Open world games have become all the rage these days, with players exploring countless massive worlds packed with little secrets here and there. Some of these worlds are both massive and rich with different activities to do, and we thought it might be interesting to compare the biggest open world games of this console generation. We’ve done the research and gotten the approximate distance of the biggest open worlds games of the generation, and ranked them accordingly.
30. Batman Arkham Knight – 1.3 mile²
Batman Arkham Knight is set in an absolutely stunning open world rendition of “Central Gotham” — three densely urbanized islands with towering, rain-drenched skyscrapers.
But while swooping in between its massive buildings certainly showcases excellent verticle design, Arkham Knight’s map is actually quite small by open world standards.
Reddit user shtevay spent hours painstakingly measuring and recording every inch of its map. His information is exceptionally thorough, referencing each individual area of Gotham City across the entire Rocksteady trilogy.
He’s also provided some fun facts about the open world of the city. Here’s a few we found particularly interesting:
- With a population of at least 6.3 million, Gotham City would be the second-most populous city in the United States. Greater than the population of Los Angeles (3.9 million) but less than the population of New York (8.5 million)
- With a current known size of 5 Km2 (entire Gotham City, not just Arkham Knight’s map), Gotham City would be the smallest Metropolis in the United States. The current two smallest major cities in the United States are Boston (125 Km2) and San Francisco (122 Km2)
- With a current known population density of 1.3 million people/Km2, Gotham City would be the most densely populated area on the planet. That’s just 0.07 cm2/ person.
Arkham Knight easily eclipses the other Batman games in terms of being the biggest open world and map.
29. Assassin’s Creed 4: Syndicate – 1.4 mile²
Assassin’s Creed games have always featured stunningly detailed open world urban environments, and Syndicate’s Victorian London setting is the largest city ever seen in the series.
Of course, in terms of actual map scale, in comparison to the earlier Black Flag, Syndicate is tiny.
In fact, Black Flag is almost one hundred times larger in terms of actual volume.
But because London is so incredibly detailed, and due to the fact that it’s dense buildings offer significantly more verticality than any of the Carribean structures, its open world map still feels huge.
Syndicate continued the Assassins’ Creed series’ trend of massive open worlds packed with things to do.
28. Assassin’s Creed III – 1.53 mile²
With every new Assassin’s Creed title, the expectation was an open world of even larger proportion. That’s exactly what we got with the third game, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t the quality to match the quantity.
The overall gameplay and story experience certainly didn’t reach the lofty heights of the second game or its two expansions.
It wasn’t all bad, though; America’s eastern seaboard and fledgling cities made for awesome sandboxes to explore.
Elsewhere, AC3 introduced the iconic naval combat that was to become a series hallmark moving forward.
Again, the 1.53 mile² figure quoted here includes all cities and areas in the game compiled into one.
27. Fortnite Battle Royale – 2.1 mile²
Epic Games’ Fortnite skyrocketed in popularity after the developer introduced an open world battle royale mode akin to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The last-man-standing gameplay has one hundred players parachute from a “Battle Bus” and scavenge for weapons and gear, fighting it out under a constantly shrinking safe zone.
Its open world map isn’t as large as PUBG’s, but it does make for more intense quickfire rounds.
26. Life is Feudal (Your Own) 3.47 mile²
A hardcore open world sandbox survival game, Life is Feudal features 3.47 mile² of open world that realistically simulates medieval life.
It features a deep crafting system, dynamic weather, a range of different building features, and the ability to terraform the map – meaning that players can build houses anywhere and reshape sections of the world permanently.
The game’s Your Own mode is the single-player portion of the game, and there’s actually an MMO online offering that features an even larger open world map, too.
25. Fallout 4 – 3.82 mile²
Bethesda’s latest open world epic is not actually as large as you might have thought. Reddit user BradburyMan measured the game’s explorable area within the map’s red boundary and discovered the size was just 3.82 mile².
It should be noted that these measurements account only for the outdoor wasteland area of Fallout 4.
Adding the volume of indoor and underground sections, as well as DLC such as Far Harbor and Nuka-World would account for a greater total size ot the game’s open world.
It takes just 41 minutes to traverse Fallout 4’s map on foot, which works out to 2.73 miles walking at 4mph in a straight direction. BradburyMan measured his X,Y,Z location using the in-game console using getpos x, getpos y, getpos z, and then mapping all of those points inside of a GIS.
He then created polygons, which can then be used to measure the geometry (area, perimeter). The area in map units was 48,511,960,915.7 map units, which equates to 106,593,664.12 sq ft.
Fallout 3 helped set the trend for open world games, and Fallout 4 continues on in that tradition.
24. Spider-Man (PS4) 4.62 mile²
Slinging around the open world of New York is oh so addictive thanks to the superb traversal mechanics in Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man title.
