The best open world games on PC

According to our map, these are the best open world games to check out

Image credit: Rockstar Games

Feature by Ed Thorn Former Reviews Editor

Additional contributions by Alice Bell, Alice O'Connor, and Liam Richardson

Updated on April 27, 2026, 6 p.m.

Below you'll find our list of the best open world games on PC, and it's for those of you who want to break free of anything linear. You hate linear. Boo to tunnels. Boo to invisible walls. You see that mountain, you want to climb it. You're greedy for stamina bars that deplete as you climb, for roving animals to hunt, for games where the onus is on you to explore and see what you can find.

Sure, open world games might not be for everyone, but if you want to embed yourself in a space that's atmospheric or relaxing or about as relaxing as a punch in the face, we have you covered. Look at the below like a map made up of words and the games like Ubisoft's blinking side quests you need to read to earn EXP or a blue rarity audiolog from me (Ed) that says, "Have yourself a nice evening, cheers", when you click play.

The best open world games

As is the case with the list below, it's a work in progress that'll be updated sometimes. Except that you'll never know when that happens. Hey, it's just happened. Subnautica is gone, to be replaced by Minecraft, a purer open-world sandbox. Dragon's Dogma 2 (DD2) has been slashed in favour of The Witcher 3, mainly because the latter is stronger in its storytelling, which ties so perfectly into its world. Other new additions include Outer Wilds and its penchant for urgent puzzling and adoration for space. Just Cause 3 for its celebration of daftness in the face of games that take themselves so damn seriously sometimes, and Wheel World for its ability to whisk you into a cyclathon born from a place of peace as opposed to many of the others on this list who choose destruction and/or suffering.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Look, there's a reason some things become so entrenched in pop culture that their very existence is sort of a joke. How many times has this game been released, arrow to the knee, see that mountain? Yuk it up, but we wouldn't be able to make those jokes if we didn't actually also love this game. Skyrim is still incredibly popular, not just for the huge vistas and engaging world, not just for the slightly janky physics that sends you screaming into the air the first time a giant attacks you, and not just because of the 2016 remaster, or the subsequent Anniversary Edition that officially welcomed mod content into the game.

It's all those things and more.

Skyrim, arguably, perfected the Bethesda style of RPG, where you are an extremely special chosen one, but without it seeming smug or annoying. At the same time, it was perfectly possible to just go off and do your own thing - take a slow ride through the snowy forests in the north, if you don't fancy killing dragons and sucking the soul out of their bones to power your magic shouting. It's a flexible and joyful Tolkien-esque fantasy by itself. But the modding scene? That really kicks things to another level. One where you can replace dragons with Thomas The Tank Engine. Read more of the Treehouse's words on Skyrim over the years by fast-travelling to our a collection we put together for the Skyrim Special Edition release.

A Short Hike

A Short Hike takes the crown for the loveliest game on this list. You play as a cute penguin who decides that they'd quite like to reach the summit of Hawk Peak. And so, off you pop, on a calming ascent which you can tackle any way you'd like. There's fishing by river banks or diving off cliff edges and soaring over to hidden treasures.

There are many other wonderful bits about the game, but it's bumping into other hikers that makes the climb particularly memorable. You might get involved in some races, you never know! Oh, and the soundtrack by Mark Sparling is lush and relaxing, so much so that Katharine bought it straight away when she found the game (more than) sated her Animal Crossing FOMO. What a world to soak in. Please give it a go.

Hitman: World Of Assassination

Ian Hitman wearing a bird costume in a Hitman 2 screenshot. — Image credit: IO Interactive

Hitman: World Of Assassination may not spring to mind as a traditional 'open world game', but its sandbox levels are wide, deep creations you can explore and lose yourself in as easily as a more by the numbers experience. You control Agent 47, a bald man with a barcode on the back of his head. He's good at garroting folks and making quips while garroting folks, and it's up to you to deploy the garrote, and sometimes explosive rubber ducks, to assassinate high profile people.

