Best open-world games?

[Jonzuk]

What are the top alternatives to an open-world action-adventure game that emphasizes crime, exploration, and player agency?

[Electric Cupcake]

Minecraft

[Prinny]

Runescape.
Scam people.
See interesting low poly locales.
Get PK'd in the wilderness.

[Dadpool]

Batman: Arkham games

[talemore]

Planet earth

[MinionJoe]

No Man's Sky

[harley]

idk if this counts but maybe yakuza?

[アキウアラ]

Originally posted by jonzuk:

What are the top alternatives to an open-world action-adventure game that emphasizes crime, exploration, and player agency?

Here's my list.

GTA V (Content wise)
Sleeping Dogs (Story wise)
Watchdogs 2 (Puzzle wise)
Saints Row 3,4 (Fantasy wise)

[Mina]

Red dead seems fun

[c Z p]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Assassin's Creed Origins
The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
Mafia Definitive Edition
Hogwarts Legacy

and a lot more I haven't had the chance to play yet, but all of the above have tons of exploring, not sure if you can officially tag all of them as open world though.

[Hobbit XIII]

MUDs only answering that for sense of completion of this post.

Oblivion and Skyrim have their thing going you can do what you like be a thief join the thieves guild and get on with whatever you want to do.
Or go and be an upright standing adventurer of grave robbing virtue instead.

Dishonored , because it is like Thief just way better.
It is not open world you have missions to complete but the levels are very open on how you handle them and the routes you take and depending if you murder everybody or just a few or none at all will affect the ending.
The storyline is you are a former bodyguard and have been accused of assassination.
After the introduction you make your way out and into the world to build your skills and develop your path.
I am a big fan of making your own missions within games too.

[Devsman]

Rule of thumb with open world: the smaller it is, the better it is.

Ground Zeroes and Yakuza 0 are the best open world games, with no close competition whatsoever.

[TGC> The Games Collector]

GTA 4

[TheHogfather]

Elden ring

[󠀡󠀡]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/513710/SCUM/

[PurpleCreativeValiant]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/794260/Outward_Definitive_Edition/