Favorite Game World

[Navigare Necesse Est]

One of my favourite game world's is actually I-War, 1 and 2.

Not particularly open world, (especially not the first one). It just felt very real.

The game, if remade, could have loads of potential for being an ED rival.
All 3 layers of flight mechanics trump ED's (IMHO).

Skyrim and Oblivion also had great game world's.

Amen. I War were great games.

 

[Knightshark]

A well designed and immersive game world is very important for me.

For me Witcher 3 nailed it. It looks fantastic and is believable. Distances between villages and larger towns, cites are ok. There is uniform climate but great designed variation in flora and fauna, hills, swamps, mountains.

I recently played Ghost Recon Wildlands, and i must say the open world is also great. Not "Hall of Fame" martial, but impressive nevertheless.

When it comes to world design in terms of level design and atmosphere, nothing beats the Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne.

 

[jasonbarron]

It is hard to pick a number one, or a favorite, especially since most/all of us have been gaming for decades and have a vast amount of experience. To me the latest GTA is a work of art that continually amazes due to the unpredictable nature of what activities are likely to pop up around the next corner and how all of the various biomes make sense when viewed alongside one another. And then once you layer in the writing and various scripts along with optional "hobby activities" that are constantly unlocking throughout the course of the game you find yourself in a veritable playground where the main story can be ignored while the player has fun just tooling around randomly.

One thing that struck me last night as I was playing was the fact that after something like 50 hours I'd hardly repeated the same mission twice, a stark contrast from a recent blockbuster such as TW3 where after maybe 2 hours you've seen every mission type and mechanic the game has to offer and the only thing that changes over the next 300 hours of play is the superb story writing and the constant grind for minor stat changes. In GTA V you are always doing something new. And I say that as a man who did truly enjoy TW3 and thinks Geralt is the coolest anti-hero in all gamedom.

 

[Chevy66]

I like the grim post apocalyptic worlds in STALKER and Metro games

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Going to play the fanboy and put Elite as my first.

Second place, and i can get away with this because while not originally a computer game world, D&D Planescape became one with Planescape: Torment (one of the best story heavy CRPGs of all time), and of course the NWN1 and NWN2 servers based on it.

And i must admit, i do like the Ark gameworld(s) as well.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I like the grim post apocalyptic worlds in STALKER and Metro games

Living in Russia, i do get pointed to read the stories by the Strugastvi brothers. I read Roadside Picnic a while ago, which Stalker is losely based on, and it was a decent read. Recently finished Its Hard to be a God as well. Not bad, but the ending annoyed me. I mean, in general fine with the ending, just the prose was weak i felt.

 

[Jenner]

The Elder Scrolls is probably at the top of my list of epic game worlds I love to live in.
Mass Effect is up there, too.

Rich lore and characters, and are places I love to visit.

I'll echo the props for Fallout New Vegas, too, but not so much because I'd like to live in those worlds as I just like 'visiting'.

 

[hunvagy]

Living in Russia, i do get pointed to read the stories by the Strugastvi brothers. I read Roadside Picnic a while ago, which Stalker is losely based on, and it was a decent read. Recently finished Its Hard to be a God as well. Not bad, but the ending annoyed me. I mean, in general fine with the ending, just the prose was weak i felt.

The inhabited island is also awesome, though I admit I only saw the movie

 

[dubsdj]

Monkey Island series for me. I loved those game worlds. 2nd would be Mass Effect 3.
I liked GTA V but there was not enough random buildings that you could actually enter like coffee shops and so on.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The inhabited island is also awesome, though I admit I only saw the movie

Dear gods, don't remind me of the movie.... i started watching it and got horrible flashbacks to terrible 70s sci-fi serieses. The book, fortunately, was much better, although I don't remember why, but i never finished it. Possibly prose was to blame again. Things don't often work well when transated.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

GTA V probably gets my No.1 vote. the sense of reality the first time I played brought a tangible gasp of appreciation. You could almost be walking around parts of LA and SoCal. In fact one of the first things I did was just hop on one of the trains and take a circular tour.

Skyrim good but having spent an insane amount of time in Fallout 4 I would say that has the edge, particularly Far Harbor.

