Bästa Open World-spelen att utforska i mars 2026

An open world is the best feature a game can have — when you are, like me, the type of player who loves to explore, and when the game satisfies you with the illusion of freedom. Starting from the early GTA games and the first Assassin's Creed, all the way to the monumental RDR2 and Ghost of Yotei, I mark a game as a favorite specifically because of its large, breathing world. Call me casual — maybe I am — because for me, games are a journey into new places, and long may that remain the case.

What follows is a list of over 62 of the best open-world games worth your time in 2026, assembled from four separate editorial sources alongside additional critical data from Metacritic, OpenCritic, IGN, and PC Gamer. Scan the full list, build your personal top five, and trust that they are here.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar Games, Red Dead Redemption 2 features a large open world set in a fictional recreation of the American frontier, with main features including deep simulation mechanics, a cinematic main narrative, dynamic NPC behavior, and Red Dead Online multiplayer.

• Year of release: 2018
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Red Dead Redemption 2 places the player inside Arthur Morgan's final chapter with the Van der Linde gang as the outlaw era closes around them. The world stretches from snow-capped mountains to bayou wetlands, each region built with obsessive environmental detail — horses require brushing and feeding, and Arthur's own hunger, hygiene, and honor all shift the world's reaction to him. The Dead Eye system slows time for cinematic shootouts, while hunting demands tracking, clean kills, and proper skinning technique. NPCs follow daily routines, interact with each other, and sometimes draw Arthur into entirely unscripted situations. Rockstar placed dinosaur bones, unsolved murders, a vampire, and dozens of stranger missions across its map, ensuring that simply riding toward a waypoint delivers unexpected encounters. Side by side with GTA V, it remains the benchmark for living open-world design.

Dragon's Dogma 2

Developed by Capcom, Dragon's Dogma 2 features a large open world set in a high-fantasy kingdom called Vermund, with main features including the Pawn companion system, vocation-based combat classes, limited fast travel by design, and reactive NPC mortality.

• Year of release: 2024
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Dragon's Dogma 2 is not built for players who want a checklist experience — it actively resists comfort. The Pawn system assigns the player a custom AI companion that learns from their playstyle and then travels into other players' worlds, gathering knowledge before returning wiser and better equipped. Night kills without mercy, the fast-travel system costs rare Ferrystones, and wolves will drag characters off roads into the dark. NPCs carry consequences: they can be killed by plague, by monsters, or by the player's own mistakes, which removes quest givers permanently. The vocation system includes the Trickster class, which uses illusions to redirect enemy aggression rather than dealing damage directly. Capcom designed a world where the journey between objectives matters as much as the objectives themselves.

Forza Horizon 5

Developed by Playground Games, Forza Horizon 5 features a large open world set in a recreation of Mexico, with main features including arcade-leaning simulation racing, open-world event discovery, seasonal weather changes, and two major expansions.

• Year of release: 2021
• Genre: Racing
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, PS5

Forza Horizon 5 renders Mexico across jungle, desert, beach, and active volcano terrain, all navigable at full speed without a loading screen between zones. Races draw from the open-world geography itself, so the same roads used for free-roaming become the tracks for competitive events. Seasonal weather shifts the experience week by week, flooding rivers and dusting tracks with sand. Players can discover point-to-point races, jump challenges, and hidden barn finds scattered across the map without consulting a menu. Two expansions extend the world further — one set in a Hot Wheels-themed environment with loop-the-loop tracks, the other on a stunt-filled island. With over 800 licensed cars and a constant stream of live-service updates, the game remains one of the most content-dense open-world titles across all platforms.

No Man's Sky

Developed by Hello Games, No Man's Sky features an effectively infinite open world — a procedurally generated universe of 18 quintillion planets — with main features including seamless planetary landing, survival-crafting, multiplayer co-existence, and regular free updates.

• Year of release: 2016
• Genre: Survival-Crafting
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC

No Man's Sky inverts the standard open-world formula by removing the map boundary entirely. Players fly between star systems, land on planets without a loading screen, and catalog alien flora, fauna, and minerals for resources or trade. The Beyond update added rideable alien creatures, a social hub called the Space Anomaly, and full VR support. Later updates introduced 30 hours of story content, underwater bases, capital ships, and terraforming. Multiplayer lets players share discoveries, co-build bases, and engage in commerce across a universe technically shared with millions of other users. Hello Games continued to release major free updates for years after launch, transforming what was an empty experience at release into one of the most expansive ongoing survival games available.

Sea of Thieves

Developed by Rare, Sea of Thieves features a large open-world ocean with scattered islands, with main features including cooperative sailing, PvP encounters, treasure hunting, and ongoing live content updates.

• Year of release: 2018
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Sea of Thieves hands players a ship, a crew, and a horizon with no obvious destination. Voyages from merchant guilds, treasure hunters, and bounty boards send players across the map to dig up chests, hunt skeleton captains, and transport dangerous cargo. The world itself is a social sandbox — other crews can be allies, rivals, or both within the same session. A PvE-focused Safer Seas mode was added post-launch for players who prefer to avoid hostile player encounters. Tall Tales deliver story-driven missions with cinematic sequences woven into the open water. Rare has updated the game continuously since 2018, adding seasons, new enemy factions, and crossover content that expands the playable world without requiring an additional purchase.

Genshin Impact

Developed by HoYoverse, Genshin Impact features a large and continually expanding open world called Teyvat, with main features including elemental combat, character gacha system, co-op multiplayer, and regular regional expansions.

