Best Open World Game

Illusion Softworks' 2002 action-adventure game follows Tommy Angelo, a taxi driver drawn into the Salieri crime family in the fictional American city of Lost Heaven. Set in the 1930s, Mafia uses period vehicles and architecture to support a story about criminal loyalty and its consequences. Tommy's...

Piranha Bytes' 2001 German action role-playing game places a nameless prisoner inside a mining colony sealed by a magical barrier. Gothic's continuous open world initially feels dangerous and socially closed: survival depends on learning its rules and finding a place among the people trapped there....

Released in 2014, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition revisits United Front Games' 2012 open-world crime adventure with upgraded graphics and lighting. Wei Shen, an undercover police officer, enters Hong Kong's Triad world while trying to maintain his divided loyalties. The fictionalized city gives th...

Gearbox Software's Borderlands, released in 2009, combines first-person shooting with action role-playing progression on the hostile planet Pandora. Four playable character classes bring different abilities to quests and encounters with the world's dangerous inhabitants. Weapons generated from combi...

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II continues the life of Henry of Skalitz in early fifteenth-century Bohemia. Developed by Warhorse Studios, this open-world role-playing game builds its fiction around medieval politics and the practical demands of life within that society. Henry's personal story unfolds a...

Set chiefly in Renaissance Rome, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood continues Ezio Auditore's struggle against the Borgia and the wider Templar organization. Its story takes place mainly around the beginning of the sixteenth century, rather than in 1492. The open-world action game combines movement across...

Released in 2009, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was developed by Rockstar Leeds with Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It follows Huang Lee, a young Triad member drawn into Liberty City's criminal rivalries after an attack and the theft of a family sword. The angled top-down view re...

Developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed Shadows places an open-world action role-playing game in sixteenth-century Japan during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Its two playable protagonists offer different approaches to the same setting. Yasuke draws on the historical Afri...

Movement drives Solar Ash, Heart Machine's 2021 action-adventure platformer published by Annapurna Interactive. Rei, a Voidrunner, travels through surreal environments within the Ultravoid, a vast black hole threatening her planet. Skating across cloud-like surfaces and grinding along rails turn exp...

X4: Foundations is a space trading and combat simulation developed by Egosoft and released in 2018. The game features an open-ended sandbox universe where players can pilot a variety of starships, walk around station interiors, and engage in first-person exploration. It distinguishes itself within i...

Everspace 2 is a single-player space combat game developed by Rockfish Games, a German studio based in Hamburg. Released in 2023 for PC, it departs from the roguelike structure of the original Everspace (2017) in favor of a persistent open-world design with handcrafted levels and a story-driven camp...

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a tactical shooter developed by Ubisoft Paris and released in 2017. It was the first game in the Ghost Recon franchise to feature a fully open-world environment, spanning a large fictionalized map of Bolivia. Players control a team of elite special operatives t...

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2) is a tactical third-person shooter developed and published by Ubisoft in 2007 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows. Set in 2014, the game continues the narrative of Captain Scott Mitchell and the Ghost team as they address a terrorist threat along the...

Dysmantle is a post-apocalyptic open-world action RPG developed by 10tons. The game centers around a core mechanic where players can break down almost any object in the environment into raw materials. These materials are then used to craft weapons, gear, and structures that help players survive agai...

Rage is a 2011 first-person shooter developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. Set in a post-apocalyptic world following an asteroid impact, players control a survivor navigating settlements and wasteland environments. The game is recognized for its use of the id Tech 5 engine, wh...

DayZ Standalone is a 2018 multiplayer survival game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive. It evolved from a highly popular 2012 mod for the military simulation ARMA 2. Players spawn on the coast of Chernarus, a fictional post-Soviet country, and must scavenge for supplies, manage their hea...

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is a 2005 open-world action game developed by Rockstar Leeds with Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. Set in 1998, three years before Grand Theft Auto III, it follows Leone crime-family member Toni Cipriani as he returns to Liberty City and becomes...

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) is an open-world racing game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. Set in the fictional city of Fairhaven, it reimagined the 2005 NFS: Most Wanted with Criterion's signature high-speed gameplay and seamless online integration. The game focu...

The Surge 2 is a 2019 science-fiction action role-playing game developed by Deck13 Interactive and published by Focus Home Interactive. Set in the quarantined Jericho City after a technological disaster, it uses demanding close-range combat built around stamina management, directional blocking, and...

Released in 2019 by Nine Dots Studio, *Outward* is a fantasy open-world survival role-playing game. It is distinguished by its emphasis on hardcore simulation mechanics, requiring players to manage physical needs, avoid diseases, and survive environmental hazards without traditional leveling or fast...

inFAMOUS: First Light is an action-adventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 in 2014. It serves as a standalone expansion to inFAMOUS: Second Son, focusing on the backstory of Abigail "Fetch" Walker, a Conduit who possesse...

Watch Dogs: Legion is a 2020 open-world action game developed and published by Ubisoft. Set in a near-future version of London, it follows resistance activity against powerful surveillance and security forces and makes hacking a central part of traversal, combat, and problem solving. Its defining sy...

Breathedge is a single-player space survival game developed by RedRuins Softworks and released for Windows in 2021, with later console versions. The player controls an unnamed survivor stranded on a damaged spaceship carrying corpses and must manage low oxygen, scarce tools, and other hazards. Its d...

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are 2022 role-playing games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for the Nintendo Switch. They are the first mainline entries in the Pokémon series to feature a fully open-world environment, allowing players to explore the Paldea region...

True Crime: Streets of L.A. is a 2003 open-world action game developed by Luxoflux and published by Activision. The player controls Nick Kang, an LAPD detective investigating organized crime across a fictionalized version of Los Angeles. The game combines driving, shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and...

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a 2024 open-world racing game developed by KT Racing and published by Nacon. It is set on a scaled representation of Hong Kong Island and continues the Test Drive Unlimited series after a long gap between major releases. The game combines road racing, exploration,...

Elex II is an open-world action role-playing game released in 2022 by the German studio Piranha Bytes. It is set on Magalan, a post-apocalyptic planet where several factions compete for influence while an alien threat endangers the remaining settlements. Players explore a large environment, make cho...

Fuel is a 2009 open-world racing game developed by Asobo Studio and published by Codemasters. Set in a fictional landscape shaped by climate disaster, it combines off-road racing with free exploration across a large connected environment. The game was noted at release for offering about 14,400 squar...

Fuel is an open-world off-road racing game developed and published by Codemasters in 2009. It places the player in a large post-apocalyptic environment where races and driving events take place across varied terrain rather than on closed circuits. The game is aimed at players who want exploration an...