30 Open World Masterpieces You Need to Play - IGN30

Open-world games. Arguably, no other genre has defined modern gaming more than the expansive, experimental, and exciting places this one has taken us to. Over the past 30 years, we’ve gone from grey, empty streets begging to be torn up in a blocky muscle car to glorious, colourful fantasy lands full of adventure and opportunity. But what are the games that have stood out the most, pushed the form forward, and ultimately led to GTA 6’s moment?

As part of IGN 30, I’m going to try to answer that question by walking you through five distinct flavours of open-world game before deciding on the greatest of them all. From web-swinging superheroes and sword-swinging monster hunters to bank heists and shrine raids, here are the 30 masterpieces of open-world game design.

GTA. There are really no other three letters to start with than Rockstar’s industry-changing creation, especially when it comes to city settings. What started as a top-down, level-based car-stealing simulation in 1997 was fun, but limited by the confines of the technology of the time. It would take another four years, and the creation of the PS2 and its DVD storage capabilities, for the series to truly become a phenomenon as it stepped into the 3D era with Grand Theft Auto 3.

Grand Theft Auto 3

Claude’s violent journey through the streets of Liberty City set the template for the next 10 years of copycats — a few of which we’ll look at in a short while. It took a setting first sketched out in the original GTA and combined it with the sort of cinematic storytelling emerging on PlayStation at the time to perform alchemy. The result was a first of its kind and a new gold standard for open worlds.

They may feel like monotonous, clunky missions to play through now, but there’s no denying the permanent blueprint GTA 3 created for expansive city games to come, nor the way it managed to successfully weave a story that evoked prestige television into an open world structure — casting multiple Sopranos alumni in the process. It took the pulsating urban driving experience pioneered in Driver, a 1999 open-zone car chaser, and presented it in a wholly new way. Sure, there were open-world city games before GTA 3, but not many others on this list would exist without it.

After what seems an impossibly short development timeline to comprehend these days, just one year later, those grey, rainy streets would be swapped out for the neon blues and pastel pinks of GTA: Vice City. Again, a huge step up for the series.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Tommy Vercetti’s tale offered virtual time travel back to an exaggerated 1980s that felt like a love fist to the face back in 2002. GTA 3’s city served its street-level crime story perfectly, but Vice City created a sandbox you wanted to spend time in, regardless of plot momentum. Yes, its hit-filled radio stations played a huge part in creating its vibe, but so did its numerous landmarks and distinct gang-controlled regions that made this slice of fictional Florida feel alive.

It felt more like existing in a world, and gave you the opportunity to soak in its culture in a way GTA 3 never did — managing to still provide a propulsive story, but allowing more time to breathe in between missions. In this respect, it borrowed aspects from an even earlier open-world game: Shenmue.

Shenmue

Yu Suzuki’s Dreamcast tale of a martial artist seeking revenge for the murder of his father in 1980s Japan immersed the player in an unparalleled level of world-building for the time — dressing its environments in impressive detail, while also encouraging you to simply exist in its world. Its influence can be seen in many an open-world game, including GTA, but perhaps most prominently in the Yakuza series, where minigames, colourful characters and eccentric slices of life can be found on every one of its Japanese and, now, Hawaiian street corners.

A day/night system and variable weather conditions went a long way to making 1986 Yokosuka feel like a lived-in city, setting a new precedent when it came to existing in a persistent world full of NPCs living their life around you. Shenmue’s raft of minigames, including throwing darts and forklift racing, undoubtedly influenced GTA, and ultimately could be considered to blame for Niko Bellic’s cousin barraging your phone with bowling invitations a decade later in an HD universe Liberty City.

But back in 2002, after Vice City, GTA would take two years to return with the just-as-brilliant San Andreas. Naturally, other studios were already trying to piggyback on its success in the meantime. Chief among those were The Getaway and Mafia. Both had their moments, but felt like first drafts for something more promising. Unfortunately, the former London-set Guy Ritchie pastiche would fail to live up to that promise when the disappointing The Getaway: Black Monday arrived in 2004. But developer 2K Czech took its time with the Mafia series, and it proved worth the wait when a sequel released in 2010.

