There’s a reason why open-world games love to take place in fantastical worlds. The goal of any good open-world game is to encourage players to keep exploring, and what better way to do that than to give them a world they’ve never seen before?

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Magical kingdoms have everything a good open-world experience needs: powerful allies, dangerous quests, and ancient powers to fend off sinister enemies. Not to mention they feature a world with its own detailed history and lore, with plenty of secrets just waiting for players to discover. Here are some incredible open-world games that made some real magic with their fantastical settings.

6 Elden Ring

A Kingdom Sundered Without Order

Written by the legendary George R.R. Martin, fans of Game of Thrones, Dark Souls, and open-world games alike awaited the release of Elden Ring with near-feral anticipation, and the game itself proved well-worth the hype. This universally-adored action RPG threw players into a world of fantastic gameplay, intricate character creation, and lore as rich as chocolate fudge.

Speaking of the world, Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, a kingdom belonging to the godlike Queen Marika. Her sudden disappearance fractures the land, as her children war against each other for the powerful order that was once hers to protect. This kingdom is broken, fallen from grace and out of balance, and it’s up to the Tarnished player to set things right.

5 Genshin Impact

Five Magical Kingdoms For The Price Of One

This open-world JRPG took the gaming world by storm with its addictive gameplay and wide assortment of fun, collectible characters. One aspect of Genshin Impact that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves is the setting. The design of Teyvat is absolutely breathtaking, both in terms of esthetics and lore.

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The continent is divided into five nations, each with their own unique look, religion, magic, and government. It gives players more to explore, breaking up the game’s pacing and visuals, not to mention giving the game's artists a chance to strut their stuff.

4 The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

A Kingdom’s Return From The Brink of Destruction

In 2017, The Legend of Zelda franchise turned the open-world genre on its head with Breath of the Wild. A century after near-total destruction, Hyrule has become a post-apocalyptic landscape of small towns, lush fields, and dangerous monsters. By the time the sequel came around, these disparate fragments had finally started reconnecting into a whole.

Tears of the Kingdom weaves a tale of slow-but-steady recovery for the Kingdom of Hyrule. In fact, it’s the story of not one but two versions of the same kingdom: one in its early days and one on the cusp of extinction. Past and present blend together as Zonai and Hylians alike fend off the evil that’s plagued their home throughout their history. It’s up to Link to explore every beautiful inch of Hyrule so that they can finally defeat that evil once and for all.

3 Shadow Of The Colossus

Proof That Less Is More

This classic gaming juggernaut is one of the most somber pieces of art to ever hit the PlayStation 2. While other games aimed to add as many new features and eye-popping graphics as they could to grab gamers’ attention, Shadow of the Colossus opted to pare things down to the beautiful and essential. Its world is vast, lonely, and moody, sparsely populated by only a few key characters and the towering colossi themselves.

But make no mistake: this world is still very much a kingdom; if only the ghost of one. What little there is of architecture made by human hands tells of how this land once held a rich history, with strict religious edicts and warnings against demonic influence. What little of the kingdom remains has sent its clergy to stop the protagonist in his quest, suggesting Wander may not be entirely in the right.

2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A World That Lives And Breathes

It’s not enough for an open-world game to have a lot of stuff in it. That stuff needs to be both visually appealing and interesting story-wise to keep players invested. Adapting an existing work makes both those things easy while also laying the groundwork for the game's lore.

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The Witcher games are based on the incredible works by Andrzej Sapkowski, themselves based on Slavic mythology, so it already had amazing material to work with from the start. The various kingdoms of the Continent that Geralt explores all feel rich and alive, with complicated politics always in play. Everything has a reason to exist, and players can really get a feel for how this world works. This is most prominently displayed in The Witcher 3, the first truly open-world game in the series, and one of the largest and most beloved open-world games of all time.

1 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

The Game That No One Can Get Enough Of

Skyrim still has a dedicated fan base well over a decade after its 2011 release. It’s one of the most popular open-world games of all time, and it’s easy to see why. Players just can’t stop exploring every inch of the northern Scandinavian-inspired landscape - from the dense forests to its many caves, dungeons, towns, and villages - for every scrap of lore they can find.

The Kingdom of Skyrim itself is home to the Nords and has a rich history, with aspects both human and elven. Players can explore each of the nine Holds that make up the province while they work to fulfill their destiny as the Dragonborn. Or they can get side-tracked by another side quest, of course.

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