If you're comparing mortal combat, I'm assuming your talking PvE, at least I hope you are cuz that's the only way to talk about this, you literally fight lower level enemies till you get to the final boss. Get some cool stuff along the way and unlock content. But holy shit does Skyrim and Evolve do the same thing! Kill all the lower level things. Get to the final boss. Kill boss. Rinse and repeat. Never played GTA, Walking Dead and some of the other games you're talking about cuz I forgot them and there is no back button without deleting my comment.