They make you feel like a real superhero, and we’ve found ourselves boosting around Manhattan’s open world for hours kept amused by the sheer joy of movement.
And Manhattan itself doesn’t look too shabby, either –it’s a really stunning open world rendition of the city. So we just had to go and measure it.
We’ve got a full post that explains the ins and outs of our process, but in brief:
Spider-Man’s open world version of Manhattan is missing a large chunk of the metropolis’ northern extremity, so we first used an online area calculator to establish the missing land, which totaled to around 3.86mi². Removed from Manhattan’s true size of 22.81mi² that makes Spider-Man’s map roughly based on an 18.95mi² version of the city.
From there, we worked out how much the open world map was scaled down by measuring large square sections of the map, such as 59th street all the way down to 30th street, as well as Central Park, and then we compared their size to the real thing. The result: Spider-Man’s map is roughly a 1/4 scale of New York’s Manhattan Island, at around 4.6mi².
23. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 6.1 mile²
Warhorse Studios’ medieval epic realizes an immensely detailed open world.
The entire project has been built around a mandate to create the most realistic and historically accurate setting ever seen in video gaming.
Although at just over 6 mile² it isn’t anywhere near this generation’s largest open worlds, the astonishing level of detail makes it not only incredibly absorbing, it makes the world feel much bigger than it really is.
22. Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 – 10.4 mile²
Snipers need plenty of space to stalk their targets and take them out from long range, and Sniper Ghost Warrior 3’s map is suitably large enough for the task.
At over ten miles squared, it’s respectably large playground for the various sniping and stealth missions throughout the game.
The open world rendition of Georgia (the country, not the state) is well detailed, with a pretty dynamic weather scheme that adds to the immersion.
21. Ghost of Tsushima – 11.02 mile²
Ghost of Tsushima is among the most gorgeous open world games we’ve ever played. Its wonderfully stylized aesthetic bursts with color, from golden forests to icy mountain tops. The sheer beauty of this swansong PS4 exclusive makes its substantial size all the more impressive.
As we’ve detailed in our dedicated article, thanks to Tsushima’s two islands roughly forming two rectangles, measuring it wasn’t especially difficult.
We simply measured the length and distance of both islands at their widest points to turn them into rectangles that roughly represent their total area. Then it is just a case of multiplying the two values to get an area squared calculation.
20. Skyrim Special Edition – 14.79 mile²
The Elder Scrolls has long been famed for its massive open worlds. As far back as Morrowind III back in 2002, critics were lauding the franchise for its unprecedented open world scope, and Skyrim continued to set the benchmark when it first launched 10 years later.
Fast forward to the present day, however, and Skyrim’s once considered huge open-world actually clocks in a fairly modest 14.79 mile² or 38.31 km2.
Figures for Skyrim’s total size vary across the internet, with most consensus hovering around the 39km mark. An individual from the Skyrim modding community shed light on how the measurement is calculated:
Bethesda games typically use a 64 “units” to 1 yard (or 70 units to 1 meter) scale. Exterior cell sizes have also remained 4096 units across since Morrowind, making each cell 64 yards long and wide.
Skyrim’s open world map is 119 cells across and 94 high, as verified by the game’s Creation Kit. Multiplying those numbers by 64 yards gives 7616 x 6016 yards or 45,817,856 square yards / 38.31 km2 / 14.79 mile².
It’ll be interesting to see what Bethesda does with the open world in the upcoming Elder Scrolls VI.
19. Conan Exiles – 15.4 mile²
Funcom’s survival game Conan Exiles grew substantially in size during its Early Access period. Over the course of 10 months its size nearly tripled, culminating in a map that’s slightly larger than Skyrim’s.
This measurement is an official one from the developer itself, released as part of an infographic that celebrated the game’s full release back in 2018.
18. Far Cry 4 – 17.7 mile²
Ubisoft developers are open world specialists with experience building vast sandboxes since the very first Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry titles.
It’s latest mainline entry to the Far Cry franchise is quoted at a very respectable 17.7 mile², especially considering how dense its NPC population, animals, and flora and fauna are.
17. The Witcher 3 (Including Toussaint) – 20.8 mile²
Thanks to the density of side quests, tons of contracts, the depth of its main questline, and two massive expansions, The Witcher 3 is one enormous 150-250 hour experience.
In fact, it is one of the largest games singleplayer games by quest number ever made.
Naturally, much has been made of the game’s impressive scale, and there has also been a lot of misinformation about the size of its map.
In the build-up to launch, one of CDPR’s The Witcher 3 game presentation’s released as a .pdf document. A slide of the presentation quoted the game’s total map size as 139 km2.
The figure, however, was slightly misleading, referring to the rendered area, not the game’s playable area.
