PS5 Games With The Biggest Open-World Maps, Ranked By Size

Back in the day, it was very common for developers to promote the size of their open-world games, but this generation, it feels like the race has finally slowed down a bit. Instead of sheer scope and map size, more detailed, denser worlds are finally taking the spotlight. As a result, there haven’t been as many truly colossal open-world games built around map size as in the PS4 era, although that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any. With GTA 6 launching this month, we’re about to get the biggest and most detailed open world in Rockstar’s history.

For this list, let’s find out which open-world games on PS5 have the biggest maps so far. A few rules for extra clarity first: only games unavailable on PS4 are listed, we’re comparing seamless maps rather than adding up separate regions, and only traditional open-world games with on-foot gameplay count, so driving and flight simulators are excluded. For our most comprehensive list of the biggest maps regardless of platform or genre, check here.

8

Sea Of Thieves

Sea & Land: 94 Square Miles

Sea of Thieves is actually a last-gen title, but since it never launched on PS4 (it originally released on Xbox One and PC), it’s included here. The first of several seafaring games here, it earns its place because, despite the focus on sailing, there’s on-foot gameplay as well, with explorable islands and underwater areas.

Find the odd one out before the timer hits zero.

Easy (15s)Medium (10s)Hard (5s)Permadeath (5s)

Start

Round 1

Which one doesn’t belong?

0/10

Results

0/5

Best: 0/5

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Sea of Thieves is a perfect example of how developers chose a relatively compact map over vast stretches of empty water, aiming to make the seas feel more alive and have players cross paths more often rather than sail for hours with nothing happening. Needless to say, it was the right call, as the game became the ultimate pirate adventure to play online, something that Skull & Bones never achieved despite its much bigger map of around 240 square miles.

7

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

Caribbean: 99 Square Miles

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced came to replace the original, and in pretty much every area, it’s the better game for modern audiences. Ubisoft left the world map largely unchanged in its size, but the Caribbean is completely seamless now, vast but manageable. In fact, when sailing between islands, I often felt the seas were a bit small and crammed with ships, and even long journeys were over surprisingly quickly. Well, at least it’s not bloated.

Unlike Sea of Thieves, sailing in AC Black Flag Resynced takes up less than half your playtime (at least across the main and side missions), with most of your time spent exploring and assassinating targets on land. I already mentioned Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones, so here’s why it’s not on the list: despite a larger total map, there’s little on-foot gameplay and no land exploration or traditional combat.

6

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

Western Frontier: 99 Square Miles

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is among Ubisoft’s biggest open-world games this generation, offering a large chunk of the alien world of Pandora to explore in first person for extra immersion. With graphics that are stunning, distinct regions never seen on the big screen, and the ability to soar through the sky riding an Ikran, Avatar needed a large world to be convincing, so its huge size is more than justified.

In fact, Frontiers of Pandora may have ended up too big for its own good, and with repetition in activities kicking in sooner or later, not everyone made it to the end. Nevertheless, it’s among the better movie tie-in games ever made, and possibly a dream come true for every die-hard Avatar fan out there. On top of that, DLC such as Sky Breaker and Secrets of the Spires expand the world with extra territories, although no reliable measurements are available for these.

5

Once Human

Nalcott: 99 Square Miles

Among this generation’s many F2P open-world games, Once Human offers not only one of the biggest maps in its category, but also one of the most unique. Rich in supernatural elements, its post-apocalyptic world is both eerie and gorgeous, with locations where reality is corrupted and warped, twisted otherworldly rifts where physics completely break down, and other places you won’t see elsewhere.

Nalcott is huge and layered, and since Once Human released on PS5 years after the PC version, it’s already an improved and enhanced experience, offering months’ worth of play. As a live-service game, its world has also been expanded through free updates, adding Arkam, with Onyx Tundra, Vena Fjord, and Ember Strand, and the new Isles of Abyss DLC, giving players more territory to explore across different scenarios.

4

ARK: Survival Ascended

Astraeos: 102 Square Miles

ARK: Survival Ascended is more than just a prettier version of Survival Evolved, combining rebuilt maps from the original, new areas within returning maps, and brand-new territories. When counting all playable maps, ARK: Survival Ascended would probably climb higher on this list, but since we’re only comparing individual seamless worlds, the Astraeos map is our primary focus. It’s the game’s biggest map, with a distinct Mediterranean identity that goes beyond dinosaurs, drawing heavily on Greek mythology and even featuring a Minotaur Labyrinth as an explorable dungeon.

Verticality is also worth mentioning. Astraeos features the vast flower-covered plains and floating islands of Helianthos, while Abyssanthos introduces a deep-sea region with enormous air pockets and a mythical underwater city where players can establish bases. Numerous other maps round out ARK: Survival Ascended, including Lost Colony, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero.

3

Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting The Unknown

Pywel & The Great Ocean: 110 Square Miles (Rough Estimate)

I admit, I pulled a cheat code for this one, including Crimson Desert with its vastly expanded map from the Charting the Unknown DLC. This adds the entirety of the Great Ocean to the base game’s continent of Pywel, with both its surface and underwater depths available for seamless exploration. There are also flying mounts like dragons to cross the entire map relatively quickly. Unlike most expansions that add a separate explorable map, Charting the Unknown seamlessly extends the existing world.

Even base Crimson Desert is a colossal game, capable of eating several hundred hours of your time, but there are hardly any reliable estimates of its total map size with the expansion included. With the DLC reportedly more than doubling the map’s size, it easily earns its spot among the biggest PS5 titles.

2

Valheim

World: 121 Square Miles

Valheim is pretty unique among these games, since it doesn’t have a single handcrafted map shared by everyone. Instead, each world is procedurally generated, with a huge seamless map featuring distinct biomes and unique geography. Each player has their own journey and challenges, and the vast wilderness provides the sense of a proper expedition to distant lands, with unfamiliar coastlines and islands waiting beyond the ocean.

In its final version, Valheim builds on that scale through improved world generation, better ways of populating and reshaping the terrain, and additions like the Deep North and alternate versions of earlier biomes, all within the same enormous map. Gradually turning an unfamiliar world into a network of homes, harbors, and established routes results in a refined survival experience — one of the best and biggest on PS5.

1

Dune: Awakening

Deep Desert: 222 Square Miles

If there’s one open-world game this generation deliberately going for sheer scale, it’s Dune: Awakening. Developers at Funcom specifically designed the Deep Desert map to capture the vastness, hostility, and isolation of Arrakis. It’s essentially the opposite of the Sea of Thieves approach: the devs want players to feel these distances, relying on vehicles and careful preparation to navigate this shared space.

As a result, the PS5 version of Dune: Awakening is quite possibly the biggest open world available on the console when counting traditional character-driven games and excluding something like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Not to mention there are other, smaller maps in the game, so its total playable space is even bigger than the Deep Desert alone, completely destroying the competition in this PS5 selection.