Summary
- Open-world games offer exploration and freedom, allowing players to tackle main plots at their leisure.
- Various open-world game genres cater to different preferences, from silly goat antics to emotionally gripping narratives.
- Immersive experiences in open-world games enhance player involvement, allowing them to unleash their inner animal through gameplay.
The gaming market is saturated with open-world games. These titles prove to be a popular choice with gamers time and time again, giving them the freedom to explore the world and tackle the main plot at their leisure. These kinds of games can explore a wild range of genres and themes, letting players be pretty much anything they want.
From fantasy RPGs to desperate survival situations, there is something for everyone here. For those wanting to get more in touch with their wild-side, they can't go wrong with an open-world game. These are the best titles for those wanting to get in touch with their inner animal, whether figuratively or literally.
Best Open-World Games If You Like Exploring Wilderness, Ranked
Open-world games are extremely entertaining and full of different possibilities. Here are some titles for those who like exploring the wilderness.
8 Goat Simulator
Hilarious Shenanigans As a Goat
Goat Simulator
- Released
- April 1, 2014
WHERE TO PLAY
Not all open-world games have to be serious, or contain dark and mature themes. Take Goat Simulator, for example, which is just a silly game designed for chaos and laughs, as players control a goat getting up to all sorts.
And all sorts is indeed what they can get up to, running all over the city map to find new people to torment, new buildings to destroy, and new goals to accomplish. It honestly doesn't sound too far from the truth of what could possibly happen if a goat was loosed on a city, though a few humorous exaggerations make the game all the more fun to play.
7 Little Kitty, Big City
Learn to be a Cat
Little Kitty, Big City
- Released
- May 9, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E For Everyone
- Developer(s)
- Double Dagger Studio
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
- Platform(s)
- PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
A domestic black cat becomes lost as it tumbles down from the window ledge they precariously napped upon, ending up in the city with no easy path back to their home. It's up to the player to guide the kitty back to their owner, but in doing so they need to learn how to be an alley cat through the helpful tutelage of other animals.
The journey back home takes players all across the city where they get up to call sorts of cat shenanigans, such as jumping, climbing, pouncing on birds, and swiping food such as pieces of bread and entire fish. No other game has quite captured the feeling of being a cat as astutely as Little Kitty, Big City.
6 Tchia
Assume the Form of Animals to Track Down Tchia's Father
Tchia
- Released
- March 21, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Awaceb
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Adventure
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
A beautifully colorful game, Tchia is one of the more unique open-world games out there. It's about the titualr young girl and her father, Joxu, who live on a tropical archipelago. Their peaceful lives are disrupted by the arrival of Pwi Dua, who kidnaps her father. That's when Tchia learns she can soul-jump, letting her possess inanimate objects and living beings.
Best Open‑World Games for Casual Players, Ranked
Not every open-world game has to be intense and complex. These titles are perfect for casual players who just want to relax.
Players will use these gifts to help Tchia traverse the islands to find and rescue her father. Her ability to soul-jump into animals will, of course, make the player feel animalistic, as they gain their powers and abilities to aid in their endeavor. It is possible players will spend most of the time as one of the animals rather than in human form, as it's simply too much fun.
5 The Long Dark
Survival Mode Makes Players Feel Like One With The Wilderness
The Long Dark
- Released
- August 1, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood, Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Hinterland Studio
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
The Long Dark follows the tales of two people who crash in the frozen Canadian wilderness following a geomagnetic storm that affected their plane. Now trapped in the frozen tundra, players must find a way to survive, switching between the two characters to witness their unique struggles for survival. That is the story mode, which offers a more relaxed experience as there is no threat of perma-death.
Then there is survival mode, which considerably ratchets up the stakes. There are different levels of difficulty to determine just how tough surviving will be, and harder difficulties put players through their paces. In order to survive the cold, hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, and wildlife, players need to tap into their inner animals to gather all their survival instincts in this desperate fight to live to see another day.
4 The Forest
Learn to Survive and Thrive in the Wilderness
The Forest
- Released
- April 30, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
Father and son Eric and Timmy are on a plane, which unfortunately crashes onto what appears to be a deserted forest island. Eric gains enough consciousness to see his son being carried off before he passes out, and awakens to see that it wasn't all just a bad dream, and that he is in fact here and needs to find his son. With no other choice left, Eric sets off to explore his surroundings, and hopefully find his son.
Turned loose into the world, the player has no choice but to learn basic survival skills, probably something Eric has never had to learn before in his life. Gathering resources, finding clean water, and building shelters are all tasks he finds himself needing to learn to do. But beyond that, he needs to learn more animalistic rituals, such as hunting down food, and fending off the dangerous cannibals on the island. Players can even resort to cannibalism by eating the cannibals on the island, putting players in touch with the more desperate side of them that would do anything to survive.
3 Maneater
Become an Apex Predator
Maneater
- Released
- May 22, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Mild Language
- Developer(s)
- Tripwire Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Platform(s)
- Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
In many games containing sharks, players assume the role of a human who is the hapless prey of this aquatic apex predator, and must do what they can to avoid falling into its toothy maw. But Maneater opts for a different approach by reversing the roles. Now, players are the sharks who are on the prowl for their prey, namely Scaly Pete, the one who killed her family.
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From controlling a bull shark in Maneater to battling great whites in Stranded Deep, many excellent open-world games feature sharks.
Revenge has never been sweeter. Players feel so powerful as a massive shark swimming around the coast, gobbling up lesser fish and snapping at humans who get a little too close to the water. With gameplay like this, players don't just feel like any old animal; they feel like a powerful, unstoppable force of nature.
2 Far Cry Primal
Primal in Name and Nature
Far Cry Primal
- Released
- February 23, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Primal is a departure from the rest of the series, as it is set during prehistoric times, doing away with the modern settings the franchise is known for. As such, players are taken back to basics with weapons such as spears, clubs, bows and slings, weapons they must use to hunt down dangerous wildlife and protect their tribe, which faces threats from other tribes and the wild animals that roam the lands.
It is easy to feel animalistic as players hunt, gather, scavenge and even occasionally tame certain animals. These creatures are far easier to befriend than hostile humans, making the players feel as though they have an affinity with these beasts.
1 The Isle
Survive the Unrelenting Island
The Isle
- Developer(s)
- Afterthought LLC
WHERE TO PLAY
- Early Access Release
- December 1, 2015
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Survival
- Platform(s)
- PC
Dinosaur games are still a relatively untapped genre. There aren't that many out there in comparison to other genres, especially those that let players be one themselves. And then there is The Isle, an early-access game that dropped in 2015. In it, players become one of these ancient creatures, living on an island that is inhabited by many of the same prehistoric animals, which makes for a dangerous yet exciting game.
The Isle holds nothing back, as, at the end of the day, dinosaurs are animals and have all the instincts that come with that. Anything they see smaller or weaker than themselves, they will hunt for food, so the player has just as much chance of being prey as they do of being a predator. If the player wants to survive and thrive on the island, they have no choice but to embrace being animalsiatic themselves, fighting for food, dominance, and territory.
Open-World Games With The Best Wildlife AI
Open-world games often include wildlife to spruce up their immersion, but when those animals have in-depth AI, the immersion rises to another level.