• Year of release: 2020
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Mobile

Genshin Impact launched with clear design debt to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — climbing, gliding, elemental puzzles, and physics-reactive exploration all present from day one — but built a live-service structure around it. Each nation within Teyvat carries its own visual identity, musical score, and governing deity, with Sumeru, Fontaine, and Natlan added as fully realized regions after launch. The gacha system rotates limited characters on banner schedules, and while the full roster isn't required to complete content, it creates financial pressure that affects long-term engagement. Daily commissions, Domains, and Spiral Abyss endgame content sustain regular playtime between major updates. The game is free to download and free to complete narratively, making it the most accessible large open-world experience on mobile platforms. Over three years of updates have layered the map to a scale that now rivals premium single-purchase titles.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Developed by Insomniac Games, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 features a large open world set across Manhattan and expanded New York boroughs, with main features including web-swinging traversal, dual protagonist switching between Peter Parker and Miles Morales, and a Venom-driven main narrative.

• Year of release: 2023
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS5, PC

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers the largest version of New York across all three Insomniac Spider-Man games, adding Queens and Brooklyn to Manhattan and connecting them with web-wings for faster traversal. The dual-character system lets players swap between Peter Parker and Miles Morales mid-game, each carrying distinct ability sets — Peter using symbiote powers for aggressive combat, Miles deploying bio-electricity and camouflage. Villains including Kraven the Hunter and Venom anchor a narrative that runs roughly 20 hours before credits, with side missions exploring Ganke, Harry Osborn, and supporting cast members in depth. Collectibles, photo opportunities, and city-wide activities fill the map beyond the main thread. Insomniac's attention to traversal physics ensures that simply crossing the city remains the most enjoyable single act in the game.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Developed by MachineGames, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features multiple large-scale level environments rather than a contiguous open world, with main features including first-person exploration, environmental puzzle-solving, stealth and improvised combat, and a canonical 1937 timeline story.

• Year of release: 2024
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle functions less as a traditional open world and more as a collection of densely constructed zones that reward patient exploration. Vatican City, the Himalayas, and Gizeh each contain layered interiors, hidden documents, and secondary objectives that require backtracking with new information. The game refuses to mark discoveries on the map, demanding that players read journals, follow visual cues, and reason through puzzles independently. Combat favors improvisation — whip, fists, frying pans, and environmental objects — over gunfighting, which the game actively discourages. MachineGames built the fictional adventure around an original story set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Temple of Doom, voiced by Todd Howard with motion capture by Troy Baker.

Elden Ring

Developed by FromSoftware, Elden Ring features a large open world called the Lands Between, with main features including methodical soulslike combat, discovery-driven exploration without map markers, hidden dungeons and optional bosses, and mounted traversal via Torrent the horse.

• Year of release: 2022
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Switch 2

Elden Ring brought FromSoftware's design philosophy — where every doorway is a potential ambush and every environment tells a story through placement rather than dialogue — into an open-world structure for the first time. The Lands Between unfolds across six major regions, each governed by a demigod boss and populated with caves, catacombs, evergaols, and legacy dungeons that contain more content than most standalone games. The map fills in gradually as players find map fragments hidden in the world, so the shape of the terrain becomes known only through physical exploration first. Torrent, the spectral horse, enables double-jumping — a traversal mechanic with no precedent in the genre. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, released in 2024, added a full new region roughly equal in size to one of the base game's major areas. Elden Ring sold over 25 million copies worldwide as of 2024, making it the best-selling FromSoftware game by a significant margin.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Developed by Nintendo, Tears of the Kingdom features a large open world across surface Hyrule, sky islands, and underground depths, with main features including the Ultrahand building mechanic, the Recall and Ascend abilities, over 150 Shrines, and full physics-driven freeform construction.

• Year of release: 2023
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Switch 2

Tears of the Kingdom inherits Breath of the Wild's geography but adds two entirely new layers — sky islands floating above Hyrule and a subterranean Depths that mirrors the surface map in inverted darkness. The Ultrahand ability lets players fuse any object to any other object, enabling the construction of flying machines, ground vehicles, and water craft from planks, fans, wheels, and rockets found in the environment. Zonai devices, scattered throughout sky islands, provide propulsion and power for these constructions. The Shrines number over 150 and serve as a skill-check currency — complete them to unlock stamina and heart upgrades without following the main quest. Gleeoks, multi-headed dragons capable of aerial combat, replace Lynels as the most dangerous standard encounter in the open world. Nintendo released a Switch 2 Edition with visual enhancements in 2025.

Cyberpunk 2077

Developed by CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 features a large open world set in Night City, a fictional California megalopolis, with main features including first-person RPG combat, cyberware augmentation systems, branching narrative with multiple endings, and the Phantom Liberty expansion.

• Year of release: 2020
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Switch 2

Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020 in a state of significant technical failure across all platforms, but the version that exists in 2026 has been reconstructed through multiple patches and the 2.0 update that overhauled AI, police systems, cyberware, and skill trees. Night City is architecturally dense — vertical, layered, and packed with fixers who send work through the player's phone. The Phantom Liberty expansion adds Dogtown, a militarized enclave within Night City governed by a rogue security contractor, and introduces a storyline that can alter the base game's ending depending on its resolution. Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, occupies a shared headspace with the protagonist and interjects throughout both the main game and expansion. A Nintendo Switch 2 port is in development as of early 2026.

Ghost of Tsushima

Developed by Sucker Punch Productions, Ghost of Tsushima features a large open world set on Tsushima Island, feudal Japan, with main features including samurai sword combat with multiple stances, stealth infiltration, haiku composition, and a wind-guided navigation system.

