Lately, I’ve been watching a good bit of RetroBird. One thing became apparent quickly. He hates Open World Gaming… and I’m slowly finding myself agreeing with him. I’m tempted to do a video later discussing my thoughts on open world games and how my thoughts have changed. But today’s topic is addressing 5 games that I think did it perfectly. 

Today, we will be discussing one of the biggest buzz worlds in all of the gaming industry- Open World. Open World Gaming is often associated with freedom. Freedom is how you approach tasks, exploring or just goofing around. These games are less linear and rigid and more vague in design. Take the latest Pokémon games, Pokemon Scarlett and Violet. The player has the free to take on the Gym Leaders, defeat the members of Team Star, conquer the Titan Pokémons or do none of that and just go work on your Pokedex. That is one of the beautiful things about Open World Gaming. However, that’s not to say these games are perfect. These games can suffer from filler content, empty worlds, and repetitive tasks that burn the player out. With all that said, let’s look at 5 games that did Open World Perfectly!

Let’s just start with Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. I actually prefer the more formulaic style of Zelda games such as Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. However, as far as open world games go, BOTW and TOTK are really solid. The way the world is devastated and you are just dropped into the middle of it and have to piece together the lore and history of this Hyrule is really exciting. Granted, chests and other exploration rewards are not really that enticing in these games. The big draw to Zelda and open world games are how they handle both the exploration and items. They give access to all the runes and the glider a few hours into the game. Long gone are the days of grinding out dungeons to get the next item to move on to the next section of the map. This means you can literally go anywhere you want in the game. It’s just a matter of how much health and stamina you want before you start tracking down the story beats and boss fights. That’s a huge plus for open world games. There’s very few places actually off limits. And to keep highlighting the pros of BOTW’s open worldness, it is very simple. Yes, there’s side quests. But they don’t feel like they are bloating the game. Yes, there’s combat and wild encounters. But they don’t slow the pace of exploration. Honestly, I didn’t value or appreciate these aspects when Breath of the Wild came out. I felt it was shallow and not an actual grand time. Wind Waker felt epic. Breath of the Wild felt empty. But, you know, I respect the way it cuts out a lot of fluff most open world games suffer from.

Next up is Sonic Frontiers. If you know me, you know I don’t like Sonic games, especially 2D Sonic games. So why is Frontier a perfect open world game? The game worlds are massive which can be a detriment to other games. There’s very little in the way of NPCs. The side quests are that rare blend of varied but repetitive. The game will shift between 2D and 3D style. So it bears repeating. Why is Frontiers a perfect open world game? Atmosphere! Sonic blew up because he nailed the atmosphere in the 90s. He was fast, he had an attitude. He knew why people liked him and wanted to play Sonic games. This game figured out how to do speed. The use of an open world allowed them to capture that Sonic essence. It encouraged the developers to design the worlds and challenges to be large in scope. This way Sonic’s quickness and platforming skills were on display. I think this game shows off one of the factors that can separate a bad or decent use of open worldness from a great one: how we explore. Sonic’s use of velocity and the epic scaling of the monsters and terrain made this feel like a true adventure.

Let’s talk about maybe the best sandbox series of all time. Grand Theft Auto. Truly groundbreaking, but rarely duplicated. There’s just nothing quite like it in the open world space. Every GTA game was massive in scope. But GTA 3 shook the gaming world like very few games ever have. In my opinion, GTA 4 took that and just made it into an unstoppable juggernaut. There was truly so much to do in this game. Racing missions, heist missions, dating missions, the list goes on and on. There’s two things the Grand Theft Auto series has going for it as far as sandbox gaming goes. First, just like Breath of the Wild and Sonic Frontier, the method for which the player traverses the world. It may come as a shock, but for Grand Theft Auto that method was, well… Grand Theft Autoing. Jacking a car from a defenseless (or maybe not so defenseless) NPC and driving away with the radio blasting was the soundtrack that defined many childhoods. The second thing on it’s side, which I think it does better than the previous games, is that the world is alive. The NPCs are fleshed out and matter. The environment tries to actively kill you from police, gang members, armed civilians and trains, you are never safe. There’s radio stations with music or news. There’s internet cafés, dates, consequences and much more that help engross you into the world. Open World games don’t get much better than the Grand Theft Auto series.

Recently, the series that’s got the closest to emulating Grand Theft Auto is Spiderman. They captured that lively city approach that only Grand Theft Auto had before. Joe Jonah Jameson pollutes the air waves spewing antispidey propaganda. The cops are desperately trying to slow down criminal activity, everybody lives in fear of Kingpin hiding in the background. One of the strong things Spiderman has to lean on is the IP itself. Mary Jane, Oscorpse, the Sinister Six, Aunt May, so many established and beloved characters mesh and flow so well in the universe Marvel and Spiderman have spent 60 years weaving. Insomniac perfectly captures how we all thought it would feel to swing through New York City as everybody’s favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. 

Lastly, Fallout. Fallout New Vegas is my favorite open world game. This time around, it takes all the good things I said about Breath of the Wild and many of the other games, and turns it upside down. There’s no fun way to explore. The worlds aren’t bright and vibrant. There’s dread lurking down every street. Blood thirsty Raiders set up camps along the deserted highways, radiation contaminates the once pure air, experimental monstrosities now stalk the bombarded hellscape. You must piece together the lore of the land. You will forge alliances with what’s left of the survivors. You will level up your character through a branching skill tree that allows for nearly unlimited replayability. It’s one of the few open world games where I don’t get tired or burned out of exploring every nook and cranny the world has to offer. I don’t feel betrayed by my curiosity. 

So, that’s my list of some of the games I think do open world perfectly. Sure, there’s plenty more such as Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim and The Witcher, but these are the ones I feel the most passionate about. My findings seem to show games that put emphasis on making exploring fun while mixing in world building elements tend to keep my interest as I’m playing. Nothing derails open world games faster than monotony traveling or uninteresting worlds.

If you haven’t, check out Retrobird. He has tons of great video game discussion videos that I cant get enough of. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!