Summary
The vast majority ofopen-world gamesfeature a single seamless environment that players can explore at their own pace. More often than not, suchvast open-world maps also include various regionsor different biomes with no separation when transitioning from one to another. Sometimes, however, due to technical restrictions or specific design choices, open-world games offer multipleexplorable maps that players can access separatelyby selecting the desired region on the world’s global map.
In many cases, the reasons behind such separations are pretty obvious: explorable regions may be aligned with real-world geography, sending players to various countries or even continents for story purposes. Additionally,many space-focused open-world gamesallow players to explore different planets, with each new location presenting a separate open environment. Below, we’ll examine some of the best open-world games known for their multiple explorable maps.
The Witcher 3: Wild Huntmarked a leap for CD Projekt Red into the upper echelon of RPG developers, instantlybecoming an RPG classic and one of the most acclaimedgames ever. The scope of the third game in the series increased dramatically, adding horseback riding and boats, with the world divided into several regions accessible via fast travel from the map.
The Witcher 3’s world includes separate explorable maps, with Velen and Novigrad, the Skellige Isles, and Kaer Morhen being the largest. These regions offer dozens of hand-crafted quests, monster contracts, treasure chests, and more. There are also some additional, smaller story-specific areas like the Isle of Mists and White Orchard. Additionally, the game’sBlood & Wineexpansion added the enormous Toussaint region as another separate open-world map for Geralt to explore.
Monster Hunter Worldis often a topic of debate regarding whether it should be classified as an open-world game, due to the nature of its separate semi-open locations. Each map in the game is spacious enough to include its own biome, dedicated monsters, and other distinct features, resulting in self-contained, explorable environments that could be described as open-world.
The game features plenty of memorable locations, such as Ancient Forest, Wildspire Waste, Coral Highlands, Rotten Vale, and more — each offering a distinct look and feel, along with its own roster of creatures. TheIceborneexpansion further expands the list of available maps, adding two more large areas, Hoarfrost Reach and the Guiding Lands, eachfilled with unique monsters to hunt.
Star Wars Outlawsmight not fully live up to the hype, yet Ubisoft delivered on its promise of one of the biggest and most detailedStar Warsadventures to date, spanning several explorable planets filled with hand-crafted territories, settlements, and secrets. Never before have fans had the chance to step into this iconic universe on such a scale, which might be enough for some long-timeStar Warsenthusiasts.
Starting on Cantonica (a fairly linear prologue rather than an open world),Star Wars Outlawslater takes players to the rocky Toshara, sandy Tatooine, swampy Kijimi, and snow-covered Akiva, each featuring a large map with numerous main and side destinations for Kay Vess. While the main story ofOutlawsis fairly compact (around 20 hours), clearing everything the game has to offer could easily take over 60 hours.
Even after newer releases ofMirageandShadows,Assassin’s Creed Valhallaremains one of the biggest games in the series, featuring several enormous open-world maps for players to explore. Eivor’s journey begins in Norway, then takes their clan to England, and later sends them to Vinland. On top of that, several explorable mythical realms, such as Asgard and Jotunheim, are accessible via dream potions, each requiring dozens of hours to explore and filled with theirown mysteries, unique enemies, and map activities.
While the base game is truly enormous in both scope and map variety, with just the main story requiring around 60 hours to complete, it’s only the beginning of Eivor’s saga. Ubisoft has released three sizable expansions, wrapping up the narrative and adding new regions like Ireland, Francia, and Svartalfheim, along with several smaller separate map additions such as the Isle of Skye and River Raids (including the rivers Dee, Severn, and Exe). A truly sprawling adventure, few open-world games offer maps as diverse and expansive for players to lose themselves in asValhalla.
Mass Effect: Andromedastands as the biggest game in the franchise to date, featuring multiple explorable open-world planets known as Golden Worlds. Unlike the original trilogy, where planets were typically much less open and expansive,Andromeda’s worlds are truly gigantic, requiring players to heavily rely on the ND1 Nomad vehicle during exploration, echoing the originalMass Effectand its M35 Mako.
Initially, BioWare planned to use procedural generation forAndromeda’s planets, but this concept was scrapped during development. Instead, players can explore hand-crafted open worlds such as the desert planets Eos and Elaaden, the jungle world Havarl, the mountainous Kadara, and the frozen Voeld — each sizable enough to take dozens of hours to explore. The game also requires players to travel between worlds constantly during the story, and includes several smaller, more linear locations to offer a more dynamic and cinematic narrative that BioWare is known for.
Undoubtedly,Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Painstands as the series' swan song,with unmatched scope and rich tactical possibilities. Aside from smaller locations, the game features two separate open-world maps for players to explore. Both main maps, Africa and Afghanistan, are large enough to allow Snake to use a horse or vehicles for navigating between enemy encampments, and are brimming with secrets, hidden objectives, and unmarked locations.
Despite its impressive scope,Metal Gear Solid 5’s Africa and Afghanistan might not feel as diverse as one might hope, with environments tending to blend. However, there are also additional linear locations that players will visit during their lengthy journey. Not to mention the game’s separate prologue,Ground Zeroes, which takes players to Camp Omega located in Cuba.
Starfieldtakes the refined formula of Bethesda RPGs and applies it to hundreds of open-world planets available for exploration. The game utilizes procedural generation to some degree, yet unlikeNo Man’s Sky, there are plenty of areas and entirely hand-crafted planets inStarfield, crucial to the game’s central narrative.
With its dozens of systems, each featuring up to 21 explorable planets,Starfieldoffers hundreds of hours of content for dedicated fans. However, typical of exploration-focused space games,Starfield’s worlds can feel a bit repetitive and samey by nature, with not enough interesting locations or memorable places for players to encounter during their journey. Even with the added REV-8 land vehicle, exploration inStarfieldoften feels less engaging than in the studio’s previousacclaimed games likeSkyrimandFallout 4.