• Year of release: 2020
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC

Ghost of Tsushima casts the player as Jin Sakai, a samurai defending Tsushima from a Mongol invasion in 1274, who progressively abandons honorable combat for guerrilla tactics. The navigation system uses gusts of wind rather than a minimap, directing players toward objectives while leaving discovery to peripheral attention. Sucker Punch used saturated color — crimson maple groves, golden grass plains, silver snowfields — to construct a visually distinctive open world across three regions. Side activities include Haiku composition at specific viewpoints, Inari Shrine pilgrimages, and bamboo-cutting reflexes challenges. The Director's Cut added Iki Island, a new region with a separate storyline, additional enemy types, and flute-playing mechanics. Ghost of Yotei, the standalone sequel set 300 years later with new protagonist Atsu in Ezo, released in October 2025.

Death Stranding

Developed by Kojima Productions, Death Stranding features a large open world set in a post-apocalyptic United States reclaimed by spectral entities called BTs, with main features including package delivery across hostile terrain, asymmetric multiplayer infrastructure-building, and a story by Hideo Kojima.

• Year of release: 2019
• Genre: Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Death Stranding inverts the standard open-world loop by making traversal itself the primary gameplay. Sam Porter Bridges delivers cargo between isolated settlements in a fragmented America, managing weight distribution, stamina, terrain incline, and weather conditions on every journey. Other players' bridges, ropes, generators, and vehicles appear in the world as ghostly objects — usable without direct contact, connecting a shared infrastructure across isolated sessions. BTs, invisible spectral figures, patrol specific areas and trigger tar-flood sequences if detected. The central narrative concerns a phenomenon called the Death Stranding that blurred the boundary between life and death, setting off extinction-level timefall rain and rendering most of America uninhabitable. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach released on PS5 in June 2025, expanding the setting to Mexico and the Australian Outback.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Developed by Kojima Productions, Death Stranding 2 features a large open world spanning an expanded post-apocalyptic world including Mexico and Australia, with main features including an expanded arsenal of traversal and combat tools, greater player agency in mission approach, and a narrative that connects directly to the original game's events.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: Adventure
• Platforms: PS5

Death Stranding 2 opens a few years after the original game and returns Sam to the field with a set of tools that significantly broadens the options available for both traversal and threat response. The addition of Mexico and the Australian Outback differentiates the sequel's geography from the American landscapes of the first game. Critics drew comparisons to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in the sequel's emphasis on mission choice, moment-to-moment agency, and the relationship between open-world freedom and directed narrative. Kojima Productions treated the expanded toolset as an iteration on years of prior design research rather than a departure from the first game's framework. The sequel retains the asymmetric multiplayer infrastructure element, where players' constructed paths and equipment persist in other players' sessions.

Mad Max

Developed by Avalanche Studios, Mad Max features a large open world set in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, with main features including third-person melee combat, vehicular combat with the Magnum Opus, base-clearing progression, and resource scavenging.

• Year of release: 2015
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Mad Max launched alongside the film Mad Max: Fury Road but shares no story connection, instead delivering an original narrative about Max rebuilding his car and dismantling warlord strongholds across the Wasteland. The vehicle combat — ramming, harpoon-pulling doors off enemy cars, and deploying a thunder-poke mounted weapon — executes the film franchise's kinetic promise better than might be expected from a licensed tie-in. Ground combat takes clear influence from the Arkham series' freeflow system, emphasizing counters, dodges, and environmental awareness. Stronghold liberation reduces the threat level of surrounding regions, unlocking new resources and reducing enemy patrol density. Avalanche Studios has since moved on to other projects, leaving Mad Max as a one-off that carries a reputation as an overlooked gem from the mid-generation open-world period.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Developed by Monolith Productions, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor features a medium open world set in the Lord of the Rings universe, with main features including the Nemesis system, fluid combat drawn from the Arkham series, Uruk social hierarchy manipulation, and wraith possession mechanics.

• Year of release: 2014
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system generates a persistent Uruk army where individual captains remember encounters, promote following victories over the player, and develop specific strengths and weaknesses over time. Killing a captain only removes them until they respawn at a higher rank — unless branded, which converts them into loyal assets who can then be placed as bodyguards for higher-ranking Warchiefs. The combat flows from Batman: Arkham Asylum's template — responsive counters, environmental takedowns, stealth kills — while adding a ranged wraith-shot for slowing time and picking off targets at range. The follow-up, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, expanded the Nemesis system into fortress sieges with allied Orc armies. Both games are set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings within Tolkien's timeline.

Yakuza 0

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Yakuza 0 features a small but densely packed open world across the Kamurocho and Sotenbori districts of 1980s Japan, with main features including brawler combat with multiple styles, substory side missions, minigames spanning karaoke to cabaret club management, and dual protagonists.

• Year of release: 2015 (Japan), 2017 (West)
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Yakuza 0 operates at a scale opposite to most open-world games — its districts cover several city blocks rather than counties — but packs those blocks with more density per square meter than almost any competitor. Kiryu and Majima are both playable, each managing business ventures, fighting street brawls, and navigating 1988 Japan's bubble economy with separate storylines that intersect at the game's climax. Side stories range from helping a dominatrix through a career crisis to managing a telephone club staffed by recruited women. Minigames include pocket-circuit car racing, bowling, batting cages, disco dancing, and mahjong, each with its own progression and storytelling layer. The brawler combat evolves through three distinct fighting styles per character, purchased with in-game money that rains from defeated enemies in the flashback era's excess.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Developed by Warhorse Studios, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 features a large open world set in 15th-century Bohemia, with main features including historically accurate medieval simulation, stamina-based sword combat, reputation and hygiene systems, and a consequence-driven main narrative.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Amazon Luna

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 continues Henry's story from the first game, now operating deeper in Bohemia as political conflict escalates around him. The world demands engagement with its simulation: bathing affects NPC reactions and merchant prices, lockpicking and pickpocketing require real-time skill execution, and saving requires consuming Saviour Schnapps — a crafted consumable — limiting when progress is preserved. The sword combat relies on directional strikes, stamina management, and opponent reading rather than button-mashing, making every fight consequential. NPCs remember crimes, hold grudges, and gossip across settlements. The game contains over 80 hours of content before exhausting its primary questlines, and Warhorse built two distinct open-world regions — a smaller introductory valley followed by a vast second map released later in the campaign.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

Developed by Tango Gameworks, Ghostwire: Tokyo features a medium open world set in a faithfully reconstructed Shibuya district of Tokyo, with main features including ether-weaving combat against Yokai, spiritual investigation mechanics, Torii gate liberation to clear cursed fog, and real-world landmark recreation.

