We're in a golden age of open world games, sprawling sandboxes where player choice rules above all else. Sure, there are stories, quests, missions, and goals, but players are free to complete them at their own pace. From fantasy realms to simulated galaxies, from modern cities to post-apocalyptic wastelands, the best open world games give players the freedom to choose their own path—to do what they want, when they want—and provide an interesting and rewarding setting for their self-guided adventures.

Here are the best open world games on PC.

Death Stranding


Released: 2020 | Developer: Kojima Productions

Kojima's first game after leaving Konami, Death Stranding is set in a post-death reality where the concept of the afterlife has been blown open. Your goal as Sam Porter Bridges is to rebuild America by walking across the country and linking up cities, preppers, and waystations to, uh, the Time Internet? It makes next to no sense, but that's OK. Death Stranding is an indulgent mood piece first and an excellent hiking and delivery game second.

Andy Kelly puts it nicely in his review: "Some jobs seem impossible. Standing at the foot of a mountain, snow whipping at its peaks, fragile cargo stuck to every inch of your suit, you wonder how you'll ever get over it. But you power on, one step at a time, patiently placing ladders and climbing ropes, edging closer to your destination. Along the way you might have to slip into Metal Gear mode and sneak past BTs, or deal with extreme weather such as disorientating blizzards. You might even get knocked out by terrorists and have your cargo stolen, forcing you to sneak into their camp and take it back. But after all that, you make it, and it feels incredible."

Red Dead Redemption 2


Released: 2019 | Developer: Rockstar Games

Rockstar's historical open world series finally hit the PC with Red Dead Redemption 2, a monumental ode to the fading American frontier. RDR2 is rife with detail, overstuffed with little touches: animal corpses persist and decay, the protagonist Arthur has commentary for nearly every location and character, and random world events make the world feel lived in, be it sucking on a man's snakebite wound or getting ambushed by hillbillies.

It's all layered into an excellent story that'll take you as long as the complete Deadwood series to get through, and that's if you're rushing. And on top of it all, Red Dead Online brings a DayZ adjacent quality to the open world, invoking everything from serious roleplay to ridiculous, surreal shenanigans. It's also one of the prettiest games you can play on the PC today. With the mods rolling in quickly, RDR2 is bound to be a PC game we talk about for years and years to come.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey


Released: 2018 | Developer: Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed Odyssey was a landmark for the series, altering a great deal of what Assassin’s Creed is known for and transforming itself into a true RPG. At the same time, it carried on the tradition of providing a massive, intricately detailed open world full of beautiful scenery and colorful quests.

"Normally size doesn't matter, but the sheer scale of Odyssey's ancient Greece is to its benefit, especially because each area feels so distinct and detailed," Steven wrote in his glowing review. "It's a vast world that I want to explore, and each zone has a subtle aesthetic that makes it unique, from the arid badlands of Crete to the verdant plains of Arkadia. This isn't just Ubisoft's biggest game ever, it's also it's most beautiful."

Subnautica


Released: 2018 | Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Subnautica's vast ocean environment and the diverse underwater biomes provide one of the most striking, gorgeous, and terrifying open worlds in PC gaming. Games are rarely—and literally—so sublime.

Reviewer Phillipa explains her fascination so: "I adore the way the lighting and the art create the sense of each biome as being a distinct underwater creation, both alien and familiar. I love following the creatures around—even the more aggressive ones—and will happily front crawl my way into a curious labyrinthine cave system without remembering to lay a path of glowing markers so I can get back out."

The simulation is fairly surface level, but Subnautica's accolades are best reserved for how it creates the illusion of ecosystem. Big fish eat the little ones, and their respective physical and behavioral attributes make sense for where you find them. It doesn't hurt that most of them look quite nice against the darkness of the deep ocean blue. And between all the exploration at the behest of natural curiosity, a story sort of just happens to you. To say anything more would spoil an excellent sci-fi mystery.

Grand Theft Auto 5


Released: 2015 | Developer: Rockstar Games

This is what money is for: creating a kind of pastiche of a real-world location that’s so staggeringly accurate in atmosphere and details that it’s actually better than being in the real thing. Los Santos represents the meticulous approach Rockstar gave to the compact Liberty City in GTA 4 and brought it to the scale of 2004’s San Andreas—and the result is an open world of such a high standard that it’ll only likely be topped by Rockstar itself. Between GTA 5's strong multi-protagonist campaign and the mad playground of GTA Online, there’s well over 100 hours of chases and gunfights across land, air and sea for those who want it here.

GTA 5 is also highly moddable. Here's our list of the best mods for Grand Theft Auto 5.