There is a mod for skyrim that makes the wagon rides actually take you for the whole ride instead of just teleporting you there. It also gives the carriage guy's unused voice lines a chance to shine, he can actually react to things happening around you in the environment like enemies and scenic spots.

You can't make me!

I believe that the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt had a great approach to this, having to use travel signs to be able to fast travel. You were able to fast travel in general areas but still had to explore on foot to get to specific locations.

I didn’t know fast travel was an option in RDR2 so I traveled everywhere by horseback and took my time hunting, gathering loot and exploring. I really enjoyed the slower pace and focusing on collecting items to help my character and camp.

It was actually Oblivion that made me stop using fast travel. While the faces look like potatoes, the world itself looks like a painting and I still go back to it just to marvel at how beautiful it is.

I remember playing assassin's creed black flag for the first time when I was 12 years old. I didn't know that there was a fast travel mechanic, so I sailed everywhere, and I'm positive that this experience made the game twice as enjoyable and memorable. Fast travel is certainly convenient, but if you can, travel the in game world as much as you can and the game will be far more enjoyable.

Disabling the HUD also makes for a way more immersive experience, this way you have to actually look at the mountains and rivers and towns to navigate. I used to only allow myself to open the map when I was in a town, so all the journeys were based on actual orientation skills and observation. Every little travel felt like going to Mordor

I remember preordering this game before I left for the military in 2011. I was able to pick it up on 11.11.11 in a huge box with Alduin statue (that I still have) in the box as well. Skyrim is an absolutely gorgeous game. From the scenery to the music and everything in between. It will forever have a special place in my heart.

I have actually noticed that fast traveling doesn’t level you up as fast because you’re missing encounters that you could have making the actual trek

I first played Skyrim when I was 12 years old and back then I hadnt played games with fast travel. Add that to the fact that I simply missed the part where the game informs you of the existence of fast travel and you get a player that walked literally everywhere. I really appreciate that little mistake of mine

On my first play through of Skyrim, I didn’t know fast travel or the carriages existed. After surviving Helgen with Ralof, I made the hike from Riverwood to Windhelm to join the Stormcloaks. 😂 Idk why but this is one of my most memorable moments of this game. The monsters I encountered on the way, the magical night sky, the beautiful soundtrack. 😮‍💨👌

the detail to make the subtitles style as each game is pure effort

I adopted this idea when I played Red Dead 2. I didn’t fast travel or button mash to speed through on horse back. Decided to soak in the landscape, surroundings and really try to immerse in the cowboy experience. Slowing down reminds you that someone worked on all the aspects of the game for you to experience and that gives you a new appreciation for all the details. It’s like they meant for you to play the games this way!

Dude, I LOVE the detail of making the video subtitles look like the subtitles of the game you’re showing. Such a cool little artistic choice.

I've been keeping Skyrim journal from my character's POV and I made a point of not using fast travel. It was really fun planning trips and prioritizing quests based on their location.

One of the best short videos I’ve watched! I love that you did the subtitles in the format of the game you were showing!!

Fast travel becomes a necessity in later levels because you invest so much time in actually clearing the province of its troubles, the roads actually become *more* of a mess with saber cats and bears at every corner instead of just the odd wolf or skeever. Definitely, I once did a full main quest, Dawnguard and Dragonborn playthrough with little to no fast travel, but every once in a while; especially when you have to go back and forth to High Hrothgar, it's a blessing. Use it responsibly is my point, and respect immersion.

I think for the first 60 hours that I was playing Breath of the wild, I didn't even realize that I could fast travel. I explored soooo much. Felt so immersed. Felt like a real adventure.