• Year of release: 2022
• Genre: Horror
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Ghostwire: Tokyo empties Shibuya of its human population in the opening minutes and replaces it with Visitors — malevolent spirits drawn from Japanese folklore wearing business attire and umbrellas — and tasks the player with clearing them region by region. The ether-weaving combat system fires elemental hand signs like projectiles, with wind, water, and fire attacks each effective against specific enemy types. Torii shrine gates, when activated, clear the cursed fog that hides map sections and restore spectral humans to physical form. Real Shibuya landmarks — Scramble Crossing, Shibuya 109, the Meiji Shrine approach — ground the supernatural premise in genuine geography. Tango Gameworks is known as the studio behind the Evil Within series, and some reviewers found Ghostwire divisive for prioritizing atmosphere and world accuracy over combat depth.

Octopath Traveler 2

Developed by Acquire and Square Enix, Octopath Traveler 2 features a medium open world built in the HD-2D visual style, with main features including eight playable protagonists with individual story chapters, Path Actions for NPC interaction, day/night cycle, and turn-based tactical combat.

• Year of release: 2023
• Genre: Turn-based RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC

Octopath Traveler 2 permits the player to begin with any of its eight protagonists and tackle the story chapters in self-directed order, creating a non-linear structure unusual for its genre. Each character carries two Path Actions — abilities used in the overworld on NPCs — one available during day and one at night, enabling actions like purchasing rare items by day or putting guards to sleep by night. The day/night system changes NPC availability, shop inventory, and access to certain locations, rewarding players who revisit areas at different times. Combat inherits the Break and Boost system from the first game, where enemies carry hit-point shields tied to specific damage types and crumble when those weaknesses are exploited in sequence. The HD-2D art style layers 2D sprite characters against detailed 3D environments with depth-of-field effects that create a diorama aesthetic unique in the RPG market.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Developed by Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed Odyssey features a very large open world set across ancient Greece, with main features including naval combat, branching dialogue and romance options, mercenary bounty systems, and over 100 hours of base game content across three DLC expansions.

• Year of release: 2018
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Assassin's Creed Odyssey places the player in 431 BCE Greece during the Peloponnesian War, choosing between Kassandra or Alexios as a mercenary descendant of Leonidas searching for their family across a fractured nation. The map covers mainland Greece, the Aegean islands, and Makedonia, making it among the largest single-purchase open worlds Ubisoft has produced. Mercenary contracts and cultist hunts provide persistent side objectives independent of the main questline. Naval combat returns from Black Flag in a stripped-back form suited to the Aegean's island geography. The RPG layer — gear stats, ability trees, engraving slots — adds customization uncommon in earlier entries. Two major story expansions, Legacy of the First Blade and The Fate of Atlantis, add multiple additional hours of new biomes and narrative threads to an already content-heavy package.

Fallout 4

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout 4 features a large open world set in post-nuclear Boston's Commonwealth, with main features including FPS-RPG hybrid combat, settlement construction, V.A.T.S. targeting, companion system, and the Far Harbor DLC expansion.

• Year of release: 2015
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Fallout 4 sets the player loose in a radioactive Boston in 2287, searching for a missing son across a map that stretches from city ruins to coastal marshland, irradiated nuclear plant grounds, and a retro-futurist suburb frozen at the moment of the bombs. V.A.T.S. pauses real-time combat and allocates action points to targeted body shots, blending shooter and turn-based strategy in one system. Settlement building, introduced for the first time in the series, lets players claim cleared locations and construct supply networks, defenses, and communities from salvaged materials. The Far Harbor DLC sends players to a fog-covered island off the Maine coast for a narrative that out-performs the base game's main storyline according to many reviewers. Companion characters — including synth detective Nick Valentine and Brotherhood scribe Danse — carry individual quest arcs and approval-based relationship systems.

Batman: Arkham City

Developed by Rocksteady Studios, Batman: Arkham City features a medium open world set in a cordoned-off section of Gotham City, with main features including freeflow melee combat and stealth takedowns, gliding and grappling traversal, Riddler Trophy collectibles, and a consolidated cast of DC villains.

• Year of release: 2011
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC

Batman: Arkham City expanded Arkham Asylum's tight corridor structure into an open district where Gotham's most dangerous criminals have been confined under Hugo Strange's Arkham City program. Gliding and grapple-boosting across rooftops gave the traversal system a physicality that matched the hero rather than simply padding travel time. The main narrative runs across roughly 12 hours but intersects constantly with side missions starring the Riddler, Zsasz, Deadshot, Hush, and the Mad Hatter. Riddler Trophies number 440 in total — placed throughout the city, interior sections, and story-locked areas — providing a long-form collectible campaign. Rocksteady incorporated the Mark of the Ninja's dual combat-stealth design philosophy in how enemy encounters could be engaged either as a brawler or a predator, making each area viable for multiple approaches.

