Losing yourself in a giant explorable world is one of the biggest attractions of this genre. There's nothing quite like that feeling of stepping out into the landscape and letting your eyes adjust to the light, Fallout-style, as you take in the vast space where you'll be spending the next hundred or so hours.
The problem is open worlds have become all too common in games, so it's hard to know what's worth buying and where your time is best spent. Luckily, our list covers the very best of the open world game genre—dive into one of these, and it might be a while before you escape.
Best of the best
Elden Ring
Style: Action RPG
Developer: FromSoftware | Steam
Why: Elden Ring isn't just a fantastic open world game, it was the defining game of 2022—so much so that we gave it our Game of the Year award. Elden Ring review (90%): "Elden Ring is junk food for FromSoftware fans. It's more of what I already adore, but family sized. It has everything that makes these games so intoxicating, and that lodges their intricate fiction into my brain."
Equal parts beautiful and repulsive, inviting and deadly, it's a real vision for what an open world can be. Without a quest log, map markers, or a collectibles list, the focus is purely on your own organic exploration of the world, and its sense of true discovery is absolutely enthralling.
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Following in the spirit of FromSoftware's famously brutal Dark Souls games, it's a game that pulls no punches—before you step foot in its sprawling kingdom, you've got to be ready to die, die, and die again. But that also makes your adventure wonderfully rewarding. It's an open world full of trials and challenges that you'll feel like a true hero for overcoming.
Since the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, there's now a whole new map to explore in the Land of Shadow, complete with secret areas and hidden dungeons. Elden Ring: Nightreign—a roguelike focused spin-off—is also now available.
Crimson Desert
Style: Action adventure
Developer: Pearl Abyss | Steam
Why: While it had a somewhat rocky start, Crimson Desert is undoubtedly one of, if not the, most ambitious open world game ever created. Crimson Desert review (80%): "It's by far one of the most interesting games I've played. Do I think it's a masterpiece? No. But its scale is genuinely something to marvel at."
The best way to describe Crimson Desert is as a singleplayer offline MMO with a gigantic world and endless systems combining into an almost immersive sim-style sandbox.
Though its story is nothing to write home about, and it can be a little abrasive at times, its world is packed with secrets, puzzles, bosses, and enemy strongholds. You can tame animals, pets, ride a train, a mech, a hot air balloon, or a dragon. You can trade, or research technologies, or manage your camp, or decorate your home. It's an endless series of activities which have only been further bolstered by Pearl Abyss's ridiculously fast update cadence.
Just some of the features the developer has added since launch include: a rideable wolf, bear, and wyvern mount, pet birds including a robotic eagle, arcade machines you can play, plus countless QoL improvements to the game itself. If you enjoy big open world games, Crimson Desert is an absurdly good value proposition, and will continue to grow even further as Pearl Abyss keeps updating.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Style: Action RPG
Developer: Ubisoft | Steam
Why: Assassin's Creed Valhalla's open world is an astonishing technical achievement. Assassin's Creed Valhalla review (92%): "Assassin's Creed's transformation into a full-blown RPG hasn't been the cleanest one, especially as features like stealth feel left to stagnate while other aspects get so much better. But Valhalla succeeds on so many levels that it's easy to forgive the times when it doesn't."
It's become fashionable to dunk on Ubisoft for the sometimes formulaic approach it takes to its flagship games, but it deserves credit where its due—the sheer scale and detail of Valhalla's rendering of medieval England is something to behold.
As an angry (and occasionally stealthy) viking, you're given free roam of a huge chunk of the country—not to mention Iceland and other realms I won't spoil. Taking its cues as much from The Witcher 3 as previous AC games, Valhalla is a grand action-RPG, sending you out to find quests and treasure in its historical setting.
If you're craving an open world that feels truly endless, Valhalla is a fantastically rich and accessible adventure to dive into. Just don't expect to finish it before at least the 100 hour mark.
Death Stranding
Style: Sci-fi walk 'em up
Released: 2020 | Developer: Kojima Productions | Steam
Why: Death Stranding is an indulgent mood piece first and an excellent hiking and delivery game second.
Death Stranding review (85%): "Some jobs seem impossible. Standing at the foot of a mountain, snow whipping at its peaks, fragile cargo stuck to every inch of your suit, you wonder how you'll ever get over it. But you power on, one step at a time, patiently placing ladders and climbing ropes, edging closer to your destination. Along the way you might have to slip into Metal Gear mode and sneak past BTs, or deal with extreme weather such as disorientating blizzards. You might even get knocked out by terrorists and have your cargo stolen, forcing you to sneak into their camp and take it back. But after all that, you make it, and it feels incredible."
