The most popular open world games

Ultima 7 is often hailed as the crown jewel of the series, and with good reason. It throws you into an open world that feels startlingly alive, even decades later. Townsfolk go about their daily routines, you can bake bread if you...

In Crazy Taxi, subtlety is for losers. Your mission: drive a cab like a maniac, pick up passengers, and deliver them to their destination faster than they can scream. Set to a punk-rock soundtrack that refuses to let you relax, ev...

The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall is an old school first-person 3D RPG developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in 1996 for DOS. Daggerfall is the second chapter in popular The Elder Scrolls series. The open world gameplay, the ...

Grand Theft Auto 2 is the second chapter in the successful Grand Theft Auto series. GTA 2 is an abandoned top-down action-adventure / driving hybrid game developed by DMA Design and released by Rockstar Games in 1999 for various p...

In Grand Theft Auto the player takes the role of a criminal who can freely roam around the city (Liberty City) completing tasks for the local mobs: stealing cars, killing pedestrians, all of it while avoiding the police and the ar...

Albion is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) developed and published by German studio Blue Byte Software. It was released in 1995 for MS-DOS and later for Amiga. Albion is notable for its blend of traditional RPG eleme...

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is the first installment in the highly acclaimed Elder Scrolls series of fantasy ARPG (action role-playing games), developed and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was initially released in 1994. Are...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games in 2002. It's the fourth main entry in the GTA series and serves as a spiritual successor to Grand Thef...

The first Fallout game was released in 1997 by Interplay Productions and is widely regarded as one of the most influential RPGs of its time. The game begins in the year 2161, over 80 years after the nuclear war, with the play...

Ultima 8 drops the Avatar into a grim, volcanic world where “fun” is defined as plummeting to your death from badly timed jumps. Yes, the infamous platforming mechanics nearly sank the whole ship. Beneath that frustrat...

Before Ultima 1 came along, role-playing games on PC were about as sophisticated as a pocket calculator. Then Richard Garriott threw players into a digital world full of space travel, dungeons, and dragons—yes, all at once. ...

In Ultima 6, you finally meet the Gargoyles, who aren’t the snarling monsters everyone assumed—they’re just misunderstood neighbors with a different perspective. Cue moral dilemmas and cross-cultural negotiations...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal with political intrigue, bizarre magical phenomena,...

Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons is an abandoned simulation game, sequel of Uncharted Waters, developed and released by KOEI in 1995. The Uncharted Waters series is set in the Age of Discovery and gives the player the freedom to s...

Interstate '76 is a vehicular combat video game developed and published by Activision. It was released in 1997 for Microsoft Windows. The game is set in an alternate history 1976, featuring a stylized 1970s atmosphere with a uniqu...

Back in 1990, Legend of Faerghail was what you played if you wanted a role-playing experience both grand and slightly unforgiving. A German-developed RPG, it combined dungeon crawling, turn-based combat, and an atmosphere thick en...

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. They came up with two games: The Savage Empire and Ma...

Ultima 5 takes a darker turn. Lord British is missing, and his regent, Lord Blackthorn, has turned Britannia into a police state where virtues are enforced at sword-point. You know things are bad when honesty is compulsory and pun...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a grumpy bearded guy swinging an axe and saving the world before second breakfast, Bloodstone: an Epic Dwarven Tale is your jam. Released in 1993 for DOS, this RPG tosses you into a world wher...

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a classic role-playing game developed by Troika Games and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 2001 for Microsoft Windows. The game is set in a unique steampunk fantasy world...

Test Drive 3: The Passion takes the “driving simulator” label and adds just enough early-’90s flair to make you feel like a rebel with a V8. Forget endless racetracks; here, you’re let loose on winding open...

The Magic Candle: Volume 1 is the first chapter of a series of fantasy old school RPGs. The Magic Candle was developed and released by Mindcraft Software in 1989 for DOS but was also published for Apple II and Commodore 64. The wh...

By Ultima 3, the series had discovered the magic of party-based adventuring. No longer a lonely trek, now you command a ragtag group of heroes who bicker only in your imagination. Exodus, the mysterious villain, is less a person a...

Blades of Exile is a classic role-playing video game developed by Spiderweb Software. It's the third installment in the "Exile" series. The game was released in 1997 for Mac OS, and later for Windows in 1998. In Blades of Exile, p...

Don’t let the tongue-twister title fool you—Divine Divinity is a classic in the sprawling world of RPGs. Think of it as Diablo’s eccentric cousin who insists on telling stories at family gatherings. Released in 2...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully bizarre as it sounds. Instead of Britannia, you&r...

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is one of the most influential and innovative role-playing games (RPGs) in video game history. Released in 1985 by Richard Garriott under the Origin Systems banner, it is the fourth installment of th...