Having been a fast-travel-refuser for years now I'm glad to see some people out there advocating for the same. With the recent release of Starfield and my inability to play it yet, finding a playthrough I enjoy watching has been hard, not least because of the insane amount of -laziness- "convenience" built into the game with incessant fast travel options. You don't even have to get up out of your seat after docking with a space station, just hold a button and teleport! I've played the entirety of Skyrim with no fast travel, including doing Thieves Guild radiant quests (as required to complete the Thieves' Guild story) that randomly send you to cities that can be all the way across the map, over and over again. I've played the entirety of Assassin's Creed Odyssey not only without fast travel, but without using the convenience of summoning my horse or ship to me. If I left my horse somewhere, I travel back to roughly where I left it before summoning it. If I left my ship a port somewhere, I go back to that port to board it (even though the game *actively* tries to make me be lazy by automatically moving my ship to somewhere near me when I leave it behind!) Sometimes, it's a pain in the ass, sure. But I always feel so much more satisfied with a game when I treat the world as if it's an actual world, and not just a series of disconnected set pieces that I teleport between. I can't wait to play Starfield and deliberately walk back *inside* my ship every time I want to store cargo, instead of using that magic teleporting your equipment to your ship from 500 feet away "feature" that's been doing the rounds on KZfaq shorts lately! Thank you for being an advocate for *by far* the more enjoyable way to enjoy open worlds! If only more people did this, games companies would be more encouraged to actually fill their world with little entertaining trivialities, instead of making things ever more fast-travel centric with empty voids of nothing in between because they don't expect many gamers to bother looking.

I absolutely love you! Ever since I started playing Skyrim I never even considered fast travel because I knew it would be so much more fun just traveling the roads. The serene beauty of the game's environment, the sometimes really interesting random encounters, and just the immersive feeling of riding your horse for one town to the other.

The feeling of making it back finally to a spot you enjoy in the game after being far away for a long time hits different without fast travel.

I like how Cyberpunk does fast travel. You have to go to fast travel points which encourages you to at least run around the city to get to one. Meanwhile the game also has a driving system because of how big it is to also encourage you to not fast travel. Sure Skyrim has horses but the roads are so unsafe that getting off every seconds just to defend your self makes it unpractical. Thus you want to fast travel to get to places faster.

After about 5.. or is it 8 now.. restarts in Skyrim over the last few years, I keep finding new locations, new quests, new feelings. Last week i came across a side-quest line that I hadn't seen before while wandering the icy mountains west of Solitude. I came upon the abandoned Ironback Hideout, which had been taken over by bandits - quickly dispatching them, I looked around and found a letter - starting the "Night Hunter" quest line. I'm sure a lot of people have found it and enjoyed it - but you brought up an amazing point about the environment, the music, the scenery... as I slowly walked up to the cliff overlook, dawn was just breaking, and the music swelled as I reached the quest end. I sat here on my couch, stunned by the view, the music, and the sadness of the quest-line. It gave me one of the most emotional feelings I've had this year.. a freakin game made me stop and contemplate the life of this man in the quest-line, putting myself in his shoes and seeing this exact view that he did... I was shook.. and to be honest, I think this was my favorite side-quest of the game of all my play-throughs.. and it was thanks to aimlessly wandering through the mountains instead of fast traveling. If you haven't done this small, simple quest, look up it's start location, don't ruin the quest with google, and if you can, time your finishing of it to right around dawn on a beautifully clear day. Thank you for your video - you hit the nail on the head in such an amazing way.

You knocked out of the park with this... Everything was so spot on AND THE SUBTITLES!!! Such a nice touch, i love it

I restarted a story in Skyrim with no fast travel and it’s actually really nice

One of my most memorable experiences in Skyrim was using frostfall and having to hike up to the dragon born temple

I started a vanilla anniversary playthrough yesterday with survival mode on for the first time and no fast travel has been kicking my butt, that said, I've found random encounters I haven't even known existed in 9 hours of playtime than I've found over the hundreds of hours I've had prior. No fast travel, while not always fun, still is an eye-opening experience. And I think its kinda cool that your video just happened to pop up in my recommended

The problem is the game has to be actually designed around that principle. I've tried this countless times in Skyrim and end up getting bored with it, because they want you to fast travel. But with Dragon's Dogma, even on subsequent playthroughs I won't fast travel since the world is meant to be explored and not designed as an afterthought to fast travel.

One moment that stands out for me from Skyrim is when I was just jogging through a meadow outside Whiterun, and it was gloomy and rainy and pretty quiet. Suddenly I hear footsteps quickly approaching, I turn, and there's a hooded khajiit with a dagger in each hand, rushing me from about two paces away. I was also equipped with dual daggers, and we had a crazy lightning fast knife fight to the death in the rain and thunder. Atmospheric and brutal and lots of fun. I only play survival mode Skyrim these days, planning my routes and leaving my horse in the towns or villages nearest to my quest site, going on foot from there. I take the wagons from city to city if I need to fast travel, but that's almost always just for returning to my houses to manage inventory (or to find my horse that I once again lost).

