The (digital) wind in your hair. The seemingly endless horizon. The knowledge that, if this were real life, you'd starve to death before you ever made it to town. The best open world games can be a magical experience…if done right. Done poorly, and you'll be left begging for some platforms and an extended loading screen. Luckily, 2025 has some of the best open world games that the genre has to offer.
Ranging from updated classics to modern masterpieces to Pikachu-filled parkour arenas, these games have come to define open world gaming in 2025. You've likely played at least one of these before, but if you haven't, let this serve as the equivalent of the most necessary item available in an open world game: a map. Use it to revisit familiar treasures and seek out new adventures.
5. Dragon Quest 1&2 HD-2D Remakes
Developers: Square Enix, Artdink, Team Asano
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, PC
It's always fun to watch a genre evolve, especially in the case of Dragon Quest 1&2 HD-2D Remakes where Square Enix and its collaborators have provided a fine new coat of paint to a classic. In the case of this package, you also get to see a series evolve as the exploratory nature of Dragon Quest is refined and expanded in Dragon Quest 2, a game so good that you might be forced to re-evaluate your ranking of the wider series (2 also adds a wealth of new content, so players of the original need not fear that this is a simple retread).
So many of the original features that we take for granted in modern RPGs and open world games feel like they're being fine-tuned here, from the battles, to the way we invest in our characters, to the way that a world opens up for you. It isn't just a pair of games, but one of the most fun video game history lessons you'll ever play through.
4. Assassin's Creed Shadows
Developers: Ubisoft, Ubisoft Quebec
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC
The Assassin's Creed series has become a video game tradition and every few years, fans look forward to a new installment that allows you to stealthily track and take down targets in some historical time period and locale.
Assassin's Creed Shadows, with its dual protagonists in 16th century Japan, can be a great reminder of its strengths, and is best when it's curious about the way that you traverse your available landscape: hiding in ponds while you wait to strike, sneaking through shadows after you've eliminated some light sources, and crawling through the weeds as you get ever closer to your objective. While the story can feel like it lags at points, Shadows understands that a key feature in a successful open world game is having fun while you move through it. In that way, it's surely worth your time.
3. Pokemon Legends: Z-A
Developers: Game Freak
Platform: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
In comparison to its open world peers, the metropolis of Lumiose City in Pokemon Legends: Z-A isn't massive – a brisk jog will have you around its outermost loop of streets in a few minutes. However, the best Pokemon games have never been about sheer size, but in revitalizing the little joys of discovery. And if you give Lumiose City enough time, you learn to look up and down rather than simply out.
The sewers, alleys and rooftops, many of which serve as their own special biomes, create layers that make you spend just as much time hopping over buildings as you would running on the sidewalk. It isn't just a way to save time as you cross the city either, as there is no better feeling in Legends: Z-A than catching a particularly evasive Abra or Dratini atop a skyscraper, with a whole city of possibilities laid out before you.
2. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Developers: Kojima Productions
Platform: PS5
Any follow-up to Death Stranding couldn't hope to deliver the same singular combination of eccentricity, odd pathos, and strange, clambering exploration as the original. Luckily, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach doesn't really attempt to. Instead, like any good porter service, it opts for a more streamlined experience, from the gameplay mechanics to the way the plot unfolds.
Traversing dystopian Australia is delightful, not due to the size, but the details. The environment is full of little paths and obstacles that turn even the most one-note delivery quest into an engaging puzzle of "If I go this way, my bike might go off the cliff. But if I go THIS way, I might die in that river." If anything, it will make you appreciate deliverymen everywhere.
1. Ghost of Yotei
Developers: Sucker Punch Productions
Platform: PS5
Ghost of Yotei, a sequel to 2020's Ghost of Tsushima – no need to play the latter to understand the former as Yotei is a standalone story – is a great example of melding a gripping story of revenge with a landscape that not only allows for various choices in how you travel, but in how you progress through the narrative.
Though the side quests and their forgettable line of NPCs are a bit of a drag, Ghost of Yotei excels in how Atsu's blood-soaked pact for herself changes the way you see the setting: do you allow yourself to go off the beaten path and accept peace, or do you tackle the main missions with your ever-expanding offensive capabilities and unhinged strictness? It is theme filtered through game design and the path you adhere to feels like it alters the meaning that you take away from the story. And that makes Ghost of Yotei a great addition to the open world genre in 2025.
Check out the best games of 2025 for adventures beyond open-world exploration.