Kojima's first game after leaving Konami, Death Stranding is set in a post-death reality where the concept of the afterlife has been blown open. Your goal as Sam Porter Bridges is to rebuild America by walking across the country and linking up cities, preppers, and waystations to, uh, the Time Internet? It makes next to no sense, but that's OK.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Style: Action adventure
Developer: Rockstar Games | Steam
Rockstar's historical open world series finally hit the PC with Red Dead Redemption 2, a monumental ode to the fading American frontier. Red Dead redemption 2 review (88%): "Can be the biggest, dumbest videogame ball pit for impulsive children, a harrowing story about the forced dissolution of community, or simply a serene and contemplative hiking simulator. It's just about whatever you need it to be, and good at it too."
RDR2 is rife with detail, overstuffed with little touches: animal corpses persist and decay, the protagonist Arthur has commentary for nearly every location and character, and random world events make the world feel lived in, be it sucking on a man's snakebite wound or getting ambushed by hillbillies.
It's all layered into an excellent story that'll take you as long as the complete Deadwood series to get through, and that's if you're rushing. And on top of it all, Red Dead Online brings a Day Z adjacent quality to the open world, invoking everything from serious roleplay to ridiculous, surreal shenanigans. It's also one of the prettiest games you can play on the PC today. Now with a huge library of mods, RDR2 is set to feel fresh and alive for years more to come.
Grand Theft Auto 5
Style: Crime adventure
Developer: Rockstar Games | Steam
Why: This is what money is for: creating a kind of pastiche of a real-world location that’s so staggeringly accurate in atmosphere and details that it’s actually better than being in the real thing. GTA 5 review (92%): "Rockstar did not need to build something this absurdly complex, this quixotic in its attention to detail, but I am glad that they did.."
GTA 5's Los Santos represents the meticulous approach Rockstar gave to the compact Liberty City in GTA 4, brought to the scale of 2004’s San Andreas—and the result is an open world of such a high standard that it’ll only likely be topped by Rockstar itself in the upcoming GTA 6. Between the strong multi-protagonist campaign and the mad playground of GTA Online, there’s well over 100 hours of chases and gunfights across land, air and sea for those who want it here.
You can even turn GTA 5's open world playground more to your will with GTA 5 cheats and the best GTA 5 mods.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition
Style: First-person RPG
Developer: Bethesda | Steam
Over a decade on from its original release, Skyrim remains the definitive open world RPG. Skyrim review (94%): "It's the best open world game I've ever played, the most liberating RPG I've ever played, and one of my favourite places in this or any other world."
Its grand, wintery landscape must be one of the most widely visited locations in videogame history—and it's popular for a reason. It's still an adventure of absolutely breath-taking scale and variety, letting you not only travel wherever you want across an enormous map, but also letting you be whoever you want to be—from a petty thief to the head of a wizard's guild.
These days, an endlessly growing library of user-made mods allow you to tailor the experience exactly to your liking, as well as adding even more to its already enormous open world. Whether you want to turn it into a realistic survival simulation, a ridiculous super-powered sandbox, or a battle to the death against Thomas the Tank Engine, the power is in your hands.
Cyberpunk 2077
Style: First-person action-RPG
Developer: CD Projekt Red | Steam
Why: It has slowly managed to crawl its way back through a number of patches to the form it should have launched in. Cyberpunk 2077 review (78%): "Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about close relationships, or if you're roleplaying a more coldhearted type, seeing what life is like at the top without them."
It's been a long road for Cyberpunk 2077. When it launched back in 2020 to, frankly, unprecedented levels of hype, it turned out to be a buggy and poorly performing mess. In the intervening years, however, patches have redeemed it.
This was helped along by an excellent and transformative 2.0 update, a brilliant cyberpunk anime called Edgerunners (made by Trigger of Kill la Kill and Delicious in Dungeon fame), and one of the best expansions CD Projekt Red has ever made, Phantom Liberty. All three of these did a lot to rehabilitate Cyberpunk 2077 in the eyes of many (including me), and the DLC even added one of the best endings to the main game.
Now, Cyberpunk 2077 is a fantastic open world that lets you explore the most fleshed-out cyberpunk setting ever created: Night City. As V, you'll determine your own journey through this violent and lawless future metropolis, where crime syndicates, corporations, and AI ghosts vie for dominance.
