Your favourite open world?

[cdemares]

Either Skyrim or Mars from Red Faction Guerilla.
I loved Mars in Red Faction Guerilla. I loved how it felt like Mars to me. The light conditions reflect a more distant sun and red dust covers everything, dulling surfaces. I personally love deserts, so the wilderness areas in that game really spoke to me. I wouldn't argue it's inherently better than some other open world, but I have a preference for it.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

The world of Red Dead Redemption always has a place in my heart as one of my all time favourite open game worlds. The vast western setting with a large array of unique environments is something really special. The worlds of Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are great as well. New Vegas's DLC maps were a real standout out for me. Even though the Dead Money DLC for New Vegas got pretty tedious, especially if you ran out of supplies, the idea of it always captivated me. The Old World Blues map was especially awesome, with the whole scientific study gone off the rails theme.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Oblivion's world is so beautiful(especially with unique landscapes and natural environments, though it still looks great without those). I love Cyrodil so much, it is the best ES game. I have spent 100s of hours inside Cyrodil and have loved every second of it. Then there is also the Shivering Isles which is great. Mania is so vibrant and beautiful and Dementia is dark and haunting and they both pull it off so well. It's hard to express how much I love Oblivion.

 

[jetriot]

I love me some open world games. All the games people are listing are excellent! Of course, I also need to throw out Fallout, GTA. However! Even more important than all of the open world games that have been listed... Elite and Star Control 2. Elite is mostly unplayable these days but Star Control 2 has an art style that lasts forever.

 

[FPLOON]

It's a toss up between GTA: San Andreas, Jak 2, and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction... They have all caused me to destroy so much shit just for the fuck of it...

Granted, I would have said Just Cause 2... but unlike with Just Cause 2, I was always having fun destroying shit solo in SA, J2, and IH:UD...

 

[AntiChri5]

Skyrim, for me. Morrowind was great and all, but it relies too much on it's uniqueness and originality. Once you play enough and that alien feeling goes away, it gets a bit stale. The mechanics certainly don't help.

 

[Ieyke]

Easily a tie between Assassin's Creed 2's cities and AC4:Black Flag's Caribbean.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Skyrim. The landscape is so interesting that it just begs to be explored.

Just Cause 2 comes in second because of it's massive size and how it's extremely fun to just maneuver around it.

 

[daedalus9973]

Before I played Assassins Creed 4 I would have said that Skyrim was my favorite open world game but there is something about sailing the open sea with your crew singing a sea shanty that really submerges you completely into the game.

 

[Roxas1359]

Welp, time to be the black sheep of this thread, my favorite overworld is...the Mojave Desert from New Vegas.

For many people they hated the Mojave because well it was a desert and deserts tend to be boring. For me though, I enjoyed the Mojave because of the sheer volume of things to do in it. From sidequests, to unmarked quests, to just plain treasure hunting I enjoyed the Mojave a lot. Yeah the Capital Wasteland was better looking and bigger, but thing is, it didn't have much for you to do when compared to the Mojave.

I don't know, maybe I'm biased because I actually live right next to the Mojave Desert in southern California, but honestly New Vegas' Mojave just soya captivated me. Then, after playing the vanilla game with over 43 characters, I finally got a gaming rig and discovered the glory of mods.

 

[blackrave]

Nirn
Sadly we have seen only small part of the world

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I'm going with two, one that will probably hailed and the other probably scorned.

The first is found in Assassin's Creed 2.

Although I love the entire Ezio Trilogy, AC2 is in my opinion the best of the three. The open world is so large and there is so much to do: side missions, collectibles, managing properties, shops, armor, etc. It took everything that made the first AC great and made it so much better and grander.

The second is Gran Pulse from FFXIII.

Hear me out!

