Incline Best open world games of all time

[PorkyThePaladin]

As per popular whining demand, adding the following choices:

STALKER: Call of Suka Blyat
Darklands
Far Cry 2
Far Cry 4
Dying Light
Disco Elysium
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Kenshi
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

P.S. Just kidding about Disco Elysium.

P.P.S. Or am I...

 

[Ash]

Whoa, not Deus Ex: Mankind Divided c'mon bro. This isn't even an arguable matter. One small-ish cramped hub and a few somewhat linear missions off elsewhere. Adding this means the poll needs about 1000 other games added.

How to qualifiy? I'd say:

-Moderate to large open playspaces.
-Freedom to go wherever whenever in the map, but some of the usual restrictions can apply - certain missions can box you in, islands or hubs you can only access after some main progression e.g GTA San andreas or you don't have enough xp whatever.
-Significant majority of game time is spent in this "open world". Deus Ex sends you off on semi-linear missions semi-frequently (as it should).

Definitely Applies: Elder Scrolls, GTA
Questionable if applies: The Outer Worlds (it does, if Stalker does. Add to the poll I guess even though it's not that good?)
Absolutely Doesn't apply: Deus Ex games

 

[Papa Môlé]

Far Cry Primal is the best Far Cry.

I will fight you in real life if you disagree.

With a club in one hand and a flint-tipped spear in the other.

 

[distant]

Ah fuck didn't see STALKER in there. That's definitely right up there.

 

[karoliner]

Deus Ex and STALKER aren't really open world is more like a big hub.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Added the ability to change votes for those retards who didn't see some of the choices before I added them later on.

 

[jebsmoker]

i picked boiling point

*saul myers grits his teeth and explodes*

 

[Ash]

Far Cry Primal is the best Far Cry.

I will fight you in real life if you disagree.

With a club in one hand and a flint-tipped spear in the other.

Ehhhh...most of the game could be beat by hiding in a corner and spamming infinite owl instakill attacks. Game's stupid. I like that the game now almost has something resembling actual dungeons finally though (the caves could get close to sprawling sometimes).

 

[prengle]

I've only played the first STALKER game (Shadows of Chernobyl) so far, but that one wasn't open world. It was a bunch of adjacent, relatively small zones. Are later STALKER games one continous world?

no shadow of chernobyl and clear sky are mostly open world too, what the fuck are you on

pathologic is technically open world too i guess

 

[Papa Môlé]

Far Cry Primal is the best Far Cry.

I will fight you in real life if you disagree.

With a club in one hand and a flint-tipped spear in the other.

Ehhhh...most of the game could be beat by hiding in a corner and spamming infinite owl instakill attacks. Game's stupid. I like that the game now almost has something resembling actual dungeons finally though (the caves could get close to sprawling sometimes).

Did you play on Survival mode where you can't do that with the owl?

 

[Lemming42]

Daggerfall and New Vegas are my top picks.

To fill out the full five choices, I also chose Far Cry 3 (I like it more than Far Cry 4 because the ridiculous plot makes me laugh), Morrowind (a step down from Daggerfall but undeniably strong on its own merits), and then my actual last choice would be Gothic but I picked Skyrim just to annoy people.

 

[Axioms]

Imagine being on the Codex and including GTA, much less Ass Ass Creed, in a list of best open world games ever.

 

[J_C]

Gothic 1 and 2 are my main picks, and New Vegas is a distant 3rd. The Gothics are just the perfect open world games for me. Not too big, they are just the right size map-wise and have perfect hand crafted locations and content.

 

[Magitex]

I think there are simply too many open-world games to pick a winner out of this box, but I have to say I really like the ones with persistent environments and NPCs that don't just spawn to suit. Games like RDR2 seem so authentic but there is just nothing going on outside your box and that kind of thing really disqualifies a lot of games for me. You go to an area, murder everything and then there is no reason to ever go back to it.

I would say Gothic 2 is great but I barely remember it now, I do recall that it had some very nice scheduling going on, much better than Oblivion's so called 'radiant ai' systems. I'd probably put my money on Kenshi here though, I'm a huge fan of everything going on there - just wish they keep working on it and added some basic economics etc. To me it seems like a living open world that you can affect significantly but doesn't need you to save it, bandits go about their business, it is huge and everything and everyone is persistent in the world.

A couple other weird recommendations for no one to vote for:
Deathstranding - this absolutely seems like an open world to me, you spend so much time in the actual world compared to other games. It frequently changes (like an actual world) rather than a theme park you visit once and forget about.
Space Rangers 2 - an impressive game far beyond its time that no one seemingly remembers (maybe for the crashes), also one of the few games with an AI that remembers your actions and acts on them. I would say few games had AI like this where it feels like you're not the only person in the universe trying to survive. This kind of thing adds to the world of a game immensely - it's too bad it doesn't sell boxes.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Space Rangers 2

That's definitely one of my favorite games of all time, but for the purposes of this thread we should establish 1st answer to question "what is an open world game?"

