

These games feature vast, open-ended environments that can be explored at the player's leisure, with this freedom extending to combat encounters as well. Updated on Apby Ritwik Mitra: The combination of open-world design and third-person shooter gameplay is a winning formula that has paid dividends time and time again. It's worth pointing out that this article will only include one or two games per franchise to avoid it essentially becoming a ranking of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises. RELATED: The Best Open-World Horror Games (According To Metacritic)

Thankfully, there have been more than enough fantastic open-world games released over the last few years, many of which will appeal to fans of third-person shooters. The acclaim and commercial success has, unsurprisingly, meant that numerous companies have tried to shoehorn open worlds into their games, often with lackluster results. Improvements in console hardware and game engines have allowed developers to create enormous maps that are filled to the brim with loot to discover, side quests to complete, and NPCs to interact with.

The open-world sub-genre has become one of the most prevalent in the gaming industry.
