Best Open World Games on PS5, PC, Xbox and Switch

Summary: The best open world games reward curiosity rather than map-clearing: Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 still set the bar, with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and Forza Horizon 5 as the strongest newer picks. Platform decides a lot, since several of the best are console exclusives.

• Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom are the best for pure exploration.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 are the best for story.
• Forza Horizon 5 and Minecraft are the easiest to pick up with friends.
• There are platform picks for PS5, PS4, PC, Xbox and Switch further down.

An open world game lets you go almost anywhere on the map from early on, instead of moving through levels in a fixed order. The good ones make that freedom worth using. The top open world games below are the ones where wandering off the main path is the best part, followed by the best picks for each platform, RPG and survival fans, and the newest releases.

1. Elden Ring

PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One. FromSoftware's open world hides almost everything: whole regions sit below the map, bosses guard caves you only find by accident, and there is no quest log telling you where to go. It is hard, but the freedom to leave a tough area and come back stronger makes it the most approachable of the studio's games.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. Hyrule stacks sky islands above the surface and a vast underground below it, and the building tools let you solve most problems with whatever you glue together. No other open world game gives you this much room to invent your own solution.

3. Red Dead Redemption 2

PC, PS4, Xbox One, playable on PS5 and Series X|S. Slow, detailed and remarkably written, it is the open world game people remember for its characters as much as its landscape. Hunting, camp life and random encounters fill the gaps between missions so well that many players never rush the story.

4. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, Switch. A decade on, its side quests are still the benchmark: small village contracts regularly turn into better stories than other games' main plots. On PC it is also a DRM-free purchase from GOG.com, the store run by the same company that made it.

5. Grand Theft Auto V

PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One. Los Santos is still one of the densest cities in games, and switching between three protagonists keeps the pace up. It is also the cheapest way into the series before GTA 6, with GTA Online bundled in.

6. Cyberpunk 2077

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2. After years of patches and the Phantom Liberty expansion, Night City is the vertical, neon open world the launch promised. Best for players who like first-person RPGs with a lot of build choice.

7. Ghost of Tsushima

PS5, PS4, PC. Instead of a cluttered map, the wind guides you to your target, and the island is built for riding across in photo mode as much as for sword fights. The cleanest open world here for players who dislike icon-clearing.

8. Horizon Forbidden West

PS5, PS4, PC. Hunting robot animals with bows and traps is the draw, and each machine type forces a different plan. The world is a post-apocalyptic American West that looks superb on current hardware.

9. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S. A grounded medieval RPG with no magic and no map markers doing your thinking. You learn to read, fight and talk your way through fifteenth-century Bohemia, and the realism is exactly why its fans love it.

10. Assassin's Creed Shadows

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S. Feudal Japan with two protagonists, one built for stealth and one for open combat, and changing seasons that alter how you move through the map. The best-looking entry in the series and a good fit for players who like a long checklist.

11. Forza Horizon 5

Xbox, PC, PS5. An open world racing game set across Mexico, with crossplay on every platform it runs on. It is the easiest pick here to drop into for twenty minutes, and the most fun with friends in a convoy.

12. Minecraft

Everywhere. A world that generates forever and changes completely based on what you build. It sits on the line between open world and sandbox, and our list of sandbox games has more in the same spirit.

Best Open World Games by Platform

• Best open world games on PS5: Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, Elden Ring and Death Stranding 2.
• Open world games on PS4: Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Forbidden West all still run well.
• Best open world games on PC: The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and Red Dead Redemption 2.
• Best open world games on Xbox: Forza Horizon 5, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Elden Ring and Assassin's Creed Shadows.
• Open world Switch games: Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, plus Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2.

Open World RPG Games

If character builds and quest choices matter more to you than the map itself, the open world RPG games to start with are Elden Ring, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is still worth playing too, mostly because its modding scene on PC keeps it feeling new.

Open World Survival Games

Survival games add hunger, crafting and base-building to the open map. Valheim, Subnautica, Palworld and 7 Days to Die are the popular picks, and most of them are best in co-op. Our full list of the best survival games goes deeper.

New Open World Games

The newest big open worlds are Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and Assassin's Creed Shadows from 2025, Death Stranding 2 on PS5, and Forza Horizon 6, which moved the series to Japan in May 2026 on Xbox and PC with a PS5 version to follow.

How to Choose an Open World Game

Three questions narrow the list quickly:

• Do you want to be guided or left alone? Assassin's Creed points the way; Elden Ring and Kingdom Come mostly do not.
• How much time do you have? Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 need well over a hundred hours to finish properly; Forza Horizon 5 works in short sessions.
• Solo or with friends? Minecraft, Forza and GTA Online are built for groups; most of the rest are single-player.

Long exploration sessions are also where a proper chair earns its place, and a budget option from GTPlayer is kinder to your back than a sofa over a hundred-hour save.

Pick the World You Want to Get Lost In

For exploration start with Elden Ring or Tears of the Kingdom, for story go to Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Witcher 3, and for friends pick Forza Horizon 5 or Minecraft. If story matters most, the best story games list covers the narrative-first side.

Most of these are on PC, so if that is where you play, browse Steam gift cards and wait for the next sale.