Best PS5 open world games in 2026

Elden Ring is our number one among open world PS5 games in 2026, with Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut in second and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 third.

We ranked these 10 on how much each world rewards ignoring the quest marker. A map that punishes curiosity is a corridor with a bigger budget, and that single test settles most of the order below.

Three picks also list PS4 versions, so an older console still gets you into Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut, Horizon Forbidden West, and Death Stranding Director's Cut. Use the table to find the kind of world you want, then read the entry underneath for the catch on it.

Our top 10 picks compared

The best open world games on PS5, ranked

Three of these also run on PS4, and the entries below cover the price and the catch on each one.

1. Elden Ring

Nothing else here makes wandering off feel this dangerous. The official PlayStation listing leads on fantasy action-RPG systems rather than a tour of set pieces, and Hidetaka Miyazaki shares credit for the world with the writer behind Game of Thrones. Co-op summons across platforms are the Elden Ring cross-platform play question we tackle separately.

First place goes to reach. Four years on, this is still the world every other open world gets measured against.

• Best for: Being dropped into a world and left alone
• Standout: RPG systems sit at the front of the official listing, on a world credited to Miyazaki and Martin
• The catch: An ESRB Mature 17+ rating, and $59.99 is full price for a 2022 release
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, $59.99

2. Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut

Sony files this one under action and adventure, with role-playing systems named on the listing underneath. The store page covers PS4 as well as PS5, and the Director's Cut is the edition you will find there.

Quality alone puts this second. A 2020 release should feel its age next to games five years newer, and the exploration here does not.

• Best for: Crossing a landscape at your own pace
• Standout: Sony's own action-adventure open world, with RPG systems named on the official page
• The catch: Mature 17+ on the ESRB scale, and no price came back from the official listing, so the edition you pick sets the cost
• Platforms: PS4, PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, price not confirmed

3. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Traversal is the whole argument. Peter Parker and Miles Morales both swing and jump across Marvel's New York, and Web Wings turn the gaps between buildings into part of the route instead of a pause.

Third comes down to how good the city feels to cross. Almost nothing here uses its map this directly, and that carries it past worlds with more square miles in them.

• Best for: Covering ground fast in a dense city
• Standout: Two playable Spider-Men across Marvel's New York, with Web Wings added to the swinging
• The catch: Neither an age rating nor a price could be pinned down on the official product page, the thinnest listing in this top 10
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Not confirmed on the official listing

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4. Horizon Forbidden West

Beautiful and hostile at once is how Sony's page frames the Forbidden West, a frontier hiding threats Aloy has not met before. The store files the game under action, and the machines give the fighting a shape none of the other worlds here copy.

Fourth is where the list gets friendlier. An ESRB Teen rating opens this to players Elden Ring and Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut shut out, and the story keeps a firmer hand on the wheel than anything above it.

• Best for: A frontier with a story pulling you forward
• Standout: Aloy's frontier, filed under action, sold for PS4 as well as PS5
• The catch: The store covers both consoles, so make sure the version in your basket is the PS5 one
• Platforms: PS4, PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, price not confirmed

5. Grand Theft Auto V

Eleven years after its November 2014 release, Los Santos is still filling lobbies. Rockstar Games bundles GTAV with GTA Online, and the official listing tags survival on top of action and adventure. Who you can play GTA Online with is the GTA 5 crossplay question.

Fifth reflects a split. Hour for hour nothing here gives you more to do, and no other pick leans this hard on other people being logged in at the same time.

• Best for: Open-world freedom with other people in the lobby
• Standout: One purchase covers GTAV and GTA Online, with survival tagged alongside action and adventure
• The catch: The best of it depends on online play, in sessions the listing puts at 30 players, and the ESRB rates it Mature 17+
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, with GTA Online included

6. Hogwarts Legacy

Give the castle an hour before you touch the main story. Warner Bros. Interactive built an open-world action RPG inside the setting the Harry Potter books started, and the store page singles the result out as unique.

A price and patience call keeps this sixth. Little else here commits to one location so completely, and nothing else costs as much or takes as long to hand over its full map.

