14 Most Underrated Open-World Games Of The Last 10 Years

Hidden gems that might finally make you put down Breath of the Wild.

Open World Games
Square Enix/Avalanche/Rebellion

Taking over from first-person shooters to become the video game industry's go-to genre, open world games have dominated the medium for the past ten years or so. Between 2008's GTA IV and 2017's Horizon: Zero Dawn, sandbox games have gradually taken over the charts, to the point where there's a good chance that even your favourite franchises from other genres will have dabbled in the open world pool at some point over the past few years.

But with the overabundance of these titles hitting shelves year in and year out, it's meant that plenty of great games have slipped through the cracks unnoticed. After all, with many of these games taking tens of hours to complete, and big hitters like Horizon, NieR and Zelda demanding your attention in the first few months of this year alone, there's just not enough time to play everything.

Which is a shame, because despite the ongoing open world fatigue that's starting to set in for even the most hardcore fans of the genre, there's a huge library of great overlooked experiences from the past ten years just waiting to be rediscovered.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked full time as a content producer at WhatCulture for nine years. In that time he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple channels, specialising in subjects such as gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 most listened to gaming podcast in the UK that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, covered breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.