10 Best Open-World Games Of 2018
5. God Of War
If you'd taken Cory Barlog's comments at face value prior to God of War's release, you'd be surprised to learn that Kratos' return is, in fact, an open world adventure, at least in the technical sense. Granted, Midgar doesn't boast a sandbox on the scale of, say, Red Dead Redemption 2, but its wealth of optional content makes describing it as anything but little more than semantics.
Niflheim and Muspelheim in particular, are massive, entirely optional realms for Kratos and Atreus to visit, as are several dungeons and islets scattered throughout Midgard's main hub area. Barlog stated his reasoning behind not wanting to make God of War a truly open world experience as being the result of not wanting to burden players with a checklist of meaningless activities to complete, an objective the team at Santa Monica knocked out of the park.
The entirety of God of War's optional content stands shoulder to shoulder with its linear narrative path in terms of quality and depth, and to skip it would be doing it and yourself a disservice. The final Valkyrie fight with Queen Sigrun, as well as the tough-as-nails trials in the realms of frost and fire, to name but a few, are just a sample of the standout examples, and well worth the detour to enjoy, not least for the tantalising upgrades they provide for beloved angry-turned-family-man.