Best open-world games – Our roundup of unmissable adventures ripe for exploration

✓ VideoGamer Summary

• The best open-world games offer significant variety when it comes to characters, storytelling, and mechanical design.
• Recent games like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 are excellent open-world games, but older classics like The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and Grand Theft Auto 5 still hold up as some of the best open-world games of all time.
• The PC has the best representation for open-world games, with nine of our 10 entries having PC releases.
• Only one entry – Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – is an exclusive, appearing only on the Nintendo Switch/Nintendo Switch 2.
• Three games that made our list appear on every major platform.

Getting off the railroad tracks is easy with the best open-world games. Instead of expecting you to follow a linear path, you can strike out in any direction you’d like – whether you want to tackle the story in your own way, or wander off and ignore all that destiny stuff in favor of messing around. Some of my favorite gaming memories come from exploring a new direction and discovering fresh forms of trouble. Sometimes you’ll find tantalising secrets or smaller stories that you’d normally miss, and sometimes you just end up stealing cars and jumping them off ramps like a true gaming hooligan. 

A good open-world game will draw you in and keep you there, whether you like exploring new places, collecting stuff, or just causing pure mayhem. At their best, the classics like Grand Theft Auto 5 are so good at this that they continue to pull in massive numbers of players even more than a decade after release. Ideal for those of us who can’t help but wander off the path to make our own fun, this list has the best open-world games that you shouldn’t miss.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Available On: Xbox One, PS4, and PC

The adventures of the outlaw Arthur Morgan are thrilling, but there’s a whole countryside of other things to do in between fireside chats and stagecoach robberies. In classic Rockstar Games fashion, Red Dead Redemption 2 offers a poignant and action-packed wild west adventure alongside a whole bucket of proper minigames (from poker and dominoes to blackjack). You can also go hunting, race horses, enter shooting contests, hunt bounties, or just search for striking landmarks. 

With how many things you can do in its version of the wild west, it’s easy to forget that it’s also packed with weaponry and more unusual options for serious shenanigans. Should you wish, you can lasso people behind a train or just try to rob everything and everyone. Nothing will stop you from becoming the outlaw menace that you were born to be.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Available On: Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

If you’ve slept on the Switch era of Legend of Zelda games, it’s past time to grab your shield and bag of bombs and set out. Even more than any previous Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom embraces the open-world, adding to the landscape of Breath of the Wild with floating islands and the vast underground Depths. This colourful action RPG is generous, delightful, and ideal for open-world fans. 

Plus, the new Zonai devices expand on the weird and wonderful contraptions you can make, allowing you to build and experiment on the fly – sometimes literally. The amount of creativity you can express, even with just your gadgets, is what makes Tears of the Kingdom the best Switch open-world game. You can stick things you find onto your equipment and give it weird and wonderful new powers, and even build your own bizarre roster of ramshackle vehicles. The world is your oyster.

Cyberpunk 2077

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC

There are cities, and then there are cities. Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City is firmly and absolutely the latter. The streets of this beloved sci-fi RPG are drenched in neon rain and packed with side quests to solve, cyberpsychos to take down, and slick cars to acquire. With some of the best side missions of any game, Cyberpunk 2077 sprinkles classic chunks of story all over for you to find while cruising in your favorite ride and listening to your favorite cyber-radio stations.

Wandering Night City also means getting to solve (and cause) problems however you wish. You can hack people’s cyberware, slow time as you slide into kneecapping range, or just pick off enemies one at a time. You have a vast cyberpunk toolkit, and boy, is it a pleasure to use every gadget in your arsenal. 

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Available On: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Snake outdid himself with Metal Gear Solid 5, offering up two massive maps to free roam with Afghanistan and Africa. For the uninitiated, Metal Gear Solid 5 is the conclusive installment in Hideo Kojima’s legendary espionage action series of the same name. Metal Gear Solid 5, however, took a bold step into open-world design, allowing you to infiltrate at your own pace. 

Each area has its own enemies, themes, and missions attached to it, of course, but they’re also amazing canvases on which to paint your personal brand of snakefoolery. With a home base to build up and use to research new gear, the ability to recruit (kidnap) enemy soldiers that look promising, and countless weapons and weird gadgets to mess with enemy soldiers, MGS5 is a dream come true for professional time wasters.

You haven’t lived until you’ve Fulton extracted zebras and brown bears to stick in your personal zoo. If reading that broke your brain a little, you’ll just have to play to find out what we mean. 