 

[Magitex]

Space Rangers 2

That's definitely one of my favorite games of all time, but for the purposes of this thread we should establish 1st answer to question "what is an open world game?"

Well, I was going to ask that.. but I didn't want to horribly derail the thread as if we were trying to figure out what an RPG is.

 

[NJClaw]

codexers who make anonymous polls are faggots

While true, this statement is misleading. Anonymous polls have nothing to do with it.

 

[Kalin]

Open world game = real-time walking/riding/driving/flying/jetpack hobo simulator.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Far Cry Primal is the best Far Cry.

I will fight you in real life if you disagree.

With a club in one hand and a flint-tipped spear in the other.

Imagine actually playing Far Cry lmao

 

[Talby]

Realms of Arkania HD.

 

[CryptRat]

Is this the Codex? Where are the RPGs?

Some of my favourites :
- World of Xeen, and basically entire Might & Magic series : quintessence of open world, emphasis on exploration, go anywhere at will, try to bruteforce through hard places to get stronger faster,

- Death Knights of Krynn, lvl ~10 D&dD campaign, totally open world, you get to free towns from their enemies in the order you want (SSI's games have an overworld but not all have a similar campaign structure),

- Disciples of Steel : huge game, with a big world and tons of dungeons and combat system close to SSI's games. You won't progress at will, you need to get stronger to be able and go forward without getting slaughtered, which is fine in an RPG. Very satisfying to get stronger and go further,

- Dragon Wars : the world is a dungeon and vice versa, very cool P&P-ish campaign where you advance by checking your skills,

- Realms of Arkania : Blade of Destiny : exploration/survival RPG, truly a big P&P-ish campaign in video game format, best party creation and best journey and sense of adventure in a big part of a world,

- Darkalnds : similar arguments as above,

- Fallout : not much to say, everybody here played it, solve an investigation quest with mostly no checkpoint while exploring towns and solving their problems. Skills are used as well,

- Quest for Glory 1, 3, 4 : once again, here's the world, solve it via skills,

- Legend Of Faerghail : bad things can be said about the game, about bugs especially (real bugs as well as save system), but its open structure where only the small ending dungeon can not be accessed at will is cool.

 

[Falksi]

I voted for the following:

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind - One of the few actual RPGs on there, and no competition here. Most immersive & best adventure I've ever experienced first time through. Later playthroughs lacked, but were still miles ahead of anything else. It really, really felt like you were in another world. Amazing stuff.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - Fucking magic. Hard to replay now because so much feels so clunky, but just so much fun and more importantly the game GETS what this such games should be about......THRIVE. The coolest songs, the coolest vibe, the coolest cars, the coolest cloths, great humour, drenched in cool pop culture. A blast.

Saint's Row IV - Again, magic. Forgets all the bullshit "life sim" wank which later GTA's pandered too, and goes for full throttle, OTT humour & gameplay. Again, it's got that underlying magic 80's neon-cyber vibe throughout, but whereas Vice City's magic is grounded in reality & pop culture with janky gameplay, this is pure futuristic superhero fantasy stuff and plays superbly too.

Assassins Creed: Origins - This is a fucking great game. Wondrous setting & atmosphere, with a great balance of gameplay elements. The stealth & combat are proper good fun, and - even though it is in no way an RPG what-so-ever - it still managers to be more of an RPG than the Witcher 3, as some of the tasks actually require you to think slightly, rather than hold a button to employ senses which do all the work for you.

Gothic 2 - We all know the score with this one. I think it's dated significantly, and I can't replay it as much as some of the other now, but it's still a classic.

Special mention: The Saboteur - How the fuck has this not made the list? One of the few Open World games with an actually interesting and absorbing open world. Lush as fuck game.


Out of all those above I'd only really class Morrowind & Gothic 2 as Open World, with a world worth exploring. The rest I'd have as sandbox games, where the world is an afterthought as a backdrop to things just to fuck about doing.

And if we're including sandbox games, Prototype was a fun blast too.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It's strange that Morrowind is getting all these votes, it's really not a very good game. Atrocious combat (unless you are into cheesing the braindead AI), really boring wikipedia style dialogue and tons of fetch quests, a world that feels dead (no NPC scheduling, no voice overs), really ugly graphics. Even the exploration, which some people will claim is great, is actually significantly harmed by the copy-pasting of similar types of places. 40 Daedric Shrines, 40 caves, 40 tombs, after a while it's all the same.

 

[Derringer]

Out of all those above I'd only really class Morrowind & Gothic 2 as Open World, with a world worth exploring. The rest I'd have as sandbox games, where the world is an afterthought as a backdrop to things just to fuck about doing.

I don't really see much point to fucking around doing nothing in an empty sandbox if there's nothing to explore beyond copy-pasted content and an artstyle. Europe and Vancouver Canada churn these games out though. Nintendo at least bothered making something worth exploring in their games to an extent. Renderware GTA3 and Saints Row are the better of these kinds of games since they actually have tangible content to an extent.

 

[Abu Antar]

*Ctrl+f* Farming Simulator

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