10 Best "The Game Is Bigger Than You Think" Moments

5. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Another game that will inundate you with content before it even shows you just how much there is to do is Divinity: Original Sin 2. Larian’s 2017 RPG masterpiece, not to be confused with their 2023 RPG masterpiece, kicks off in Fort Joy.

Okay, technically it kicks off on a ship but that’s not a great moment where you realise the game is bigger than you’d expect because I’m sure there was no point you thought the game would take place entirely on a ship. No game would do that. Well, except for Return of the Obra Dinn, but I feel like we’re getting off track.

Once you get off that ship you’ll wash up on the shores of Fort Joy, and yes, Larian really do love kicking their games off with you on a beach. To be clear, Fort Joy is no small location, it has hundreds of things to explore and dozens of quests to complete, not to mention sixteen discrete areas for you to check out. Naturally, though, all of this is leading to your escape, which comes after another few dozen hours whereupon you unravel a lot more of the epic fantasy story and your role within it as you rock up to the sprawling Reaper’s Coast. If for some reason the size of the game didn’t have you rocking back in your chair and inhaling sharply at that point, then your subsequent journey to the almost equally huge, encounter-riddled and delightfully inundating location, the Nameless Isle, ought to do it.

By the time you hit the game’s final enormous location, the city of Arx, which you’re called to for narrative reasons I won’t spoil, you’re probably no longer surprised at just how big this thing is but between Fort Joy and here it definitely hit you at some point.