Fasten your seatbelts.įor a game that spent almost a decade in development, Final Fantasy XV was expected to break some boundaries or set new standards in the acclaimed Final Fantasy series. However, there exists a game that is considerably larger than Just Cause 3, far more inventive in its open world design, and simply more stunning to look at. Sadly, Just Cause 3’s massive size served as a detriment to the game in some ways, as it went for quantity over quality and failed to provide enough reasons to fully explore this behemoth of a map. Even by today’s standards, it’s still one of the biggest open worlds ever created, with an estimated, enormous size of 1036km². Unfortunately, even this size pales in comparison to what comes next.įor the longest time, I presumed that Just Cause 3’s map was the largest ever conceived in a video game, and for a very good reason.
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Not only is it the biggest open world on a Nintendo exclusive, but also one of the largest of all time, coming in at a mind-blowing 398km². Xenoblade Chronicles X also holds a little record of its own. The Witcher 3’s unnamed map, expanding from the chambers of Kaer Mohren to the stunning landscapes of Skellige, comes in at an estimated 218km². Not only is it densely populated and jam-packed with beautiful vistas and tons of activities, but it remains the pinnacle of open world design in its finer details a truly living, breathing world that feels as if it moves on without the player. CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features one of my favourite open worlds in a video game to date. So let’s move on to the big boys of the open world. However, if anyone is curious, take to the waters outside of the world map in GTAV and you might find it to be quite the lonely, desolate place – a factor that isn’t taken into consideration. Rockstar Games, for being the king of the open world, have also shared this prestige with their competitors – Grand Theft Auto V’s map comes in at an estimated 127km², almost reaching the ambitious scale of Odyssey. BioWare’s crowning achievement in open world design is, to many, Dragon Age Inquisition, which boasts 117km². Take Fallout 4’s map of Boston, for example, which is estimated to be around 111km². Other games have, of course, somewhat matched the size of Odyssey in the past. That title goes to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, which sits at 230km² – taking into consideration the vast, expansive waters of the Caribbean. By that assumption, Odyssey’s map isn’t actually the largest ever produced in an Assassin’s Creed game. However, this also brings into equation not only land mass, but oceans and rivers too. With the launch of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on the horizon, how big of a world is Ancient Greece and how does it stack up to Ancient Egypt in its predecessor, Origins? Well, Origins’ map is estimated to be around 80km² large, while Odyssey’s map is much more massive, sitting at around 130km². Also, we’ll be excluding procedurally generated open worlds, so unfortunately as staggeringly massive as The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and No Man’s Sky are, they’ll be sitting this one out.
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As such, some may not be entirely accurate, but we’ll keep them within the realm of realism. Note: All map sizes revealed here have been collected from various forums, message boards, official (and unofficial) announcements, speculations, and general examinations from fans. However, I’m sure many of you have asked the question, what exactly is the largest open world in gaming, and which game can claim that coveted crown? At the moment, with such a wide variety of open worlds to choose from, there’s an extensive list, so I’ll be focusing on some of the more well-known worlds before announcing what is the biggest in gaming yet. Developers were able to squeeze tons of activities in their sprawling environments, all providing lengthy hours of play time. Since then, we’ve seen open worlds grow to considerably massive sizes, and with those leaps in technology came more vivid, detailed worlds than ever before. Open worlds in video games have come a long way since Rockstar Games changed the gaming landscape forever with the release of Grand Theft Auto III.