Top 10 Games: Open World
The highest-graded open-world games we have reviewed, best first.
Red Dead Redemption 2The most detailed world ever built for a game, in service of the medium's best character study.Read the review
Elden RingThe open-world formula rebuilt around curiosity instead of checklists, at a scale no one else has matched.
Cyberpunk 2077The disaster that finished becoming a masterpiece: Night City is the densest place ever rendered.
The Witcher 3: Wild HuntThe open-world RPG every open-world RPG since has been measured against, and most of them lose.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomUltrahand turns a physics engine into a design language, and Hyrule bends to whatever nonsense you build.
Red Dead RedemptionThe western the genre had been waiting a century for, with an ending games still chase.
Grand Theft Auto VThree protagonists, one satirical state, and a heist structure so good it carried three console generations.
Batman: Arkham CityRocksteady takes a perfect corridor game outdoors and somehow keeps every corridor's precision intact.
Death Stranding 2: On the BeachThe sequel keeps every strange idea and finally builds a game generous enough to hold them.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom PainThe best-playing stealth sandbox ever shipped, wrapped around a story that visibly runs out of road.