Deus Ex was good (though I never really gelled with MD) however the areas to explore were relatively tiny.

I am a fan of any game that gives you an expanded and realistic world to explore.

 

[Trickylion]

Half life 1
Portal 1
Elite dangerous
Civilization 1
Snowball text adventure
Aliens ate my baby sitter commander keen
Zelda
Mario
Colossal cave written in basic by me and my brother
Microsoft online backgammon

 

[rootsrat]

Good thread, +rep man!

1. Fallout. FALLOUT!!! The whole idea of vaults being sociological experiments really made me think when I played F1 and F2 in the 90's. Absolutely love this universum.

2. Witcher. I read all the saga 5 or 6 times, then played all the games, still on W3 now preparing to play DLC's. Andrzej Sapkowski is Tolkien of Poland. But better. While Tolkien's world is very fairy-tale like, Witcher is much more dark and grim, while having the same amount of epicness to it.

3. Elite. Yes. Elite series just sucked me in like a black hole, when I discovered FE2 on Amiga 500. Fell in love with the universum here. More serious than other SF games at the time, quite dark and brutal as well. Love it.

4. GTA. Purely due to the grotesque and the satire. I absolutely love stuff like that. It's touches on so many important subjects, but unfortunately a lot of people only see the "shoot all the civilians and cops you can before you die, rinse repeat" side of it. I love to just park my pimped up ride somewhere, turn the engine off and listed to the chat-radio stations. Scary stuff. Funny, but scary. This is the world we live in.

5. Tough one. A few candidates here. I'm going to pick Dishonored, only becuase I am playing D2 at the moment. Again, love the grim and dark steam punk world that Arcane put up together.

 

[Riedquat]

I would go for the older GTA games, so San Andreas and Vice city.

Baldurs Gate I is up there as well, maybe even at the top - that game seemed to go on forever, so may different areas to explore.

Cant forget Skyrim of course and the original Elite.

 

[Iskariot]

I've noticed that in general my favorite games are one's that I feel the most invested in their world. It doesn't necessarily have to be an open world game, or a sandbox, but that certainly helps.

Here are my top 5 all time favorite game worlds:

1-Grand Theft Auto V
2-Riven The Sequel To Myst
3-Bioshock
4-Assassins Creed: Origins
5-Skyrim

GTA V story mode actually towers over the competition, as much as I love the other games (and plenty that are not in the top 5) on the list. The environment screams for exploration and experimentation, and in conjunction with the fantastic writing that somehow manages to be satirical while at the same time channeling epic movie sagas such as the incomparable Heat yields a world that is as much fun to observe as it is to play in. And boy oh boy is there a lot of play to be had.

What are some of your favorite game worlds and why? Is it even that important to you?

If you are talking about pure world design, then I am a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed games. AC 2 is one of my all time favorites, but Origins is high on my list too.
I am hopelessly in love with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. I played that game 13 times and am still not done with it. I want a sequel in an open world setting.
I also love the Mass Effect trilogy. Those games gave me my necessary scifi Star Wars fix, because the Star Wars IP itself failed miserably at producing good games in the past years.
The Witcher 3 was impressive too.
The Deus Ex games....
I did like Fallout 3 a lot too, although I do feel that the used engine is a bit crude and unrefined.
The Borderlands games had some very well designed gameworlds too..
Bioshock... also one of my favourite worlds.
GTA IV and V, both are incredible too.

I'll stop there, but I could go on and on...

Is it even that important to you?

Massively important.
I am always seeking good games that can immerse me in alternative worlds to distract me from my own.

 

[Jezzah]

Have to have a good think but here's a few. No particular order.

The Half Life universe - valve told a story in an fps before it was fashionable. Science experiment gone wrong. Loved it.

Witcher universe - just brilliant. Probably my favourite ever.

Dead Space series - again the devs put a huge amount of effort into creating their universe and setting. Nailed it.

Dishonored series - the detail put into the setting is astounding and effective.

Fallout series - the fps ones anyway. Aside from the awful engine the universe is captivating.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Dead Space series - again the devs put a huge amount of effort into creating their universe and setting. Nailed it.

I can add this to my fav ones as well, even tho the story/characters got progressively worst with each game the lore was quite fascinating to discover.