Occasionally, a game comes out that players just want to cozy up to for hours on end.Open-world gamescan be riveting, or they can be frustrating and tedious. The scale of an open-world game can be both its strong and weak suit. On one side of the spectrum, some games have enormous maps that are time-consuming to traverse.
With focused gameplay, however, open-world games can provide immersive experiences that have immense replay value. The realism of these maps is awe-inspiring. Love or hate the following titles, they are some of thehighest-selling in gaming. Let’s take a look at themost immersive open-world games.
Updated Jun 11, 2025 by Mark Sammut:One of the most, if not the most immersive open-world games of 2025 has just been released. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is now available on PC and consoles, and it is a triumph in open-world design, storytelling, and pretty much every other area. Click below to jump to this entry.
After making waves via a demo,The Planet Crafterhad its full release in April 2024, garnering near-universal praise in the process. A survival sandbox game set on a vacant planet not equipped for human life, this title shares quite a few hallmarks with other releases and is a fairly small project in the grand scheme of things. However,The Planet Crafterknows what it is trying to be and does a great job of actualizing that goal. The goal is simple: Terraform a planet.
Dropped in a harsh world with little to their name and almost no help, players will initially need to focus on meeting the bare minimum requirements to survive, which includes monitoring their oxygen levels. As they gather resources and slowly begin to craft tools and buildings, their new hellhole will start to transform into something a bit more charming and, eventually, beautiful.
With accessibility options that allow the gameplay’s difficulty to be tweaked to match a user’s preferences,The Planet Craftercan be either brutal or relaxing; either way, it should make for animmersive open-world game. Miju Games did a fantastic job of emphasizing visual progression throughThe Planet Crafter’s base building and expansion, granting quite a bit of freedom in the terraforming process. After a considerable number of hours, players will have shaped the planet to their tastes.
Open-world games are generally synonymous with size. They take players on expansive adventures that last dozens upon dozens of hours; sometimes, they even crack the 100-hour mark. They bring to life fantastical or realistic worlds stuffed with NPCs, enemies, side quests, loot, and hidden secrets. They are meant to be time-sinks.
However, exceptions not only exist, but they sometimes offer a much-needed change in pace.Little Kitty, Big Cityfollows a cat that falls from its home’s window sill and lands on the streets of a (somewhat) bustling metropolis. Now, the cat needs to travel through the neighborhood to try and find its way back to safety, all the while interacting with other animals, collecting trinkets, andmaybe jumping on a bird or two. The concept and execution are both fairly straightforward, delivering exactly what the title advertises without throwing out any notable twists.
Little Kitty, Big Cityis just pleasant fluff. The adorable protagonist controls well enough to (mostly) avoid frustration, while most of the plot progression challenges are easy to complete. The world is fairly small in the grand scheme of things, but it seems huge due to being presented from a cat’s perspective. While not designed to be played for weeks on end, Double Dagger’s game is perfect for a short 5-hour immersion.
“Immersive” tends to be synonymous with realistic sims or slow-paced adventures with lengthy campaigns. For the most part, that association makes complete sense and is usually accurate; however, some games opt to go down a different direction entirely.Echo Point Novais almost the direct opposite of a conventional immersive open-world game, and it is all the better for that distinction.
Greylock Studio seems to specialize in movement-first FPS games, embracing and evolving the run and gun concept to provide loops that demand constant action and split-second choices.Severed Steelis a great example of the studio’s take on the FPS genre, and its level-based structure perfectly complements combat that just screams “speedruns.”
On paper, this type of high-octane and relentless gameplay rhythm seems like a poor fit for an open-world, butEcho Point Novasomehow makes it work. The concept is pretty simple: Players are dropped on an island-based planet and are left to their own devices. Naturally, that means they need to kill a lot of enemies, a process that involves rampaging through outposts, upgrading weapons, and leaping from island to island using a movement system that is like amix ofTitanfall 2andBulletstorm.
While not immersive in the traditional narrative sense,Echo Point Nova’s gameplay loop is so addictive that players will be 100% focused at all times.
Many fans were heartbroken to hear that masterclass game developer Hideo Kojima wouldn’t be working on the critically acclaimedMetal Gear Solidseries any longer but were quickly placated to learn the iconic creator was opening his own studio. His first foray into the world of video games as an untethered designer wasDeath Stranding.
Although it’s a bit avant-garde for some, the world that Kojima created is nothing short of spectacular, especially from an immersion standpoint. Players get to control Sam, a “futuristic delivery man” portrayed by the talented Norman Reedus ofWalking Deadfame. AlthoughDeath Strandingis superbly strange, it’s also incredibly enthralling (although some may find it hard to enjoy its quirky and slow-paced gameplay). Ultimately, this title is not for everyone, but it is definitely worth a look, if only to appreciate its world.
