10 Best Open World Games for Beginners

Open world games can be incredibly daunting, even for players who love diving into them, so imagine the way a newcomer's head would spin if they don't know the genre too well.

The world could simply be so massive that you don't know where to begin, the gameplay could be a struggle to get through, or everything is just overly complicated. However, there are still plenty of open world games that a beginner would have an excellent time with, even if there is a challenge added in.

These games are great introductions to open world games, either due to the gameplay, story, or size of the world itself. Typically, it's a combination of the three that determines if a game would be good for a beginner or not.

So here are some open world games that have plenty to offer, but it's not too much to turn away new players.

10 Batman: Arkham City

A Contained Open World

The Arkham games are truly something else, and easily remain the best Batman games to date — the sick gameplay is a major reason for that, the combat is fluid and fun in every possible way. While Batman: Arkham Asylum was contained to a single area, Batman: Arkham City stepped it up a notch by having the Caped Crusader manage a whole city of villains.

While you do have a whole city to explore, it's only a portion of Gotham overall, meaning that the world is actually well-contained; it's big enough to find countless side quests and things to do, but not so big that you're wandering completely lost for hours.

Plus, if you were to focus strictly on the main story, the game itself is pretty short, being able to be completed in about 12.5 hours. It provides just enough for players who are dipping their toes into the open world waters, but there's more to offer in case they decide to jump in and go for a swim.

And for this game, I'd say the water is just fine.

9 Fallout: New Vegas

Especially if You Loved the Show

The Fallout games are already pretty good starting points for an open world adventure, with Fallout: New Vegas remaining the gold standard of such. And, if you have watched the show and liked what you saw, you're going to have a great time with the games, especially since the second season focused heavily on New Vegas.

The world of New Vegas is incredibly flexible and immersive, with your choices (however morally dubious as they may be) bearing significant weight on your gameplay experience. The world is as alive and reactive as you can get, with each individual detail that players interact with influencing just what kind of a game you're playing, really.

Not to mention, the Atompunk Americana aesthetic ties it all together with a nice little bow. Players can get wholly immersed into this world and all it has to offer, with a good amount of replayability if they want to immerse themselves once again.

And if you're trying to get a good jump ahead, be sure to go to Quarry Junction. That's where the good loot is.

8 Assassin's Creed Series

AC3 is the Underrated Best One

The unique thing about the Assassin's Creed franchise is that each game is actually set in a different country at different points in their history, offering different vast, open worlds using our very own — and it's all historically accurate. The best part about this series that you can just jump in anywhere, and have a great time.

While Assassin's Creed II is easily the most popular of the franchise, my personal favourite that I always recommend is actually Assassin's Creed III. Of course, they're older in the series, but they still hold well.

Each of these open world games require stealth in order to progress in missions, but that's if you even take those missions on. You can genuinely just run around the map and doing whatever you want, which is where most of the joy resides. But at the same time, this stealth will help you soak everything in all the better.

You don't have to really track the overarching plot between all the games (because it gets pretty convoluted), focusing more on the in-Animus-world stories and having a better time that way. Basically, with the endless freedom you have in any of the games, you have a great starting point for open worlds.

7 Baldur's Gate 3

Intro to D&D, Too

Baldur's Gate 3 is more closely defined as a semi-open world game, as you can't completely backtrack after progressing to Act III, but that's what makes it perfect for newcomers. Plus, if you're interested in getting into Dungeons & Dragons, this game is still an excellent starting point in that regard, too.

You create your character, decided what kind of person they're going to be, and then roleplay it out to perfection. Seriously, this game is probably the closest it can get to a genuine tabletop session, and it's because of your vast amount of choices (only to be determined by a dice roll ... get ready to save scum).

Plus, the replayability for this game is insane. You could play as any of the very companions that you recruited with you, a different class/race, or as The Dark Urge — you could make completely different decisions the second time around, and you'll be met with all kinds of dialogue lines that only play out depending on what you chose to do or say. This isn't even mentioning how different things feel with that added context.

It's got a lot to offer, yet offered in a way that's easy to follow and understand, making it an excellent starting point for people wanting to see what all the open world fuss is about.

6 Cyberpunk 2077

A Satirical World That Feels Too Real

There are still a surprising number of players who haven't even touched Cyberpunk 2077 due to its abysmal launch, but I will be the first to tell you that it's not just smooth and playable now, but it's better than it's ever been. The Phantom Liberty DLC only adds to this, especially with how much more alive Night City becomes.

Night City is truly a city of dreams, and it feels like it as you're walking through it — in fact, it's better to just turn off your mini-map and aimlessly walk through the world. It's a fully functional city (subways and all) that deserves to be soaked in. Players, very simply, will fall in love with the world above all else.

This city is huge, too, which means players can easily spend hundreds of hours on its roads, enticing further adventure if you weren't already out on a gig. There is so much that can be done and even more that can be uncovered (especially with the added DLC and tie-ins to Cyberpunk Edgerunners), and it's all delightful to discover for yourself.

Plus, with the many different builds you could do in Cyberpunk, literally any player with any play style is welcome to dive in — and they should.

