Summary
- Elden Ring offers dense content in a smaller world, keeping players engaged for over 50 hours.
- Despite its size, Elden Ring's map is smaller compared to other open-world games.
- The open world of Elden Ring is filled with a variety of content, making exploration rewarding.
Elden Ring is packed with enough content to keep players coming back for well upwards of 50 hours. It may then surprise players to know that, in the grand scheme of things, the open world isn't all that big. At 30.5 square miles, or 79 square kilometers, it is bigger than the map of some classic open-world games like Skyrim, but it still falls short of plenty of others. The advantage Elden Ring has over many of those games is how densely packed with stuff it is. Players can explore a single area of Elden Ring's map and find a cornucopia of new things even after tens of hours of wandering around.
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That said, the numbers don't lie, and there are plenty of games that are much bigger than Elden Ring's map size. Of course, bigger doesn't mean better, and not all of these games justify the massive size of the sandbox that players are forced to traverse. So, when players get a chance to check out massive open worlds, they are doubly impressed when these games manage to make the most of these spaces instead of making them feel like filler.
Updated on February 16, 2025, by Mehrdad Khayyat: Elden Ring's multilayered map is full of surprises that reward explorers like no other game. It's no exaggeration to say that the exploration in Elden Ring is just as satisfying as the combat.
That said, FromSoftware's open-world hit is not the only game to feature such an expansive map, where moving from one side to the other could take a significant amount of time, though bigger never means better!
24 Baldur's Gate 3
40 Square Miles
Baldur's Gate 3
- Released
- August 3, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Larian Studios
- Franchise
- Baldur's Gate
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, macOS
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Divided into different sections, Baldur's Gate 3 features a gigantic world for each phase of the game, and when they are put together, they create one big world that easily surpasses that of Elden Ring in size, though players cannot seamlessly move from one region to another in this classic RPG.
The good news about Baldur's Gate 3 is that it also features a multilayered map just like Elden Ring. The exploration is always rewarded, as players can find secret dungeons, massive underworlds, and some hidden camps if they wander around the map, though unlocking them might not be easy.
23 Grand Theft Auto 5
49 Square Miles
Grand Theft Auto 5
- Released
- September 17, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar North
- Franchise
- Grand Theft Auto
- Platform(s)
- Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
The release of Grand Theft Auto 5 was easily one of the biggest moments in the video game industry, with this long-running open-world series showing just how much Rockstar had perfected the art of video game design. Not only did the title look gorgeous, but Grand Theft Auto 5 was larger than any game in the series, even San Andreas.
If the massive open world wasn't enough of a selling point, then players were also blown away by the fact that players could control more than one protagonist in a first for the GTA series. Players could switch around at any point in the story, and many missions used character switching in a cinematic manner to make firefights and other similar set-pieces even more awe-inspiring!
22 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
52 Square Miles
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Released
- May 19, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- CD Projekt Red
- Franchise
- The Witcher
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
As expected from a modern open-world RPG, to say The Witcher 3's world is big would be an understatement. What's more, it is arguably as dense as Elden Ring's world too. While it might not be as full of dungeons or massive bosses, there are still plenty of reasons to explore as much as possible.
The Witcher 3 has always had a very alive-feeling world thanks to how the player can get involved with just about everyone's lives. Even the smallest of villages has a story to tell, and there is quite an expanse that Geralt can explore to his heart's content. The Blood & Wine DLC adds another massive area for players to explore, with its colorful art style serving as a fresh change of pace from the dark and brooding areas players had explored up to this point.
21 The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
53 Square Miles
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Released
- May 12, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Franchise
- The Legend of Zelda
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Action, Open-World
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
The Legend of Zelda games on the Nintendo Switch have revolutionized open-world gaming for the better. No one expected this franchise to have such a smooth transition into the genre, but history has proven time and time again that underestimating Nintendo is foolish when it comes to video game development.
