15 Best Open Worlds to Explore In Video Games

15. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

Mud sticks to your boots, conversations slow down when they feel like they matter, and the wilderness has a way of swallowing your plans whole. You can spend an evening hunting, gambling, or just riding until the light changes, and it never feels like “wasted time” because the world keeps reacting in small, believable ways. The magic in Red Dead Redemption 2 is how exploration isn’t treated like a checklist – towns have rhythms, strangers have stories that branch, and the landscape itself becomes a kind of memory you carry. Even the quiet stretches have texture: storms roll in, animals spook, lawmen remember your face, and camp life shifts based on what you do. It’s a giant map, sure, but it’s also one of the rare open worlds that makes you feel like you’re living somewhere, not just traversing it. | © Rockstar Games

14. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

A broken highway overgrown with wildflowers hits differently when a metal predator is stalking the tree line. The world mixes ancient ruin with vibrant tribal life, and the contrast keeps pulling you off the route – one minute you’re climbing into a collapsed city, the next you’re reading the terrain like a hunter. What makes exploration click is the constant push-pull between beauty and danger: every valley looks inviting until you realize something big is nesting there. Horizon Zero Dawn rewards curiosity with lore that’s actually worth digging up, because the mystery of the old world isn’t background flavor; it’s the emotional spine of the journey. And once the map opens up, roaming becomes its own kind of storytelling, built from landmarks you spot and risks you choose to take. | © Guerrilla Games

13. Assassin’s Creed Origins (2017)

Egypt in this game isn’t just scenery – it’s heat haze, crowded markets, distant temples, and riverside travel that makes you understand why people built their lives around the Nile. You can gallop through dunes, drift by boat, climb into tombs, or get distracted by a village problem that turns into something bigger than it first sounded. The RPG shift gives exploration more purpose: you’re not only sightseeing, you’re gearing up, leveling, and choosing which corners of the map you’re ready to challenge. Assassin’s Creed Origins also nails scale in a way that feels playful – one moment you’re reading hieroglyphs in a hidden chamber, the next you’re looking at pyramids from far enough away that they feel impossible. It’s a vacation and a danger zone at the same time, which is exactly why it stays fun to roam. | © Ubisoft

12. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (2025)

This is the kind of open world that doesn’t want you to feel like a superhero – it wants you to feel like a person who could genuinely get humbled by a bad decision or an empty stomach. Medieval spaces become interesting when they’re treated as lived-in places: roads that matter, towns with social rules, and landscapes that aren’t designed around “fun” so much as plausibility. If the first game is the blueprint, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is built for wandering with consequences, where getting lost can be as memorable as finishing a quest. The appeal is in the texture: mundane details, grounded combat, and the sense that learning the world is part of surviving it. | © Warhorse Studios

11. Subnautica

Dropping into an alien ocean sounds relaxing until you realize the water is basically a three-dimensional maze with teeth. You start with nothing but scraps and curiosity, then exploration becomes a chain reaction: go deeper, find a new biome, unlock a new tool, and suddenly the map expands downward like a trapdoor. What makes it special is how the world teaches you through risk – dark trenches, strange sounds, and creatures that make you rethink every “quick dive.” Subnautica also turns discovery into storytelling: abandoned habitats, environmental clues, and small bits of info that push you toward answers without dragging you by the wrist. It’s gorgeous, tense, and weirdly intimate for a survival game, especially when your only safe place is whatever you managed to build. | © Unknown Worlds Entertainment

10. Elden Ring (2022)

You step out into Limgrave and the game basically dares you to wander – no gentle tour, no safety rail, just a horizon full of places that look important and enemies that can prove you wrong fast. Exploration works because the world is built like a chain of temptations: a ruined church with whispers of lore, a golden tree in the distance, a staircase descending into something you absolutely shouldn’t touch yet. Elden Ring rewards curiosity in a way that feels almost mischievous, hiding entire underground realms, optional legacy dungeons, and weird little side stories behind cliffs, elevators, and half-forgotten doors. The map doesn’t just get bigger; it keeps folding open, revealing layers that make earlier areas feel like the tutorial for a much stranger journey. Even when you hit a wall, roaming never feels pointless, because you’re always picking up knowledge – routes, weaknesses, shortcuts – that turns into power later. It’s one of the rare open worlds where getting lost feels like the intended path. | © FromSoftware

9. Forza Horizon 5

It’s hard to call something “open world” when you’re mostly staring at a minimap, but this one constantly pulls your eyes back to the road. Mexico is treated like a playground with real variety – jungles, deserts, beaches, towns, volcano slopes – so just driving becomes its own kind of sightseeing. The map works because it rewards detours: you crest a hill, spot a sandstorm, and suddenly your plan is “follow that.” Forza Horizon 5 makes exploration feel effortless, too, with events and challenges that pop up naturally instead of demanding you return to a hub every five minutes. Even if you’re not a hardcore racing fan, the joy here is motion – finding a new route, catching a perfect sunrise, and realizing you’ve been roaming for an hour without starting the “main” thing. | © Playground Games