I live in the NYC area and don’t drive, so I’m used to walking (😊) - generally, about 7-10 miles a day with my commute to and from work, and then all the general point-to-point walking throughout the day. Walking is my primary method of transportation in real life, so it feels natural to do the same in Skyrim. When I do get to Skyrim, I plan my route, stock up on supplies, pay for carriages when I can, use my “convenient horse,” and enjoy the journey with Inigo singing little improvised songs here and there. I love iNeed and Campfire, along the way, too, as well as Immersive HUD to turn off the stuff I don't want to see on screen all the time. I pick up quests, and then take the steps to complete them when I’m in the area to do so. This even applies to those times when I’m doing the museum quests in “Legacy of the Dragonborn.” I’m in no rush. As a bard, I sing in Inns so I can make a few coins and get a room for the night. I “take a seat by the fire” to talk with Inigo, to level up, to plan the next day, to evaluate where my character’s progression is going, and to have meals. The only actual time I fast travel (aside from carriage rides) is the journey to High Hrothgar: after I get the Horn and am accepted by the Greybeards; then I’ll walk to Ivarstead, go to the first Emblem, then fast travel up to the Greybeards. It’s just my little justification that as Dragonborn, I can do that… Sometimes I only have an hour or three on weekends or at night to play. I look forward to just being in the Skyrim world so much - to live that other life; kind of like a Tamriel Sims, really. I just love that this game can be shaped and modded and molded and played in so many different ways, based on how people want to play. I’ve been playing since December 2011, and still love to live in the world. For me, I wouldn’t give up having the world to explore in order to just get stuff (quests) done as quickly as possible. But other people love that mad dash to the finish. How great that we can all play the game we love in whatever way we love!

Yep I figured this out a while back, too. I also turn off the compass/minimap and quest markers. This forces me to look for cues in the world around me rather than just running toward a point. If I have to open the big map to get a hint for where to go, I can.

At some point I decided to do a no fast travel run in Skyrim as well and I loved it. I suggest you try using couple mods such as campfire, frostfall, Ineed, hunterborn as well to make it an ultimate experience. Not only will you then have to worry about cold, food, water, bad weather - you will need to at times set up camp to cook food, sleep and even hunt, skin animals. It is also essential to wear clothes according to the weather. It makes travelling a really immersive experience!

This made me realize I might have found Skyrim more interesting and questing less of a chore if I took the time to breath between quests and enjoyed the random encounters

I agree i figured this out a few years ago and LOVE IT. It really feels more like a real world when you not zapping around like it's portal 2.

The first game that I replayed to do so without fast travel was Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005). Not only that, but I wanted to follow traffic laws as much as possible. It really enhanced my experience and got me to learn the city so that when I was in a pursuit, I was no longer getting busted simply because I didn't know a road. Later in the game I would have to be careful about my route as the police would be looking for me after a race or after I had completed a milestone and sometimes I would get seen on my way back to the safe house and have to spend a few more minutes evading again. This also made me discover that I could duck into a dealership or a repair shop when the police where actively looking for me (when they are, the game spawns more police cars) and by entering those places I was "laying low" as they would no longer be looking for me when I exited the shop I just entered. Other games that I have enjoyed without out fast travel are several open world Spider-Man games and GTA V. With Spider-Man, you can swing around the city and find more crimes to stop. With GTA V, sometimes I would find myself without a vehicle, but I also would make myself not perform a GTA to get a vehicle. I tried the play that game as lawfully as possible (unless breaking a law made sense for the storyline, such as speeding to go save Lamar's life, even though the game doesn't have a timer on getting there) so I wouldn't steal cars, and sometimes would have to walk a while until I got to a good spot to call a Taxi. When doing so, I would not use the fast travel option, but just sit back, enjoy the cab ride, and sometimes I would go do something else like make myself some food if the cab ride was going to be a long one. Not fast traveling also opens a player up to unexpectedly running into one of the many "random" encounters the game has more often. Another thing that can enhance your game experience is playing without a HUD. It forces you to memorize your way instead of relying on a GPS and sometimes you would know exactly where to go, but without the hud indicators you need to pay more attention to the story and things the characters say in order to know where to go next and you can understand better why you are going to that location next.

