Some games don't pull players in with their complex, intricate systems or endless quest logs, but with sheer, breathtaking scale. Whether it’s a mountain-sized creature, slowly looming on the horizon, or an endless, sun-bleached desert stretching out, or a vast, ruined kingdom that feels like it’s been silently, patiently waiting for millennia... These are the games that make players feel like a tiny, insignificant part of something so much greater than themselves.
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These modest open-world games show that you don't need big areas to have charm, depth, and discovery. You just need heart and atmosphere.
And that perfect, beautiful mix of awe, fear, and pure, childlike curiosity is what keeps one pushing forward, even when the journey feels utterly, completely impossible. These are seven titles that prove that wonder is about size as well as presence. The feeling that the world fans just stepped into is alive, it's mysterious, and it is so much bigger than they can ever hope to fully understand.
Shadow of the Colossus
Where the Titans Are as Old as Time Itself
Few games have ever captured the feeling of pure, jaw-dropping scale as viscerally as Shadow of the Colossus. The world itself feels almost empty, a vast, lonely expanse of crumbling, ancient ruins and windswept, sun-drenched plains. And then... Players see the first colossus. And the emptiness suddenly, horrifyingly, makes perfect sense. These towering, magnificent, and often tragic creatures are not just bosses; they are living, breathing landmarks, and each encounter with them feels less like a fight and more like an ancient, forgotten ritual.
Climbing a moving, hairy creature the size of a skyscraper... It is exhilarating and absolutely terrifying, all at once. And the moment that last, desperate, heartbreaking blow finally lands, there’s no triumphant fanfare. There is only a profound, deafening silence and a creeping, awful sense of guilt. It's a game that makes the player feel small, not just in size, but in purpose.
Jounrey
Just Sand, And Sky, And Something Sacred
Journey does more with its beautiful, profound silence than most games do with hours and hours of dialogue. The player starts as a lone, anonymous, robed figure in a seemingly endless desert, with nothing but a shimmering mountain in the far-off distance to guide them. The world is vast, but it is also wonderfully simple, letting players just soak in the incredible sights without a single distraction.
Gliding over the rolling, golden dunes, soaring through the skeletal ruins of an ancient civilization - it's all so incredibly meditative. But the real wonder comes when another, identical traveler just appears on the horizon. Without words, without menus, without any explanation, they can share the road together, turning what was a lonely, solitary trek into something unexpectedly emotional. By the time players finally reach the mountaintop, they realize that the scale of it all isn't just physical anymore. It’s spiritual.
Death Stranding
A World That Is Actively Trying to Stop You
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Kojima Productions
- Genre(s)
- Action
- Platform(s)
- iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
In Death Stranding, the landscapes are the enemy. The towering, sheer cliffs, the sweeping, rain-lashed valleys, the endless, soul-crushing rain - it all gives its broken, post-apocalyptic America this incredible sense of being both hauntingly familiar and utterly alien. The intimidating size of the world just makes every single delivery, no matter how small or mundane, feel absolutely monumental.
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And it's Hideo Kojima’s obsessive, almost pathological attention to detail that really sells the scale. Watching the storm clouds roll in over the horizon, or stumbling into a terrifying BT encounter in the middle of nowhere, it just feels like nature itself is actively reacting to the player, trying to stop them. Few games have ever made the simple act of crossing a single mile of terrain feel like such a monumental achievement. And that’s exactly where the wonder lies.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
A Kingdom Without Any Limits
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Released
- March 3, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E for Everyone: Fantasy Violence, Use of Alcohol, Mild Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo EPD
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Wii U, Switch
Hyrule has never felt this big. Breath of the Wild doesn't just hand over a map and a checklist of things to do. It dares the player to climb the nearest, tallest tower and just figure it out for themselves. From the snow-capped, frozen peaks to the fiery, lava-filled mountains, every single, beautiful corner of this world just feels like it’s hiding something worth discovering.
What makes its scale so truly special is just how interactive, how playful, it all is. Players can shield-surf down entire mountainsides or launch themselves off cliffs with a makeshift kite. It's possible to set entire forests on fire, just to see what happens. It’s a world that trusts and empowers the player to create their own moments of pure, unscripted wonder.
Elden Ring
The Lands Between Are Anything But Small
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
The first time stepping out of that dingy little starting cave and riding out into the vast, open fields of Limgrave, the sense of scale is almost overwhelming. It’s a feeling that stays forever. Ancient, crumbling castles loom in the distance. The ethereal, golden branches of the Erdtree glow like a beacon.
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And every single winding path just seems to lead to something worth finding. Or, more often than not, something that is just waiting to kill the Tarnished. And what's most impressive is how that incredible, dizzying sense of wonder just never, ever fades. Just when one thinks they've seen everything, the map just expands again, revealing entire, hidden cities deep underground, or crumbling, forgotten fortresses high above the clouds.
Wuthering Waves
Ruins That Whisper
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Kuro Games
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 5
Wuthering Waves thrives on itsatmosphere. Its vast, ruined cities and colossal fallen mechsand gods that are scattered across its beautiful, desolate world just tell a story before a single line of dialogue has even been spoken. The scale here isn’t just about size; it's about a deep, tangible sense of history.
Everything just feels like it has a reason for being there. And the exploration is just so fluid, with parkour and grappling mechanics that make climbing these impossibly high structures feel completely, wonderfully natural. The wonder here comes from those quiet, breathtaking moments, when players crest a hill and just see a massive, ancient construct in the far-off distance, knowing that, eventually, they'll get to climb it.
Horizon Forbidden West
Of Mighty Machines and Towering Mountains
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Guerrilla Games
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
In Horizon Forbidden West, the scale is both literal and thematic. The animal-like machines players have to face range from the relatively small, deer-sized Watchers to the truly terrifying, towering Slaughterspines, and each of them is designed with an intricate level of detail that just makes them feel so alive. Taking one of them down feels like a proper, old-fashioned hunt, not just a fight.
But the world itself is just as breathtaking. From the lush, overgrown jungles to the eerie, submerged ruins of our own long-dead world, every new region discovered just expands that incredible sense of just how far, how completely, the old world really fell. Aloy’s journey is just as much about looking up, in pure, slack-jawed awe, as it is about fighting for her own survival.
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