7 must-play open world games released in 2025

Open world games that came out in 2025 were a lot more surprising and engaging than many people thought they would be. This was not simply a year for large game maps filled with symbols showing repetitive tasks. Instead, it was a year when the people who make games decided to try genuinely new and different things with how their worlds are organized, the feeling and mood they create, and the way players exist and spend their time inside an open world.

That said, here is a list of seven open world games from 2025 that you should consider playing.

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows and six other open world games from 2025 that you must play

1) Assassin's Creed Shadows

Assassin's Creed Shadows in the list of must-play open world games of 2025 (Image via Ubisoft)

AC Shadows finally took the series to 16th-century Japan in the middle of the Sengoku period, which was something fans had been asking to see for more than ten years. The game was made by Ubisoft Quebec and came out on March 20, 2025, for computers running Windows and macOS, as well as the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. A version for the Nintendo Switch 2 arrived later in December. Shadows is the fourteenth big game in the main series.

The thing that makes Shadows different is that you play as two main characters. You control both Fujibayashi Naoe, a female shinobi, and Yasuke, an African samurai. Naoe's gameplay focuses on being quiet and stealthy, which is the classic Assassin style, while Yasuke is all about facing enemies directly and using samurai fighting methods.

The story continues the ancient fight between the Assassin Brotherhood, who believe in freedom and peace, and the Templar Order, who want peace by taking total control. The open world itself finds a good middle ground that some earlier games in the series did not always achieve.

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2) Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Death Stranding 2 is one of the best open world games you must play in 2025 (Image via Kojima Productions)

Hideo Kojima came back with Death Stranding 2 on June 26, 2025 as a PS5 exclusive. Kojima himself wrote, produced, designed, and directed the entire sequel, which brings back important characters like Sam (played by Norman Reedus), Fragile (Léa Seydoux), and others.

The game is mostly set in Australia, eleven months after the events of the first game, and continues the story in a broken world after the end of society, which has been destroyed by creatures from another reality. Kojima started writing On the Beach before the year 2020 but later rewrote the whole story from the beginning to include the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic had on people all around the world.

We recommend that you play through the main story of the first game to get the best experience of part 2. Summary videos cannot properly explain the complicated story Kojima built, but the sequel does include a recap for players who need their memory refreshed.

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3) Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a long game, and one of the recommended open world games you should play (Image via Deep Silver)

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II in open world games brought back Warhorse Studios' focus on real history and first-person medieval role-playing in a much bigger package. The game sold two million copies in just two weeks and got mostly good reviews from critics.

The game world in this sequel is two times bigger than the world in the first game, but the design is different. Instead of one single connected map, Deliverance II has two separate, large areas you can explore freely. This allows for more types of landscapes and more kinds of quests.

The fighting system has also grown, with the new additions of crossbows and very early guns. You can even shoot a crossbow while riding your horse, which adds new strategic choices during fights on horseback that were not possible in the original game.

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4) Where Winds Meet

Where Winds Meet in the list of Open world games (Image via NetEase Games)

Where Winds Meet in open world games introduced real wuxia martial arts action to players all over the world. It was developed by Everstone Studio and published by NetEase Games. The game launched everywhere for the PS5 and Windows on November 14, 2025, and then versions for Android and iOS phones came out on December 12, 2025.

Set in the time of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, you play as a roaming hero. The game has both a single-player mode and a multiplayer mode, with deep character creation that lets you change how your character looks and what they wear.

Just being in the world of Where Winds Meet feels enjoyable. There are items to collect, goals to achieve, fights to win, and quests to finish. There is a large amount of content, but it does not feel like an exhausting list of chores. The world makes you want to explore it and it pays you back for being curious, which makes it hard to stop playing once you have started.

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5) Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Yotei in Open world games (Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Ghost of Yotei in open world games launched as a PS5 exclusive on October 2, 2025, developed by Sucker Punch Productions. This standalone sequel to 2020's Ghost of Tsushima sold more than 3.3 million copies by November and received mostly positive reviews.

The story takes place in 1603 in Ezo, Japan, and follows a mercenary named Atsu. She is looking for revenge against the group called the 'Yotei Six,' who killed her family sixteen years earlier. Changing the focus from Jin Sakai's story to Atsu's personal story of vengeance gives the game its own unique personality, instead of just being called Ghost of Tsushima 2.

Played from a third-person view, Ghost of Yotei has combat, stealth, and open world exploration across different parts of Ezo. It is extremely beautiful to look at, the gameplay is smooth and feels natural, and the world is built with great care to keep you interested.

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6) Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of the recommended open world games (Image via GSC Game World)

Stalker 2 had a troubled development process but was finally released on November 20, 2024, for Windows and Xbox Series X/S. The PS5 version came out exactly one year later, on November 20, 2025. It was developed and published by GSC Game World and is the fourth main game in the series, coming out 15 years after the last Stalker game.

It was first announced after the release of Call of Pripyat, with a plan to come out in 2012, but it was cancelled that same year. The game showed up again in 2018, with development starting over using the Unreal Engine 5. The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced the developers to pause their work, which caused several delays before the game finally came out.

This first-person shooter, which also has survival horror parts, is set in the dangerous exclusion zone around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant after the apocalypse. The game world is split into several different territories, and some of them are blocked off when you start, which gives you a feeling of moving forward as you unlock new areas.

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7) Dying Light: The Beast

Dying Light: The Beast in the list of Open world games (Image via Techland)

The Beast in open world games was released on September 18, 2025, for Windows, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Developed and published by Techland, it was originally envisioned as DLC for Dying Light 2: Stay Human before being released as a standalone game. It brings back Kyle Crane as the main character. It is set in Castor Woods, a countryside vacation spot in the Western Alps that is now full of zombies.

You explore this open world using Crane's parkour climbing and jumping skills, or you can drive a 4x4 truck, giving you travel choices other than just running across rooftops.

Just like in the first Dying Light, the zombies are slow and easier to handle during the day, but when the sun goes down they become fast, angry, and dangerous. This keeps the tense day-and-night cycle that the series is famous for.

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These seven games represent different approaches to the open world formula.

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Edited by Rishi Pallav