While not the be-all and end-all of what makes a great game, graphics do matter. WouldAvatar: Frontiers of Pandorahave made the grade if it was not so gorgeous? Probably not, and that is not an indictment of the rest of the experience. It is just that the title’s visuals are by far its most striking feature, and they bring to fruition a vibrant, lively, and reactive alien world that is packed to the brim with jaw-dropping vistas. The game is fully aware that its main selling point isits world, and it goes out of its way to ensure nothing distracts from its beauty.
The immersion goes beyond just the visuals though, asFrontiers of Pandoraalso does an admirable job of making players feel like they are controlling huge alien creatures that tower over humans. While the combat is not that far removed from the typical Ubisoft first-person experience, the game’s heightened mobility gives everything a different and refreshing flavor.
Similar to its predecessor,Dragon’s Dogma 2is not the prettiest or biggest open-world game on the market. The main storyline is little more than serviceable, and the enemy selection is decent but a touch limited. Most of the map consists of roads, caves, and mountains, which can get repetitive at times. If someone wants to dash through the campaign, they just need to stick to the primary paths and will generally be fine. Despite all that, Capcom’s RPG is impressively immersive, and that largely stems from its willingness to force players to take things slow.
While possible with some prep,Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes fast-travel inconvenient enoughthat players will likely restrict it to special case scenarios. Even though making a beeline for the next plot point is a viable way to play the game, doing so is not encouraged; in fact, an argument could be made thatDragon’s Dogma 2truly comes alive when quests are ignored in favor of exploring off the beaten path. Before long, players will find themselves running into random encounters that feel like genuine emergent experiences, rather than enemies that are forever pinned to one spot on the map.
Pandemic Studios was great. The developer knew how to combine cool settings with addictive and accessible gameplay while telling unique and (occasionally) comedic stories. While perhaps not “immersive” in the traditional sense, bothMercenariesgames are highly entertaining sandbox projects that feature some of the genre’s best-ever destruction. TheDestroy All Humans!games also offered fun smaller-scale twists on the open-world format. The developer could also handle non-sandbox projects masterfully, as shown byStar Wars: BattlefrontandFull Spectrum Warrior. EvenThe Lord of the Rings: Conquestdeserves praise for its presentation, despite not being amongthe franchise’s best titles.
EA shut down Pandemic in November 2009, a month before the developer’s final game hit store shelves. Putting everything else aside,The Saboteursaw Pandemic go out on a high note that is still worth revisiting to this day, as long as new players have a fondness for PS3-era open-world projects that take fairly heavy inspiration from the first few 3DGTAs. Surprisingly, very few open-world games have tried covering World War 2, andThe Saboteuris extra special due to taking place in Nazi-occupied Paris. The city’s recreation is historically accurate, albeit stylized through artistic choices like depicting yet-to-be-liberated areas in black and white (and introducing color as a reward for liberating them).
The Saboteurhas a few shortcomings and enjoyable gameplay that does not break any new ground. Nevertheless, its unique and immersive setting is more than enough to keep things interesting, and it is hardly the game’s only strong suit.
While the series has been around for a while on mobile devices,Infinity Nikkirepresented a substantial leap forward for the franchise, with the console and PC game serving as most people’s introduction to this cozy and stylish universe. Set in Miraland, players guide Nikki through a slow-life adventure that rewards exploration, encouraging players to just live in the moment and venture off the beaten path. Despite containing combat and a somewhat high-stakes main story,Infinity Nikkiis mostly stripped of tension or challenge, which is a refreshing change of pace compared to most other open-world games.
Now, on paper, this free title does not seem that unique. The gameplay loop largely revolves around collecting materials, completing the occasional side quest, engaging in easy combat, figuring out light puzzles, clearing dungeons, and interacting with quite a lot of NPCs. There are also mini-games like fishing which are required in modern open-world projects. All familiar stuff, butInfinity Nikkistands out due to its wardrobe system. Nikki has outfits better suited for certain tasks, promoting her to change her look up fairly frequently. This adds to the game’s immersion.
Preyis not an open-world game in the sense that players can immediately explore the entire map, but they will be able to return to previous areas. Essentially, Arkane created a 3D Metroidvania, and a fantastic one at that.Preyis an immersive simset within Talos 1, a quite large space station that has been taken over by an alien threat.
Talos 1 is a masterclass of world design, with each area telling a story through its environment. The map is interconnected, not only in terms of exploration but also in consistency. Even though the campaign mainly takes place after the station has become a wasteland, it is easy to buy Talos 1 as a real place.
BeforeShenmuearrived for the Sega Dreamcast back in 1999,the concept of open-world games was still very much in its infancy. While most other developers were still trying to figure out how to make the leap from 2D to 3D though, Yu Suzuki was instead focused on creating one of the most immersive and realistic video game worlds of all time; and boy, did he succeed.
Set in the late eighties, the game allows players to explore parts of Yokosuka; a small city in Tokyo’s Kanagawa prefecture. All the NPCs that they’ll encounter are fully voiced and have their own well-fleshed-out identities and daily routines. The game even utilizes historic geographical data to ensure thatthe in-game weather matches that of the period in which the story takes place.
