Do Okami or Windwaker count? If not then Skyrim.

I haven't played it. Didn't seem like a lot of fun to me at the time. I do appreciate the art, but the world itself doesn't seem that great to me? I haven't played it though, so assumptions.

I think either Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, or AssCreed IV are the three that have made me stop and just admire the scenery the most. Crossing into Mexico in RDR was one hell of a moment, for example.

World of Warcraft. Even as it is aging, I still think it looks beautiful - such a strong art style.

Among the games I have played, would have to say Assassins Creed 4 in that the it was so vibrant and wonderful to explore. Shadow of the Collosus' world had sort of a serene effect on me, it was empty until the part where you actually reached the Collussus. The silence in the overworld was weirdly calming.

Red Faction:Guerilla!

When I'd go back to a fort after a mission to destroy its remains for resources, there'd be this serene music. I'd just be breaking stuff, feeling completely at peace. It was beautiful, man.

One of the guys from PC Gamer does a really nice series called "Other Places", in which he highlights beautiful video-game environments. His video on Red Dead Redemption illustrates why it's my favourite.

@sunbrozak: That's awesome. I love that song. Jose Gonzalez is a fantastic musician. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, he does a lot of covers, one of them being Teardrop by Massive Attack. Look up the video, it's absolutely stunning.

It's one of the most incredible games ever made, man.

Nothing beats Skyrim in my book, I love everything about it. I can't wait to see what the next Elder Scrolls game looks like!

@i_stay_puft: I also really liked the Hong Kong location, it felt surreal.

My other pick is Far Cry 3, just beautiful.

Gallery

Shadow of the Colossus and Wind Waker are obvious choices, but the FFXIV: ARR sort-of open world is slowly becoming my new favorite. It has so much variety and character to every area, and can be visually stunning at times. I've taken more screenshots of the game than I ever had in my entire life. I just wish my laptop could run it better...

THOSE VISTAS YO. Red Dead Redemption is the only game that I can honestly say about took my breath away simply from it's visual design and setting. The first time I saw the sunset over the mesas, I remember thinking that video games have gone so far beyond what I ever thought would be capable. Stunning.

@the_vein:

I think so as well. When they announced GTA5 for the PS4 and Xbox 1, I was sad it was not Red Dead instead.

If it counts, then Wind Waker is almost certainly my pick!

Okami, World of Warcraft, Red Dead Redemption (despite not liking the actual game, the world is definitely something), and Oblivion (felt it had more diverse settings than Skyrim) are right behind. Shout out to Burnout Paradise too! :)

World of Warcraft. Sure the scenery is low-poly but that to me just makes it more impressive considering what they're managing to do with it. I'm a little biased since Zangarmarsh was me and my wife's first date, in a way, so that's weird maybe. Also with every expansion they do, things just get prettier, and the WoD expansion seems to be keeping that tradition alive.

I also love Dark Souls' world, again not the highest poly count out there, and to some it might look kind of nasty and inhospitable, but there's a beauty in its darkness that just sparks imagination and wonder. For some reason Ash Lake stands out ...

..which of course leads to Shadow of the Colossus. Again it doesn't look very beautiful on first glance, but if you ever got immersed in the world you probably feel the same. It's special, and not because of its fidelity or rendering of trees. No, it's an emotional bond, and It left an impression that will last me a lifetime.

I haven't played RDR, but I loved the world of GUN. Everything about how the world fit together. It was one of the first next gen games I played, and I loved EVERYTHING about it.

@zevvion: When I heard about Shadow of the Colossus, I was skeptical about how it could be fun as well. When I played it, I was floored by it. Simply stunning game.

Still my favorite. For me nothing really compares to the scale and variety in WoWs environments. That is why I actually really like the pet battling thing. It gives you a reason to go explore the whole world other than to get an achievement. I will say, flying mounts did take some of the wonder away, excited to hear the new expansion is ground mounts only.

Runner up would be Morrowind.

State of Decay recreates the idealized rural American atmosphere with great attention to detail and I fell for it.