As a man that has done many, many challenge runs on various titles, and burned myself out on various grinds, let me remind you all that the destination is nothing without the journey to it. So instead of blasting through to the ending of everything I advise to always take your time with everything you do and enjoy the small simple moments in games, life, work, and love. It'll make your day so much better, and it'll maintain the mystical sense of adventure that you've wanted in everything you do. You also don't need fully remove the ease of convience that tools like fast travel can bring, as it does grow very annoying to travel all the way across the world to remember you needed a dremora heart for the quest, and you left it in your herb sack at your PoH, but just use it much more for those circumstances you Really need to use it for.

this is always a debate in fromsoft world too. I always loved that ds1 had fast travel as something you had to unlock after killing a hard boss, made it feel more woven in, in terms of lore and it made the whole ordeal more satisfying

Wow I usually do the same thing! lol for the exact same reasons. Also just walking or behaving like the npcs. You get better immersion and see the beauty in the details they put in. I am also a well known walker in games 😅 running all the time feels weird and unrealistic plus is calming before a big event. Lastly I bounce back and forth from third person and first. Usually to feel like a game and also feel more like I am the character. Plus walking can be slow so in first person you can walk a bit faster and not break the flow. Great video and so glad to see I’m not the only one!

A particular point about Morrowind in this: It's not just the silt striders, but you also have boats, Mage's Guild teleportation, and the propylon network to "fast travel" around. Learning how they're laid out, you can even get from any one quest point in the game, to absolutely any other quest point, in less than 5 minutes. Can even get to some really outflung backwaters from any other such backwater in 10 minutes or so. They were just so well laid out for this fast movement, while also fitting in well with the game. None of the others since have done so well, because the developers themselves were depending on fast travel.

I think what makes Bethesda game random encounters stand out so much is that even though the player is required to be in that area they always feel like whatever was happening already started well before you get there. like this IS a world full of people living their lives, and it if is a random battle encounter with the vampires or forsworn half the time you can hear people in the nearby town or hold talking about an increase in forsworn or random murder cases! for how empty some areas can be there was a lot of heart put in to make you feel like you are in the game yourself

...unless you're playing Starfield.

I love your subtitle edit, very creative

This brings me back to oldschool RuneScape in the late 2000's (before RS3 added free fast travel to every city). My brother and I would sit and play together, and we would plan out entire trips with every stop we had to make along the way. First go to Varrock and buy a new sword, then go through the Barbarian Village and use the kiln, then head over to Falador to buy a new kiteshield, then stop at the dwarf to drop off the ores we collected for the quest. We were impatient children with limited computer time, so we had to make sure we made the most out of every trip.

I always tell myself at the beginning of a play through that I won’t fast travel but then I end up fast travelling 😹

The Wild Wasteland perk isn't a random encounter trait. They're unique encounters that are set in fixed locations. I guess they would be random for you if you use it in your first playthrough, but after that it shouldn't be considered "random encounters".

I found your video at the perfect time as I've been getting the skyrim nostalgia and have been wanting to come back to this game.

3:35 really hit hard and proved ur point so much

I've been doing this for several years as well. I only use fast travel if it's immersive, like carriages or whatever. In fallout 4, I often wanna choose the institute for the teleportation as well, as it also gives my character in lore incentive to want to use it, and to make the ending a more difficult choice. EDIT: except for fromsoft though, I'm not necessarily roleplaying every moment I play those games lol

Well you are going to hate Starfield then

I remember the first time I ever played Skyrim, I had no clue the carriage outside of Whiterun or any of the cities even existed, so I would have to trek to one of the distant cities before I could fast travel. Simpler times, better times. I like the no fast travel thing for survival mode but it ruins some of the exploration when venturing north because I need a million hot meals and 17 torches just to barely survive. I try not to fast travel unless it's anything grindy like the Thieves guild jobs or something similar, being able to just cruise through the world at you're own pace really enhances the feel and immersion it gives.

I've been playing Skyrim on survival mode for the last few weeks, and having to eat, sleep and not being able to fasttravel makes it a whole different experience. You think a lot more about where to go next. I use the carriages, because otherwise it just takes ages, but you at least notice that times passes because you arrive at your destination hungry, tired, and half-frozen to death.

I did that not long ago when doing a survival playthrough in Skyrin and honestlt irs been a breath or fresh air. It's relaxing and helps me loose myself into another world. Also. Changing subtitles based on game in the background is super cool. Nice job dude.

I completely support this. I decided to play no fast travel on my quarterly Skyrim play through and ran into a whole new side of the game I’ve never appreciated before.