Sunset Overdrive

Developed by Insomniac Games, Sunset Overdrive features a medium open world set in the fictional Sunset City, with main features including momentum-based traversal across rails, walls, and bounce-pads, third-person shooter combat against mutant OD enemies, and a deliberately comedic tone.

• Year of release: 2014
• Genre: Third-person Shooter
• Platforms: Xbox One, PC

Sunset Overdrive built its movement system around the principle that the player should never slow down. Grinding rails, bouncing off awnings, wall-running across building facades, and vaulting objects all chain into combos that activate weapon damage bonuses, rewarding fluid momentum over static cover shooting. The OD — mutants created by an energy drink gone wrong — are numerically overwhelming in Chaos Squad multiplayer events, designed to push the movement system to its limit. Insomniac used the project to prototype traversal ideas that would inform the Spider-Man games developed years later. The game's humor operates at a knowing, meta-referential pitch — the protagonist frequently acknowledges being in a video game — that divides audiences between charmed and irritated. Its Xbox One exclusivity limited its audience significantly, and Insomniac went on to produce Marvel's Spider-Man for PlayStation two years after Microsoft's window expired.

Satisfactory

Developed by Coffee Stain Studios, Satisfactory features a large alien planet as an open world, with main features including automated factory construction, resource extraction, conveyor belt logistics, multi-tiered technology research, and optional co-op.

• Year of release: 2020 (full release)
• Genre: Management Sim
• Platforms: PC

Satisfactory places a FICSIT Corporation engineer on an alien planet and charges them with automated resource extraction and processing across six technology tiers. The open-world exploration component drives the need to push factory infrastructure further into the map — new biomes contain new raw materials required for advanced components that unlock higher production tiers. Hostile alien wildlife challenges expansion into their territories, requiring combat infrastructure alongside production lines. The factory becomes a sprawling, three-dimensional machine that players walk through rather than watch from above, creating a spatial relationship with automated systems unusual in the genre. Coffee Stain released 1.0 in late 2024 following five years in early access, completing the technology tree and adding a narrative endpoint. Co-op supports up to four players sharing a single factory session.

State of Decay 2

Developed by Undead Labs, State of Decay 2 features a medium open world set across several maps representing post-zombie-outbreak American towns, with main features including survivor recruitment, community base management, resource scavenging, and permadeath.

• Year of release: 2018
• Genre: Survival-Crafting
• Platforms: Xbox One, PC

State of Decay 2 tasks the player with managing a community of survivors — each with unique skills, traits, and relationships — while expanding a base, scavenging for food and medicine, and clearing plague hearts that amplify zombie aggression. Named survivors die permanently when they run out of health or are abandoned, which creates genuine attachment and loss in a way few survival games achieve. Blood plague, a more dangerous zombie variant, infects characters and spreads unless treated with rare curative items. Co-op allows up to three additional players to join a session, contributing to the host's community economy. The game receives intermittent updates from Undead Labs, and multiple maps with distinct geographical characteristics provide replayability across new playthroughs.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Developed by Konami, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain features large open-world maps across Afghanistan and Central Africa, with main features including open-ended stealth-action mission design, base-building at Mother Base, Fulton balloon extraction, and a story by Hideo Kojima.

• Year of release: 2015
• Genre: Stealth-Action
• Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

The Phantom Pain wraps its missions inside open-world regions that serve as staging areas rather than exploration spaces — the map exists to give players approach vectors, vantage points, and routes to objectives rather than secrets to find. Big Boss deploys into Afghanistan or Africa, traverses arid terrain toward a target base, completes or fails objectives with near-unlimited tactical flexibility, then extracts to Mother Base. Fulton recovery balloons lift soldiers, weapon emplacements, and even vehicles into the air for delivery back to base, growing the private military organization between missions. The open-world structure removes the linearity of Metal Gear Solid's corridor design while maintaining mission focus that other open-world games abandon. The narrative remains unfinished — a planned final chapter was cut and released separately — leaving the story structurally incomplete despite the gameplay standing as some of the strongest stealth design in the medium.

Oblivion Remastered

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and Virtuous, Oblivion Remastered features a large open world across the province of Cyrodiil, with main features including a revamped visual presentation via Unreal Engine 5, improved combat animation, spellcrafting, guild questlines, and the full original 2006 content library.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion laid the structural foundation that Skyrim refined and that an entire generation of open-world RPGs followed — active quest markers, radiant NPC schedules, joinable guilds with multi-stage questlines, and a map that rewards directionless wandering. The 2025 remaster rebuilt the visual layer entirely, replacing the original's dated geometry with Unreal Engine 5 lighting, reworked character models, and high-resolution environments that transform Cyrodiil's forests and cities. Quality-of-life additions — a sprint button, streamlined level-up interface, controller remapping — close the gap between the original's design and modern conventions. The spellcrafting system, removed in Skyrim, remains intact: players combine spell effects, ranges, and durations to create absurd custom effects including velocity-boosting flee spells that launch enemies off geometry. NPC faces retain a degree of the original's uncanny character, which many players regard as part of the experience's identity.

Avowed

Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, Avowed features five interconnected open zones set in the Living Lands region of the Pillars of Eternity universe, with main features including first-person combat blending melee, magic, and ranged play, a party companion system, and dialogue choices with factional consequences.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Avowed uses a zone-based structure rather than a single seamless open world — players advance to new areas as story conditions are met, but can return freely to previously visited zones. Each zone carries distinct environmental design, a capital settlement with its own culture and political situation, and dozens of side objectives that extend playtime well beyond the main thread. The combat allows simultaneous spell-casting and melee through a two-hand system where magic staffs, swords, guns, and bows can be mixed in any combination. Companion characters — Kai, Giatta, Yatzli, and Marius — each carry their own questlines and opinions on the player's factional decisions. Obsidian's reputation for dialogue-heavy, consequence-laden writing, built across Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and The Outer Worlds, shapes how every major quest resolves based on accumulated choices.

