It might not be the right word for what I wanted to say; I don't necessarily mean the mood or themes, more the variety of silly game-y things to do, like activities and collectibles, the option to always do something aside from the main objectives that feels like an achievement even if it's trivial. I assume you don't have that as much in games like Miasmata and Kholat, if you call the gameplay minimalistic. That doesn't make those games less open world, maybe just a bit less motivating to play in case you don't get fully hooked on the main objectives. I'll have to try Kholat some day though.

Played it on 360 and PC Win 8.1 with a gamepad, felt the same on both, can't speak for mouse and keyboard though. It's 50% off on Steam right now, although if you want to wait I have seen it for 75% off in the past.

If you have a PS2 then I stand by Sly 2 and 3, those are great games. Also, possibly Harvest Moon, not quite open world, but it seems to offer the sort of gameplay you're looking for.

Ninja’d you ;-)

:) Jeez, how did I miss that? I'm slipping man...

Outer Wilds? (A download is available from the Internet Archive (slow), and there are faster private mirrors.)

The permanence of your progress is an illusion, I think. You are only going to keep your progress as long as you keep playing.

Here's a riddle:

Lets imagine an open-world game with unlockables, leveling, collectives, various equpiment, money, gems, runes,etc. And it's good. Good enough for you to keep playing it for 116 hours.

But some point, you are inevitably going to stop playing it, like with any similar game. But this game has an algorithm which can predict the exact moment you're going to exit the game for the last time. And 1 hour before this happens, the game displays GAME OVER in big red letters, and informs you that your character is dead, and all your leveling, loot, unlocks, etc. has been deleted for good.

Bear in mind that this happened 1 hour before you yourself would have played it for the last time. The only difference is that the inevitable loss of your progress is made more visible.

Would you still call this "stored for good, so that you can't lose it anymore."?

If the game had deleted it, it wouldn't be stored for good now, would it? But I'm not sure where you're going with the question ... I'm perfectly aware that progress in videogames doesn't mean much and that it's irrelevant once I stop playing a game, but as long as I play it I would like the progress kept and not erased, so that I don't have to repeat stuff I already did before to get where I was. I get that it's all about the journey and not the destination in rogue-like games, but I tend to lose interest in games I can't "complete" pretty quickly (and starting from scratch in Don't Starve feels especially repetitive to me). Even if progress and completion is just an illusion, I prefer the illusion not to remind me of its pointlessness and give me some sense of closure instead. The illusion of achievement is so much sweeter than the reality of loss! Also, OCDs, mate, OCDs. ;)

Miasmata is an open world survival game where you don't really have any combat abilities, so I guess that counts? Also, it's completely amazing.

I understand what you are trying to say, but what does this have to do with losing all your progress in a rogue-like game when you would have preferred to continue playing from where you were instead of having to start from the beginning?

Agreed! Roguelikes kinda rubs it in your face!

You found a staff with 25 % chance of freeze!
... and now you died! Staff gone!

Wee! You reached level 12!
... dead again! Back to level 1!

You unlocked the -
... oh. You died. Nevermind.

Lucky! You were down on 1 HP, but leveled up and survived.
... but, guess what happened next!

Non-roguelikes are much better at delivering that nice feeling of progress. You can unlock characters in Don't Starve and other modern roguelikes, and I think it sort of lessen the nihilistic tone, but the constant starting-over still give a feeling of pointlessness. And I think roguelikes which actually make you progress between deaths (Rogue Legacy, Runestone Keeper) are somehow 'less' roguelike.

I also feel that length of the game plays a major role. For example, I have no problem with dying in Spelunky, since a complete run will likely take no longer than half an hour. Sword of the Stars: The Pit on the other hand allows you to play the game for 6 hours or more before you die. (I know that both games feature some minor form of unlocks or the like, but my argument stands.)

Regarding death in Don't Starve, it's not necessarily that permanent as in other roguelikes. There are 2 touchstones in the world, which when discovered acts as a once-of respawn location. So provided you've discovered both, which happens more often than not, then you'll have to die three times for the game to end. There is also a life-giving amulet which can resurrect you once, but it's not that useful because you have to be wearing it at the time of death, and you'll probably not have time to put it on in time when danger strikes.
A far more useful, and infinitely repeatable way to beat death is with the Meat Effigy. I usually construct one, and leave supplies in a nearby chest to immediately construct another as soon as needed. That way you can die as many times as you want in a single game.

There's always Fuel. It was an open-world racing game. One could easily spend hours driving around the large map! I wish GOG could get it someday...

Kerbal Space Program.

you have a bunch of stuff to make some vehicle that could take you to end of the runway, bottom of the ocean or bounds of the solar system - to save someone, expore planets or just crash in the sun.

The only type of violence is - to kill yourself in the process.

And its somewhat realistic, at least I don't know any other game, where you will learn rocket gravity turns, spaceplane cobra reentries, airbraking loops or orbital rendezvous and docking using monopropellant.

With mods, you can build colonies, freeze your astro/cosmonauts, provide them supplies, create helicopters and boats, true submarines etc.

Highly addictive.