Matching the subtitles to the game’s font is a really nice touch

I recently started doing this in VR, helps a whole lot with immersion

Absolutely excellent advice! This is what I refer to when people ask me why I love the first Dark Souls so much-the first 3/4s of the game, there is no fast travel. You have to walk from bonfire to bonfire, building up your character as you go, finding resources and leveling up gear. There is no map, just your memory and your curiosity. I know the way around Undead Burg like the back of my hand, because I had to explore it. I even go back every now and again just to walk around and enjoy the world. Same thing with Skyrim-I won’t follow quests, I’ll just go to holds and see what happens. That’s why Falkreath Hold is actually my favorite hold-it’s weird and fun and contains all the elements of a tutorial area but without guiderails. I have a wood elf character who is just doing the rounds of going to holds and finding stuff to do-never sleeping inside, being a stealth archer, finding and selling loot. I have made it all the way around to Windhelm without ever going to Whiterun, just walking from hold to hold. The map is amazing, fast travel makes you miss out on all the beauty of it!

Playing survival mode for Skyrim has made me appreciate the world and all the little details like how you can run into a dog that will lead you back to his deceased owner who has a letter explaining how he had gotten rockjoint and passed not too long ago

Glad to know that I'm not the only one that comes back to these games out of seasonal depression.

4:18 damn I felt that one I get depressed and just don't want to do anything or just don't know what to do with myself so I just play Skyrim and usually end up feeling a bit better I just keep praying this feeling will go away but I just can't shake it it always comes back

This was spot on. When you first started in my head I made the same observation about Morrowind you did. Limiting travel and experiencing the world Bethesda created had people falling in love with it. In a lot of ways Oblivion and Skyrim have better crafted worlds than Morrowind, but jumping around via fast travel you miss it all. One of my favorite gaming memories was just exploring western Cyrodil looking for oblivion gates to close. The area between Kvatch and Skingrad was so beautifully crafted.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT 📢 starfield doesn’t count

I'll never forget walking the road a night in SKyrim as a new player, and I ran into some wandering Bard. He sang me song as I looked at the stars. Never had anything like that happen in another game.

3:13 just gave me so much nostalgia that I might have to go play Skyrim again

I think the problem is people lost their curiosity. Their sense of wonder. They always need to be given a purpose now, be told what to do, where to go, and laser focus only on missions and nothing else. When video games were just becoming popular (3D video games), people had this sense of awe and wonder to almost every game. It was exploring around, figuring out what to do, you weren't always told and you had to figure that stuff out, just walking around enjoying the game and taking it in. That doesn't happen anymore, you're practically spoon-fed everything and without being told exactly what to do, so many are just feeling like a game is "pointless" - like Minecraft for example.

I love traveling by foot instead of fast traveling now, especially when I have a companion with me. I use the time to imagine conversations between myself and my companion, conversations that often end up detailing the origins or personality of my character. It makes the otherwise really familiar game feel new and exciting, like I'm uncovering a new immersive storyline in a game that otherwise fails to surprise me. It's nerdy and kinda cringe but also very fun if you're the imaginative type.

I first abstained from fast-travelling when I first played Morrowind, because, obviously. It's a pretty different experience when you actually have to walk everywhere and can't skip the more mundane moments, it helps to make the world feel more alive, not to mention that given I got a map of the island I was on gave an extra dimension to playing it that I haven't seen before, as being able to use it to plot my next course of action - whether I was playing or waiting for school to end - made it feel like I was doing something more productive than if it was just on the screen. I haven't finished Morrowind, but the experiences I have just walking around, following my map, will always stick with me. After that, playing New Vegas without fast travel was a no brainer - especially since I was playing on hardcore mode - and despite it's faults, it amazes just how easily I can navigate the Mojave without looking at a map. There's a lot to look at and enough to keep yourself busy while walking the roads, and while you do run out of things to do, it kept me going for a good long while before I stopped playing. It's a shame they don't make games like they used to.

I played survival mode for f4 and Skyrim. The no fast traveling made the game so much more enjoyable especially while listening to the ambient sound or radio.

Fast travel is still worth it in any game where nothing new ever happens once you've gone through an area on foot once. Take the time to see everything the slow way first, and when the game stops giving you additional stuff to see, you shouldn't feel guilty skipping the endless, boring repetition.