What makes Hitman such a great open world game is the freedom you've got from the off. Each Formula One race course, Italian town, or quaint manor house exists as a living location that you are free to explore from the moment you arrive. All that stands between you and the target you're seeking are the layers of secuity guards and systems that stand in your way. Security you can break, bypass, or bewilder with disguises. As Brendy says in his Hitman 3 review, "you know you're getting some world-class level design, some tense moments of dark comedy improv, and a type of clockwork murder toy that nobody else makes".

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Yakuza: Like A Dragon was a joyful introduction to new protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and transported players to the city streets of Isezaki Ijincho, as well as Kamurocho Sotenburi. In Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth you're whisked away to Hawaii. Though Infinite Wealth has an optional island area to play a sort of upscaled version of Animal Crossing, there's much fun to be had riding a Segway around what Ed describes as an "unmissable Hawaiian treat" in his Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth review.

As ever, seemingly small quests can spiral into strange, multi-part stories, but despite those descents into weirdness the setting still feels authentic thanks to the developers' attention to detail. You can buy Kona coffee, Mango shave ice, see the living statues on Waikiki beach, and visit the canals, malls and markets that actually exist in Honolulu. It's a real holiday, getting to run around and indulge in the Yakuza series' signature brand of kind of wacky antics - unabashed fun, no less - but with more of a beach party vibe.

If you're keen to play the Yakuza games but don't know where to start, then give Ed Thorn's What order should you play the Yakuza games? piece a read.

Forza Horizon 5

Justin said Forza Horizon 5 is "as close to flawless as any racer has ever come" in our review. Whatever you might think of this, the game is a might open world racer that's - as cheesy as it sounds - an actual festival. Chopping up Mexico's dusty beaches, tangled jungles, and sunny streets is a carefree celebration of swinging the back out. The map is filled with interesting slants on traditional races, and it's perhaps one of the most positive games, ever? It's the sort of game where if you could crash your Bugatti Veyron through someone's porch, it would give you a little treat for doing so.

Maybe one of Forza Horizon 5's strongest assets is that it's a racing game for people who aren't into racing games. You can take it as seriously as you'd like, and it's an actual joy to hop in and drive around Mexico for a bit, whether that's with pals or on your lonesome. If you are someone into their vrooms, then may we point you to our list of the best racing games on PC.

Baldur's Gate 3

There's so much to say about Baldur's Gate 3. Perhaps up top we should mention that it has difficult turn-based combat built on Dungeons & Dragons' D20 system, so it's not for everyone. But if you're alright with that, the fantasy world in Baldur's Gate 3 is a real doozy. The maps are huge and fold in and around each other, full of secrets and weirdo characters who are as likely to ask you to steal an egg or track down a missing child as they are to be, er, having sex in a barn. It's worth the effort to go on an arduous quest to save the land of Faerûn just so you can keep running around the place.

From waking up in the wreckage of an exploded ship, you gingerly explore and find temple ruins, a rocky coast, a secret druid grove. There are sun-dappled forests and a camp of hard-partying goblins. Did someone order a bustling city with docks and fortresses? What about a swamp, or the Underdark - an underground realm full of bioluminescence and living mushroom people. There's a cursed land covered in life-leeching fog, with an equally cursed castle at the centre of it. There's a vampire's stronghold, and a lair in actual hell. The world of Baldur's Gate 3 holds basically anything you can imagine for a fantasy epic. And even if it takes you 100 hours, "you will want to play again" according to Alice Bell in her glowing Baldur's Gate 3 review.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 might seem like too obvious a choice for a list like this, but it's an obvious choice for a reason: it's really good. And man, its open world is an astonishing feat and totally transportative. The diversity of flora and fauna, hooves crunching in snow, crouching over a clifftop and watching a herd a bison graze. It might not be as densely packed as say, Elden Ring, yet that isn't Rockstar's aim here.