Mafia 2

Undoubtedly influenced by GTA 4, which dropped two years prior and tackled the notion of the American dream through the eyes of an immigrant, this post-war tale of organised crime told its story brilliantly, even if it was lacking as a sandbox compared to Rockstar’s creations. Heavily inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather films, it was another step forward in open-world cities as digital tourism, recreating 1940s and 50s USA to great detail, placing the time period and societal tensions front of mind. It’s a mindset that was also taken into its sequel, Mafia 3, a flawed but fascinating examination of Vietnam War-era America, race, and political corruption.

This was a more serious era for the open-world game, with Rockstar even letting sincerity seep into GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption. Both games were tales of one man’s tussle with a changing America and a haunted past. And though each still packed its fair share of silliness, they took swipes at capitalism through satire too. That maturity was offset by the Saints Row series, which took the bullshit by the horns and ran with it, peaking in 2011 with Saints Row: The Third.

Saints Row: The Third

A city where the sight of a weaponised dildo was as commonplace as a flying motorcycle, Steelport turned its gaze away from real-world issues and instead treated its world like an amusement park. An exercise in audacity, it pushed the GTA formula to comic extremes and feels more like a relic of a different era than perhaps any other open-world game on this list. In some ways, the series shared more with the superhero genre — of which we’ll delve more into very soon — than it did with Rockstar’s open worlds by the time Saints Row: The Third came about, giving players the freedom to live out their wildest power trip fantasies, no matter how puerile they may have been.

More considered contenders for the GTA-alike crown would come and go. Sleeping Dogs garnered a cult following thanks to its Hong Kong-set martial arts action. The original Watch Dogs may have failed to live up to high expectations, but its San Francisco-set sequel hit the mark thanks to its vibrant Bay Area setting and eclectic cast of hackers. But, in reality, they were just warming the seat for the king. It may come as no surprise that my pick for the best city-based open-world game is GTA 5, still unbeaten some 13 years later.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Others may look toward GTA for ideas, but Rockstar has only ever built on its own. Combining facets from each entry in the series — the cinematic foundations of GTA 3, the vibe established in Vice City, the Californian glow of San Andreas, and the cutting satire of 4 — the developer crafted the best entry in the series to date. But most importantly of all, it brought new ideas to the table that we hadn’t seen before.

The decision to expand from one to three playable protagonists opened up a new toybox for Rockstar to play with. It allowed for that switch in perspective to dynamically change how GTA could approach its mission design, with highlights being the multi-stage heists that were born out of GTA 4’s iconic Three Leaf Clover bank robbery. These expansive, blockbuster acts of criminality took advantage of every corner of GTA 5’s map, with underground infiltrations leading to street-bound car chases, before the skies were taken to in thrilling helicopter escapes. It’s the best example yet of turning an open-world city into a playground, without sacrificing cinematic aspirations.

Speaking of cinema, no genre quite dominated the box office like comic book movies did in the 2010s, so it was only natural that Marvel and DC characters would soon be getting video games of an equal standard. Attempts had previously been made in this department during the first mini-superhero movie boom of the early 2000s, which saw successful tie-ins like Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2. But that would just be a taster for what Insomniac would achieve with its own interpretation of the city swinger.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

If GTA 5 opened the door to sprawling missions in an open city setting, then Marvel’s Spider-Man kicked it down. Insomniac’s 2018 original and its sequels magically managed to transfer PlayStation’s cinematic storytelling into an open-world Manhattan, chaining together sequences worthy of the best Uncharted had to offer. Take the Lizard chase in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, for example — a 100mph pursuit that takes half of the city with it as traffic and cranes are elegantly navigated and chunks of building rain down on the streets below. It’s a level of blockbuster sheen and detail rarely seen in open-world games, but rather one that has come to represent Sony exclusives over the past decade.

