Your favourite open world?

[stroopwafel]

One of my favorite open worlds is definitely GTA5's Los Santos. I'd say this city is the real star of the game. Just from the weather cycles to the lighting effects to every small little detail that makes this place come to life, it's all gorgeously realized. Granted there isn't much in terms of interactivity with the game world if you compare it to the likes of an RPG like Skyrim, but I always prefered police chases and intense shoot-outs over long boring dialogue trees with some random NPC.

Next is probably Arkham City(if it can be considered open world). Being a Batman fan since my early childhood this is the game I could only dream about back then. Everything from the fantastic story that gave the place a sense of purpose to all the small little details you could find made this game a love letter to the Batman lore. Truly amazing.

 

[Kingjackl]

The Capital Wasteland from Fallout 3 holds a special place in my heart for being fun to explore and full of content, though Red Dead Redemption and GTAV are also strong contenders. Also, while there wasn't much to do in it, I liked the 'feel' of LA Noire's 1940s-era LA.

 

[A.K.B.]

For me it has to be the zone in STALKER. It is just so alive and atmospheric, I can explore it for hours and I love it.

To be more specific I would say one of my favourite ways to play it is to play Clear sky with the Total faction warfare mod. I usually don't actually join one of the warring factions but instead just travel the zone as a loner.

The mod author has done an excellent job of making the world feel immersive and alive, I start to recognise certain stalkers and actually feel some sadness if I find their body or hear of their demise over the radio communication network he set up.

No world has made me feel so immersed whether im travelling with a group of Stalkers when we suddenly need to run like hell to get to the nearest shelter due to a sudden emission, or whether im on my own at night carefully navigating a dangerous swamp filled with anomalies and mutants only to suddenly have to avoid a patrolling military chopper.

The only major downside for me was that the game is still unstable and usually just starts crashing repeatedly

I totally agree. and while _for me at least_ clear sky was a major let down. both shadow of Chernobyl and call of Pripyat ( I probably spelled that wrong ) excel at delivering the foreboding sense of the struggle for survival ....
they do not provide the vastness and shear size other games might provide but they're packed to the brim with lore and detail and are certainly one of , if not the, most atmospheric video games I had played.

also there are mods. AND I MEAN TONS OF MODS for them. which makes them even to this year as good as a new release...
also polishes them to perfection...
same way they do with Skyrim.

 

[Ieyke]

Next is probably Arkham City(if it can be considered open world). Being a Batman fan since my early childhood this is the game I could only dream about back then. Everything from the fantastic story that gave the place a sense of purpose to all the small little details you could find made this game a love letter to the Batman lore. Truly amazing.

Yea. Arkham City is certainly big and free roaming enough to be considered open world. It's not a very big open world, because a lot of the stuff happens in "dungeon" locations, but certainly big enough to count.

I look very much forward to Arkham Knight's Gotham City, since it's supposed to be like 5x bigger than Arkham City.

 

[Trunkage]

Old World Blues is the best DLC ever... It made me buy so much DLC in the hope they would be as good. I didn't even like New Vegas that much.

Fallout 3 always has the more oppressive feeling game of the whole series. It was delightful.

Morrowind had a more alien feeling of the elder scrolls. Daggerfall was the biggest and best. The towns feel full, there wasn't many creatures on the roads, and all the dungeons were randomised (which was positive and negative). Skyrim felt like the biggest and most complete world (expect how you affect it).

Sleeping Dogs definitely made me feel like I was in Hong Kong (even though its not how the real island is). It wasn't just the prominent locations, the people and music too.

Dark Souls was great but could have been fleshed out much more.

Only one part for Far Cry 2 and 3 is pretty good too (doesn't matter which one - the bottom or top are both good in each but both together is just more of the same

 

[Elfgore]

Big fan of Skyrim. It is indeed large, but unlike what others have said, I never felt that it was lifeless. I would get a quest in Whiterun only to end up in a cave slaying a small army of Falmer, even though my mission was to kill a bunch of bandits in a tower. That just makes me love it. Also the diversity in the game's regions are awesome.

 

[King Billi]

Considering my usual choices have already been said a few times already I think I'll just take this chance to instead mention two slightly unusual choices. Los Angeles from L.A. Noire and The Kingdom from Assassin's Creed.

I only truly began to appreciate the scope and detail in L.A. Noires depiction of 1940s era Los Angeles after I had been to visit the actual city itself and I could see just how accurate it was in recreating certain areas of the city, it really is quite amazing and it only seems moreso when you realise that its main purpose as an open world is just to aid immersion.

The Kingdom from the original Assassin's Creed is much the same, I only noticed playing through that game a second time recently just how detailed and interesting that part of the game is. It has beautiful scenery, villages, castles and other various landmarks with little to no incentive to explore them(unless you like searching for flags...) It might have been interesting to have some assassinations or other missions take place on this map instead of just in the three main cities..?

I suppose a good defintion for my choices here would be the two most "impressively pointless" open worlds in videogames.

 

[Darren716]

I think I'm going to have to have a tie between Panau from Just Cause 2 and Hong Kong from Sleeping Dogs. Panau impresses me due to its size and scale, at 400 square miles it feels like Panua actually is an entire country. Sleeping Dogs Hong Kong on the other hand may not be the largest but there is so much crammed into the area it feels like a living, breathing city and did something no other sandbox game really has done, it made me want to visit the actual city it seems so intriguing and rife with culture.

 

[KOMega]

Sleeping Dogs.

Something about driving through that neon lit city at night was just really fun.