8. Minecraft

The best kind of exploration is the kind that starts with “I’ll just grab some wood,” then ends with you mapping a cave system you didn’t know existed. The world feels endless because it’s built on surprise: a ravine opening under your feet, a new village over the hill, a biome shift that changes the whole vibe of a journey. You don’t need a quest marker to get moving – Minecraft makes curiosity the engine, whether you’re spelunking for diamonds, sailing until you hit something odd, or wandering into the Nether because you got brave (or bored). Even the simplest landmarks can become personal history: that cliff where you first built a house, the swamp you never cross at night, the mountain you climbed just to see what was there. | © Mojang Studios

7. The Witcher 3

You can tell a world is worth exploring when a side road feels as dangerous – and as interesting – as the destination. Villages have their own problems, forests feel haunted for reasons beyond “monsters live here,” and every region carries a different mood, from war-torn mud to windswept islands that look like they’ve been arguing with the sea for centuries. The writing is the secret sauce: quests don’t just fill space, they reveal character, politics, and folklore in a way that makes wandering feel meaningful. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also nails that “I’ll help for a minute” trap, where a simple contract turns into a moral mess you’ll think about later. Even when you’re just riding, the world keeps tugging at you – signposts, screams, ruins, and small stories hiding in plain sight. | © CD Projekt Red

6. No Man's Sky

Some open worlds want you to memorize streets; this one wants you to think in star charts. The loop is pure wanderlust: land on a planet, scan the strange life, dig for resources, lift off, and pick a new point of light that might be paradise or a radioactive nightmare. What makes exploration addictive is the scale and the unpredictability – weather can turn, sentinels can notice you, and that “quiet” moon can hide something genuinely weird. No Man’s Sky also scratches the collector itch with ships, upgrades, bases, and discoveries that feel like trophies from places you actually visited. The game’s best moments arrive when you stop chasing efficiency and start chasing vibes: a ringed planet on the horizon, a bizarre creature you’ve never seen, or a sunset that makes you stay put. | © Hello Games

5. Fallout 4

The Commonwealth has a special talent for turning a simple walk into a chain of disasters: a gunfight you didn’t start, a building you shouldn’t enter, a vault that’s definitely not empty. Exploration works because the map feels scavenged and improvised, packed with little environmental stories – notes, skeleton setups, radio broadcasts, and the kind of lived-in clutter that makes ruins feel personal. You can roam for hours just following the faint promise of loot, then stumble into a faction conflict or a side quest that spirals into a whole new region of the world. Fallout 4 keeps the loop sticky by tying wandering to crafting and settlement building, so every detour can turn into better gear or a better base. It’s messy, darkly funny, and constantly rewarding if you like poking at abandoned places to see what bites back. | © Bethesda Game Studios

4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

That first moment on the Great Plateau is basically a promise: you can go anywhere you can see, and the game won’t scold you for trying. Exploration is built around curiosity and physics – climb it, glide off it, set it on fire, freeze it, launch yourself with it – so the world feels like a toybox that rewards experimentation. Shrines and Korok puzzles are scattered like breadcrumbs, but you’re rarely following them in a straight line; you’re chasing weather patterns, weird silhouettes on the horizon, and the urge to see what’s on top of that mountain. Breath of the Wild also makes travel itself enjoyable, because terrain, stamina, and survival tools matter just enough to keep every route decision interesting. It’s the rare open world where getting “sidetracked” isn’t a mistake – it’s the main event. | © Nintendo

3. Hogwarts Legacy

The castle is the hook, and it earns it – hallways twist, staircases lead to places you didn’t know existed, and secrets feel like they were baked into the architecture on purpose. Even when you step outside the walls, the surrounding countryside keeps the fantasy alive with hamlets, ruins, caves, and magical creatures that make wandering feel like field research. What makes exploration click is how the game uses movement as its reward: new spells open new doors, new shortcuts, and new ways to interact with spaces you’ve already walked through. Hogwarts Legacy is at its best when you’re not chasing objectives, just following a rumor, a glowing puzzle, or a weird sound behind a tapestry. It nails that specific open-world feeling of “I came here for one thing and left with three stories.” | © Warner Bros. Games

2. Far Cry 6

Yara looks gorgeous in the way a postcard can be gorgeous right before it catches fire. The island is packed with checkpoints, patrols, and propaganda, but the real fun is in how you choose to dismantle that control – quietly with a silenced rifle, loudly with a homemade backpack launcher, or chaotically with whatever vehicle you stole five minutes ago. Exploration in Far Cry 6 has a “what’s over there?” rhythm that’s hard to resist because there’s always another base to infiltrate, another stash to raid, another bizarre side activity calling your name. The world also sells the fantasy of revolution through motion: roads feel dangerous, mountains feel like escape routes, and cities feel like powder kegs. It’s a busy open world by design, built for players who enjoy turning a map into a personal highlight reel. | © Ubisoft

1. Skyrim

The map doesn’t need to beg you to explore because it keeps interrupting you with temptation: a cave entrance, a ruin on a ridge, smoke in the distance that might be a camp or a catastrophe. You can set out for a main quest marker and end up adopting a dog, joining a guild, fighting a dragon, and somehow becoming responsible for a whole town’s problems. What makes wandering in Skyrim feel endless is the way it layers discovery – handcrafted dungeons, random encounters, and lore that turns a random book on a shelf into a rabbit hole. The world has a cold, rugged personality, and it’s full of little moments that feel like they happened only to you, even if they’re scripted. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim remains the ultimate “I got distracted” simulator, and that’s exactly why it’s still fun to roam. | © Bethesda Game Studios