The 10 BIGGEST Open World Video Game Maps
Test Drive Unlimited 2
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There’s no quicker way to get around a landscape than behind the wheel of your favorite car. Unfortunately, my Mazda 2 wasn’t in there, so I had to drive an Alfa Romeo. Yuck. Test Drive Unlimited 2 is a game plagued with average and mixed reviews. It's buggy, it’s boring and some of its core mechanics are very weak. But, the one thing it does have is over 600 square miles of pure land to travel, about the size of the entire London area. Spread across 2 islands, the game gives you a good amount of freedom, albeit permanently behind the wheel of a car.
Final Fantasy XV
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Final Fantasy has always featured open worlds that amaze and amuse. From the original NES title where players felt like they were really traveling a sprawling fantasy world, through to the unforgettable and diverse land of Spira in FFX, players have always had the opportunity to explore. Besides the online games, Final Fantasy XV was the first of the series to feature an open world without loading screens or fixed camera environments. Players could run, drive or even fly around over 700 square miles of constantly changing magical landscapes. To put that in perspective, it’s about twice as big as Los Angeles, plus you can use magic. Can you do that in LA without illegal drugs? I DON’T THINK SO!
The Crew
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The crew offers players the chance to live their open world fantasies, hitting the open road and driving across the Contiguous United States as so many people dream of doing. Unfortunately, it’s not a 1-to-1 scale. That being said, it's still FRIGGIN MASSIVE. The Crew’s open world is a recreation of the US that spans across 1900 Square Miles, about 500 square miles bigger than the entirety of Rhode Island. The crew is also incredibly popular with a dedicated online community driving their way across many states and into cities including Chicago, New York and Las Vegas.
Fuel
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There seems to be a theme with these massive open worlds, and that seems to be “driving”. Fuel takes a massive leap from its predecessors with an open world map that spans across five and a half thousand square miles. That’s bigger than Connecticut, that’s bigger than Jamaica, that’s bigger than the entirety of the Bahamas! Even as an online racing game, the world of Fuel feels crafted and careful, a post apocalyptic and post global warming world where the map is plagued with tornadoes and sandstorms. Fuel is a big map where each part feels attended to by the developer.
Guild Wars Nightfall
Let’s get this out of the way, Guild Wars Nightfall is massive. For our MMO fans, think about it like this, World of Warcraft is about 80 square miles of collective maps. Guild Wars Nightfall is roughly 15,000 square miles. Balthazar, grant me strength. Playing a map as big as Switzerland can be a daunting undertaking, but Guild Wars eases players in with a fully accessible gaming experience that players can get good at even this far into the game's existence, and the servers are still hot so go get cooking.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
New players to the series who started with Skyrim, or even some who began with the ever popular Oblivion, forget The Elder Scrolls’ humble beginnings, and by humble I mean having the largest map in the game’s entire history. Daggerfall spanned across a fully walkable 62,000 Square miles, which is not far off being as big as the entire United Kingdom. Daggerfall and the subsequent fan remake Daggerfall Unity have both been met with critical acclaim as they offer an endless questing fantasy experience where players can lose themselves to what could essentially be a second life.
Microsoft Flight Simulator
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When it comes to comparing sizes of open world game maps with real world locations to give some tangible perspective, nothing is easier than Microsoft Flight Simulator. The open world map of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s “Earth” spans roughly 197 million square miles. For comparison, this is roughly as big as EARTH coming in at 197 million square miles … it’s as big as Earth ... it IS Earth. Microsoft Flight Sim gives players the opportunity to fly around and between over 37,000 real world airports with real world simulated flight traffic. And if you’re wondering, yes, you can fly straight into your best friend's house... just keep it to the game, you lunatic.
Minecraft
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This is a difficult entry because as a procedurally generated world, the size of a Minecraft map is fully dependent on what your system can handle. Get a beefy PC and theoretically your map could be 30 million blocks in each direction. With a good enough system, you’re looking at around 1.5 billion square miles of possibly explorable terrain... YIKES. Minecraft is a tough entry to quantify but the scope of the game and the endless amount you can do in the game is not. Middle Earth, Westeros and the world of Harry Potter have all been created within Minecraft. With an endless blank canvas, Minecraft is one of the largest and most editable open world maps ever created.
Elite: Dangerous
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Another map that is difficult to actualise is the world of Elite: Dangerous. Completely explorable and spanning over 400 billion star systems, some absolute geniuses have done the math to let us know that the game is quite large. Coming in at a whopping 13.8 Million Cubic Light Years, this game is a beast. Players take the helm of their own ship with the ability to explore a 1-to-1 recreation of the Milky Way galaxy. There are 3 game systems available, trading, exploration and combat, and you are given the freedom to excel in any or all of these systems with complete freedom. If you love space, and you love open worlds, and you love freedom … Well, lock yourself in a tiny room and play this game.
No Man’s Sky
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Not only does No Man’s Sky have theoretically history's largest open world map, but it’s also history's biggest gaming comeback. Beginning as a hated and regrettable purchase for players who fell for the over promised game elements, No Man’s Sky has evolved into the game players wanted from day 1. As the largest open world game ever, the map size is still unknown as it is procedurally generated and constantly growing. That being said, the procedural generation is shared across all players, which means discovering a new planet and being able to name it “Fart Land 69” for all future explorers to find is well within your capabilities.