Valheim

Developed by Iron Gate Studio, Valheim features a large procedurally generated open world drawn from Norse mythology, with main features including survival-crafting progression, biome-gated resource access, boss-based progression milestones, base-building, and co-op support.

• Year of release: 2021 (early access), 2024 (full release)
• Genre: Survival
• Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Valheim places players in a purgatorial Viking afterlife and tasks them with defeating the forsaken gods across increasingly hostile biomes. Each biome — Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountains, Plains, Mistlands — contains resources and enemies that require tools and armor from the previous biome to harvest safely, creating a locked progression loop where advancement demands conquest. Boss creatures guard each biome's progression gate, carrying distinct attack patterns and unique material drops that unlock new crafting tiers. The base-building system operates under structural integrity rules: roofs need support columns, floors must be connected to load-bearing walls, and unsupported sections collapse. A randomly generated map ensures each server produces a unique continental layout, with seed sharing available for players who want to recreate specific worlds. Full release in 2024 completed the core content loop after three years of early access development.

Old School RuneScape

Developed by Jagex, Old School RuneScape features a large persistent MMO open world divided across multiple kingdoms and continents, with main features including 23 trainable skills, over 150 quests, a player-driven economy, and a free-to-play base with members' content unlocking the full world.

• Year of release: 2013 (as a separate client from the original 2001 release)
• Genre: MMORPG
• Platforms: PC, Mobile

Old School RuneScape runs on a 2007-era engine snapshot of the original game, maintained and expanded through bi-annual polling where the player community votes on major content additions. The members' map spans dozens of cities across Gielinor, connected by foot, teleportation spell, and transportation networks. Quests carry narrative depth unusual for the genre, many requiring specific skill levels, completing prerequisite quests, and solving logic puzzles rather than simply collecting kills. Skills include Slayer, which assigns monsters to kill for a specific task master who grants access to otherwise rare creatures; Herblore, which crafts combat-relevant potions from farmed and foraged ingredients; and Construction, which builds player-owned houses on instanced plots. The free-to-play client restricts players to a smaller map segment and fewer skills; membership at $14 per month or an in-game Bond unlocks the full experience. Player count reached highs in 2025, driven partially by mobile accessibility added in 2018.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth features the studio's largest open world to date, spanning Kamurocho, Tokyo, and the fictional Honolulu district of Hawaii, with main features including turn-based RPG combat, an extensive minigame suite, the DonDonko Island life sim, and dual protagonists Kiryu and Ichiban.

• Year of release: 2024
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth doubles the geographic scope of previous series entries by placing a detailed version of Honolulu alongside the familiar streets of Kamurocho. The Hawaii setting allowed RGG Studio to construct a resort district, beach areas, and a dense urban grid that the series' design philosophy — fill every block with substories and minigames — treats with the same density as its Japanese locations. DonDonko Island, an Animal Crossing-style side activity embedded within the main game, carries its own progression track and narrative. Ichiban Kasuga returns as lead, with Kiryu appearing as a recruitable party member whose own storyline deals directly with his terminal diagnosis. The turn-based combat, introduced in Yakuza: Like A Dragon, continues with expanded job classes and environmental attack mechanics.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag features a large open world spanning the Caribbean Sea in the early 18th century, with main features including open-ocean naval combat and exploration, piracy, Havana and Nassau as major cities, and diving exploration of underwater shipwrecks.

• Year of release: 2013
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag casts the player as Edward Kenway, a Welsh privateer-turned-pirate who stumbles into the Assassin-Templar conflict while pursuing his own fortune across the Caribbean in 1715. The naval system — controlling the Jackdaw through storms, engaging Man-O-War frigates, and boarding defeated ships — elevated ship combat from a side feature in Assassin's Creed III to the game's dominant system. Nassau, Kingston, and Havana serve as major port cities; hundreds of smaller islands, reefs, and underwater ruins scatter across the sea map for discovery. Shanties collected during boarding actions expand the crew's repertoire of sea songs, sung during sailing sequences. The game's commercial success led Ubisoft to develop Skull and Bones as a standalone naval game, though Black Flag's handling of pirate fantasy remains significantly more accomplished.

Grand Theft Auto V

Developed by Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto V features a large open world across Los Santos and Blaine County — a fictional Los Angeles and surrounding region — with main features including three switchable protagonists, heist missions, a 20-year ongoing main story, and GTA Online.

• Year of release: 2013
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5

Grand Theft Auto V launched in September 2013 and has sold over 200 million copies across four console generations — the most commercially successful entertainment product in history before it was surpassed. The three-protagonist system lets players control Michael De Santa, a retired thief dealing with family dysfunction; Trevor Philips, a volatile criminal operating out of a trailer in the desert; and Franklin Clinton, a young hustler seeking a way out of gang life. Each protagonist's home district, vehicle preferences, and criminal contacts reflect distinct social positions within Los Santos. GTA Online, launched alongside the main game, evolved into a live-service platform receiving major updates for over a decade — including heists, nightclubs, casino operations, and drug trafficking businesses — and generates revenue that continues to fund Rockstar. GTA VI remains the most anticipated game in development as of early 2026, with Rockstar targeting a 2025 release window.

Horizon Forbidden West

Developed by Guerrilla Games, Horizon Forbidden West features a very large open world spanning post-apocalyptic western North America, with main features including machine hunting and overriding, Aloy's Focus scanner, tribal politics storyline, underwater exploration zones, and a direct continuation of Zero Dawn's narrative.