GTA San Andreas had some really spectacular moments like driving into San Fierro from the east (I didn't even know there was more than one city at the time), crossing over the Golden Gate-like bridge, flying over the Hoover-like dam or to the top of Mt. Chillad. GTA 4 and 5 are more advanced graphically but lack the serene atmosphere. On the other hand maybe I've just gotten harder to impress.

There are so many great looking open world games, but I really love Far Cry 3.

I want to second this. Beauty isn't merely technical, nor should it be any sort of traditional set of aesthetic conditions. The world of Dark Souls can become a very moving place to exist in and to traverse through after a long time. It does wonderful things with the contrast between the different parts of the world and the stories they tell (the decrepitude of Undead Burg, the hazy darkness of Darkroot Garden, the opulence of Anor Londo), plus the atmosphere in these places really draws you in, despite being so preoccupied with simply surviving.

Its not an open world. Its very pretty and its a series of boss fights done in a specific order and basically nothing else.\

Xenoblade and Skyrim immediately came to mind for me. Im tempted to mention Shadows of Mordor as well but that's mostly technical, but it did have some impressive looking stuff.

How is it not an open world? It's literally an open world you can explore on your own terms. Just because you have to go to certain points in the world to advance the story doesn't deny it's open worldness. That's exactly what you do in a lot of typical "open world" games with icons flooding the map. You don't need missions and enemies flooding every corner of the map for it to be open world.

Shadow of the Colossus has a little pond area with little turtles crawling around. You know what you can do there? Absolutely nothing of significance. And that's beautiful. You can simply soak up the world because you want to and not because of any sort of mission marker or treasure chest.

An open world game is a game where you can progress in the order or the manner that you choose. You cant do that in SOTC, you can ride your horse around a bit then when you want to do the next thing, there's a single option. "Open world" is a genre trope and it has parameters. You have to go to certain points in the world to advance the story that fully denies it the label of an open world game. What you can choose to do in SOTC you can choose to do in just about any game. Probably the director intended some of that and that's why he bothered to build this area where there's nothing when in most games an area where there's nothing has the bare minimum in visual dressing. But you're still ascribing some meta stuff to a game type with a definition. Open world is progressing in the manner and order that you choose to. That doesn't include, I feel, whether you choose to go over to that hill over there and sit under the tree and do nothing in between boss fights.

But to be clear I don't care enough about this to argue my point further. Journey is open world and, it could be argued, is entirely the experience of "go to that lake where there's nothing of consequence and chill for a bit" moments. I just feel there's a distinction to be made between open world games and games that merely have wide open areas in them. But if other people feel a different way that's fine too.

I'd go with some of the others here and say Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim are two of the games that had me just wandering around and taking in the sights and sounds. I often found myself in Skyrim stopping to look around and stare up at the sky as certain bits of music welled up.

Another game that I spent many, many, many, many hours just cruising around in was Burnout Paradise. Maybe not the most beautiful of games but I found it so relaxing to just put on a custom soundtrack (albums by Zero7, The Irresistible Force and The Cardigans) and just basically cruise through the mountain roads as the sun set and rose.

I also really liked the sense of atmosphere and scale you got in GTA V. My jaw actually did drop on first running the game, walking around as Franklin. I must have been one of the few who enjoyed walking along the streets of the city at "normal" pedestrian pace and would even bring the camera further down to street level to heighten the sense of "being there".

I'm super confused how you just called Journey open world but not Shadow of the Colossus. Journey much, much less fits the bill of open world according to your definition than SOTC

Also, saying SOTC merely has "wide open areas" is a pretty big understatement. Just the space of SOTC is much bigger than Arkham City for example, and that game is a typical open world game and identified as such by everyone. I'd also like to point out that there actually is stuff to find in SOTC like save pillars, fruits to increase max health, and white tailed lizards to increase max stamina. Even without those things though, SOTC has a huge world to explore even if nothing triggers when you go to areas other than the fights.

And you do realize a lot of "proper" open world games have those main story markers that simply advance the story, right? Assassin's Creed has points of progression just like SOTC. What's the difference? Side missions? More trigger points on the map?...

I'm still gonna reply but if you're done talking, that's cool too.

Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption have some really pretty environments.

Really? I think Mordor is extremely bland and uninteresting looking. When people say 'it does everything Assassin's Creed does but better' I disagree for a variety of reasons. The world being the most obvious one. Assassin's Creed IV was stunning, beautiful and vast. Mordor is not.

It's hard to pick one, but it would have to be one of these:

• Red Dead Redemption
• Wind Waker
• Any of the three previous Elder Scrolls games

You mean Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion? Technically, Skyrim is the current Elder Scrolls. Unless you are counting the MMO.

There's something about the vibrant colors and expansive world of Dragon Quest VIII that is really appealing to me. And I think that the lack of a mini-map contributes to the exploratory nature of DQ8. But yes, I think that world is very pretty. There are caves and ruins to be found throughout and the map is pretty much seamless. It's the only DQ I actually like.

Also: Skyrim (i love winter areas), Gran Pulse (FFXIII), and Wind Waker (i love boating) are open worlds that resonate with me.

I loved the cohesiveness of Skyrim. A lot of open worlds like to have a wide range of different looking stuff but Skyrim managed to make it all feel connected and organic. Gotta throw down for Red Dead though. The lighting and skybox are the unsung heroes of the "Far Away" moment when you cross over into Mexico. Also L.A. Noire was pretty fantastic. It was incredibly subdued and wasn't shoving how detailed and open-worldy it was in your face. People just went about their 1940's lives in that game and you couldn't interact with them in the same way you can in other open-world games. That recreation of LA was really something, people should check out Christian Donlan's article where he played that game with his dad who lived in LA during that period.

@zevvion: How can something the current game? I'd say Skyrim goes under previous.

To me it has to be Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. It may not be the most graphically technological game out there, but man that art style is something else! ;)

@lelcar said:

Gran Pulse is really beautiful, shame that it's the only one open area in an otherwise fully linear game world.

It is the most recent. No other Elder Scrolls game has been released since. So it is the current? I don't know, this is weird territory. It's why I asked to clarify.

Elder Scrolls Online? You mentioned it yourself. If anything, I'd say that is the "current" Elder Scrolls forever now. Anyway, if clarification was needed, I meant Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.

Skyrim. Sure, it can be ugly at times, but some vistas are spectacular.

Non-mmo is Assassin's Creed series. Those vista's when you climb towers are just amazing.

MMO wise FFXIV.

@legion_: I don't think anyone would blame you if you didn't count Online. But yeah, makes sense.

Ultima!

Also Shadow of the Colossus!

Aesthetically, Skyrim has never not impressed me. Technically, though, I have to admire Just Cause 2's ridiculous fucking size and variety. Well, variety on a grand scale, there are a lot of copy pasted buildings.

STALKER. Hauntingly beautiful.

@armaan8014: Totally agree. The first time I left the sewer my jaw dropped and I spent the next day (not an in-game day either) just looking at trees, watching sunsets and glitch-climbing mountains.

Oh man yes! Great to know people do stuff this way :D Watching clouds and sunsets while sipping tea, perfect! I remember jumping around naked in a waterfall once on my way to Cheydinhal (?) and then climbing the hill next to it, and watching in awe and wonder as the weather changed so smoothly and dynamically from a sunny morning to an overcast, and eventually rainy afternoon. Sigh

Morrowind for sure. The colors and atmosphere were phenomenal. You could do so many interesting things with the tools they provided as well.

Also, while not open-world, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter has hands down the best looking and most atmospheric natural landscapes of anything I've ever played.

I love these kinds of threads. Reminds me of how beautiful video games can be, how many stunning and amazing games I have yet to experience, and just how damn much I am anticipating a new Read Dead game.

That "Other Places" video was just stunning and brought back memories. Read Dead Redemption might be the only game that's ever compelled me to call my wife into the living room to see, just to show her the wide-open vista I was overlooking and the clouds dancing through the sky.

Red Dead Redemption or Grand Thelft Auto V

@archer88: Yep. Technically I'd go for GTAV but for beauty it has to be a modded Stalker.

Also a nod in the direction Morrowind.

And Ico.