As we pointed out in our Red Dead Redemption 2 review, the game is more of an orchestration of action rarely seen in open world games. You've got carefully curated heists, with a slow-burn story that catalogues the rise and fall of Arthur's gang as motivations once aligned go out of joint. There's relative freedom to relax - at least early on - and soak in the pleasures of taking a bubble bath or hunting a gator, or simply rolling a potential purchase around your hands in some out-of-the-way shop in a little town. Red Dead Redemption 2 is special.

Minecraft

Ahhh, the game that needs no introduction (it's a blocky open-world sandbox where largely anything is possible, so long as it remains cube shaped and stackable in some way). At its most basic, you survive deadly nights and avoid moaning creepers who threaten to explode your existence. At its most extraordinary, you can build automated systems and skyscrapers and fill servers with people who are, unwittingly, pitted in a battle royale against each other. In other words, this is an open world of your making.

As Alec Meer said in his Minecraft review way back when, "it has become something far more than a mere game". Now that's pretty appropriate for a game that can be played as a walking sim or modded to be photorealistic or watched on the big screen in movie form. Maybe don't do that last one.

No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky was a divisive release in 2016, but since then the devs at Hello Games have been hard at work building on the foundation provided by their space exploration sim. Hell, this is a game all about open worlds - thousands of the blighters! About charting a course through unknown starts and seeing what you find! Since launch, No Man's Sky has had more than 30 updates to add new features and polish it up. It's had new vehicles, new play modes, and you can build big custom ships you and your pals can commandeer, salvage ship wrecks, and take part in Pokémon-esque creature battling to name only a few of a seemingly endless list of ongoing free updates.

But for our purposes on this list, we should also highlight that basically everthing on every world you explore in No Man's Sky - and there are a lot, as you head towards the centre of the galaxy - is created through procedural generation. It leads to unexpectedly beautiful planets full of weird ferns and wonky dinosuars, bright purple rocks and yellow skies. Sights that only RNG could come up with. It's one of those games where the best time to start playing is always today.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

A bloodied Snake and co. step off a helicopter and walk towards the camera in MGSV: The Phantom Pain. — Image credit: Konami Digital Entertainment

Metal Gear Solid was always revered for its complex sneaking systems, but Metal Gear Solid V took that depth and applied it to (multiple) enormous open worlds. Sneaking across the sun-scorched mountains of Afghanistan is as much an exercise of imagination as it is a test of your stealth abilities. Sure, you can choose to take the long way around an enemy outpost. If you’re boring. But why not ride your horse straight through it instead, avoiding conflict by hiding against the body of your trusty steed? Or take out the soldiers using a tranquiliser gun, before shipping them off to home base using a big comedy balloon? Or avoid stealth altogether, and call in your helicopter to gun them down while A-Ha’s Take On Me blares out of its speakers?

The world of Metal Gear Solid 5 is a delight, sure, but it’s the playful things you can do in it that makes it feel truly special. Every journey back into enemy territory is a fresh opportunity for expressive decision making. Part immersive sim, part stealth sandbox, the game really is something else. Read more in Daniel Hindes' Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain review.

American Truck Simulator

For a game limited to major highways and byways in a cut-down version of a fraction of the USA (still building eastward with each expansion), American Truck Simulator feels vast and free and according to Alec Meer in his American Truck Simulator review, it made him feel "significantly better" for every moment he spent behind the wheel. That is partially the romance that American trucking holds for a European: the call of the open road, those flat lands with endless skies, and the Americana that drips from every vintage convertible and neon-lit gas station. But it is still huge, and feels surprisingly open and free even though you're mostly driving a set route to a time limit.

One job you're hauling a load up the Pacific Coast Highway on a glorious day, next you're winding through narrow unknown roads at night with a wide load, then you're blowing through mundane towns you've never heard of and wouldn't want to live in but are glad to have briefly known. And you can always sack off and go exploring because hey, it's only money. The developers are also increasingly supportive of tourism, adding viewpoints at pretty places and even creating reasons for trucks to go where they shouldn't, into Yellowstone. Honk honk!

