Top 10 Best Open-World PC Games Like GTA!

From The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to Elden Ring, these are our picks for best open-world games of all time.

Open-world games have come a long way over the years, offering more freedom to explore and in how we approach objectives, but which ones have it all? The best open world, the best challenges, the best story, the best characters?

So without further ado, here are the top 10 open-worlds games of all time.

Try these Ten Best Open-World PC Games of All Time

10. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

New York City around Christmastime is magic. And Insomniac has done an incredible job of recreating that charming atmosphere in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Every aspect of this follow-up to the 2018 Spidey hit is undoubtedly built on the great fundamentals of that first game. But the approach to the world, mission design, and story is altogether stronger in Miles Morales, even if there is less of it. But the focus on a more select story and missions allow Miles’ journey to be so personally impactful on the player and character.

It’s a fantastic debut solo outing for Miles, with improved and smoother traversal and combat options, a stirring story, and a host of intriguing, important things to do. And that’s all while looking and running so well, both on PS5 and PS4. Insomniac somehow captured the real-world magic of New York and imbued it into Spider-Man: Miles Morales, letting players experience it any time of year.

9. Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Forbidden West improves on the Zero Dawn experience in just about every way. Aloy’s new journey features a dense world full of meaningful sidequests, where each character and their stories offer a unique entry point into the world. And it’s a world that feels like it meaningfully lives and even evolves around Aloy and the player. And to better serve those sidequests, Guerrilla has extended the reach of Aloy’s world to the titular Forbidden West, with a host of memorable locations that offer insight into both the current tribes populating the world and the crumbled remains of our former civilization. 

Climbing traversal may not be as free as some other games on this list, but the ability to better search underwater and even take to the skies are welcome, joyous additions to the formula. Horizon Forbidden West is certainly built on the foundation of other open-world games, including Zero Dawn, but it’s an amazing step in pushing the genre forward and creating a captivating adventure in its own right.

8. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid 5 is one of the best examples of how an open-world game should approach its challenges. There's more than one way to go at any situation, and the result is a feeling of unprecedented freedom of choice.

At its best, it's pure play, reminiscent of smashing Army men together in a playground sandbox, but with a fantastic soundtrack and more than enough of Kojima eccentricity to make it feel even more special. While the story is ultimately unfinished, and it can't hold itself together through to the end, the freedom it affords makes it incredible regardless of its narrative shortcomings.

7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

It’s been a long-running joke that Skyrim exists on almost every platform imaginable. From its humble beginnings in 2011, launching on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, Skyrim is everywhere, including Amazon Alexa devices, for good reason. It set an entirely new standard for what an open-world adventure could be and remains amazing. The PC version houses one of the most bustling modding communities of all time, even having full-length games spawn from it. And with the recent upgrade to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, Skyrim still looks and plays fantastic.

With its engrossing story, living open-world, and more content than any one person knows what to do with, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim still stands today as one of the greatest open-world RPGs a person can spend their time with.

6) Far Cry 5

FPS and survivor-horror adventure game Far Cry 5 is set in a fictional region of Montana that’s housing a creepy group of doomsday cultists. You play as an unnamed junior deputy sheriff who has to help take down the powerful cult leader Joseph Seed and his family of despots and sycophants.

Far Cry 5 is visually stunning. It re-creates Montana with awe-inspiring graphics such as wilderness with murky and deep lakes, towering pine trees, twisty rivers, and rugged mountain peaks. Buildings that include cult outposts, bait shops, cabins, and ranger stations are photorealistic in some areas.

5. Elden Ring

It may seem a little rash to just immediately catapult Elden Ring above some of the all-time greats that make up the top half of this list. That said, Elden Ring is one of the boldest and most groundbreaking open-world games of the past decade; one that empowers the player to find their own path without being guided by an endless series of map markers, waypoints, and hollow side quests.

The world of The Lands Between is not only gigantic, but it’s positively dense with caves and catacombs to discover, roaming boss battles to conquer, valuable treasures to uncover, and all manner of challenges to overcome. The journey through Elden Ring is not an easy one, especially if you’re not familiar with From Software’s unique philosophy when it comes to teaching its lessons through punishing difficulty, but it’s constantly rewarding, surprising, and awe-inspiring in ways few games are.

4. Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is deliberate in the way it allows you to live out the life of a fictional cowboy named Arthur Morgan. Morgan’s story is an authored experience but the magic of Red Dead Redemption 2 is how the game’s open world allows players to flesh out that life with meaningful experiences thanks to its meticulously crafted world.

Want your Arthur to get really into hunting? Then have fun stalking, trapping, and skinning hundreds of animals, complete with their own food chain and habits. Want to get weirdly into artifact hunting? Then go right ahead. Or perhaps you just want to soak in the atmosphere and hand carve your bullets by campfire for a small damage buff. There are no wrong answers. Just a world stuffed with mystery and wonder that allows us to reach back in time and discover the world of the wild west for ourselves.

3. Grand Theft Auto 5

A perfect send off to the Xbox 360 and PS3 era of gaming, Grand Theft Auto V's legacy and influence has maintained a powerful presence in the industry spanning into two additional hardware generations, as GTA V proved to be a powerful force on both the PS4 and Xbox One, and may likely be again on the PS5 and Xbox Series. And, of course, it never truly leaves the spotlight thanks to the impressive and regular updates Grand Theft Auto Online receives.

But Grand Theft Auto V more than earns that legacy as a glorious achievement, thanks in part to its triple-protagonist structure that offers a compelling overarching narrative that keeps you invested in the end. And the immersiveness of its open world cannot be understated - Los Santos is brimming with life, interesting places to explore, and an incredible amount to do both in the campaign and in GTA Online. Compete in a triathlon, purchase properties, or even trade stocks in the virtual stock market - you can do all that and a lot more in the finest example of a modern open-world in gaming.

2. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Even as it was released near other entries on this list, The Witcher 3 set a new bar for open-world games, one that plenty of other games are still compared to now, seven years later. From the barren hills of Velen to the bustling streets of Novigrad or the verdant fields of Blood & Wine’s Toussaint, every corner of The Continent is full to bursting with monsters to slay, secrets to uncover, and dozens of hours of side quests that feel just as fleshed out and meaningful as its main story.

Add on two of the best expansion packs ever in gaming, which are both included in the current retail version and introduce new maps, upgrades, and collectibles, and you have so many more reasons to explore this exceptional fantasy world.

1. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is an action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft. It is the eleventh major installment, and 21st overall, in the Assassin’s Creed series and the successor to 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. Principally set in the years 431–422 BC, the plot tells a mythological history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Players control a male or female mercenary (Ancient Greek: μίσθιος misthios) who fights on both sides of the conflict as they attempt to find their family.

Like the previous installments of the game, this one also comes with an amazing storyline and mechanics making it one of the Best Open World Games of All Time.