When the video game industry first started to take off in the early 1970s, it was so insanely limited. The massive leap from games then to games now is astronomical in every sense of the word. In those days, two vertically-scrolling lines batting a small white square back and forth was akin to watching Chris Evert and Billie Jean King battle it out on the court. From games that didn’t even exceed the 10-kilobyte mark to titles that nearly take up a fourth of a one terabyte HDD, it's safe to say that the growth and advancement of this particular industry has been staggering. Though gamers are generally perceived to be something for the younger crowd, those who have been around since the beginning can attest that we’ve seen incredible progress.
No single genre of game has benefited more from this massive increase of resources more than open-world titles. Games like Colossal Cave Adventure and Elite served as early conceptual affirmations, but the genre wouldn’t really come into its own until access to more powerful hardware made generating vast expanses of terrain a reality. What’s possible today was only feasible through text-based interfaces decades ago, and games have ballooned to such massive proportions today that some in-game worlds can be equated in size to real-wo🥂rld countries. Zork may have allowed gamers to imagine an immense, richly detailed world, but games in our modern era can outpace even the most vivid imagination in terms of size.
Updated May 27, 2021 by Jacob Buchalter: It’s been a few years since this list first came out, and the size of open-world games has only continued to grow with each new title. Not only that, but the amount of content densely packed into every square mile of pixelated goodness has improved as well. So, let’s take another look at all the open-world titles that have been released since 2018, update some entries that have had new additions to their respective franchises, and include some newer games that earned a spot on this list of open-world games with gigantic maps.
Disclaimer: deciding which game is “bigger” in map size has to both take in the actual size of the map, as well as the implied size the game lore and developers say that it covers. Because of those two factors, picking which game is bigger between two that are close is incredibly unreliable and difficult. Luckily, there are great channels like ,, and so on plus fantastic fans of the games who do all the math, which makes it a bit easier. We also tried to include as many different game franchises as possible, picking the more recent iteration in the series if the map sizes were close.
40 Biomutant
Biomutant's map is pretty small compared to many other open-world games, which might seem disappointing given how long this game has been in development. But, from what we’ve seen, Biomutant devs 101 Games must have tried for quality over quantity and packed that decently sized map with as much content as possible. Though, now that the game is out and we've had hands-on with it, that's not exactly how things ended up. 168澳洲幸运💃5开奖网:The reviews of Biomutant have🅰 been less than kind, that's for sure. But, it's safe to say that it's one of the more visually stunning open worlds out there. That said, it is one of the smaller maps and there isn't as much content per square mile as we would've thought.
39 ♈ Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The culmination of roughly fifteen years of effort, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was heralded as one of the best games of 2015. An achievement accomplished partially by its map design, MGSV felt like the triumphant final statement for a series that will likely never return to its former glory. Thankfully, Hideo Kojima isn’t out of the gaming industry yet and continues to make games that still hold the spirit of the MGS franchise. Though the deserts don’t immediately seem all that appealing, the densely packed, eloquently rendered deserts of Afghanistan and Africa that are available to the player are actually just enough to make the cut for this list. The game might seem a lot bigger than something near that would be near the bottom of this list, but that's because Kojima prioritized relative scale over having his maps "represent" the entire country and so on. Venom Snake isn’t traveling the exact square mileage of this exact part of Afghanistan as it would be in reality, but it’s a lot closer than many other games on here.
38 Immortals Phoe🌌nix Rising 🐟
Immortals Fenyx Rising takes the cake as one of the most non-sensical-sounding game titles in recent years, but the actual product itself is pretty good. This game is unabashedly taking different mechanics and concepts from different open-world titles, sometimes even borrowing from its own developers with Assassin’s Creed-like combat and abilities. But, just because Immortals is a mishmash game, doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable, and getting a𒐪round the rather larg▨e map and exploring new areas is quite fun whether it's by flight or by horseback. And, there is a ton of content to be found across this whole brightly-colored landscape, though most of it revolves around some pretty simplistic puzzle-solving. Overall, while Fenyx Rising isn’t exactly the most creative game, it is worth giving credit to how unique this artstyle feels for Ubisoft, and how big they managed to make the map for the first game in a new IP.
37 🍸 Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Age Inquisition has always been a bit of a polarizing game. Some call it the budget-brand Witcher 3, others enjoy it for being the closest thing franchise fans have to the outstanding Dragon Age: Origins. Putting all that aside, Inquisition does give you a pretty gigantic map to e🧸xplore, even if most of that time is spent running back and forth between the numerous amount of fetch quests. Additionally, in the moments where Inquisition's landscape looks particularly exceptional, it looks better than a lot of other, more recent, open-world games.
