10 Best Open-World Games Of The 2010s (That AREN'T GTA)
Sleeping Dogs FTW.
Open-world games are a dime a dozen in today's gaming market. Once rarely found outside of Rockstar's forays into the sandbox sphere, now you'd be hard pressed to find a game that doesn't have a world more open than your wallet after a ten hour bender.
Rockstar's devs made open world games popular due to their very well-realised landscapes filled with things to do, places to see and people to recklessly murder.
There is a craft to making such a title that they certainly made popular, and many attempts have fallen flat on their faces (looking at you, Crackdown 2). It is difficult to bring a title out that is not only solid on its own, but can match or even surpass GTA in certain aspects - be it through gameplay, story or world size.
Thankfully, there have been some gems to have sprung out from the sandbox sphere that stand strong in the face of Rockstar's crime sagas.
With that in mind, here are various open world games from the last ten years of gaming that don't start with the word "grand" or end with something rhyming with "heft motto".
10. Infamous 2
When the PlayStation 3 dropped in 2006, it took Sucker Punch another three years to release the first Infamous for it. A mostly polished superpowered title, it garnered a good enough following to warrant a sequel which released in 2011.
This was the follow-up the original needed: wide, expansive, improving upon the original's powers and also swapping out the old generic Empire City with the more visually compelling New Marais, an obvious virtual representation of New Orleans, unless the title wasn't obvious enough.
Cole's mobility was much better suited to the train car-riddled streets of Marais and it was able to set itself apart from other city-inspired sandboxes.
Second Son sadly went back to the cityscape in 2014, but the image of swampy Orleans-esque New Marais lingered in the heads of many players, and the ways in which the story took you through the entire map were fun and interesting.
So long, New Marais, we barely knew ye.