The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 has some rough edges. Movement is a bit shonky. The map is a bit rigid. Try and finesse a fight and you'll be hamstrung by clunk instead. BUT. The Witcher 3 might be one of the best open world games ever made. And that's because it actually lives up to the whole "living and breathing" schtick loads of other games try to accomplish but fall short of. Every side quest drops you into a meaningful story that plumbs the depths of the world's politics, or an ancient treebed, or the carnal desires of men... or the main character Geralt's dry comedy.

In our original The Witcher 3 review, Richard Cobbett couldn't care less about the game's flaws for he named it as one "of the most exciting, varied, warmest, funniest RPGs" he'd ever played. And the quality continues, with DLCs Hearts Of Stone and Blood And Wine only slathering more excellence on top. Read Cobbett's Hearts Of Stone review and Blood And Wine review for more. Spoiler: he liked them a lot.

Cyberpunk 2077

In Graham's Cyberpunk 2077 review, he called it "A big, beautiful and broken mess" when it first dropped. And he was spot on. It was about as buggy as a clusterfly infestation in a room with sash windows. But CD Projekt Red cleaned it up over the years into an open world game that's like nothing else. The city is a manic, dazzling, and abrasive crash of lights and metal and adverts you wouldn't want blasting out loud in a public space. Heck, Night City isn't a space you want to exist in, yet you may find you're totally absorbed in its deadbeat characters. In those who take advantage of you. Who genuinely want to see you succeed. In Keanu Reeves who's embedded in your head.

The DLC heads to Dogtown, and as Graham says in his Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review, it's the "most dense Cyberpunk district yet". Not only is it filled with more assassination targets and cars to steal and what have you, it's home to a spy thriller for the ages. Want an open world you'll both want to escape and never leave? Get yourself down to Night City, for goodness sakes.

Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the first games to escape PlayStation exclusive containment and make it onto PC. Thus, we get a taste of the sequel, too. Set a thousand years in the future after rogue robots turned everything living on Earth into fuel, the Horizon series starts when things have been in a more stable state for a while. An advanced AI system has been producing robots that take the place of some of the missing animals to cultivate the planet, while humans have re-evolved into disparate tribal societies with their own cultures and customs. In Forbidden West you head over to California, which means you get redwood forests, and rocky desert along with your lush jungles and snowy mountains.

There are also new huge robot dinosaurs to hunt, including ones that are like giant brown bears, or massive snapping turtles. The ruins of the old world are still around, too, so you get to climb and leap around the sky scrapers that were once San Francisco, or explore the underground remains of Vegas. Coupled with a day and night system, and some absolutely beautiful water that covers the place with jewel green and blue rivers and ponds, and you've got an open world you can really get lost in. Alice Bell particularly liked the way it raised stakes and hunting and questing all higher than its predecessor in her Horizon Forbidden West review.

Elden Ring

Edlen Ring is an open world RPG set in the Lands Between, a place teeming with gangly beasts that want to murder you. Except it's a really wonderful world, actually. One that gently guides you in the right direction, yet tempts you off the beaten track and into ruined forts, or tight knit caverns, or elevators that'll blow your mind. Without sounding overdramatic, you probably haven't ever encountered an open world as rich as Elden Ring's, with Ed Thorn in his Elden Ring review describing it as "dizzying in its scope".

What's special about Elden Ring is its freedom to explore, not only on your spectral steed, but in your character's build, too. Want to go samurai? Sure. Want to go for a hybrid of mage and knight? Absolutely. It's the first FromSoftware game which actively encourages you to probe the dark if you're struggling with a big obstacle. You never know what you might find, and crucially, how - if you can survive getting your skull crushed by a rock giant, or something - whatever it drops, or unlocks, might help you push further. Reach the end? Then you've got Shadow Of The Erdtree to complete! A DLC that's "basically a sequel" according to Ed Thorn in his Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree review. God, they really put Ed through it, eh?

