The 5 Best Open Worlds in Video Game History

Video game worlds are some of the most fascinating creations in the industry. While compelling characters or advanced artificial intelligences may take for stage more often than not, environments and places for players to roam often steal the spotlight. I recently went to work thinking and researching some of the best open worlds that video games have offered. While most of them hail from recent titles, we invite you to go out and note your own favorite open world games.

---

Washington, D.C. - Fallout 3

Can one truly explain how popular Fallout 3 really is? Probably. The 2008 release from Bethesda Softworks sold over 12 million copies, and gamers rarely stop to shut up about it even today. Rightfully so - the game defined a generation and still faces universal acclaim for its massive gameplay and wonderful narrative presentation. But what do players keep going back to after all these years? The world.

Fallout 3 is primarily set in an alternate Washington, D.C. during the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse. The map of D.C. and the surrounding areas is a monument to how memorable and downright enjoyable a video game open world can be. Radiated forests, hostile mutants and raiders and a reimagined American design that advanced to the year 2077 without leaving the 1940s and 50s. It’s the classic open world paradise. Players are free to explore the nuclear wasteland during the quest to survive and pursue the game’s main story. Quests upon quests lay in nearly every corner of a seemingly limitless world. The world's life-blood, the populace of the Wasteland, interact with the player creating a fascinating relationship between Wasteland and Wastelander. Exploring the fabled legend of the American dream couldn't be more enjoyable.

The Continent - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I have never been more emotionally connected to a game world than I am to the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Everywhere from the exquisite city of Novigrad, to the haunted forests just north of Crookback Bog, it is perfect. The map is perfect, the sounds of wind through the trees are perfect, the endless array of villages, towns and castles are perfect.

The Witcher series follows Geralt of Rivea, a professional monster hunter. In the tremendously successful third installment, players take Geralt through the land mass of the Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings-esque world known as The Continent. While searching for the child of prophecy, his adoptive daughter Ciri, Geralt is free to explore and contract his Witcher skills across The Continent and the neighboring islands. The 2015 game is hailed as one of the most magnificent examples of open world interaction to date. As I hunted a Leshen through the Skellige archipelago, I bartered with townsfolk, drank my weight in wine and burned bandits and monsters with my Igni spell.

This game provides players with a better story than some open world role playing games would offer. The narrative has you explore each facet of this massive world, cultivating a wonderful story and exploration balance. You can glue yourself to the main quests, or the remarkable side quests, or just enjoy the company of your horse, your swords and the music of the forests and countryside.

New Austin - Red Dead Redemption

*Whistle, rattle snake hiss, tumbleweed rumble* Welcome to the grand state of New Austin, the fictitious American border state in which the majority of the masterpiece western Red Dead Redemption takes place. This western masterpiece is still availed as one of the crowning achievements in video games. Rightfully so, considering anyone (including myself) still has a wagon-load of fun galloping around the southern neck of American Plains and blasting away bandits. Or robbing a bank. Or hunting elk in the mountains. Or getting wasted in a saloon. This, like many open world marvels from Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, L.A. Noire), is a love letter to the sometimes abstract thought of possibility. You can do anything your cowboy-loving imagination can dream up.

Traversing the duality of the great American narrative is very fun and thought provoking. The arid frontier scenery is indicative of a future looming in the east, like a bear menacingly inching out of its cave. The game takes place during the year 1911, and the American industrial complex is on the prowl - the automobile is coming, the modern city is growing and the American cowboy is a soon-to-be legend. John Marston, former outlaw and rough rustling rider travels New Austin in search of his devious brothers-in-arms, admiring the jaw dropping and dynamic in-world environments as he goes. Even today Red Dead Redemption's New Austin inspires awe in players young and old, from Hennigan's Stead to Escalera.

Rome - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

When in Roma, over through a corrupt and oppressive government and discover ancient relics that are key to understanding both the past, present and future. That's quite a mouthful, but it's a great recap of 2010's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, if I do say so myself. The second tale following the first Master Assassin, Ezio Auditore, puts players in Rome during 1499 and the early 1500s. The Borgia Papacy, run secretly by the manipulative Templars, rules the city and consumes the wealth and power of Italy's Papal States, while flooding corruption into Rome. Ezio's job is to rid the city of Templar influence, and reinvigorate the city's Brotherhood of Assassins.

As players peruse the ancient seat of of the Roman Empire, they are exposed to the charming markets, fountains and public forums, expertly sculpted by the developers at Ubisoft. This version of Rome is, like many appealing maps and worlds, is a growing one. Ezio can invest in the city as he frees it, expanding merchant and public areas. This is aside from players controlling the Master Assassin into destroying a capturing Templar Towers, effectively transitioning city districts to Brotherhood control. Assassin's Creed games are famous for their abilitiy to strike and cultivate incredible period pieces - languages, architecture and cultures are the primary colors of the series' paintings. The maps, like Rome, are the canvases. Brotherhood, brought the 10 year old franchise to the modern gaming realm, with smart and interactive layouts and wicked pretty surroundings.

Arkham City - Batman: Arkham City

This world is a very different one, and that's a good thing. Many open world games cultivate their narratives whilst pushing their map as a boundless bucket of belligerent bounties. Others simply let the player do whatever the hell the want, literally. 2011's hit Batman: Arkham City follows the event of cult classic Batman: Arkham Asylum. The Caped Crusader finds himself in Arkham City, a corner of Gotham City dedicated to be an impregnable prison. Rather than a video game world of Gotham to explore, players punch there way through a social experiment that used to be a city. The prison has buildings and citizens, but none of the buildings are functioning civil structures, and none of the citizens are citizenly.

As the Dark Knight progresses through the gang-ridden streets of the Arkham City super prison, players are free to pursue side quests as they would in a standard open world game. However, unlike in The Witcher or Fallout, players are steered along the main plot line more strictly. Sure, you can avoid certain quests if you'd like, but the main quest is unavoidable. Plenty of other open world games do this, but Arkham City's map is still seen as a conducive marriage of linear and non-linear story development.

But who gives a bat's ass about that when we're talking about the world itself? Arkham City is an amazing map! It's a love letter to the comic book geek in us all, and is executed perfectly as a mix of graphic novel and realistic action environment. Abandoned police stations, clown-ridden smelting factories and run down ferris wheels mark the game that is still enjoyed today.

#BenStembridge