10 Open-World Video Games You Must Play Before You Die
5. Sleeping Dogs
Perhaps the most accurate portrayal of Hong Kong in a game to date, Sleeping Dogs managed to make the labyrinth-esque design of the city fun to navigate.
A big part of what makes Sleeping Dogs such a good open-world is the amount of options you have to navigate it. Wei Shen is excellent to control on foot thanks to the game's parkour system, but even driving can be turned extreme with the ability to leap from car to car.
The movement systems really make the map fun to explore, but the combat is also a big part of what makes Sleeping Dogs so great. Most open-world games seem to fall when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, but this is one of the areas that the game shines best in, which makes it feel really distinct.
It's a shame that we'll probably never see a sequel to this one, as it's easily one of the most underrated games of the past generation.