With modern technology, games have been getting more and more capable of presenting truly beautiful and realistic worlds to the player. Ever since open-world games, in particular, started to become more popular over the course of the last decade, the race to outdo other games in terms of art style, graphics, immersion, and so on has only gotten tighter.
Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Days Gone drop the player into almost hyper realistically designed spaces based on real-world locations. Obviously, there are some artistic liberties taken, however, in many cases this enhances the flavor of these open-world games.
8 Mad Max
Few games have been able to accomplish what Mad Max has with its post-apocalyptic setting. The skeletal remains of old refineries, roads swallowed by massive sand dunes, and long stretches of hostile, sun-scorched wasteland that ranges from a dried-up seabed all the way up to the former Australian outback await the player as they embody the titular hero, Max Rockatansky.
Having been designed around vehicular traversal, its size is both impressive and well utilized as missions take players to every corner. Whether it's liberating outposts, attacking enemy convoys, or simply scrounging for resources out the dilapidated ruins of the old world.
7 Cyberpunk 2077
With the amount of development time that went into Cyberpunk 2077, there was virtually no way Night City was going to be anything less than absolutely stunning. So many games depict a city as a monolith of greys and browns, but Cyberpunk depicts a true concrete jungle filled with large crowds of diverse city-goers, neighborhoods that not only have prominent cultural identities but economic statuses, and so much more.
From sunlit community parks to the damp and dirty street-lit corners where crime festers, this Tech-noir-inspired metropolis oozes personality in a way most open worlds simply can't compete with.
6 Days Gone
For many gamers, Days Gone represents one of the most accurate recreations of a real place in all of gaming. Set in Central Oregon, the game delivers an environment that's just as unforgivingly brutal as it is breathtakingly gorgeous. Lush forests give way to snowy meadows that have long since been claimed by the dead.
The decayed remains of society that once bustled with the activity of friends and lovers have become overgrown stockpiles for misguided, radicalized militiamen. The player can experience as much terror and adrenaline as they do wonder and amazement when it comes to the world of Days Gone.
5 Batman: Arkham Knight
Arkham Knight may have been released in 2015, but it has aged remarkably well. In fact, few games have managed to match its gothic noir tone even on next-generation hardware. The game builds off its predecessors in a number of ways, but most impressively it features a world in which it feels just as fun to quietly glide through the city as it does to barrel through them with the Batmobile.
Powerful storms rage perpetually through the night; seemingly an outward manifestation of the inner conflict that plagues the titular hero to his very core. Gothic high-rises accented with neon reflect in the filthy, rain-soaked city streets below. In many ways, Arkham Knight captures the quintessential Gotham City.
4 Ghost of Tsushima
It is difficult to put into words just how beautiful the Island of Tsushima can be. As one stands by a shallow river in the early morning hours, the fog softly kissing the surface, or when composing a haiku, watching the crimson leaves slowly fall to the ground, that’s when it shows.
The tiny details come together to make an unfathomably beautiful world for the player to become immersed in. Its artistic representation of medieval Japan caught in the thralls of war with the Mongolian Empire is not only stunningly accurate but also wholly unique in the gaming landscape. All this to say, Ghost of Tsushima gives the player an unforgettable experience through its world design alone.
3 Horizon: Zero Dawn
The sheer majesty of Horizon: Zero Dawn is second to none. Traversing the overgrown forests and plains, players will come across the colossal ruins of old-world achievements slowly being overtaken by the surrounding vegetation. They learn the story of what became of humanity and its robotic creations, which now roam the land without the guidance of their former masters.
Places like Makers End or The Grave Hoard exemplify this perfectly. As a post-apocalyptic setting, Horizon: Zero Dawn's world is among the most unique in recent memory. It is also among the most imposingly beautiful.
2 Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
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What makes Breath of the Wild's Hyrule work so well is how the art style mixes with the game's engine effects. It doesn't have the most detailed models or textures, but this is obviously by design. These are deliberately made to be somewhat cartoonish while the lighting, particle physics, draw distance, and post-processing effects elevate the scenery to astounding levels of beauty.
They mix so well that the cartoony nature becomes an asset rather than a hindrance, giving the game its own look and atmosphere. In fact, the game is able to capture huge, colorful vistas that more technically impressive games sometimes struggle with.
1 Red Dead Redemption 2
It will be a long time before a world as immersive and gorgeous as Red Dead 2s comes along. Rockstar was somehow able to create a western that feels so lived-in that it seems life-like. Much of the map is an open landscape divided into regions. Regions such as New Hanover allow the player to lose themselves in its rolling green hills broken up by massive plateau formations. Exploring the game's snowcapped mountains provides frigid yet calming isolation away from society. The metropolitan symbol of modernity known as St. Denis is as architecturally beautiful as it is polluted with grime and corruption.
It isn’t just the environment that's so impressive, however. NPCs feel so lifelike, going through their own routines and interacting with the player seemingly of their own accord at times. While riding along the dusty roads across New Austin, one is sure to spot a wagon or two along the way, seemingly on its own journey independent of the player. The sense of realism that comes from being a small part of such an expansive world has gone unmatched thus far.