Summary
- Largest map in Assassin's Creed series is in Odyssey at 256km2, featuring mainland Greece and surrounding islands with unique challenges.
- Black Flag's 235km2 Caribbean map offers top-notch ship traversal mechanics and fun naval combat for players to explore diverse islands.
- Valhalla's 120km2 England map is densely packed with activities, providing freedom but dividing fanbase on size satisfaction.
Though the Assassin's Creed series hasn't technically always been open-world, all of these games at least still offer large historical cities and locales for players to explore at their own leisure. However, as the series has gone on, these playable environments have become much larger and a lot more immersive. As part of the Ubisoft tradition, these maps will always be littered with side quests, towers, and plenty of secrets to uncover about both the Assassins and the Templars, so having a bigger map often results in more overall content.
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At the same time, it also helps to add diversity to the core gameplay, allowing players to stumble into all kinds of areas that have their own distinct culture and aesthetic. Needless to say, this series isn't afraid of providing giant historical sandboxes for fans to enjoy, but when matching them all up, these are the games that have the largest play areas in the series.
8 Assassin's Creed 3
Size: 0.54 square miles
Assassin's Creed III
- Released
- October 30, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Genre(s)
- Action, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii U, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Stadia
This is specifically referring to the Frontier area of the map that Connor will explore early in Assassin's Creed 3. This huge patch of land is crawling with Red Coat guards and Templars, so making use of the game's new tree-climbing is heavily advised to stay out of sight and remain stealthy.
Because New York acts as the primary hub of the game where players can visit plenty of shops and interact with characters, it means the Frontier is more for combat and hunting. Of course, it's also just nice to gawk at because of how visually interesting the area is, with lingering remnants of the Civil War showcasing the brutality of the conflict.
7 Assassin's Creed Unity
Size: 0.92 square miles
Assassin's Creed Unity
- Released
- November 11, 2014
WHERE TO PLAY
Unity's map may be fairly big in size, but a lot of it is made up of tight alleyways and indoor areas, in order to make players feel closer to the ordinary citizens residing in revolutionary France. It's not uncommon to see massive groups of people in the middle of a city square waving pitchforks and banners to express their frustration, but this would be a lot harder to do if the map was too big and made up of flat landscapes.
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As a result, Ubisoft got clever with the environmental design with Unity, giving players more than enough to explore while also allowing them to interact with regular people everywhere they go. The modernized parkour system in Unity also makes navigating Paris an absolute joy, especially with how incredible it looks from a high vantage point.
6 Assassin's Creed Syndicate
Size: 1.4 square miles
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
- Released
- October 23, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
Coming in a bit larger than Paris is a different notable capital city, London, which is the setting of Assassin's Creed Syndicate. So that players can get across the map as quickly as possible, Syndicate introduces the grappling hook, which either Jacob or Evie can use to scale a building in no time at all. However, while it can be easy to get lost in the beauty of Victorian London, players won't be able to get too carried away with sightseeing as they'll eventually stumble into the many gangs that occupy the city.
From industrial workshops to peaceful libraries, all the way to the Big Ben, players are free to explore every inch of London with the game's dual protagonists, and thankfully, there are plenty of challenges to prevent the gameplay from ever feeling stale. Syndicate recently received a 60FPS upgrade on the PS5, so there's never been a better time to dive into Victorian London with the twins.
5 Assassin's Creed Rogue
Size: 27 square miles
Assassin's Creed Rogue
- Released
- November 11, 2014
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft
- Genre(s)
- Action, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Stadia
Assassin's Creed Rogue's map is based in the North Atlantic Sea, meaning there's actually a lot more sea than land, which helps to explain why it would end up being so big. Players assume control of Shay, an Assassin who eventually comes to learn the true secrets of his creed, leading him to eventually join up with the Templars.
While there's plenty of side missions and hunting areas that players can partake in when stepping foot on land, there are also tons of naval battles that encourage players to upgrade and enhance their own ships to stay safe when sailing the seas. Simply put, Rouge's map is the perfect size for anyone who doesn't mind ship sailing being a big part of the core gameplay loop.
4 Assassin's Creed Origins
Size: 30 square miles
Assassin's Creed Origins
- Released
- October 27, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Origins is the first game in the series that took Assassin's Creed into the RPG genre. As a result, the map needed to be large so that players would have enough quests and enemies that they could encounter to earn as much EXP as possible. While Ubisoft certainly succeeded in achieving this, with the map being incredibly vast and full of things to do, it's also staggering just how much detail has gone into the villages, tombs, and pyramids scattered around Ancient Egypt.
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Unlike many of the games that came before it, Origins features a lot of wide-open landscapes, providing a nice contrast between gorgeous sandy dunes and small narrow villages. Origins is another game that Ubisoft has been updating since release, so it's well worth trying out, especially with all the incredible DLC packs now available.
3 Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Size: 46 square miles
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
- Released
- November 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft
- Platform(s)
- Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Once players arrive in England during the first few hours of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, they'll be free to explore an entire country in any way they like, whether that be through following the main quest, or wandering off in an entirely different direction. Despite the playable area being so massive, Ubisoft somehow managed to make it feel densely packed with activities, including drinking games, orlog, random encounters, and more than enough side quests to earn plenty of EXP.
On the other hand, Valhalla's map size has also been a topic of division the fanbase, with some falling in love with the new sense of freedom, while others felt it to be a bit exhausting. One thing that is clear though is that open-world fans will have an absolute blast playing through everything Valhalla has to offer.
2 Assassin's Creed Black Flag
Size: 90 square miles
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
- Released
- October 29, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure, Open-World
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
It's long been argued that the fourth mainline Assassin's Creed, Black Flag, has some of, if not the best ship traversal of any video game. This is the reason why the staggeringly large map is so satisfying to explore, as the fluidity of the sailing mechanics, alongside the banter and songs shared between the crew members, make navigating the glistening ocean a ton of fun to be a part of.
Black Flag is based in the Caribbean, so the map is essentially split up into numerous different islands, all with their own unique aesthetics and designs. While players will find themselves sailing a-plenty throughout a typical playthrough of Black Flag, that's far from a bad thing, since Ubisoft really hit it out of the park with the ship traversal and naval combat in this game.
1 Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Size: 98 square miles
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
- Released
- October 15, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Quebec
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Before Ubisoft began toning down the size of the Assassin's Creed maps, they first reached their map-size peak with Odyssey, which officially contains the biggest map in the series, and one of the largest in modern gaming. Ubisoft had the grueling task of replicating not only mainland Greece, but also all of the islands surrounding it, of which there are more than 20 to visit in the game.
Not only would these all be designed with immense detail, they also all contain challenges and unique resources which can help gear the player up for the chaotic war between Athens and Sparta. When taking over each region, players will then be able to initiate a Conquest to claim it for their side, and with how big the map is, this makes players feel as though they have truly embarked on a long and arduous adventure across the entirety of Ancient Greece.
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