Assassin's Creed Shadows

Alright, Assassin's Creed Shadows might hold a Japan "stained with the clumsy ink of an uninspiring revenge tale" according to Brendy's Assassin's Creed Shadows review. But he also called it an "impressive open world" underneath Ubisoft's traditional overwhelmingly big checklist. The shrines and temples offer quiet solace after you spring off ancient tiles and maybe plunge a sword into someone's back. Level-gating is a bit of an issue, too, as is its combat if your penchant isn't for matching timing for parries.

And yet, the downfalls aren't ever quite enough to drag you away from just how lovely Shadows' world is to exist in. Torii gates calm. Castles intimidate. The quests and loot activate dopamine receptors in your brain whether you like it or not - and good luck wrenching away the brain tickle you feel when slotting a legendary item into an equipment slot.

Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a first-person explore 'em up where you play a young hero, leaving home for your first adventure. Soon enough you'll pilot an space orb and manually wobble it onto planets in the hopes you discover something on them. Thing is, you're trapped in a time loop. So you only have a certain amount of time to manually wobble and explore and, thus, figure out what on earth is going on. Here lies the cleverness of Outer Wilds: your discoveries are knowledge, and knowledge is a cheeky shortcut.

As Brendy puts it in his Outer Wilds review, the game has a "happy-go-lucky sense of jeopardy". You'll make a grand mistake and, incredibly, it will lead you to a nugget of knowledge that'll lead you ever closer to the elusive kernel of the loop. Sure, some knowledge mean annoying puzzles must be solved. Thing is, the planets make the game what it is. A marvellous adventure that has adoration for space as a thing with stars and moons and a vacuous void we possibly couldn't comprehend.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

Skif reloads his rifle while approaching a gravitational anomaly in STALKER 2: Cost of Hope. — Image credit: GSC Game World

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl (Stalker 2) is a survival FPS where gunfights are intense, brutal affairs where your ammo economy is vital and your gun condition pivotal. It makes Overwatch look like a bunny. Call Of Duty, a Labubu (I ran out of cute things quite quickly). Your job? To fend off mutants and in a world that require planning and thoughtfulness. And as James Archer says in his Stalker 2 review, you'll plot routes across a map with the game's love of walking a "means to nudge you towards most of its best bits".

By "best bits", he means things that want to tear off your bits. Artifact-hiding anomalies, Bloodsuckers, psi-storms, or moments where two of these things clatter into one another. The atmosphere is, as James describes, "tense, lonely, and sometimes eerily beautiful as ever". It's a "collage of thick forests" where anything could lash out at you at any moment. For a sense of place, Chornobyl is worth visiting. Just don't visit if you're in the mood for something relaxing.

Just Cause 3

You might be thinking, "why not Just Cause 4?" and we're thinking, "that's because in John Walker's Just Cause 4 review, he said it was a 'colossal mess'". And in his Just Cause 3 review, he called it "fun-packed". Where Just Cause 1 and 2 were fun but let difficulty get in the way of them being even more fun, Just Cause 3 nails down that balance. It's about playing a one-man army called Rico who enjoys liberating a massive island with his grappling hook and a gun and a penchant for explosives.

With Just Cause 3 "there's no nags, no reminders, no dragging me inexorably towards its scripted goal", says Walker. It's daft fun and gorgeous to boot, with the sea a glistening highlight to wingsuit over if you have a quiet moment and a video game equivalent of a backhand slap to Far Cry's severity.

Wheel World

Wheel World is a low-stakes open-world cycling game where you ride a ghost bike for a few hours in what is, as Brendy says in his Wheel World review, a "well-crafted world of rolling vineyards, bumpy forests, and honking city streets". No this isn't particularly challenging, but races are sleek and balanced with a Ubisoft-like map to clean up as you reveal waypoints and the like.

Even if this game doesn't set your heart alight with the thrill of whirling your legs around on a thin piece of metal on wheels, it'll give it a soothing massage, instead. This is a cartoony jaunt accompanied by an upbeat and hopeful soundtrack of mellow synth by Do It Better. Soak it in after a hard day's work and it'll be the balm you need for your weary soul.