Insomniac has forebears to thank for setting a template, of course. The aforementioned Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 was a nostalgia-soaked example of translating the big screen onto a smaller one, and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction showed what superpowered carnage could look like in such a large sandbox. But these Spidey games owe most to Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy — not only in their world design, but in their pioneering combo-based melee combat. Now seems about as good a time as any to reveal that my pick for the best superhero open-world game is Batman: Arkham Knight.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Yes, not Arkham City, Arkham Origins, or Arkham Asylum (which isn’t even an open world), but Arkham Knight, the final chapter of Rocksteady’s Bruce Wayne story. The 2015 masterpiece possesses one of the most dynamic open worlds we’ve seen to this day, and no, a handful of slightly tedious tank battle sequences aren’t going to get in the way of that. The Batmobile itself acted as the key to unlocking an open-world Gotham. Although first shown off in Arkham City, the vehicle truly came to life when boosting, skidding, and ejecting in Knight. It turned the city-gone-to-hell into Batman’s domain, and made you feel like the master of it. That’s until it unexpectedly turned on you.

Arkham Knight was home to one of the most consistently surprising open worlds in a video game. Nowhere was this more apparent than in its random, and still jump-scare-inducing, Manbat appearances. We all remember the first time we grappled onto an art deco rooftop ledge and out of nowhere, BAM: a crumpled, anthropomorphised bat screamed out of the screen. It’s moments like this that made this version of Gotham come fully to life, and no matter how powerful the cowl made you feel, this reactive edge ensured you never felt fully in control of your environment. Throw in the best, most personally affecting story of the trilogy, which is replete with wide-scale Scarecrow antics that change the complexion of the city throughout, and you’ve got the best open-world superhero game of them all.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

But perhaps psychological dilemmas, familial trauma, and fanged jumpscares aren’t what you’re looking for? Well, good news, because there are plenty of flavours of superhero open world out there, and none as snackable as the slapstick humour-fuelled Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Traveller’s Tales crafted an original story that brought together characters from every corner of the Marvel universe. Many of its core missions may well have been bound to linear levels, but it was in Lego Marvel Super Heroes’ open Manhattan, packed full of iconic locations, that it truly came to life. Zooming around as Iron Man or Thor felt far better than controlling any plastic-jointed minifig has the right to, especially when breaking through the clouds and landing on a SHIELD helicarrier, or zipping across the water to check on the inmates of the adjacent Ryker’s Island.

It wasn’t just a sightseeing tour for Marvel fans at a time when the MCU was approaching its peak, but a world of opportunity, too. Yes, time trial and puzzle-based challenges could be found on streets and rooftops, but Lego Marvel Super Heroes was also one of the best collectathon games ever made. The Arkham trilogy’s Riddler trophies paved the way, but no one pulled it off quite like Traveller’s Tales did here — with dozens of cheat-unlocking golden bricks, vehicles ripped out of comic book pages, and a roster of over 180 superheroes and villains to find. It’s just good, innocent fun, and to this day, it remains one of the best superhero, Lego, and open-world games available. Also, while we’re here, shout out to the criminally underrated GTA-alike Lego City Undercover — Chase McCain, you’ll always have a place in my heart.

Infamous

But Marvel and DC aren’t the exclusive owners of superhero open worlds. Prior to Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Prototype and Infamous landed within weeks of each other in 2009. The former had its fans, becoming something of a cult classic over the years, thanks to its squelchy, shapeshifting-powered combat in yet another open-world Manhattan. But it would be Sucker Punch’s creation that would ultimately stand taller. Both Infamous and its sequel harnessed the superhero-or-villain fantasy, thanks to a morality meter at the centre of its systems and story. Would Cole MacGrath use his newfound electrical powers to become the saviour or destroyer of the fictional Empire City (technically not quite Manhattan, yet again) and the New Orleans-inspired New Marais? The choice was yours.

