games

Yeah, but it's the most boring possible world to RP in.

The actual answer is Breath Of The Wild.

I was hoping no one would ask me that tbh, because I don't really have one answer. But the first thing that comes to mind is Bethesda games. Their writing sucks, but I honestly think their level design is second to none. Skyrim and Fallout 4 have such fun worlds to explore, and they keep me coming back for like 1000 hours in each, even with the bad writing and combat which is mid at best. There's always something interesting to look,the promise of good loot, and something cool just around the corner. The compass system showing nearby locations creates such intrigue and gives a direction to go in, and it helps that you can see what kind of location it is, nordic ruin, town, raider outpost etc. Even just walking from place to place is engaging when there's little things to interact with, plants to harvest, containers or bodies to loot, little unmarked locations to discover.

Kenshi is maybe the truest open world experience where you really do make your own story, because there's no main quest at all. You might build up a powerful faction of hunters or be enslaved for a long time before breaking out and killing your captors, or become a travelling merchant, or build a city, or just do whatever you want. My main problem with Kenshi is that I don't know where the fuck to go, so I just pick a direction entirely at random. Its the kind of game that benefits from outside knowledge.

When it comes to really well-rounded open world games, like the quintessential open world game, I have two answers. The first is Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. The only stuff I don't like is the forced stealth tailing missions and that dumbass ship stealth mission. Ships can't be stealthy, especially when they're sailing down a river. Other than that, Black Flag remains great in my opinion. The story is really good, nothing groundbreaking but just really solid with a great bittersweet ending, and Edward is a likeable protagonist. The world is big enough to not feel repetitve, but small enough that it doesn't take too long to get anywhere. The naval gameplay being so good is what saves this game, if it was boring the game would suck. But the animations, the bobbing of the ship, the crash of waves, sea shantys, Edward's commands, the feel and weight of the ship, it all adds up to make the standard travel a lot more interesting than just pushing the stick forward. The more involved sailing mechanics are storms and battles. Storms are pretty straightforward, you have to catch a wave head on and brace or your ship will be damaged, but the sound and visual design make it fun, and they never last too long so they don't get tedious. The ship combat is just great. You can fire broadsides, chaser canons, a mortar, launch barrels out the back, then board ships, swing across, fight the crews, capture ships. The small stuff really adds up for a great experience. There's generally something interesting nearby, like a hunting spot, treasure, a marooned sailor, a diving bell etc. The small side activities like playing dice feel way better here than in GTA5, because they're really just a small distraction from a great primary gameplay loop. The economy in this game is honestly one of the best ever, you always feel like there's an obvious next goal, like hull upgrades, new swords, new guns, new cannons, cool new sails and outfits and so on. You need money, wood and steel for ship upgrades, so its always worth taking on a fat merchant vessel when you see one. Even when the next thing to buy isn't super wild, its always meaningful. There's always something new to buy, and its always fun to get the necessary resources.

The other well-rounded game is 2015's Mad Max, which you might not even know existed, but its really underrated. Its just a really well made game. Its been a long time since I've played so I can't remember it as well as the other games, but it basically has all the qualities that make Black Flag so good. The driving is always engaging because you're always ramping and drifting off of sand dunes, the economy is really well balanced, the car combat is bombastic and cool as fuck, the locations are pretty unique, there's sandstorms which are dangerous but offer the reward of valuable scrap, the ingame currency. You can shoot explosive harpoons at other cars and ram things with a massive grille. The hand-to-hand combat feels even meatier than the Arkham games, Max really beats the fuck out of people and gets the fuck beaten out of him, its awesome. Now I think about it, it shares almost all of its good qualities with Black Flag, although the story is not as memorable. Neither of them are 10/10, but they're both really solid 8/10.

The only other games I want to mention are Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, but Shadow of War is pretty much a straight upgrade from Shadow of Mordor. The Nemesis system was a flash of genius that was really well executed and the writers, animators and voice actors really put the work in to make it great. Its the biggest wasted oppurtunity in gaming recently, and a very obvious case against intellectual property laws. In a game with such a rigid main story, which honestly isn't that good, its amazing that the Nemesis systems allows for such compelling emergent stories. The world itself is fine, very standard for a AAA game. It falls far short of Bethesda's finest, but its serviceable.

You could definitely make a case for something like Morrowind being a better game that falls into the open world category, but I think these are the gold standard of how to make an open world game. The world design of Bethesda, the emergent stories of Kenshi and Shadow of War, and the balanced minute-to-minute experience of Mad Max and Black Flag are all great.

it's not perfect, but elden ring has kinda changed the game a bit imo. botw i think was fairly overrated with hindsight.