• Best for: One location worth picking apart
• Standout: An open-world action RPG built in the Harry Potter setting, flagged as unique on the store page
• The catch: $69.99 is the steepest price on this list, and the opening hours move slower than most picks here
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, $69.99

7. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

For anyone worn out on magic systems, Deep Silver's sequel is the outlier. It landed in February 2025 as a historical action-RPG, and the PlayStation page asks you to choose which PS5 edition you want.

The two newest games on the list start here. Only one release in the top 10 is more recent than this one, and the historical framing gives the roleplaying a texture nothing above it attempts.

• Best for: History-first roleplaying
• Standout: A historical action-RPG with the role-playing systems named on the official PlayStation page
• The catch: An ESRB Mature 17+ rating, with more than one PS5 edition on the page and no single price to point at
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, sold in more than one PS5 edition

8. Death Stranding Director's Cut

Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, and Mads Mikkelsen headline an open world about making deliveries, which says plenty about how far Hideo Kojima took the genre from its defaults. The Director's Cut is the expanded, remastered version, listed for PS4 and PS5.

Eighth has little to do with craft. Kojima's structure divides players harder than anything else on this list, and that risk is what keeps it out of the top half.

• Best for: Slow, deliberate traversal and a story with no obvious relatives
• Standout: A delivery-driven Kojima open world in its expanded, remastered Director's Cut
• The catch: Mature 17+ from the ESRB, and the pacing splits opinion more than any other pick here
• Platforms: PS4, PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download of the Director's Cut, price not confirmed

9. No Man's Sky

Every planet is generated rather than hand-built, which is how Hello Games fits a near-infinite universe onto a console. Survival leads the tags on the official listing, with adventure and action behind it. For who shares that universe, see No Man's Sky crossplay.

Scale on this level costs you the handmade detail every other world here is built from, which is why it sits ninth. Full price of $59.99 on a game from 2016 does not help its case.

• Best for: Space exploration with no end point
• Standout: Survival play across a procedurally generated universe that keeps going
• The catch: A 2016 release holding at $59.99, and procedural worlds repeat themselves in ways handmade ones do not
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, $59.99

10. Assassin's Creed Shadows

Because Ubisoft built two protagonists into this one, stealth and open confrontation both work on the same map. A shinobi assassin covers the first approach and a legendary samurai handles the second, in the most recent release on this list.

Tenth is the tightest call in the batch. Shadows beat five other games we considered to a place here, and the nine above it are simply harder to argue with.

• Best for: A current open world with two playstyles
• Standout: One map played two ways, as a shinobi assassin or as a samurai
• The catch: An ESRB Mature 17+ rating, and the official listing produced no price, so budget for a recent release
• Platforms: PS5
• Price and monetization: Paid download, price not confirmed

How we picked these 10

Every rank above is our editorial recommendation, not the output of a benchmark. Official PlayStation listings supplied the developer, publisher, release date, age rating, and any price shown, and five things decided the order on top of that.

• Genre fit: whether the open world is the design or just the container
• Quality: how well the world, the systems, and the studio's craft hold together
• Current relevance: whether the game is still sold, supported, and being played now
• Accessibility: how quickly a new player finds their footing
• Replayability: whether a second run has anything left to show you

Fifteen games cleared the first pass and 10 made the page. Where a listing left a detail out, we left it out too instead of filling the gap ourselves.

Where to start with these PS5 open worlds

Load Elden Ring if you have a long stretch of free time and want a world that expects you to work it out. The PC versions of these worlds fill our open-world games on PC list. Anyone with two or three evenings and a preference for a clear route should start on Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut instead.

Shorter sessions change the answer. For open worlds you can pocket, our best open world Switch games list has the handheld picks. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 rewards a quick sitting because crossing the city is the fun, while Grand Theft Auto V only makes sense on nights when other people are online. If it's the driving you keep coming back to, our best PS5 racing games list picks up from there.

• Long haul, no hand-holding: Elden Ring, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Worth crossing for the sake of crossing it: Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
• Playing alongside other people: Grand Theft Auto V
• Teen-rated: Horizon Forbidden West, Hogwarts Legacy, No Man's Sky
• Built on an idea nobody else copied: Death Stranding Director's Cut, No Man's Sky
• Newest on the list: Assassin's Creed Shadows