In reality, the playable open world area of the game is less than half of that figure, as measured by Reddit user m051293, who recorded the following values:
- Novigrad & Velen (+HOS): 15.2 km2 (5.8 mile²)
- Skellige Isles & Ocean: 28.9 km2 (11.1 mile²)
- White Orchard: 0.8 km2 (0.3 mile²)
- Kaer Morhen: 1.4 km2 (0.6 mile²)
- Toussaint: 8.0 km2 (3 mile²)
- Total: 54.3 km2 (20.8 mile²)
With CD Projekt Red working on their next ambitious open world, Cyberpunk 2077, it’ll be interesting to see if it lands on the list of the biggest video game maps.
16. PlayerUknown’s Battlegrounds – 24.7 mile²
PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds has taken the gaming industry by storm since its Early Access release in 2017.
Brendan Greene’s experience working on DayZ and Arma 3 has produced a streamlined experience that is arguably the best battle royale gameplay ever made.
One aspect that helps to make each PUBG match different from the last is the sheer scale of its enormous open world map.
Including the traversable water, PUBG is nearly 25 square miles.
15. Assassin’s Creed Rogue – 27.2 mile²
Assassin’s Creed Rogue might have effectively been a spin-off designed for previous generation consoles, but it was no less grand in scale. As a sequel to Black Flag, the lineage from that beloved game is clear.
There’s a big emphasis on naval combat and maritime exploration, this time in the North Atlantic.
Ultimately, that means another whopping map. It’s not quite on the scale of Black Flag, but it’s still respectable.
Thanks once again to Senningrini_GR over on the Ubisoft forums for measuring the maps.
The quoted size we’ve listed here includes all three areas of the game: North Atlantic, River Valley, and New York.
14. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 28.9 mile²
The first truly open world Zelda game has been a resounding success, universally acclaimed by critics and resonating with its fans.
Of course, now the franchise has breached the open world space, gamers want to know exactly where it registers on the scale in comparison to benchmark franchise such as the Elder Scrolls and The Witcher.
Well, Breath of the Wild might not be the biggest open world game but it is certainly no slouch, either.
Reddit user CrystalVivian recorded , Breath of the Wild is 7.7 miles measured diagonally and clocks in at 28.9 mile². The measurement was recorded via the flying minigame.
The measurement does not include the very boundary of the rendered open world map, which is not playable.
13. Red Dead Redemption 2 – 30 mile²
Like we mentioned when Red Dead Redemption 2 first came out, measuring the exact size of the map for this game is a little bit tricky. There are no distance waypoints to help gauge the size like there are in other games.
However, based on on our time measuring the other games on this list, and the amount of time it took us to traverse the game map, we’d estimate that Red Dead Redemption 2 is roughly 30 mile².
It’s not an exact science for this one, but we’re quite confident that RDR 2 cracks this top 10.
12. Grand Theft Auto V – 31 mile²
Despite featuring at the upper echelon’s of this list, GTAV’s map size has been the subject of controversy across multiple player forums.
But while many players felt that its map was smaller than in prior games such as GTA: San Andreas, in fact, GTAV’s map is actually the largest map of any Rockstar game.
Perhaps, the sparse topography of GTAV’s northern sector of the map makes it feel smaller than it is? Regardless, GTAV’s open world is a mammoth 81 km2 or 31 mile².
11. Assassin’s Creed: Origins – 31.6 mile²
Ubisoft’s latest Assassin’s Creed title features its most detailed and immersive open world yet.
The open world of Origins was touted by the developer as the largest it has ever created, and while by sheer volume of that isn’t quite true – Black Flag, as we’ll see, holds that crown – it’s easily the largest landmass.
And because Black Flag is mostly open sea, Origins certainly feels much bigger.
But where do our measurements come from? Well, first we’ll stress that our calculations are unlikely to be 100% accurate, but they’re certainly very close. Credit goes to Reddit user venzIIF for most of the leg work.
Prior to the game’s launch, VenzIIF noted a livestream presentation of the game displayed a waypoint at 2035m from Bayek’s location on the map, so he booted up Black Flag and drew a line exactly the same distance from him.
He then downloaded a high-resolution image of Origin’s map and drew the same length line over top.
With that reference, he was then able to ascertain a rough 108.16km² box around Origin’s map. Of course, venziFF wasn’t to know whether the map on the livestream would end up as the final map in the finished game, but we know now that it in fact was.
As you can see from his image, though, he was including areas that weren’t traversable in the game (the blacked out sections of the map).
We’ve calculated the rough percentage of the map shaded in black at around 24% by blotting out rectangular and triangular shapes and deducting it from the total interior area. The result is 26.28km² less than 108.16km².
10. Sea of Thieves – 32.68 mile²
Rare’s whimsical multiplayer pirate adventure game got off to a rocky start, criticized mostly for a perceived lack of things to do within its huge open world. But things have improved dramatically in the years following its launch, with stacks of content introduced through a myriad of different updates.
