Have you ever had the chance to just stand in a great big field outside, unobstructed even by hills, and stare out to see the horizon ahead of you and the vast open sky above you and wonder to yourself about the sheer ability to actually see so far when nothing is in the way, and everything suddenly feels closer? We're not talking about the big outdoors. We're talking about video games, obviously.
For all the time that games have existed, one commonality amongst many of them is the presence of just giant fields, something to give you a scale of the world that lies beyond the horizon, something to edge you a little further, to uncover more of what this world has to offer. Somehow massive yet also conceivable. Let's take a look at some of the best open fields gaming has to offer.
10 ไ The Whole Map - Dynasty Warriors 9
The Dynasty Warriors series is known for a great many things, being the Musou genre at its most self-indulgent. There's the absurd number of characters to play as, the over-the-top nature of the combat, the almost unfathomable number of cannon-fodder enemies on the screen at once, and of course, massive fields for this all to take place in.
With Dynasty Warriors 9, this was taken to the next level with the game actually becoming open-world. Though it wasn't the most well-received entry in the series, it was nonetheless a major departure that broke the mold. Having a whole world to explore with seemingly endless enemies and wide-open fields to gaze upon it all was a freeing experience.
9 Great Plains - Red Dead Redemption ﷽ ꩵ
The original Red Dead Redemption was a major step for Rockstar in showing they could create more than just city simulations, but also that they could consistently create 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:heartfelt s♚tories without regressing to satire. It may feature Rockstar's now-outdated mission structure, but it was a beauty to behold for the time.
The open world of Red Dead Redemption is still an awe-inspiring one of an America still in its natural state before the unceasing march of industry arrived. And though the world is filled with many wide-open vistas and plaওins, the one that can be best described as an open field is the Great Plains, home to the last remaining buffalo of America, the last of a species seen all at once.
8 🌳 Gaur Plains - Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenoblade Chronicles brought many changes to the formula of JRPGs with its release, from a world bu꧋ilt to 🎐an incredible scale, a position-based real-time combat system, and every NPC being a trackable character on the staggering affinity chart. Everything felt like it had a place.
But something to truly hammer home the utter size of the world is one of the earliest areas you'll reach. The Gaur Plains, situated on the Bionis' leg, is quite simply the definition of a wide-open field. The grassy area stretches for miles all around, all of it reachable. The sky stares you over day and night. It's incredible just how much you can see.
7 Fields Of Whiterun - Skyrim ♛
Skyrim is something of a celebrated game that you might have heard of. It's somewhat hard to say at this point what exactly Skyrim is so influential in since just about every piece of the game has been picked apart and placed in every other open-world game at this point, yet so few have still managed to achieve that exact feel that Bethesda achieved.
Skyrim is home to a great many locales, towering snowy mountains, craggy karst, and autumnal forests. But upon reaching Whiterun, you are greeted to great open fields, some being farmed by the locals, and much of it still untamed. You fight your first dragon in these fields, and it's a great introduction to the concept that you truly can just set out in any direction.
6 Calm 🐟Lands - Final Fantasy 10
Whether it's your favorite Final Fantasy or not, it can't be denied that 10 was a drastic change for the series. Swapping the ATB system for a more traditional turn-based system, the introduction of voice-acting, a more linear world, and the last Final Fantasy with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nobuo Uematsu as primary composer.
But that lack of an overworld map meant each location was a bit more realized, being that they had to reasonably connect from each previous area to the next. And then comes the Calm Lands. Unlike every other area, it is massive, the camera pulling back to bring it all into view. It's not even reasonable to travel on foot, with Chocobos available for riding.
5 🔯 T꧙he Skellige Isles - The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 is a great many things, but one of its greatest achievements is its open world. Its achievement is an interesting one though. It's not even that things over the horizon urge you to explore further, but rather than every section feels alive and natural, not like it was crafted for a game but rather that it would really exist here.
But Velen is dense, almost oppressive with its swamps and encroaching trees. Fields are restricted to rich folk, and even😼 then are in short supply. And then you arrive in Skellige. It almost feels like a different game. The sky is clearer, trees are sparser but taller and the untamed wilderness is on full display. The whole of Skellige can be seen here.
4 𝕴 Eastern Region - Death S💞tranding
Though Hideo Kojima may have originally been known for stealth action and commentaries on war through the use of gameplay, Death Stranding presented a game quite divorced from the gameplay of what came before. Many would brand it a walking simulator, which isn't strictly wrong.
But Kojima's vision of America (which is based on Iceland, by the way) is one mainly stripped of human intervention, much of it reduced to nature. But its opening is a great showcase of what the game is. The moment you step out of Capital Knot City, you are greeted with a great big field, empty except for the paths you tread and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the structures you place.
3 Certain Bio🐼mes - Minecraft ꧃
Minecraft. It almost feels like cheating to mention it. In a world where you can build anything, placing it in a list amidst a bunch of other very hand-crafted experiences can be a little unfair. But then, this isn't a list rating best-handcrafted experience, but more the experience that open fields provide, and Minecraft has that in spades.
World generation is of course completely random, so you've no real way of knowing what you'll find. Maybe it'll be mountains, maybe deserts. Maybe many, many mushrooms. Or maybe you'll find a biome of massive fields, villages dotted about and animals prowling, all of it waiting for a little bit of human intervention.
2 🐼 Gronder Field - Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Like many games benefiting from the "Switch Effect", Fi🅠re Emblem Three Houses quickly became the best-selling entry in the series, basically guaranteeing the future of Fire Emblem. And though🌃 Three Houses may have its own pitfalls, it also had many enticing characters and gameplay of its own.
Rather central to Three Houses is that of Gronder Field. The historical site of a great battle between kingdoms, now a place of remembrance of ceremony. But history has a tendency of repeating itself, doesn't it? And following the timeskip, Gronder Field becomes a graveyard for those damned to war in the name of ambition.
1 ꦺ Hyrule Field - The Legend Of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is on a bit of a roll in the last few years. Sure, Zelda has never exactly not been popular, but Breath of the Wild showed that the series could rise above its pitfalls to be something drastically different, and t𝕴o great effect. And of course, Breath of the Wild has plenty of open areas, but one in particular is shared by all games.
Throughout the entirety of the series' history, Hyrule Field has always been central. Literally central, at the middle of every game's map. The connective tissue of Ocarina of Time, the sunken sea of Wind Waker, the site of the final battle of Twilight Princess, and so on. Nintendo recognizes the significance, making it pivotal to every game.