It was a series that headlined a moment in time when original superhero characters were being born in games. Before Spider-Man, Insomniac created the Xbox exclusive Sunset Overdrive, which followed along a similar path, placing open-world traversal at the core of the experience. Sunset Overdrive inarguably played a huge role in setting the stage for Spider-Man’s fluid web-swinging. This kind of non-licensed superhero game is something that has faded into the background ever since, but I hope we’re about to see it return in some form thanks to Control: Resonant, which looks to combine urban antihero aspirations with interesting RPG mechanics.

RPGs and open worlds go hand-in-hand. In a genre designed around inhabiting a character completely, what better way to do that than to wander an uncharted land and discover your place in it with every footstep, conversation, or trigger pull? And when it comes to open-world RPGs, there’s no other place to start than with Bethesda.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion may have been important steps, especially in transitioning a traditionally PC experience onto console, but nothing compares to the phenomenon that was Skyrim.

By removing class systems, it took away a fundamental fantasy RPG hook and replaced it with pure freedom, allowing the open world of northern Tamriel to be experienced as any combination of character traits of your choosing — even if we did all pick stealth archer. The “you can go to that mountain” cliché may be well-worn now, but without the sheer joy of discovery that Skyrim brought to the table in 2011, we likely wouldn’t have the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that would follow later that decade. It’s easy to take it for granted now, but 15 years ago, fantasy open-worlds that combined this level of scale and detail just didn’t exist, and Skyrim can largely be thanked for ushering in a whole new age.

Fallout: New Vegas

Not happy with just pioneering in fantasy realms, Bethesda reinvigorated a dormant sci-fi series, by taking its open-world Elder Scrolls learnings and translating them within the Fallout universe. Fallout 3 was the first step on this journey, which transformed what was formerly an isometric turn-based RPG into a third-person open-world shooter. But just two years later, in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment stepped in to helm Fallout: New Vegas, delivering an intricate faction and quest system that elevated the story you chose to tell.

The post-apocalyptic Mojave Desert managed to find an excellent balance between the new Bethesda style of open-world Fallout and the more traditional Interplay RPG systems, and somehow, it all came together. Crafting an intricate power struggle between several factions where each quest, both crucial and optional, affects your standing in its world is hard enough to do in a linear level-based game. But trying to achieve that in a vast open world where you can do things in a myriad different orders, well, that’s ambitious to say the least. But, Obsidian somehow pulled it off, and with a smile, too. New Vegas’ world is packed full of memorable moments and characters that you interact with in the way you want, and whichever way you choose, you’ll have an incredible time. It’s something of a miracle that it all works, really.

Nier: Automata

But some RPG stories are told to you, not by you, and few have done it with the structural flair that Nier: Automata brought to narrative design. Yoko Taro’s masterpiece ushered you through its 120th Earth as it shifted in appearance throughout the three playthroughs recommended in order to see one of its true endings. Its open world may not have been the most cutting-edge in terms of discovery or how it was navigated — that was saved for the wonderful chip-based skills system, phenomenal score, and perspective-shifting action. But that open world did lay the foundations perfectly for its tale, which was all about Earth, what happened to it, and what it could become.

There was a charm and melancholy that permeated every corner, as pockets of civilisation were reclaimed by lost robots, and sidequests helped fill in the gaps left behind by their creators. Nier: Automata’s open world may not have been the star of the show, and was, in fact, as linear as sandboxes come, but you’ll struggle to find a story better told within one.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Stories don’t have to be the propulsive force that powers open worlds, however. Because that canvas of opportunity can produce moments like no other genre, whether part of a main quest or simply while wandering through a world. That’s a sensation the long-awaited sequel to cult action-RPG Dragon’s Dogma captured perfectly when it released in 2024. Its main plotline was arguably the weakest card in its hand, but that doesn’t take away from what made Dragon’s Dogma 2 special.

The nations of Vermund and Battahl are a haven to all sorts of mythological