From Ezo to the Forbidden Lands, 2025 has seen a lot of titles with sprawling worlds that have you travelling their vast expanses in search of their mysteries, secrets, and stories.
The best of them have kept us quite busy as we combed through them to give you our thoughts. Some of them have just stood out, and one of them in particular has been everything we wished we could have in an open world. Join us as we take a fond look back at some of our favorite open world experiences this year, and find out which one had us spellbound enough to win our best open world game award.
Thumbnail credit: Nexusmod user: GuardianGigio
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You earned a thumbs down there at the end though I enjoyed the game it was nowhere near as good as Kingdom come Deliverance 2
KCD2 one of the best games ever made behind Witcher 3
50% of these games are crap
Borderlands 4 is hot garbage
Where winds meet has Kernel level anticheat and refuses to let you play unless you agree to sharing your data.
Unless you like a chinese company you never heard of steal your data, dont get it.
Why do people hate genshin impact ? I wanna know
Ghost of Yote is a game I have never heard of before (as an avid follower of story-heavy RPGs) but it does sound intriguing. Thanks.
Still playing Ark Survival Evolved on the "ArkCiv" server PC Steam.
I love Ghost of Yotei, except, I played Tsushima RIGHT before Yotei and its a Much better game. Yotei didn't introduce anything new except a lot more lgbt characters. Her story disnt make sense it only pushed the narrative forward. It felt copy and paste in most things outside of the story, which wasn't as good. GOT gets 4.5/5 and GOY gets 3.5/5 from me.
Using chapters in a YouTube video must be for real tards not for epic chads….
I feel like there's a lot of pandering in this video, with a lot of praising with AC Shadows and Ghost of Yote.
Avowed might have issues, but its Open World is better than at least half this list.
You should repeat the game titles if you’re not gonna have a link to them
Cool games with super graphics!!!
• Where Winds Meet: (0:51)
• Dying Light: The Beast: (1:31)
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2: (2:05)
• The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered: (2:37)
• Assassin's Creed Shadows: (3:17)
• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach: (3:46)
• Elden Ring Night Reign: (4:15)
• Tokyo Extreme Racer: (4:54)
• Ghost of Yote: (5:22)
• Mario Kart World: (6:04)
• Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon: (6:31)
• Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl PS5: (7:09)
• Days Gone Remastered PS5: (7:42)
• Borderlands 4: (8:14)
• Stalker: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition: (8:42)
AC SHADOWS RIVETING? LMFAO
https://youtube.com/shorts/WrCj-d5icE4?si=1VOra-tQ3HWa8Qbq
❤❤❤
No time stamps huh?
anyone recommend stalker 2 ?
Ghost of Yote sounds incredible! As a disabled gamer who focuses on accessibility, I love seeing open-world games that balance exploration, story, and player freedom so well. Atsu’s journey across Etso seems like it really pulls you in while giving players options to engage with the world at their own pace. Can’t wait to cover this on CtrlAble and show how accessible and engaging it can be for all types of players.
Enshrouded for me.
Ghost of yotei sold poorly compared to Tsushima and their choice on introducing woke trash from sweet baby Inc make it a no for me. Wouldn’t pick it up for $10.