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The 10 Open World Games With the Biggest Maps, Ranked By Map Size

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The 10 Open World Games With the Biggest Maps, Ranked By Map Size

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, but that’s not the case for the games on this list. An open world game is designed to offer players infinite possibilities and opportunities. Still, some games take it one step further by crafting a virtual world that can barely be comprehended. For instance, World of Warcraft is a very large game, measuring around 745 square miles, or the equivalent size of Rome or New York City. Every game on this list is many times larger than this.

Many larger games employ a clever developer trick to create vast universes that can still run efficiently on consoles and PCs: procedural generation. In procedurally generated worlds, areas of the map only “exist” when the player approaches them. This system can also generate these locations randomly. As a result, players can have a more bespoke experience where no two playthroughs are exactly the same.

10

Fuel Is a Mad Max-Inspired Racer

Map Size: 5,560 Square Miles

Fuel is a massive open-world racing game set in a post-apocalyptic version of the United States. Both the cars and character designs are inspired by Mad Max. It’s set on a land devastated by natural disasters, which makes it a hazardous and challenging environment. Players can race through diverse terrains, including flooded cities, snowy mountains, and burned-out forests, using heavily customized vehicles.

  • Fuel was delisted from Steam in 2013

The open-world system in Fuel lets drivers choose their own paths and emphasizes exploration as much as traditional racing mechanics. Players can uncover areas that offer backstory, vehicle upgrades, or breathtaking roads and trails to race on. The game’s huge world also supports multiplayer interactions, allowing for competitive racing or collaborative team activities, adding depth and variety to the experience.

9

Guild Wars: Nightfall Made Numerous Innovations to the Series

Map Size: 15,000 Square Miles

A Guild Wars 2 party in combat against a massive enemy.

Guild Wars: Nightfall is the third standalone campaign in theGuild Wars series and is set in Elona, a continent inspired by African landscapes and culture. This installment introduced innovative gameplay mechanics to the series alongside a compelling narrative. Players take on the role of a hero tasked with thwarting the plans of a malevolent god called Abaddon, who, in true villain fashion, wants to plunge the world into chaos.

In Nightfall, players can create characters based on different professions. These professions essentially function as a class system but also shape the way the player traverses the game’s world. Elona is huge and detailed and delivers a great questline, diverse side missions, along with plenty of hidden areas to discover.

8

Atlas Brings Piracy to MMOs

Map Size: Approximately 17,000 Square Miles

A shot from a town in Atlas

The life of a seafaring pirate has long been romanticized as the ultimate expression of freedom where travelers can go wherever the horizon beckons. Atlas is an underrated MMO that brings this dream to life in a vast, open world. Players begin stranded on a deserted island, gathering resources to embark on a journey of travel and adventure across the seas.

Atlas‘ massive map includes 700 unique land areas to discover. Ships are essential for exploring the world and range from modest, rickety rafts to imposing war galleons. Players can even join up into a fleet and combine the powers of multiple ships. With trade routes, hidden treasures, and combat galore, Atlas has no shortage of excitement and peril. Still, its world also provides moments of relaxation, even amid the dangers posed by other players and the environment.

7

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Gives Players A Birds Eye View

Map Size: Over 38,000 Square Miles

Image depicting the Airbus A310, as seen in Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition.

One of the initial big names in the simulator gaming market, Microsoft Flight Simulator allows players to soar the skies in authentic representations of aircraft. There are hot air balloons, helicopters, smaller bi-planes, commercial-sized planes, jets, and even some historical crafts. It’s a realistic and detail-orientated representation of Earth that lets virtual pilots visit landmarks worldwide.

Steam charts feature image

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Flight Simulator 2024 uses real-world mapping data and a dynamic real-time weather system to create a photorealistic environment. The planet’s natural beauty can be viewed from perfectly recreated cockpits, with multiple difficulty options available. These options cater to both casual players and hardcore enthusiasts, allowing various flight-related variables to be adjusted.

Map Size: 63,000 Square Miles

Daggerfall Unity screenshot looking at Sentinel Palace

Other games in the Elder Scrolls series, like Skyrim, are known for their massive worlds, but they can’t compare to The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall. Released in 1996, Daggerfall has the second-biggest map in the entire Elder Scrolls series. Like other games in the franchise, it takes place on the continent of Tamriel, but this version of Tamriel is bigger than it’s ever been before.