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Available On: PS5 and PC

Once in a while, a cliche is actually true; with Spider-Man 2, the journey really is the destination. It’s impossible to overstate just how fun it is to swing around the comic version of New York City. This story-driven action game masterfully captures the Spider-Man fantasy, with all of the freedom that entails. 

Web swinging and gliding between buildings at dizzying speed never gets old, and it’s a smooth transition to dive to the ground and foil a crime in progress with a quick brawl and a flurry of spider-gadgets. In addition to side missions and crimes to foil, there’s plenty of collectibles and stuff to do, including photo-ops, new suits, and abilities to unlock between both Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Throwing manhole covers at muggers with your webs is an endless source of delight.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC

While both Geralt and The Witcher 3 have some gray hair, it just adds to their appeal. Combining fast and smooth melee combat with six regions you can explore is a good start, but The Witcher 3 really excels at the details. This dramatic, thrilling, and exceptionally well-paced fantasy RPG manages that rarest of things: it combines meaningful player freedom with an exceptional central storyline. 

Whether it’s finding fantastic side quests, stumbling on one of the many monsters Witchers are expected to take on, or just trying to collect the best cards for your Gwent deck, The Witcher 3 wants you to wander. And of course, when you finally come back to the main story, you’ll be treated to plenty of opportunities to use your honed skills, or just get your horse Roach to stand in the weirdest places.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC

It’s weird to think that such a realistic trip to famously repressive 15th-century medieval Europe could be such a great venue for freedom, but Henry can do just about anything you’d like him to in the Kingdom of Bohemia. This historical, open-world RPG offers immersion and agency galore.  

With the numerous skills covering everything from horsemanship to thievery and weaponry, you can roam all over the massive countryside and choose not only what trouble you’ll get into, but how you’ll get into it as well. If you want to play a fast riding and sneaky burglar, a deadly archer that lives off the land, or just a guy with a really rad dog, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is happy to let you make things as weird or straightforward as you’d like.

Forza Horizon 5

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC

Forza Horizon 5 doesn’t mess around with its scenery. In this lovingly constructed racing sim, you’ll be free to roam about a sumptuously detailed fictional version of Mexico. It’s fully 50% bigger than Forza Horizon 4, and has everything from an active volcano, jungles, beaches, and cities. In Forza Horizon 5, the journey is the destination, thanks to responsive controls and meticulously designed driving systems. 

Scattered all over are player houses you can buy, collectibles, a stunt park, minigames, and ways to customize your cars or just play dress-up with your character. Oh, and of course, tons of different ways to race, if you get around to that part. 

No Man’s Sky

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch/Switch 2, and PC 

Everybody loves a comeback story, and No Man’s Sky is the queen of them, rising from the ashes after a troubled release to become a deep space survival and exploration game. This open-world sci-fi adventure has you adventuring and exploring from the get-go, offering you a massive, explorable galaxy alongside oodles of things to do. 

Exploring near-infinite numbers of planets is a good start, but the fact that they’re populated with aliens, packed with resources, and dotted by pirates and trading posts is the real draw. You can gather (or steal) all the materials you need to upgrade your ship and suit, build a planetary base, dig up relics, recruit aliens to work for you, or just create an armada of ships. While the central story wants you to head towards the center of the galaxy, every direction is a good one in No Man’s Sky – and that’s why it’s one of the best open-world games on PC.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Available On: PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC

Grand Theft Auto 5 is the ultimate urban playground. This third-person action game from Rockstar Games is notorious for its dedication to player agency, making the entire city of Los Santos into your personal backyard.

Between the countless minigames and collectibles across Los Santos and the pure chaos you can unleash by stealing anything that isn’t nailed down, GTA 5 is the gift that keeps on giving. If the side missions and opportunities to see the sights aren’t enough for you, then you have ample opportunity to make your own fun. You can start your own demolition derby in a cement truck, find the best spot to total your supercar, or just go on a rampage with a pocket full of guns and a stolen military tank. The possibilities are nearly endless. 

FAQs

References

1. Save 75% on Red Dead Redemption 2 (Steam)
2. Cyberpunk 2077 (Steam)
3. METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN (Steam)
4. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Steam)
5. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Steam)
6. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Steam)
7. Forza Horizon 5 (Steam)
8. No Man’s Sky (Steam)
9. Save 50% on Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced (Steam)