36 Cyberpunk🌃 2077
Just this once, let’s not only talk about the controversies surrounding Cyberpunks development and release. Yes, the game came out unfinished and honestly quite broken, but that’s been talked about to death and CD Projekt seems to be hard at work trying to slowly build the game into what they initially promised. No, outside of all that talk, Cyberpunk 2077 is a pretty big game and Night City is a decently huge open-world. Granted, there isn’t much to do in it, at least not much that isn’t alm🔜ost immediately repetitive. But, that doesn’t take away from t🐈he fact that this city is one of the most beautif🌃ully crafted we’ve ever seen. Sure, you can’t walk into most buildings and yes most of the population spawns in only when you’re looking at them, but the size of the city itself is pretty huge.
35 Horizon Zero Dawn 𝕴
Without a doubt, Horizon Zero Dawn has one of the most unique concepts and settings we’ve seen in a video game in years. Alloy is an enjoyable main character, the overall narrative is confusing at worst and incredibly interesting at best, the gameplay loop is fun if not a bit repetitive, and the world is just so visually appealing. The nature aspect of this game is wonderfully crafted, and the machine animals work perfectly to contrast it. While suffering from the same repetitive open-world tropes that other games do such as the Assassin’s Creed games, HZD still does a fantastic job for a game developed by a studio best known for their FPS work. Plus, with the extra areas 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:(and enemies) a💝dded in The Frozen Wilds DLC, HZD has quite a bit of landscape to traver🔯se and immerse yourself in.
34 Watch Dogs: Legion⭕ ꦜ
Sadly, Watch Dogs: Legion just simply didn’t do a lot to keep people hooked. The whole marketing was centered around the “you can play as anyone” gimmick, which was done relatively well, but the core gameplay leꦛft a lot of fans want๊ing more. That said, this representation of the not-so-far-off future of London in 2030 was incredibly well rendered. It doesn’t pop in the same way other futuristic🔯 games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Cyberpunk 2077 manages to, but it’s accurate and giga꧑ntic.
33 ꦕ Death St▨randing
Death Stranding was Hideo Kojima’s next game, after MGS5, and it’s likely his most ambitious title yet. Some may see it as a “walking simulator”, but there’s actually quite a bit of depth to Stranding’s mechanics. The game takes place in aꦰ scaled-down post-apocalyptic alternate version of the United States, where the afterlife and reality have sort of blended together, creating ꧋all sorts of weird phenomena such as the Beached Things and Timefall. You’ll get to experience this all and more as you travel across all three of Death Strandings maps, each one a bit smaller than the last. For a game where travel, connections, and delivery is the core concept, Death Stranding sure has a lot of land to travel, and plenty of ways to get across it. It’s not gigantic, especially in comparison to the games near the end of this list, but considering how every single piece of it is fully traversable, the game is still quite the achievement.
32 ♕ Ghost of Tsushima 🎃
Ghost of Tsushima was a real welcome gift in the mess of the year that was 2020. It was peaceful, violent, chaotic, calm, thrilling, and boring all at the same time. Honestly, this game was a real walking contradiction that shouldn’t have worked, but it did. In it, you take control of Jin Sakai as he takes back the island of Tsushima from the Mongols after their successful invasion 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:during the times of Feudal Japan. GoT isn’t a gigantic open-world game, but it is one🔯 of the most expertly-crafted ones we’ve seen in quite some time. Every areaꦿ feels like it was built with so much care and ranges from beautiful riverside areas with sakura blossoms everywhere to bloody battlefields with fiery hellscapes in the background. Sucker Punch Studios, known for the Infamous franchise, has always been great at making open-world games that are fun to explore, but GoS shows notable improvement in its ability to create a world full of enjoyable side content and activities.
31 ♐ Grand Theft Auto San Andreas ♏
San Andreas was one of the first games to really prove that a full-scale cityscape could be accurately rendered in a video game. Sure, 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III is generally considered to be one of the best early representations of such an environment, but that title’s map only barely exceeds one square mile. In comparison, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas ꧂manages to be much larger and feel much more alive than what we saw in GTA III. Plus, while the series’ first fully 3D game offered up a decent depiction of city life, San Andreas let players explore the city, as well as a vast, impressive countryside, desert, and mountainscape area.