I turned off the minimap in Red Dead Redemption 2, and just use the compass now. Look at the map only while in towns. Doing land-nav in that game opened up a whole other game mechanic, and made playing it much more satisfying. Sine, myself, and others are starting to touch on something really good for Open World games I think.

This is one of the most please clap things I've seen in a bit.

At 3:13 this moment i remembered all the good memories i had as a kid playing Skyrim on the family Xbox 360, this was the good old days Thank you, i'm gonna enjoy my new Skyrim game like i used to.

Especially in Skyrim, if you use fast travel you kinda cheat yourself out of some really good parts of the game. Such as a reason to actually use your horse, or buy multiple houses so you have more than one place to store supplies. For me, it makes even the smallest chore feel like I'm on a big ass quest

I think as we were younger we walked a lot more in Skyrim and games like it because of the novelty of the experience. Your first time playing Skyrim, if you can remember what that felt like, probably wasn't spent doing stuff like fast travel. It was that warm feeling of listening to an NPC tell their life story while listening to the most laid-back and chill soundtrack in arguably all of gaming. I gotta say, nothing felt better than leaving whiterun at night and just looking up, now the novelty is worn off and I can't force myself to sit still for more than 5 minutes.

this is why i like playing fallout 4 in survival mode because it forces me to navigate the map to not only get to where im going but also find a bed. alot of places i would never have gone if i werent on the quest for a bed.

I did this in Skyrim as an immersion tool, I told myself "only fast travel from major cities to major cities, no exceptions unless you literally encounter a wagon on the road and act like you hitched a ride to the main city he was going in the direction of." It made the world feel so much bigger

A friend of mine recently convinced me to stop fast travelling in Skyrim/Fallout and it quickly became a personal favorite way to play. Now, I basically only fast travel when either using the carriages/boats in Skyrim *or* when the walk is one I've done dozens of times and I'm on a schedule (usually just at the end of playthroughs to wrap up some last bits of busywork). Generally, no fast travel for me anymore and I wouldn't have it any other way now.

This is the way to go. I remember when I was younger and played a lot, especially Skyrim, I got used to the game and used fast travelling a lot. Then it hit me. I understood I did not enjoy playing the game as much. So I stopped fast travelling and oh boy did that changed everything. Still here, playing Skyrim occasionally. It felt like before I did things because I needed to and not because I wanted to. It seems stupid but it show you that there's a way of really appreciating things in life. Because it also works with not only games. Take you time to appreciate what you are doing and so, do it correctly ! And for games like skyrim it's perfect. Everytime I start a new caracter I experience unique stories. Sure we know almost everything about Skyrim today. But still, everytime it's a new adventure since you don't go to the same places or find the same things in the same way and it's awesome. When you follow the flow, the game creates the stories for you.

I've just been playing Skyrim again recently. I've been trying new builds (currently on my 3rd attempt) and I didn't know why but something felt off... I had this new character that was super strong and fun to play but for some reasons.. ''Something'' was missing that didn't make the game fun and I didn't know what it was. Until I saw your video. I think fast travelling is what is ruining my game. I don't know why it is though. It just feels ''off'' to fast travel. Thank you so much for this video, this is exactly what I needed. The great thing about not using fast travel is that it will probably also work on your short attention span.

I didn't know Fast Travel existed when I first played Skyrim, it was my first open world RPG

I remember when I was a kid, me and my siblings would take 3 hour turns on oblivion during the summer. At around age 11 (maybe like 2011-13ish), instead of fast traveling, I walked from cheydinhal to anvil. It took all but 10 minutes of my 3 hours, since I stopped at nearly every location close to the road. I remember still remember that experiance, even as an absolutely ADHD riddled child I still was able to just slow down and enjoy the game. My older siblings were sitting nearby and just sat and watched for the entire time. Then, when it was their turn, they took their character across the map from whatever area they were in their save file. New vegas will always be my favourite game, but god damn is oblivion a close second.

Pretty much only do it now for quests that make me go back and forth a ton, try to walk if I can

Thank you for the suggestion, I will try this in Skyrim VR :)

There are moments where I just want to travel and profit from the world, but there are moments when I just wanna get shit done.

Im like 4~ hours into skyrim, and it quickly became one of my favorite games to me. Even just walking around and seeing mountains and castles in the distance and having random encounters and weird dungeons. It's extremely immersive and just beautiful scenery. And the music is just the best.