• Year of release: 2022
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC

Horizon Forbidden West opens with Aloy already established as a capable hunter and expands her available toolkit — pullcaster grapple, shieldwing glider, and breath-of-life underwater rebreather — to enable exploration of the expanded geography without loading screens. The map covers the remnants of the American Southwest and Pacific Coast, populated by new machine variants: the Slitherfang, Shellsnapper, and Tremortusk requiring different weapon combinations and attack timing than Zero Dawn's roster. Tribes including the Tenakth, Utaru, and Oseram carry distinct visual identities and political positions within the story's main faction conflict. Each side quest uses the same production budget as main missions — full motion capture, voiced performances, and narrative follow-through — rather than the fetch-mission filler common in comparable open worlds. Guerrilla followed the game with the Burning Shores expansion set in flooded Los Angeles, and the LEGO Horizon Adventures spin-off released in 2024.

Assassin's Creed (original)

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the original Assassin's Creed features a medium open world spanning three cities in the Holy Land — Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre — with main features including targeted assassination missions, parkour traversal, investigation activities, and the Animus framing device.

• Year of release: 2007
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC

The original Assassin's Creed delivered Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad hunting nine templars across the Third Crusade through a loop of investigation, social infiltration, and open assassination. Its cities were historically modeled with distinct architectural character — Jerusalem's crowded markets, Damascus's merchant quarters, Acre's war-scarred harbor district — giving the 2007 open world a sense of place unusual for its era. The gameplay loop is deliberate and repetitive by modern standards: each assassination requires completing a fixed set of investigation activities before the target becomes available. The single collectible, Flags, provides no in-game reward. Modern Assassin's Creed games recommend starting with Assassin's Creed 2, where the series found its rhythm, but the original's structural austerity reads differently from a 2026 perspective as an ancestor to more elaborate successors.

Red Faction: Guerrilla

Developed by Volition, Red Faction: Guerrilla features a medium open world set across six districts of a colonized Mars, with main features including full structural destruction physics, sledgehammer-first melee demolition, resistance mission structure, and Fulton-balloon-like transporter beams.

• Year of release: 2009
• Genre: Third-Person Shooter
• Platforms: PS3, PS4 (Re-Mars-tered), Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

Red Faction: Guerrilla was the first open-world game to build its identity around a physics engine that allowed every structure in the environment to be fully demolished in real-time. Walls crumble in response to weapon fire and vehicle impact, supports collapse carrying upper floors with them, and structures weakened at the base topple under their own geometry. The guerrilla resistance structure organizes objectives into districts: complete enough morale-building side activities and the EDF's sector control depletes, triggering a liberation mission. The Nano Forge and Grinder weapons turn demolition into combat tools, accelerating debris toward enemies or ripping metal sheeting from structures. The Re-Mars-tered Edition updated visuals for current platforms. Side missions across each district catalog creative demolition challenges rather than narrative content.

Far Cry 2

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 2 features a large open world spanning two regions of a fictional sub-Saharan African nation, with main features including real-time malaria management, weapon degradation, buddy system, fire spread physics, and a faction-neutral mercenary protagonist.

• Year of release: 2008
• Genre: First-Person Shooter
• Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Far Cry 2 precedes the Ubisoft tower-climbing open-world formula and operates instead on a slower, more abrasive model. The player is a mercenary hired to kill the arms dealer known as The Jackal, but contracts from two warring factions keep redirecting attention. Weapons degrade and jam during combat, requiring field maintenance or replacement from crates. Malaria symptoms periodically incapacitate the character, cured only by obtaining pills from buddy characters who can also rescue downed players during fights. Fire spreads dynamically through tall grass and structures, creating emergent combat scenarios that the later Far Cry games abandoned in favor of systemic consistency. The open world is not designed to reward off-mission exploration — safe houses must be captured to serve as respawn points, but they provide no narrative or collectible content.

Shadow of the Colossus

Developed by Team Ico, Shadow of the Colossus features a large but sparse open world set in the Shrine of Worship's surrounding Forbidden Lands, with main features including 16 Colossus encounters as the only enemies in the game, grip gauge climbing mechanics, Agro horse traversal, and minimal HUD.

• Year of release: 2005 (PS2), 2018 (PS4 remake by Bluepoint)
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5 (via streaming)

Shadow of the Colossus occupies the most unusual position among open-world games: its entire map exists to be crossed, not explored. The world contains no other enemies, no NPCs, no side quests, and almost no collectibles outside of white-tailed lizards that extend the grip gauge. Each of the 16 Colossi is a puzzle disguised as a boss fight — the challenge lies in identifying a climbing route across a moving, reactive body rather than matching damage rotations. The sadness embedded in the premise — killing potentially the last living creatures in a barren land to restore one person — gives the traversal a weight that game design alone cannot manufacture. Bluepoint's 2018 PS4 remake retained the original's structure while rebuilding every asset at full resolution, serving as the definitive version of the experience.

Baldur's Gate 3

Developed by Larian Studios, Baldur's Gate 3 features a large multi-layered open world spanning Faerûn from the Nautiloid prologue through the Shadow-Cursed Lands and Baldur's Gate itself, with main features including D&D 5e ruleset combat, four-player co-op, branching narrative responding to all major decisions, and full character creation.