The entire game should have been made and presented in the matter that you find it in Chapter 11 when you set foot on Gran Pulse, the wild planet that rests below the floating Cocoon. You have wide open spaces to roam around, find treasure, ride chocobos, battle strong monsters, level up, take on missions, and just feel free to explore the vastness that Gran Pulse has to offer. I swear that I have spent a good 10-20 hours on this area alone because I didn't want to return the bland story and straight hallways. I really believed that if you had Gran Pulse to explore from the beginning and build the game to have you travel to Cocoon and back (and allowing you to explore those areas), it would have been a better received game.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'm going with two, one that will probably hailed and the other probably scorned.

The first is found in Assassin's Creed 2.

Although I love the entire Ezio Trilogy, AC2 is in my opinion the best of the three. The open world is so large and there is so much to do: side missions, collectibles, managing properties, shops, armor, etc. It took everything that made the first AC great and made it so much better and grander.

It's not just that. AC2 world is oh so beautiful. Venice is simply a magical place.

So yeah, AC2 wins first place for me. Closely followed by another unique and rather magical looking place, the world of Bully. Seriously, people tend to forget how unique Bullworth Academy and its surrounding area were. There's literally nothing like it anywhere else in the world of video games.

 

[MrFalconfly]

First one has got to be AC IV.

Second one would be Saints Row IV (dem Matrix powers).

 

[Dandark]

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

 

[pearcinator]

I don't normally play a lot of 'open-world' games. I love exploration but I also prefer to be confined to a certain size.

e.g. Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask has one of my favourite worlds...technically they aren't 'open-world' since you are confined by sheer cliffs and other walls. However, they are large enough to have open environments.

Same with KOTOR/Dragon Age/Mass Effect...it has open environments but you are confined to particular areas. I would take these kind of environments over Elder Scrolls/GTA any day. Not to say that it's bad to have a huge open world but I find it more personal with a smaller map. If I want a big open world I would go outside

 

[Kyrian007]

Talk about a thread that fires you up to play some videogames...

So far this thread reads like a list of "What are your favorite games ever?" For favorite ever... it would have to be the Earth of the Fallout Series. But it's almost a tossup between that, Hyrule, and the Earth of the GTA series. Followed closely by The Elder Scrolls.

As far as Just Cause 2, I love that game... having said that though the world is too large and not populated with "enough everything." Travel times are horrid, they needed a better and faster fast travel, but navigation and travel WAS THE FUN PART... and it STILL took too long. And that doesn't even make any sense. Playing recently in JC2's multiplayer really illustrates the problem well. Hundreds of people can be on the server, and sometimes you can play for a loooonnnngggg time before you even run into another player. And with the world not being populated otherwise... it's pretty boring.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Morrowind - it has everything and i enjoy going back there. Also New Vegas and Mercenaries 1.

 

[kommando367]

Pandora from Borderlands 2, just because of the enemy and equipment variety.

 

[NerAnima]

The second is Gran Pulse from FFXIII.

Hear me out!

The entire game should have been made and presented in the matter that you find it in Chapter 11 when you set foot on Gran Pulse, the wild planet that rests below the floating Cocoon. You have wide open spaces to roam around, find treasure, ride chocobos, battle strong monsters, level up, take on missions, and just feel free to explore the vastness that Gran Pulse has to offer. I swear that I have spent a good 10-20 hours on this area alone because I didn't want to return the bland story and straight hallways. I really believed that if you had Gran Pulse to explore from the beginning and build the game to have you travel to Cocoon and back (and allowing you to explore those areas), it would have been a better received game.

That's....actually a decent idea. I loved the look of Gran Pulse, but I was so sick of the game at that point, and I kept dying to this one annoying enemy, no matter what I did, so I just gave up entirely. Pulse was definitely more interesting than Cocoon could ever hope to be (although that crystal area was sorta cool) so what you're saying makes a fair bit of sense.

On topic of the thread; I would say Majora's Mask, Dark Souls, and Point Lookout from Fallout 3. The original Fallout 3 was a bit too sparse, while Point Lookout, admittedly not the best looking area, but it made me feel like I was alone, trapped on an island with the only attractions being an insane asylum and a gladiatorial arena.