If you like to take a break and get lost in a game when unwinding, you know there’s nothing better than a vast open world to explore. Some games do a better job than others at this: Here’s a list of the best open world games on Xbox One and where you can find them. Also, make sure to check our list of the 10 best monitor for Xbox One x as they’re generally a step over a traditional television. If you’re open to more linear games then check out the best Xbox One games.
1. Sunset Overdrive
Sunset Overdrive is not like the other Xbox open world games on this list: It’s loud, brash, insanely colorful, and generally just insane. This is an Insomniac game and has several trademark Insomniac traits, including a world that’s fun to explore, a huge number of crazy weapons to experiment with, and some very innovative gameplay. Play focuses on railing and running around an enormous city, skipping along walls and sliding on power lines while shooting everything in sight. There’s also a horde mode you can play with friends. While the punkish style may not be for everyone, it also makes for a fun story. And it is still comparable to some of the best Xbox One games of 2014.
You can learn more about Sunset Overdrive and how to buy it here.
2. Watch Dogs
Watch Dogs is one of the most unique new open world games, where you play as a master hacker who can pick and invade all kinds of devices, from security cameras to traffic lights and cell phones. It gives you an amazing number of choices on how to play the game and complete your missions. You can choose stealth, go in boldly, or cause mayhem from afar. Spying out of cameras, causing traffic accidents, and hacking into vehicles is all in a day’s work for you. If you like the idea of controlling the city of Chicago around you via all its tech devices, try out Watch Dogs. Try out the best games on Xbox live too for comparisons with other top games.
You can buy Watch Dogs here.
3. Grand Theft Auto V
Explore the vast city of Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto V – or at least its seedy underbelly. Like all GTA games, this world is all seedy underbelly, but it’s also filled with a number of uniquely crazy characters and missions that poke fun at our current reality. However, you may be more interested all the ways, big and small, that you can commit crimes and explore Los Santos on your own time while following the lives of Michael, Franklin and Trevor. The game keeps things interesting through consistent updates and new missions that tie in with real-world events and seasons.
You can buy GTA V here.
4. Farcry 4
Farcry updates its classic open world games model with a few great additions for this fourth addition to the series. First, there’s the world, which moves you from the island of the last game to the middle of the Himalayas, complete with remote villages, mountain forests, snowy peaks, and everything else you would expect. Second, the immersive world is more co-opt friendly, allowing a friend to join you or leave you without disturbing your gameplay. And of the course the Farcry favorites are back, such as a crazy amount of vehicle options, a menagerie of wild animals to play with, a long list of weapons to find and craft, and missions that can be approached any way you like.
You can buy Farcry 4 here.
5. Dragon Age Inquisition
Dragon Age Inquisition cheats a little at the open world concept. The game is astonishingly large and each area feels massive on its own, but there is a central hub and the different lands are divided into sections. However, the RPG elements and free-range travel still give this game a strong open-world feeling. The wandering fauna and strikingly beautiful flora also make this world one of the most beautiful on the Xbox One…at least until you run into one of the titular dragons and get roasted, frozen, or zapped. Bioware is behind the Dragon Age open world Xbox games, which means a lot of deep story elements as well.
You can buy Dragon Age Inquisition here.
6. Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
All right, all right, the Witcher 3 doesn’t come out until – after the latest pushback – sometime near mid-2015. But out of the upcoming open world games, it is most worth putting on the list for its impressive game design, more than 30x larger than the previous Witcher installment and larger than the daddy of all open world games, Skyrim. It’s going to be huge, is what we’re saying. So if you like dark fantasy along the lines of Game of Thrones and are waiting for an open world game that finally gives you what you want, this is the game for you. You just have to wait a little while longer.