• Year of release: 2023
• Genre: Turn-based RPG
• Platforms: PC, MacOS, PS5, Xbox Series X|S

Baldur's Gate 3 sets 12 player characters and a mindflayer tadpole loose in Faerûn with a three-act structure that changes geography and stakes in each act. Turn-based combat enforces D&D 5e rules — concentration spells, opportunity attacks, advantage and disadvantage from positioning — but the open-world layer lets players push environmental solutions: shove enemies off ledges, ignite explosive barrels, or douse fire with water spells before retreating. Act 1 alone contains over 80 hours of content, covering the Ravaged Beach, the Underdark, and the Goblin Camp with optional routes that bypass or enable different faction approaches. Every significant character has a full voiced performance, including intimate scenes for romance companions. Larian released extensive post-launch patches adding content, including a cross-platform co-op improvement and a Photo Mode update, treating the finished game as a continuing product.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Developed by CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features a very large open world across the Continent's war-ravaged Northern Kingdoms, Skellige's archipelago, and Toussaint in the Blood and Wine expansion, with main features including contract-based monster hunting, meaningful branching choices, Gwent card game, and two major story expansions.

• Year of release: 2015
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch

The Witcher 3 places Geralt of Rivia in a morally complex Europe-inspired world mid-war, hunting his surrogate daughter Ciri while managing contracts to pay for lodging. Side quests consistently exceed the quality standard expected of secondary content — Bloody Baron, Bald Mountain, and The Last Wish each deliver complete narrative arcs equivalent to standalone short stories. Monster contracts require reading bestiary entries, brewing the correct potions, and applying oils to silver swords before facing each specific creature type. The Blood and Wine expansion added Toussaint, a visually distinct wine country region with its own conspiracy, political structure, and roughly 20 additional hours of content. GamesRadar ranked it the best open-world game available in 2026, a position it has held across multiple annual lists since release.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Developed by Capcom, Monster Hunter Wilds features a large seamless open world across the Forbidden Lands biomes, with main features including cross-platform co-op hunts, mounted Seikret traversal, dynamic weather affecting monster behavior, and a continuous expedition structure replacing the town-return loop.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S

Monster Hunter Wilds removed the town-return structure that defined the series since its 2004 debut, allowing players to restock, craft, and set up camp within the open world between hunts. Weather shifts between calm, inclement, and tempestorm states change which monsters are active, where they migrate, and how combat terrain behaves. The Seikret, a rideable wyvern companion, carries spare weapon sets and serves as a mount for cross-map traversal. Fourteen weapon types from prior entries return with expanded move sets. Cross-platform co-op lets players on PC, PS5, and Xbox share hunt sessions without platform restriction for the first time in the series. Review consensus positioned Wilds as the most accessible Monster Hunter title for new players while retaining mechanical depth for veterans.

Starfield

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, Starfield features a vast open universe spanning over 1,000 explorable planets across multiple star systems, with main features including spaceship construction and combat, New Atlantis and Neon as major city hubs, four faction questlines, and Bethesda's signature ambient loot-and-explore loop.

• Year of release: 2023
• Genre: RPG
• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming

Starfield is Bethesda's first new intellectual property since The Elder Scrolls in 1994 and operates as Fallout or Skyrim transposed into a near-future space setting. The 1,000-planet scope is primarily populated by procedurally generated surface environments, with hand-crafted content concentrated in New Atlantis, Neon, Akila City, and faction mission hubs. The Crimson Fleet questline places the player as a double agent infiltrating a pirate organization from within, earning praise from reviewers as the game's narrative high point. Spaceship customization allows component-by-component assembly affecting flight performance, weapon capacity, and crew quarters. PC Gamer awarded it 88/100 at launch while noting that the procedural planet surfaces could not sustain exploration across all 1,000 locations. GamesRadar called it "the best thing Bethesda's done since Oblivion" in their 2026 editorial assessment.

Dune: Awakening

Developed by Funcom, Dune: Awakening features a large open world set on Arrakis, with main features including survival MMO mechanics, spice harvesting and trading, PvP Deep Desert zone, political faction allegiance systems, and an alternate canonical timeline diverging from the books and films.

• Year of release: 2025
• Genre: Survival MMO
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One

Dune: Awakening departs from the canonical Dune timeline — Lady Jessica chose to carry a daughter rather than Paul Atreides — creating a political vacuum on Arrakis where Harkonnen and Atreides forces clash without the Kwisatz Haderach's influence. The survival structure requires managing heat, water, and shelter while harvesting spice from crawler sites that draw sandworm attention. Political control of territory shifts through guild alliances, council votes, and economic pressure rather than simple conquest, creating player-driven faction dynamics. The Deep Desert PvP zone opens fully contested territory to conflict between player guilds. Funcom built Arrakis with genuine devotion to Frank Herbert's environmental vision — the sandworm emergence sequences, stillsuit mechanics, and sietch architecture reflect research into the source material across all its published forms.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Developed by Nintendo, Breath of the Wild features a large open world across Hyrule, with main features including climbing any surface, physics-engine environmental interaction, chemistry system combining elemental properties, 120 Shrines, and a fully non-linear approach to Divine Beast objectives.

• Year of release: 2017
• Genre: Action-Adventure
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, Wii U

Breath of the Wild launched as a full reset of Zelda's design philosophy — no dungeon linearity, no item-gated progression, and no fixed order for major objectives. Every surface in Hyrule is climbable given sufficient stamina, and the physics engine treats fire, electricity, metal, ice, and wind as interacting properties usable in combat and puzzle solutions. Shrines number 120 in the base game, each containing a self-contained puzzle or combat test that rewards Spirit Orbs convertible to health and stamina. The four Divine Beasts can be tackled in any order, and Calamity Ganon can be challenged from the start without completing any of them, though the fight scales accordingly. The game influenced an entire generation of open-world design following its release, with developers citing it as a structural reference. Tears of the Kingdom built directly on its foundation in 2023.