5 Red Dead Redemption 2

The Gameplay Has a Slight Learning Curve

Of all the games in this list, Red Dead Redemption 2 would most likely have a learning curve for new players — the gameplay is slow, sluggish, yet deliberate. It remains the most realistic game of all time, yet still being completely stylized at the same time, setting a standard that many games have yet to follow almost a decade later. Genuinely, it's absolute cinema.

Seriously, there is so much to the game that veteran players who have lived in this world since it came out, are still catching new details. And let me tell you, the attention to detail is immaculate.

The world itself is massive and full of life — not just human life, either, the game's rich ecosystem is 1-to-1 with our own, all the way down to the individual bees that actually build hives all around. The beauty of this open world is with the countless interactions that are written in, as well as how those interactions go based on your Honor Level and if you're playing as Arthur or John.

To this day, there hasn't been an open world that's as S-Tier as this one, so long as you can learn the controls; go practice just running around and hunting out in the wild, that will prepare you for the eventual shootouts that the Red Dead Redemption games are known for.

4 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Cozy, Comforting, and Warm

I love cozy, comforting worlds that feel like a hug when you immerse yourself — and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is on par with a Ghilbi film on the coziness scale, even as a AAA game. Sure, it's unlike any of the other Zelda games that fans would be used to, but Breath of the Wild is simply ... a breath of fresh air.

Even at night when more monsters come out, even during blood moons where all the hostility and evil you erased completely resets, everything is just so nice. You can thank Nintendo's approach to exploration with this one, as the game relies on natural human curiosity to encourage adventure in its purest form.

You can approach this world in whatever order and however you want to, giving players complete freedom to tackle things creatively — but it's not an overwhelming amount of busywork like what we get with Tears of the Kingdom. There's a healthy amount of emptiness, for lack of a better term, and this absence is used to help keep players at ease on their journey, giving them a moment to breathe before and after the chaos they encountered.

It's this balance that makes it ideal for newcomers to open worlds, and why it remains my favourite Zelda title of all time.

3 Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

It's All in Your Hands

The Mass Effect Trilogy remains one of the best trilogies in gaming, period — and the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is the best way to soak this trilogy in (mainly because of the war assets being tweaked in the third game, not requiring online play on dead servers in order to have a chance).

It's a sci-fi open world RPG, meaning that you get to explore space and all of its intricacies, but the actions that you take will literally carry over into the next game, so long as you play the same Shepard that you had created. In fact, these choices will influence the kind of dialogue you can have (mainly between Paragon and Renegade), so players have to be deliberate and consistent in how they plan to interact with others.

Even still, there hasn't been an RPG on this level before or since its release, and many are wondering how the Amazon adaptation (if it's ever coming out at this rate) plans to tackle this. Most of the game and how it goes is solely determined by the player — and if you're a newcomer who happens to make all kinds of wacky decisions, it's not going to be the same when you go through it a second time.

But if you're wanting to try out an open world and you've been a consistent fan of sci-fi, Mass Effect is the game for you.

2 Ghost of Tsushima

What is Honor, Truly?

Ghost of Tsushima is a Japanese open world game that has you playing a samurai during the first Mongol Invasion on a small island, called Tsushima. For many people, even open world skeptics, this game is a masterpiece, and an excellent starter for anyone who wants to see what open worlds can truly be about.

Ghost of Yotei is a little more complex in terms of gameplay (mainly due to all the extra weapons and abilities you now have to keep track of), but it also works as a good starter. Ghost of Tsushima just so happens to be a bit smaller and more contained, so that's what I would sooner recommend to a newcomer.

The world is full of exploration points that lead to some of gaming's most stunningly beautiful landscapes (seriously, this game remains the most gorgeous I've played), but to all kinds of Tales that are just waiting to be discovered. There is no shortage of content, some of which (such as Duels) you can replay after you beat the main story if you had that much fun with it.

Regardless of how you play open world games, though, my only request is that you play Ghost of Tsushima in Japanese. You could go full Kurosawa mode with Samura Cinema, but that's not required, just the language is; the entire game just takes on a much better life (and delivery) if played with the Japanese voice acting.

The Gold Standard of Open Worlds

When it comes to the perfect introduction to open world games, there is no better starting point than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. My fiancé and I affectionately refer to the game as "Elder Scrolls Baby Mode," because it simplifies a lot of gameplay and mechanics that made other games (such as Oblivion by comparison) much more difficult; Skyrim, on the other hand, was made with newcomers in mind, making it the perfect jump point for open world beginners.

The world of Skyrim is the warmest and richest I've ever experienced, being able to completely envelop players in comfort as if they were coming home after years away. Even if some of the NPCs can be brash, there's a vibrancy in Skyrim that you simply cannot find anywhere else, with the environmental storytelling only compounding this.

Being immersed in this world is the magic of the game, and simply existing within that world is more than enough to be an amazing time. Newcomers will be in awe by what they see, feel, and experience, setting a gold standard that turned platinum over time — and it is just as powerful on your 10th playthrough as it was on your first.

Simply put, if you want to get started in open world gaming, Skyrim is the perfect gateway.