Determining what the best open-world games are is a task that may seem impossible. They started to gain more traction in the first HD generation, including the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, and they have since taken off into one of the most diverse genres out there, with many sub-genres within, from RPGs to racing games.
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There are dozens of games to choose from, and even a game that may rank as a 6/10 on many gaming sites could be someone’s number one game. This list takes into account importance and what these games actually did for the genre and their respective series, and will be ranked according to the overall polish. Overall, these are all must-plays.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Batman: Arkham City
The Dark Knight Continues
Batman: Arkham City continued from where Batman: Arkham Asylum left off, with the criminals breaking out and turning part of the city into a quarantined zone where villainy could run rampant. Players had more control over Batman than in the previous title, able to slingshot themselves between rooftops to get a nice glide going on to fully explore the city.
Combat remained as brutal as ever, with improved counters to make Batman feel like the ultimate superhero. The story was also excellent, showcasing the many villains from Batman’s roster in a way that made sense without feeling too much like fan service from Two-Face to The Penguin.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
CJ Comes Home
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, despite originally being a PS2 game, is still the best game in the GTA series for a lot of fans. It still does things that other entries don’t, such as the RPG elements that allow the hero, CJ, to level up skills like his ability to swim.
Also, how many games let players gain or lose weight depending on what they did at the gym or what they ate at a local fast food place? The hip-hop soundtrack, story, and accompanying voice cast, and the turf wars are other reasons why Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas remains untouched decades later.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
V Has Come To
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
- Released
- September 1, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Kojima Productions
- Genre(s)
- Action, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain doesn’t have a seamless open-world to explore, but the various biomes in which missions took place were quite expansive and allowed for experimentation. Players could approach most mission areas in several ways, from gunning down enemies to stealthily taking them down with gadgets or CQC.
What fans remember most about the game, though, is the resource gathering as players could hook up balloons to crates, animals, and enemy soldiers to bring them back to Mother Base to level it up. The more soldiers and materials HQ got, the more things players could create, including a mobilized mini-Metal Gear unit called D-Walker.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Transformative Anime Mechs
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the latest game in the series, which features unique MMO-style combat. In battle, characters will attack enemies automatically, but there is a cooldown meter for abilities too, which, when chained together, can have different effects with party members.
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Players can later combine characters into mech-like entities as temporary power-ups called an Ouroboros, which levels up combat even further. With a heartfelt story and an impressive world to explore, lasting nearly a hundred hours, somehow this game manages to still be about all killer and no filler.
Elden Ring
The Open-World With Soul
Elden Ring was a new type of open-world experience and one that brought the challenge of Soulslikes into a new playing field, which made the difficulty more manageable. It went beyond success, finding a new audience for FromSoftware as new players jumped in, knowing the freedom they had to go into it alone or with two others online.
The character builds allowed players to customize their hero in various ways, from magic users to trained snipers with a bow, and the greatest achievement of them all has to be the horse, Torrent. With this double-jumping horse in tow, players could explore in any order they pleased and hunt for secrets both magical and scary.
Minecraft
Craft Your Own Fun
Minecraft is more like a toy than a video game, as it lets players do virtually anything they want with very few restrictions. If players want to just keep digging straight down until they can no longer do so, that’s cool. If they want to craft gear that lets them go underwater, that’s cool too.
Players can build bases on the ground or build a ladder system into the sky to create a floating continent. Minecraft may look dated as just a bunch of blocky textures, but graphics don’t matter when a game is this fun and this open as to inspire an entire generation of creative minds in all spaces of life.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
No One Can Uproot Its Importance
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Released
- November 11, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
In many ways, it almost doesn’t seem possible to live in an open-world generation without The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim being the cornerstone. Open-world games existed before this, including other games within The Elder Scrolls series, but this is the one that boasted player choice, and it delivered its promise.
From character customization to letting players go anywhere they wanted to the class building system, it was all one big ecosystem that players got to dive into for hours or months on end. There were a lot of great games in 2011, but The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim dwarfed nearly every conversation that year, and it’s still impressive thanks to all of its continued updates and new editions.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Quests That Matter
- Developer(s)
- CD Projekt Red
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was an epic conclusion to a trilogy that only got better over time, showcasing just how much CD Projekt Red grew as a company over time. The combat was better than ever, which was just as satisfying to ignite enemies into a fiery oblivion as it was to slice them in half.
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The best features in the game were the branching narratives and the quest system, which were conjoined. One quest could affect another, including minor ones, which built into an impressive narrative that players could brag to their friends about in how their playthrough went. Since then, no quest system has been as impressive as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Cowboys Don’t Cry
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best Grand Theft Auto game, but the best Rockstar game overall is Red Dead Redemption 2 for many individuals. It has every signature feature a Rockstar game should have, including a plot revolving around gangsters, heist-based gameplay, betrayals, slick gunplay, and an open-world that is expertly crafted even though it may seem barren.
Arthur Morgan is one of the most complex video game characters ever written, and thanks to some player input, they can decide if this aging gangster is going to change his evil ways or stick to his guns to his last dying breath. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the gold standard for Western video games, just like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a go-to for Western films.
The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
Nintendo Set A New Benchmark
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Released
- March 3, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the obvious choice here as an achievement for open-world games and Nintendo as a company. It successfully revived the Zelda franchise by dialing things back to the NES original that gave players true freedom. Not only that, it featured a paraglider and a climbing system that went on to influence others.
When a game lacks these two features, it can be quite baffling. Despite the colorful art style, this was a challenging game, from the combat to the Shrine-based puzzles. There’s a reason why the Zelda series remains iconic, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild proved there is still so much life left in it to dazzle fans and the non-believers out there.
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