In this blog, we present you the 12 best open-world games for PC. As a fan of the genre, ELDEN RING, The Witcher 3, God of War, Cyberpunk 2077, or Red Dead Redemption 2 immediately come to mind.
Since we’ve already discussed those in another post, we’d like to introduce you to 12 other games that sometimes don’t get enough attention or are overshadowed by the ones mentioned above. Let’s take a look at them!
Table of Contents
1) Sons of the Forest
First up is Sons of the Forest. The first-person survival horror game was one of our most anticipated releases of 2023. And wow, it didn’t disappoint. The game is certainly not for the faint of heart, and the search for a missing billionaire on a remote island gets our blood pumping every time we play.
Like its predecessor, The Forest, cannibals, mutants, and wild creatures await you. Developer Endnight Games is attempting nothing less than to revolutionize the survival genre with this title. Unlike the first part, you’ll be able to work with companions. The first one is Kelvin. He has also crashed on the island and must find his way around the varied open world.
But what is so revolutionary? The elimination of grinding! Instead of grinding for resources yourself, you can now ask your companions to do it for you. The interesting thing is that every single one of them has a mind of their own and can get offended if you ask them to do too much. When you’ve had enough of them, just throw them to the cannibals and look for a new best worker, er… friend.
2) Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
After the series became dusty due to its formulaic nature, Ubisoft made a fresh start with Assassin’s Creed Origins. Say goodbye to the overpowered counterattack and welcome its fascinating RPG elements. For the first time in an AC, it was possible to make decisions and collect experience points like in a real RPG.
But Origins is not what we want to talk about in our blog. In our opinion, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the highlight of the series so far. Not only do the character animations look better than in the sequel Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but also the game world around Sparta and ancient Greece captivated us.
The special highlight: the mass battles. Unlike in any other AC, in Odyssey, it’s possible to fight with and against hundreds of soldiers at the same time. In the game, you can choose to play as either Kassandra or Alexios. In both cases, you’ll experience a gripping family epic that’s not without its twists and turns, and in its best moments reminds us of the good old Ezio era.
3) Fallout: New Vegas
And again, it’s the second installment after a fresh start that we want to recommend to you. Is there a connection between second installments and high quality? Remember Gothic 2 and Mass Effect 2? The Fallout series has always been a great piece of gaming history. The phrase “war, war never changes” alone has been burned into the collective consciousness of us gamers.
But the isometric perspective of the first two games isn’t for everyone. Fallout 3 did the right thing by going into the third dimension. But Fallout: New Vegas took the right path even further. Rarely has quest design been as varied as it is in this extraordinary game.
Never before have decisions had such far-reaching consequences as in the wasteland surrounding the casino metropolis. And never before have we grown so fond of characters that we were willing to load up old game saves and play from there to make sure our digital friends were okay.
4) Hogwarts Legacy
Even though this game wasn’t officially announced until September 2020, we’ve all been secretly waiting for it for over two decades (at least the 20-somethings among us). An open-world game set in the Harry Potter universe. This sentence is enough to make the game sound amazing. But let’s go into detail.
The story takes place in the time of the upcoming goblin uprising. So you don’t play the wizard apprentice with the scar on his forehead, but you create your own character according to your ideas and attend the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the 19th century. During the game, you’ll be able to explore Hogwarts, the village of Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest, and the coastal area.
The main story takes approximately 25 hours to complete. But including the numerous side missions, you’ll easily reach triple digits in this single-player action RPG. So: cast Lumos to light up your room, use Wingardium Leviosa or Accio to pull the mouse and keyboard close to you, and throw an angry Stupefy at anyone who tries to stop you from playing.
5) Spider-Man Remastered
When Spider-Man came out on the PlayStation 4 in September 2018, we could only envy console gamers. The game got the most out of its dusty technology and flexed its digital muscles. The combat system was very reminiscent of the combo system of the competition. Spidey swung his fists almost exactly like Batman in DC’s Arkham games.
Finally, in August 2022, the time had come. The open-world game made its way to the PC. But that wasn’t all: The already brilliant graphics were polished up once again, the frame rate was increased (on the PS4 it was a measly 30 frames per second), and Peter Parker got the face model of Ben Jordan.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is coming out soon, and we highly recommend catching up with the first game if you haven’t already. The game effortlessly wipes the floor with previous adaptations of the franchise (which, admittedly, is not hard to do with some titles, but that’s another topic).
6) Outer Wilds
The next game in our list of the 12 best open-world games for PC has a special status. If you don’t know it yet, every word about the story would be one too many. In any case, it left us open-mouthed and with goosebumps that wouldn’t go away for several days. If you like time travel, especially time loop stories, you’ll love Outer Wilds.
In the game, you’re a space traveler in a solar system that is being destroyed by a rather nebulous threat. Over and over again. Until the universe ends, you’ll have time to explore part of it and unlock the secrets of each place. What happens here is put together in your mind like a jigsaw puzzle.
With each new cycle, the world makes more sense to you, and in the end… no, we won’t tell you. The interesting thing is that you can finish the game in 15 minutes. At least if you know everything. If you are new to the world of Outer Wilds, however, it will take you about 20 to 25 hours to find the solution.