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Breath of the Wild was already a massive achievement in its own right, and what made Tears of the Kingdom even more impressive was that it expanded upon the first game in ways that no one could've imagined. The Sky Islands, the Depths, and the land of Hyrule itself make for a truly massive environment that players can explore as much as they want.
20 DayZ
87 Square Miles
DayZ
- Released
- December 13, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Bohemia Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Survival
- OpenCritic Rating
- Weak
Starting life as a mod for Arma 2, the original DayZ mod used the same map as that game, which was extremely expansive in its own right. DayZ looked to fill that map with lots of survival elements for players to hoard and battle over, not to mention the hoards of zombies everywhere.
The standalone mod used mostly the same map, altering a few elements, but mostly holding true to the mod. As a survival game, it is a tad more sparse than most maps, but that just adds to the feeling of a desolate world, where there is little life, and most of the remaining life wants to kill everything in sight.
19 Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
90 Square Miles
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
- Released
- October 29, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Franchise
- Assassin's Creed
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure, Open-World
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
There are many people who still talk about Black Flag with a ton of passion, considering it to be one of the best games in the series. Edward Kenway is a fairly likable protagonist, and the manner in which he becomes an Assassin is certainly quite interesting. It helps that the refreshing addition of naval combat and traversal made the game so much more engaging!
Since the game is set in the Caribbean and promotes ship traversal, players can have a great time forming the best pirate crew, roaming the world on a strong, sturdy vessel, and uncovering the many secrets in the game. Sure, a lot of the world may consist of water, but that actually lends a sense of scale to the world and keeps things fresh.
18 Assassin's Creed Odyssey
90 Square Miles
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
- Released
- October 15, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Quebec
- Franchise
- Assassin's Creed
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
Containing an entire country, made up of many Mediterranean islands was naturally going to be a difficult feat, but the team at Ubisoft pulled it off to an impressive scale. From the highest mountains to the deepest seas, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the franchise's biggest world to date and is the perfect setting for such a grand adventure, stuffed with secrets.
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Housing all the usual trappings of an Assassin's Creed game, the world also had to house a war between the Spartans and the Athenians. Each area would be aligned to one of the sides, and players could engage troops there to destabilize and change that side's allegiance. Add the great sailing gameplay to that, and it's a massive and varied world that players will never stop exploring.
17 Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora
98 Square Miles
Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora
- Released
- December 7, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Massive Entertainment
- Franchise
- Avatar
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
There are many pain points with modern Ubisoft games that need to be addressed as soon as possible, but one particular aspect of their open-world games that continues to impress fans even now is the sheer scale of their worlds. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a great example, with the many diverse biomes being a joy to explore because of how beautiful they are to behold.
With its massive size, the Western Frontier of Pandora makes for one of the largest open-world spaces that players can lose themselves in. The story may be forgettable and the Far Cry-esque combat is a bit of a lazy decision, but no one can say anything against the sheer beauty of the open world that players will step into here.
16 Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
107 Square Miles
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
- Released
- October 6, 2009
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Codemasters
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
- Genre(s)
- Tactical, Third-Person Shooter, Strategy
A tactical shooter that a lot of people don't know about, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a fun game for players to get into. The gameplay is about as tense as one would expect, but what really throws players for a loop is the massive open world of this game. In a bid to be as authentic as possible, the entire real-life island of Kiska is replicated in the game world.
While some people may argue that this insistence on quantity over quality led to the open world feeling pretty bland, the tense gameplay moments of Dragon Rising more than make up for these faults. Players must rely on their squad members every step of the way, with a single misstep leading to the player's demise more often than not.
15 Arma 3
112 Square Miles
Arma 3
- Released
- September 12, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Bohemia Interactive
- Franchise
- Arma
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Tactical
The Arma games are famous for being one of the best realistic military games out there, and one of the biggest contributors to that is the careful world design. Despite creating fictional locations, the developers need terrain and distances to be spot-on.
Their largest map to date is the island of Altis in Arma 3, which sits at 112 Square Miles. In it, there's everything from plains, to swamps, to towns. Whatever operations players are looking to carry out, the island is sure to constantly be throwing new things their way.