Today, Sea of Thieves’ 32.68 square miles of oceans and islands is a giant playground rich with quests, missions, activities, and thousands of merciless cut throat players waiting to steal your shit!
Measuring Sea of Thieves’ map is fairly simple given that it’s roughly square in shape. Sailing from one side to another is five nautical miles, giving us an easy area calculation.
9. ARK: Survival Evolved Ragnarok – 55.6 mile²
ARK: Survival Evolved has a number of official and community maps that are widely popular, but it’s Ragnarok that is the largest. It’s roughly 40% bigger than the original “Island.”
The measurement itself comes straight from the developers, so this one’s official.
8. DayZ Livonia – 62.93 mile²
DayZ’s latest map is actually slightly small than original Chernarus map, but that only makes you more likely to run into other players, and bears! Livonia is another region within the same post apocalyptic Russian setting the game has always used.
As for the measurement, developer Bohemia Interactive itself did the hard yards. This one is official.
7. DayZ – 86.9 mile²
DayZ is an open world survival game currently in development by Bohemia Interactive. Originally born as a mod for the popular game, Arma 3, DayZ is soon to be introduced as a standalone game.
Like Arma 3, it takes place in an enormous open world. Called Chernarus, the 86.9 mile² map is devastated by an unknown infection that has wiped out most of its population, turning some of them into mindless zombies.
The location is a fictional one, based on areas of the Czech Republic, where ArmA developer Bohemia Interactive is located.
6. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag – 90.2 mile²
Ah, me hearties! Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag eclipses the size of the previous entries on our list with its massive Caribbean sandbox.
Sure, the map is mostly open sea and small, desolate islands, but towns like Kingston and Havanna are fairly dense main centers.
With the vast open world of the sea in Black Flag it feels even larger than the rest of the Assassin’s Creed series.
Only now has Assassin’s Creed Odyssey topped the size of this gorgeous open world. We should caveat that by noting that Freedom Cry, Black Flag’s DLC, adds another 11.6 mile² to the game, albeit on a separate map.
5. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – 90.7 mile²
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey brings back the sea exploration that was such an iconic and beloved part of Black Flag.
As a result, that also means the enormous scale that defined our favorite pirate game also makes a return.
Odyssey isn’t just bigger than its predecessor Origins, it’s larger than Black Flag, too.
The game’s 90.7 mile² is just an estimation and only a slim margin ahead of Black Flag, but we’re confidently putting it ahead of simply because the area of traversable land is so much greater.
You can check out how we measured Assassin’s Creed Odyssey here, or watch a video of us crossing its map here.
4. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint – 115 mile²
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint didn’t enjoy a particularly strong critical or commercial reception at launch, but its map size is certainly impressive.
As part of our launch coverage, Twinfinite measured Breakpoint’s map and found that its total size was an astonishing 781.9 mi². But that doesn’t quite tell the whole story because most of that is open ocean that isn’t really playable.
Auroa’s various islands actually account for only about 14% of the total playable area, making its size actually smaller than Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Still, it’s pretty darn massive any which way you cut it.
3. Xenoblade Chronicles X – 154 mile²
Whoever said the Wii U’s lack of power was a detriment to the performance of its games? Xenoblade Chronicles X size dwarfs many contemporary RPGs famed for their scale, measuring an enormous 154mile².
Granted, much of that is a barren, rather featureless terrain, but it does make for a fine playground for boosting around in skells!
Nintendo World Report recorded a time-lapse video detailing the measurement.
2. Ghost Recon Wildlands – 170.2 mile²
Twinfinite performed its own measurements for Ghost Recon Wildlands’ open world, placing markers at each corner of the map, and we can report that the game is absolutely gargantuan.
Each edge of Recon’s map is approximately 21km or 13 miles. Doing a quick calculation, the square miles amounts to an impressive 170.
It took one YouTuber over 8 minutes to fly diagonally across its furthest point at approximately 120mph!
1. Just Cause 3 – 400 mile²
There are some very large map sizes listed here but everything pales in comparison to Just Cause 3. Square Enix’s bonkers open world action game is a mind-blowing 1000 km2 or 400mile²!
It is worth remembering that much of Medici’s traversable Mediterranean setting is deep blue sea, but even still, the fact that one can travel such a distance without experiencing a single loading screen is highly impressive.
To put Just Cause 3’s open world size into context, we referenced earlier that it takes 41 minutes to walk across Fallout 4’s map – the same test across Medici took over 8 hours!
There you have it, the biggest open world games in terms of sheer map size from this generation. Which of these open worlds have you enjoyed exploring the most? Let us know down in the comments.
Published: Aug 21, 2020 10:53 am