Do you not like being told what to do? Do missions dictating “go here” and “do this” drive you crazy? What you’re looking for is an open-world game.
The time playing the game expands because you progress at your own pace, you prioritize what you think is important and you go where your own nose leads you.
Read on for our picks for the top open-world games to keep you entertained forever.
World of Warcraft
Much like its players, World of Warcraft has practiced and honed its craft through vigorous work over many years, creating a game that people pay every month to come back to. Since its release in 2004, there have been countless updates, great advancements in graphics and a loyal fanbase eager for any update thrown at them.
Website rankings by traffic puts World of Warcraft at 212th place across the internet and the site has seen a steady influx of players since its release in 2004 and that should only continue after the release of its latest expansion.
Transporting players to Warcraft’s version of the afterlife, Shadowlands sees players navigate four new factions that each offer their own rewards, abilities, and activities as well as 10 new dungeons and five new zones.
It has garnered positive reviews from players, renewing a sense of excitement in the Middle Earth-inspired lands of faeries and dragons.
Biomutant
With its environment that looks like Far Cry had a baby with Fallout, and its characters feel like something from Species meets Kung Fu Panda, Biomutant is an open-world RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world. A very cute and fuzzy kung fu warrior is working his way through the jungle in order to save the world. The Tree of Life is bleeding from its roots and the people are divided.
The combat is really the thing to write home about. What other game would allow you to leap from your horse, summon a ball of mucus around yourself, roll your enemies up like ants on a rolling ball of chewing gum and detonate your ball of mucus to send your enemies flying, whilst firing electric bullets at the ragdoll enemies.
The Elder Scrolls: Online
World of Warcraft’s closest console competitor, The Elder Scrolls Online remains one of the best MMORPGs with its lore-driven world and abstract characters keeping players coming back.
In the story set 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim, and eight centuries before Morrowind and Oblivion – each an open world adventure in their own right – The Elder Scrolls Online serves as the prequel to The Elder Scrolls franchise. You start as a prisoner, as Scrolls tradition would dictate. Once you escape you are free to explore the lands of Tamriel. With monsters to battle, dungeons to explore and ongoing planned and released DLC packages, something will always keep you entertained in this land of swords and spells.
The game’s latest expansion, Blackwood, offers a deep and expansive story to go along with your exploration of a vast region and offers elements like trial and world events.
If online multiplayer isn’t your thing, you can gain a similar experience playing Skyrim, Morrowind or Oblivion, which each offer a massive and multi-layered world of various vast lands and outlandish creatures.
Grand Theft Auto 5
As we wait patiently for a GTA VI that may, or may not ever arrive, we can bide time by playing the classic, the unbeatable, Grand Theft Auto V. Rockstars in a unique and unenviable position of making a game that is too good. Why would they make another when they’re making so much money now, other than to stave off boredom?
The sprawling city of Los Santos is constantly offering new outlandish characters to interact with, new buildings and areas to explore and new stunts to attempt. And at the very least it offers those of us abroad a wander around Los Angeles without having to isolate.
More than anything though, GTA offers an environment without consequence. Buy Supercars, fly jets, line up jet skis and drive off it like a ramp, all with just a slap on the wrist and a very reasonable hospital bill as your penance.
Minecraft
Minecraft is the complete opposite of GTA V. Where GTA offers an environment that allows chaos to reign and encourages destruction, Minecraft is about the wonder of man’s creativity.
It starts with the old dream of wanting to live alone in the woods, living off the land, and somehow ends with scale models of the New York skyline and characters living in their own ancient civilization or with a replica of the Eiffel Tower outside their front door.
For the creator inside, Minecraft is Lego with a zombie element. It is the bridge between generations of gamers, inspiring nostalgia with its pixel-obsessed graphics but allowing for an engaging form of gameplay that hasn’t been well-replicated since its arrival in 2011.