7) Horizon Zero Dawn
Another game we first envied the console gamers for, and later got to play ourselves on PC in an even better version. Horizon Zero Dawn, from the makers of Killzone, plays as if they took the good qualities of an open-world game from Ubisoft, combined them with the narrative competence of Mass Effect, and put it all in a Fallout-like setting.
You take on the role of Aloy. She’s a brave hunter from the Zora tribe who hunts with a bow and arrow. Sounds like a story set in the past? Far from it! We are more than 1000 years in the future. Human civilization has long since perished. The world is populated by machine creatures that look like animals but are made of cold metal.
The remaining humans live like in the stone age. One day, Aloy finds strange and extremely advanced technology. And that’s where your adventure begins to unravel the mysteries of the machines and the end of humanity as we know it.
8) V Rising
V Rising is an indie game from an unknown developer who used to make small free-to-play games. Then it went into early access and sold over a million copies in its first week. It now has a huge fan base and has received several excellent reviews. But what makes it so special?
It is an open-world game with survival aspects and role-playing elements, as well as a dash of building mechanics. At its core, you play a vampire who needs fresh blood to survive. Depending on the blood you consume, you’ll become stronger and gain new abilities. You’ll also be able to build your own castle, craft items, and hire servants.
If you like a gothic scenario or if your heart beats for vampires and you’re looking for a challenging experience with crunchy bosses and complex systems, V Rising is your game.
9) Borderlands 3
Do you love carnage, comic book-style art, and when a game makes you laugh? Then Borderlands 3 could be your new favorite game. Developed by Gearbox, the open-world game is a cel-shaded first-person shooter. The visuals can only be described in one word: art. The same goes for the weapons.
You may not believe the number, but in Borderlands 3 there are theoretically over a billion different weapons possible. The reason for this is the combination of possibilities. While there were 17.75 million theoretical variations in its predecessor, the developers have pushed the selection to the extreme in the third installment.
The game doesn’t skimp on the legendary shooters either. A total of 213 legendary shooters can be found in the interestingly designed world. Borderlands 3 is a game for those who want to let off steam.
10) Days Gone
Days Gone was revealed to the public back in 2016 but didn’t make its way to PC until 2021. After playing it again and again, we can assure you: It was worth the wait. You’ll experience a gripping story set in a post-apocalyptic world with an enormously dense atmosphere.
Your character is Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter who lost his wife shortly after their marriage. The world you find yourself in has been hit by a global pandemic that has wiped out the majority of humans and turned them into so-called freaks. Calling them zombies comes close, but doesn’t quite hit the mark.
You’ll have to fight your way through the hordes of savage beasts and embark on a journey that’s as dangerous as it is emotional. And yes, we couldn’t help but shed a tear or two while playing. Days Gone is an experience that will stay with you for a long time.
11) Death Stranding
Let’s move on to DHL’s official walking simulator. Just kidding. Death Stranding is much more than that, of course. Upon release, the new game from Hideo Kojima (the brains behind the Metal Gear Solid universe) was ridiculed for its gameplay. At its core, you carry packages from point A to point B and deliver them to people in a world that looks a lot like Iceland.
Fun fact: While listening to random CDs in a record store, Hideo Kojima came across a band called Low Roar. This was an Icelandic band that no one knew about. Blown away by their music, he decided, “They’re going to be the headliners of my new game.” As a result, the musicians became world-famous overnight, and Death Stranding got a soundtrack that provides an incredibly magical atmosphere.
The game itself is also magical. As simple as the parcel-hauling mechanic sounds, it’s innovative and something that hasn’t been seen in any other game before. The isolation you feel during your marches will leave you in awe. Death Stranding is not a game. It’s self-discovery. It’s meditation.
12) Terraria
We close our list with a 2D pixel game that has sold over 35 million copies. And no, it’s not Stardew Valley. We’ve already written about that in another blog. Think of Terraria as a cross between Minecraft and Zelda. The world is randomly generated and you’re free to explore it.
You craft items, build shelters, fight zombies at night, and let your creativity run wild. The story is explained relatively quickly: There is none. It’s completely up to you what you do, where you go, and what aspect of the game you focus on. Freedom is very important in Terraria.
Once you’re done with a world and you’ve explored everything that seemed interesting to you, you can just create a new one and take your previously created character with you. In theory, you can play Terraria endlessly.
Explore the open worlds with PLITCH!
That was our list of the 12 best open-world games for the PC, and we hope we were able to give you some insider tips. To make the game of your choice even more interesting and individual, we recommend our PLITCH cheats.
We offer codes and trainers for your single-player adventure to increase the fun factor and adjust the mechanics to your liking. For example, with our Hogwarts Legacy trainer, you can change your Old Magic, adjust the potion duration, or give your broom an infinite boost. In total, you’ll have nearly 60 different ways to customize the Harry Potter open world to your liking.
Download our client and you’ll have access to codes for over 4,400 games. All trainers are always up to date, so you don’t have to worry about updates.
If you want to learn more about our cheats and trainers, check out this blog and our YouTube channel!
Happy Gaming!
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