10 Best Open-World Video Games Of 2017

5. Prey

Although Prey lets players loose to traverse a fully-explorable space station, it's not an open world game in the conventional sense. Instead, it adopts a MetroidVania approach to sandbox design, giving players the option of getting to different parts of the ship by speccing their character in a specific way to progress to the next area.

Thankfully, it's this design style which makes Prey such an infectious experience, as navigating your own way through the environment becomes an enjoyable puzzle in and of itself. Even getting past a door that's blocked with debris brings up multiple interesting gameplay options; do you upgrade your strength to move the obstacle by force, throw a recycler grenade to obliterate it entirely or mimic an inanimate object and squeeze into a gap to get to the other side?

Without even discussing the combat or story (which are both similarly excellent), the simple act of making your way around Prey's space station results in a gameplay loop which cements Bethesda's long-awaited reboot as one of the best games of 2017.