The world of Daggerfall covers the land between High Rock and Hammerfell. There are more than 15,000 locations for players to explore, ranging from cities and towns to dungeons. While it has a fantastic main story that’s filled with intrigue, it’s packed with side content that players can focus on instead.

5

Starfield Is Huge, For Better Or Worse

Map Size: Estimated at over 1,000,000 Square Miles

Starfield Space Exploration Saturn

Starfield was a highly anticipated open-world RPG and the first all-new property from developer Bethesda in over 25 years. It puts players in the space boots of a daring adventurer. Although it received mixed reviews from players, Starfield is a great mix of space exploration and the strong storytelling Bethesda is known for.

Starfield Shattered Space

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Even with some criticisms and gameplay mechanics that break immersion, it’s still a fantastic way to travel the stars. Starfield has the biggest map of any Bethesda game, but its world still feels manageable to explore. Some games on this list have larger maps, but those maps are literally impossible to explore in a single lifetime.

Map Size: 6,000,000 Square Miles

the-elder-scrolls_-arena-in-game-screenshot-2.jpgThe Elder Scrolls: Arena is the first and largest game in The Elder Scrolls series. It got things off to a big start with a massive map that includes every single province in Tamriel. Arena‘s size is impressive even by modern standards, but when it was released back in 1994, it was significantly larger than other games on the market.

Although Arena has the largest world of any Elder Scrolls game, most of the map isn’t handcrafted. Instead, it’s randomly generated, with new locations spawning in as the player explores. While most estimates put the map’s size at around 6,000,000 square miles, others argue that Arena’s map is technically infinite.

3

Minecraft Is Arguably the Most Well Known Game Ever

Map Size: 1.6 Billion Square Miles

Minecraft needs no introduction. This blocky, sandbox, open-world game has become a phenomenon in the gaming world. For years, it has held the title of the best-selling video game of all time and continues to attract a large, consistent player base. Each world, or “seed,” is virtually endless and features diverse biomes to explore, ranging from jungles and forests to deserts and tundras.

  • Minecraft has sold over 300 million copies.

Not only is Minecraft a classic, but its map is bigger than the entire planet. Earth is approximately 197 million square miles, but Minecraft is over a billion. With such a massive map to play with, talented and dedicated members of this gaming community have managed to create some mind-blowing worlds in this game. There have been scale replicas of the whole world of Middle-Earth, Skyrim, and Westeros.

2

Elite Dangerous Offers a True Open-World Experience

Map Size: Approximately 100,000 Light Years Across

Ship combat from Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous‘ map is a 1:1 scale recreation of the Milky Way, making it one of the biggest game worlds ever created. This space simulation game allows players to fight, trade, and survive as they make their way across the galaxy. The title is renowned for its attention to detail and offers plenty of realism when it comes to both planetary physics and space combat.

  • According to the Elite Dangerous developers, only 0.06% of the game has been explored.

The game features a multiplayer component where players may encounter others during their travels. However, since interactions are relatively rare due to the map’s immense scale, solo gamers can also enjoy the vast universe. Players begin the game with a basic ship and a small amount of credits, choosing their own path in the galaxy from there. The core gameplay revolves around a dynamic, player-driven economy and a sandbox environment. From there, players can choose to become traders, miners, pirates, bounty hunters, or explorers seeking the beauty of the final frontier.

1

No Man’s Sky Is Literally the Size of a Universe

Map Size: 256 Galaxies

No Man’s Sky is an immensely ambitious space exploration game that offers gamers the chance to venture where no man has gone before. The game takes place in a procedurally generated universe with a near-infinite number of planets, each boasting its own landscape and ecosystem. While it has a huge world, No Man’s Sky is about more than space exploration and emphasizes the survival and exploration aspects of gaming. Players start out on a random planet with nothing but a multitool and a simple ship.

  • The average planet in No Man’s Sky is sized at around 80 square miles,

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It is frankly impossible to comprehend how large this game is. The publisher boasts that No Man’s Sky includes 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to explore, which is nearly 18 and a half quintillion. It is thought that it would take the average player 58,494 years to explore each planet, making this game impossible to finish. It is a true credit to the developers at Hello Games that a game of this magnitude exists.

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