Open-world games are one of the most popular genres in the industry. After developers realized that exploration options gave much greater returns than it cost them to develop, they knew that there was a lot of money to be made. Thus, just about every developer imaginable is adding their own spin on the genre each year with new releases, from mega-icons like Nintendo's Mario series to two-person indie teams.

Some of the best games of all time are marked ꦜas open world, which makes talking about them a difficult task. Many of them are held in such high regard🍸 that it’s nearly impossible to have anything critical to say or even rank them against other open-world games. With that in mind, we’re going to rank the best open-world games (and/or series) of all time.

Updated on March 12, 2025, by Sanyam Jain: From being a luxury, the open-world genre has now become a common occurrence as technology advanced. While not all games offer a ton of freedom in their open-world, Avowed is one of the few that lets you have unrestricted access to an extent.

Disclaimer: These are our opinions. After look👍ing through what fans seemed to agree on and what we felt were personally better choices, we came up with this list. If there are some open-world games you feel we missed, feel free to let us know what your choices would be.

Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom

Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom tells a sweeping magical tale where a humble king, Evan, must rebuild a new kingdom after he is forced to dep❀art from his previous kingdom. This game picks up many, many years after the first game, Wrath of the White Witch, this time focusing on a more action-oriented RPG gameplay system. What immediately sets this game apart from its predecessor is the gorgeous open-world fantasy land.

Revenant Kingdom took what made the original game so great — namely, fantastic art direction, orchestral music, quirky and lovable characters, and an intriguing plot — but throws in a highly explorable world filled with secrets and discoveries. While the overall gameplay deviated from the somewhat Pokemon-esque turn-based battle system of the previous game, i𒈔t managed to set itself apart nicely with a highly stylized combat system as well as an entire kingdom-building mechanic.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is an intriguing entry in the long-running and venerable survival horror series. The g🌌ame immediately separates itself from previous entries, specifically the older third-person titles whereby the game takes place in a downright creepy and macabre Romania-inspired world. While the open-world elements in Village are certainly not as expansive as some games on this list, it feels utterly unique from the werewolf village to Castle Dimitrescu to the very haunted House Beneviento.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Playing once again as Ethan Winters, this time with him searching for his stolen daughter Rose, Village throws you into a spooky world filled with vampires, werewolves, phantoms, and plenty of other monstrosities sure to give you night🧜mares. The unfolding world that was built in this game is constructed in such a way that you are always moving forward, eager to see what's around the next corner.

No More Heroes 1 And 3

When you think of No More Heroes, the first descriptor that comes to mind is likely not “open-world,” and that’s fair. NMH is more well-known as a chaotically hilarious third-person character-action game, as complex as that may sound, but it still 'technically' has an open world. In any cas𝐆e, the open-world sections of both NMH 1 and 3 are serviceable at best, which is why NMH2 took out the open-world and replaced it with a location map.

That said, the open-world sections of these games serve as a breather from the endless hallways of grunts you’ve been slaying with your beam katana, the off-the-wall events of the story, or just so you can process all the absurd lore stuff that was played off ꦅas a joke in the last cutscene. And, in serving that purpose, the open-world parts of NMH 1 and 3 are fantastic. This is especially true for NMH 3 — it improves upon everything that made the first game so memorable.

Cloudpunk

Cloudpunk is an open-world game that slipped past a lot of people’s radar, and that’s a shame. Compared to theꦦ “scale” of most of the other open-world title🌊s on this list, Cloudpunk is relatively small, with a much shorter list of "things you can do" but there’s still tons of content packed within it.

You spend all your in Cloudpunk controlling Rania, a new delivery driver for Cloudpunk, the fictional shady company the game is named after. This Cloudpunk company is relaꦿtively well known for delivering their packages speedily and without asking questions, which gets Rania wrapped up in a whole lot of drama.

That said, deliveries are what you’ll be spending most of your time doing, flying around this charmingly 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk x 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Minecraft-esque voxel city in your HOVA car. There are a few other games that fall into this same “delivery category,” such as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elite Dangerous or even 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Death Stranding, but Cloudpunk manages to sta📖nd toe-to-toe with them in terms of atmosphere and writing prowess.

Rider's Republic

The tried and true Ubisoft open-world format is one that a lot of people have become tired of nowadays. There are just so many games, both made by Ubisoft itself or other devs emulating their style, that start to all feel the same because of this. But, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Riders Republic was breath of fresh air, and was also a pretty innovative genre-blending of open world racing that you don't see too often outside of games like Steep or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Burnout Paradise.

In terms of gameplay, Rider's Republic is a ton of fun. There are plenty of different races, events, and vehicles to try out, each with their own ♏gimmicks and nuances. Lastly, the cosmetics for this game are incredible, as they should be, and a lot of them actually manage to take advantage of being a costume for a racing character w💙ith things like the giraffe head helmet/mash that sways in the breeze with every turn or flip.