"You there Traveler Over Here" every time that was the vampires on the road

I remember I did a play through of Skyrim once where I tried to use Fast Travel as less as I could and it was honestly one of the most memorable play through I’ve ever done of Skyrim

i played through the entirety of the first Borderlands without fast traveling by mistake, i just totally missed that part of the tutorial. it was such a fun game i didnt even notice though

The most fun and immersive playthrough I have ever done (player since the day one rush) has been on my nintendo switch. Legendary difficulty when it makes sense for my character to be a weakling, dropping only to Master. Survival mode, which means basically no fast traveling, and the kicker: No HUD either. No crosshairs, locations, nothing. Checking the map when I’m stopped or safe, and the world just feels massive. Nearing 500 hours on it, still keep finding the fun.

Funny this video popped up. I recently started a Skyrim play through and I’ve opted to play on survival mode. It’s forced me to use features of the game that I’d never used before and made the game more immersive. There are now decisions I have to make beyond fast traveling from point to point. Stop at that inn and rent a room. But some food. Carry torches and get out of the cold as soon as possible. I still use the carriages from time to time, but only for journeys like from Solitude to Riften which would probably take a half hour at least on horse back. Fast traveling is expensive too. The game calculates the time it’d take to make that journey and you don’t eat or sleep during that time so you have to buy food and sleep in an inn immediately, especially from Solitude to Riften.

My first playthrough of oblivion was blind and i walked everywhere simply because i had no idea i could fash travel to cities till i visited them. It wasn't till halfway through the main quest, 16 levels and 127 hours later i realised when i accidentally clicked on a city that i realised i could. I enjoyed walking along the roads and getting sidetracked when i came across aylied ruins or a cave or coming across an inn and finishing some sidequests. I remember i stumbled across the unicorn for the first time and it was attacking a minotaur. It then me because my weapon was drawn, but at the time i did not know why or how to put them away 😅

I just did a skyrim survival mode playthrough and not fast traveling gave me a greater appreciation for this game. I even discovered locations and events I’ve never seen, and I got the game the day it released all those years ago

As someone who plays on "survival" I see this as an absolute and massive win!

It took me a while to notice the change in subtitle style according to the game you were referencing. Well played, sir. Well played.

I found that retraversal in dark souls 1 was actually kind of welcome for me. It helped ground me in the roleplay of being stranded in a forsaken land having to fight my way back to safety in certain situations.

This is one of the many reasons i love rdr2 so so much, it forces you to look at, and appreciate the beautiful world, aswell as immerse you with random encounters!

I felt this way when I was giving Cyberpunk another try once it was patched. The game felt boring and unfulfilling until I realized it was fast travel making it feel that way. Suddenly it was way more fun, the sightseeing finally meant something, and the vehicle you had was more impactful. It's cool seeing this talked about! I wish devs would remove fast travel until the end of the game so players were forced to see all of their hard work.

Im doing a mixture of both. If its some place thats for a quest i usually walk, if i have to backtrack for stuff i fast travel. With having a job i dont have the time to look at the scenery like that

I play games with heavy fast travel (Bethesda games), games with minimal fast travel, and games like Star Citizen where not only do you have to fly, walk or drive to get anywhere, but you also need to catch the train to the spaceport to get your ship first. In Bethesda games, I'm usually fast travelling to make up for lack of adequate vehicle support, lack of proper inventory management, quests taking me from one end to the other of a map I've already heavily explored, etc. Fast travel makes the endless hauling out of dungeons in Skyrim palpable, and in Starfield, flying to other planets or systems in your ship is literally just Fast Travel But With Extra Cutscenes. Basically, in Bethesda games, you fast travel to make up for their short-sightedness. In No Man's Sky, you're going to want to use station portals to avoid having to fly back through dozens of systems (saving you both time and fuel). I definitely see value in taking more time to explore and leisurely peruse things in open world games. But eventually you're going to get worn out of the back and forth, especially when it's all the time.

I played New Vegas for the first time a couple years back and went hardcore without fast travel. Made for a great experience whenever I found a stash of fresh water, food or ammo since I couldn't just zip to a town and buy things, and made me fear for my life when the Legion assassins came running for my ass and I had to skirt around the map avoiding them.

Bethesda's games made me stop fast travelling, man. There is SO MUCH to their worlds for you to discover, it's unbelievable. Sometimes, the travel is worth a lot more than the destination point by itself