From Zelda to Grand Theft Auto: 10 of the best game worlds to get lost in
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild After revolutionising 3D games once with 1998’s Ocarina of Time, Nintendo rewrote the rulebook again here, sculpting a colossal world of staggering complexity. It gives you the basic tools you need and then simply sets you loose, leaving you to paraglide from soaring peaks, cook a steak dinner, make a dirigible out of monster guts, befriend a dog, or motorbike through a desert at your leisure. Nintendo Switch The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
This dark adult fantasy – think
Game of Thrones with more monsters and marginally less sex – presents a huge canvas of forests, cities, archipelagos and vineyards, and stuffs it to bursting with things to do. Follow the story, explore, hunt monsters, or drink, brawl and play cards – as Geralt of Rivia, it’s up to you. PC and consoles Red Dead Redemption 2
Only a developer with the sheer re
sources of Grand Theft Auto developers Rockstar could build a world this massive, yet stuff every nook and cranny with such an obsessive level of detail. Become a train-robbing outlaw or a Robin Hood-esque folk hero, or simply while away your hours wandering its beautiful, dirty and desolate interpretation of the wild west. PC and consoles
Ghost of Tsushima
Taking an impressionistic approach when realising the titular Japanese island, this game turns the 13th-century Mongol invasion into a dazzlingly colourful visual spectacle. Songbirds, foxes or petals on the wind will gently guide you to points of interest, including quiet spots where you can compose haiku, making this one of the prettiest, most soothing virtual worlds it’s possible to experience. PlayStation 4
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
More than 90 sq miles of stunningly realised ancient Greece await you, as you are hurled into the middle of the
Peloponnesian war. If that sounds a bit stressful, the game’s educational Discovery Tour mode – a combat-less guided trip around its diligently reproduced sites and monuments – means you can relax and take it all in, and maybe even learn something. PC and consoles
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Now a rather distinguished nine years old, Bethesda’s wildly successful high-fantasy romp isn’t quite the beauty it once was, but is yet to be bettered in terms of instilling a palpable sense of place. A chilly, brutal and literary world of dragons, dungeons and magic that takes hundreds of hours to fully explore. PC and consoles
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
It may not be the biggest world here, and it certainly isn’t the bonniest, but Warhorse’s historically accurate 15thcentury Bohemia is one of the most immersive. You play a peasant – not a knight, or wizard, but a blacksmith’s son called Henry – whose home is razed by war, with barely any idea, at the beginning at least, how to even swing a sword. PC and consoles
No Man’s Sky
Hello Games’s technical marvel of space exploration procedurally creates its 18 quintillion – yes, that’s right – planets on the fly, meaning any you encounter, and the plants and animals thereon, have likely never been seen before, and never will be again. Then, you take off and fly to another one, with nary a loading screen to speak of. Occasionally gobsmacking to look at, and unimaginably vast. PC and consoles
Divinity: Original Sin II
Larian Studios’ defiantly old-school role-player may frustrate, baffle and infuriate you with its refusal to hold your hand – or even, quite often, to be remotely fair at all. Those who persevere will discover the sprawling, topdown world of Rivellon to be full of wit, charm, personality, and dozens of hours’ worth of endlessly rewarding exploration. PC and consoles
Grand Theft Auto V
It would be remiss not to give Rockstar a second entry on this list, as its hyperbolised US state of San Andreas remains one of gaming’s most varied sandboxes. Its central tale of three criminals remains superb, but is secondary to simply being there, going to see a movie or indulging in a gentle round of golf. Or, this being GTA, you could just steal a jet and blow something up. Different strokes. PC and consoles