Batman: Arkham Series

After 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Batman: Arkham Asylum put Rocksteady on the map, the developers outdid themselves completely with Batman: Arkham City. The combat was smoother and the world was much larger, giving the Dark Knight a portion of Gotham to fly around. With the s🔴eries already creating the freeflow combat and Predator system that people loved so much, the sequel simply refined those elements, created a better story, and gave more of what the players wanted.

But, the method of hook-shot into gliding to get around the city did feel awkward, and most of the city exploration really just boiled down to Riddler puzzles, so as an open-world game Arkham City did a decent job, but Arkham Asylum is definitely a more 'complete' product in compไarison.

Then there's Arkham Knight, Rocksteady's attempt at fixing the flaws from Arkham City, improving upon past systems,168澳洲幸运5开奖网: and in♊troducing new ones (such as costumes). And, in most departments, it absolutely succeeded! Arkham Knight has a bigger map, more side activities to do, easier terrain trave𝄹rsal, and smoother combat.

But, in t♍he process, the boss battles aren't nearly as enjoyable, the gadgets aren't used quite as much, and the forced Batmobile stuff felt like a tacked-on gimmick right away. Overall, the two games are almost equal in quality, so it's entirely up to you 🌃which one takes the cake as the "best" Batman game.

Shenmue

Ah, Shenmue, the series that basically invented the open-world genre as well as one of the most polarizing open-world games of all time in regards to its overall reception nowadays. There are two types of people when it comes to Shenmue: those who absolutely adore it and can’t get enough, and those൲ who find it to be the ultimate expression of tediousness.

But regardless of your opinion on Shenmue’s general gameplay loop and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:martial arts-centric combat, the revenge story of Ryo Hazuki searching for Lan Di, the man who killed his father, is something that has influenced almost every other open-world game going forward. There are three Shenmue games, all numbered accordingly. And, in general, the average opinion ofꦯ each game is as such:

• Shenmue 1: A 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:masterpiece for its time that is very difficult to go back to nowadays due to all the dated systems, but still holds up to a certain degree.
• Shenmue 2: The sequel that improved upon the first in almost every way, basically Shenmue at its peak and the best way to test if you'll like the series.
• Shenmue 3: The one with a development funded by Kickstarter, and is generally regarded as an open-world game stuck in the past that is missing a lot of what made Shenmue 1 and 2 so memorable.

Forza Horizon Series

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Forza Horizon took what was established with previous innovative racing games like Burnout Paradise to create a concise racing game in an open-world that is just so much fun to explore. Newer graphics allow it to stand out from th😼e competition in ways that 𓃲no one could imagine. Everything feels connected where a traditional racing game would force players to scroll through menus.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Forza Horizon 4 irons out a few kinks from the previous games, to the point where it's often believed to be the best in the series. However, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Forza Horizon 5 takes all the amazing things fro🦄m FH4 and only amplifies it. FH4 al🉐ready had such an absurd amount of content on release, as well as all the additional stuff Playground added over the next couple of years, but FH5 has all that, and more.

With even more stunning graphics, a huge playerbase, and an iꦚncomprehensible amount of customization for each individual player, in just about every sense of the word, FH5 is a true sequel to the already incredible FH4 that came before it.

Just Cause 3 And 4

The Just Cause series is all about giving you as many tools as possible so that you can run around having a blast trying to pull off ridiculous stunts. It's something of a 'toybox sandbox' game, where the story and narrative really don't matter. The obvious intention of the developers is to enjoy yourself with a slew of interesting systems and weapons stacked on top of each other. Just Cause 3 nails this to a tee. The entire🌠 draw of the game is playing around with the physics s💧ystem just to see what you can come up with next.

Just Cause 4 came out a whopping three years after JC3, and when it was first released, the game had a ton of issues. If you play it now, most of those issues are gone, thankfully. And, for the most part, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:JC4 just piles on more tools and♈ locations onto what JC3 already introduced. More regions to explore, different environments, tons of ridiculous new tools to use, and that's just to name a few additions.

But, even with all those additions, the question of "is JC3 better than JC4?" is hard to answer. JC3 was a bit purer, had more interesting challenges, and the progression system of the story didn't restrict you quite as much. That said, both games are still incredible open-world experiences that could be your #1 or #100 pick, depending on what you enjoy doing in these typ🗹es of games.

No Man's Sky

Thinking about it now, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sea of Thieves and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:No Man’s Sky might actually have a fair bit in common. Both games were released to a pretty loud negative reception but were vastly improved over time through dedicated developers who released constant updates or DLCs. To be fair, the original response to No Man’s Sky release compared to SoT’s was night-and-day in terms of the sheer volume of the negative outcry, as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hello Games' marketing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:(and behind-the-scenes development) for NMS bit off more than they could chew, t꧋o 𝓰say the least.

But, in its current 💯state, No Man’s Sky is a fantastic open-world experience that just about has everything in it that was originally shown or promised in that infamous E3 2014 trailer. So, if you’ve held off on trying this game due to friends swearing that it's still bad based on critic reviews from over three years ago, there’s no better time than now to give the game a look and form your own opinion.