes. These can happen in both modded and unmodded games and it's a common occurrence in Bethesda released titles. Fortunately, there are some community mods that try to fix most memory issues, stability issues, and general bugs.