Open-World Games To Play While Waiting For GTA VI

Waiting for GTA VI is a good excuse to revisit what makes an open world worth exploring. Perhaps it is the freedom to drive without a destination, the trouble waiting around a corner or the pleasure of getting distracted halfway through a mission. Different games deliver different parts of that appeal.

The five picks below offer distinct reasons to wander, from modern city streets to outlaw country. Choose according to what you want to spend an evening doing, rather than the size of the map.

Some days you have an evening to get lost in a game; others, just a few minutes on your phone. The Cash Clawee app, which lets you control real claw machines remotely, fits those shorter breaks between longer adventures.

When you do have time for a side quest that somehow takes three hours, these five open worlds have plenty to keep you busy.

Watch Dogs 2 is a strong starting point if a contemporary city is central to your interest in GTA. Its San Francisco Bay Area setting includes Oakland and San Mateo, with hacker Marcus Holloway using connected technology to influence his surroundings.

A drone lets Marcus survey an area, mark enemies and hack objects remotely. That makes scouting part of the entertainment: there is satisfaction in studying a location before deciding how to approach it.

Choose this for urban exploration with a playful technological twist. The appeal lies in treating the city as something you can interfere with, giving ordinary streets and guarded locations possibilities beyond simply passing through them.

From the Bay Area, Night City offers a sharp change in atmosphere. Cyberpunk 2077 follows V, a mercenary caught in a struggle for survival within a corporate-dominated future. Its open-world structure sits alongside a character-driven role-playing story.

That combination makes it a good fit for players who want their next urban adventure to revolve around a particular character. Consider whether you enjoy inhabiting a role and following a story as much as exploring the surrounding city.

Night City also offers a different visual mood from a contemporary crime setting. For this list, its strongest draw is the chance to spend time in a city whose fictional identity shapes the whole adventure.

Red Dead Redemption 2 brings the recommendation back to Rockstar, with a different pace and period. Set in America in 1899, it follows Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang as they flee after a robbery goes wrong.

Away from that story, hunting, fishing and wildlife provide reasons to linger. Rockstar describes animals responding to their habitats, from wolves hunting in packs to scavengers finding carrion.

This is the pick for players who enjoy paying attention to the countryside between destinations. Give yourself permission to follow an animal or spend time by the water. Those quieter activities make a useful counterweight to the gang’s troubles and give exploration its own purpose.

Ghost of Tsushima follows Jin Sakai, a samurai fighting to save his island home. Its developers describe building the setting from elements of Tsushima alongside inspiration from mainland Japan, with an emphasis on reaching places visible in the landscape.

That design makes the journey itself a good reason to choose it. After two city-based recommendations and a Western, this offers another way to enjoy freedom of movement: look across the terrain, pick somewhere interesting and head toward it.

It suits players who want a strong central character and a setting that invites attention. Approach it as a change of scenery, with the island giving your wandering a different rhythm from streets or highways.

Horizon Forbidden West gives its journeys a resource-gathering purpose. Aloy can scan machines to identify useful parts, track resources and use workbenches to improve weapons and outfits. Exploration feeds directly into preparation for later encounters.

Choose it if you like setting a small objective before heading out. Finding a particular component gives an outing shape, while upgrades offer a reason to understand the machines you encounter.

The choice comes down to the kind of detour you enjoy. Watch Dogs 2 offers urban interference, Cyberpunk a mercenary’s story, Red Dead a countryside to study and Tsushima a landscape to cross. Horizon adds a practical question to each trip: what can you bring back that will help next time?