Dying Light 2
Style: First-person action-RPG
Developer: Techland | Steam
Why: Combining zombie survival with first-person parkour, Dying Light 2 is a post-apocalyptic playground. Dying Light 2 review (84%): "After the 50 hours it took me to complete the main quest, about a dozen sidequests, and a bunch of other activities, I still have plenty to do in Dying Light 2, and I'm keen to keep playing."
Its huge city, partly controlled by survivors and partly home to roaming bandits and undead, is a joy to traverse—as you progress, you gradually unlock more and more tools, until you're wall-running, grappling, zip-lining, and gliding around to your heart's content.
And when night falls, you find yourself very grateful for that agility. As the sun sets in this open world, the scariest, fastest undead nasties come out to play—get caught outside of a safe house, and you'll find yourself fleeing for your life across the rooftops in thrilling freeform parkour chases. The day-night cycle gives the city its own life (or unlife?) that makes Dying Light 2's open world wonderfully unique.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Style: First-person simulation RPG
Developer: Warhorse Studios | Steam
Why: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is undoubtedly one of 2025's most successful RPGs, and was, in fact, PC Gamer's Game of the Year, building on the foundation of what made the first game great, but avoiding its unfortunate bugginess and graphical woes.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 review (90%): "KCD2 feels a bit miraculous: a ludicrously ambitious and peculiar thing that somehow fulfills its ambition and peculiarity, managing to hit the highs Warhorse aimed for in the first game but perhaps fell just short of."
In the sequel you return to the role of Henry, the bastard son of a noble still searching for revenge after his village of Skalitz was burned to the ground by a band of mercenaries. This time Henry is helping Sir Hans Capon—who you might remember from the first game—to deliver a message to the League of Lords in hopes of ending the war and bringing stability back to the country.
All doesn't go to plan, however, and soon Henry finds himself on the run in medieval Bohemia. A big part of what makes Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 so brilliant is its historical setting, allowing you to explore small picturesque villages, stately castles, and uncover secrets in its wooded ravines and hidden caves. It's an open world like few others—if you enjoy medieval settings and completing quests for oddball peasants it's well worth a look.
Forza Horizon 6
Style: Arcade-style racing
Developer: Playground Games | Steam
Why: Playground Games has done it again—another sumptuous map filled to the brim with entertaining distractions for you and your car. Forza Horizon 6 review (84%): "Ultimately, Forza Horizon 6's only competitor is the previous Forza Horizon games."
Its version of Japan is a varied hodgepodge of interesting roads and landmarks, everything from high speed expressways to a twisting circuit surrounded by walls of ice. And helping you explore it is a meticulously detailed roster of over 550 cars, each with just enough personality to feel distinct.
As usual for the series, the story is mostly toothless—an all too bland cast that does nothing but express how much fun they're having at the Horizon festival. But the story isn't the point: What's there is a distraction from FH6's real purpose of being an entertaining sandbox. It's the joy of getting behind the wheel and pulling stunts across a beautiful landscape, or the relief when you perfectly nail a sequence of tricky hairpin bends. When it comes to open world racing, no other series can rival what Forza Horizon achieves.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Style: Adventure RPG
Developer: CD Projekt RED | Steam
Why: It's not just the scale of The Witcher 3's enormous open world that's so impressive—it's the richness of it. The Witcher 3 review (92%): "For a game boasting all of the political treachery and turmoil common in the genre, The Witcher 3 succeeds because it puts people first."
Its landscape is bursting with stories. Everywhere you go, you discover deep, captivating quests to distract you away from wherever you were originally travelling, encouraging wonderfully meandering journeys across its grim fantasy world.
Years on from its release, it still stands out from the crowd as a truly incredible feat of game development. Its open world is so lavish and meticulously crafted that it feels like a miracle it exists at all. Which only makes it all the more impressive that its two DLCs, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, push the bar even higher.
And all of it is elevated by the presence of starring hero Geralt himself—surely one of gaming's best ever travelling companions. His rough charms and heart of gold make him the perfect hero for the game's rugged landscape, and a character you'll be more than pleased to spend 100+ hours with.
Staff Picks
If you want even more open worlds to lose yourself in, take a look at these personal picks from a few intrepid digital explorers here at PC Gamer.
Enshrouded
I'm a sucker for a good survival crafting game, and Enshrouded is the best open world to ever do it. You see that towering mountain in the distance? Yeah, you can go there. And if you can't reach it by climbing or sprinting, do things the good ol' fashioned way with a bomb and pickaxe. — Andrea Shearon, Evergreen Writer
Borderlands 4
Borderlands 4 has its issues, but the massive open world isn't one of them. I've spent many happy hours exploring its vast and varied regions, a genuine delight in an otherwise messy game. — Andy Edser, Hardware Writer
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