Best Open-World Sandbox Games, Ranked (2024)

Sandbox games can be defined predominantly by their player agency. This includes allowing fans to play through the game at their own pace, progressing in a non-linear fashion, and experiencing emergent gameplay through systemic game design. These games are often open-ended and, as a result, highly replayable.

Open-world games are generally more common, with many games in the modern era featuring open worlds for players to explore. Games such as The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and the Fallout games feature extensive open worlds for players to explore. However, while those games do feature sandbox elements, their gameplay is in service of pre-written objectives for the player to overcome. These examples, however, feature open-ended gameplay loops in open-world environments, offering players a true sandbox experience.

6 Kenshi

Metascore: 75

Taking place in a truly unique wasteland setting, Kenshi is an open-world sandbox RPG with a distinctive flavor. With seamless open areas to explore, characters to meet, and bases to build, Kenshi gives players complete freedom to explore and make their way in its strange, hostile world.

Kenshi features real-time-with-pause combat, allowing players to control each of their squad members in real time while pausing to reposition and think about their strategy. However, combat can be mostly avoided via stealth and careful positioning, allowing players to approach hostile encounters in unique ways. Players can run businesses, conquer towns, and explore at their own pace, making Kenshi an incredibly diverse sandbox.

5 Project Zomboid

Metacritic User Score: 7.6

This hardcore roguelike is a heavily simulated sandbox that tasks players with surviving an ongoing zombie apocalypse. Project Zomboid was released as part of Steam's Early Access back in 2013, but consistent updates from its dedicated developers have significantly deepened and expanded its open-world sandbox. Project Zomboid's open world is made up of smaller regions, with each area having varying degrees of zombie population.

Project Zomboid is arguably one of the best simulations of a zombie apocalypse, and the open world is surprisingly realistic; police stations are a great place to find guns, houses are full of domestic items and canned goods, and hospitals are crammed with medicine. Project Zomboid also features RPG elements and mechanics for crafting, which allow players to build and fortify their base. While there is an overarching goal to survive, players can explore at their own pace and approach the game however they like. This is arguably more fun when playing with friends in online co-op.

Metacritic Score: 77

This medieval-themed sandbox RPG puts players in charge of their own hegemony, taking control of territory in large-scale, real-time battles. Players are tasked with recruiting their armies, managing diplomacy, and engaging in trade. While many of these activities are in the name of building an army and conquering the surrounding lands, players are free to explore the world and progress at their own pace, engaging with other factions and planning out their conquest in whichever way they see fit.

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, like its predecessor, is extremely combat-focused; massive clashes between armies on open fields, and the strategies that players choose to employ amid the chaos are what Mount & Blade is all about. While its lack of direction and overall focus on combat may turn some players away, Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord provides an addictive sandbox experience for fans of medieval battles.

3 The Long Dark (Survival Mode)

Metacritic Score: 77

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The Long Dark is a quiet, meditative experience that focuses on simulation, tasking players with surviving in a cold, harsh wilderness. The game's dense atmosphere is often tranquil, providing a serene backdrop to the player's exploration. However, while The Long Dark can be peaceful, its world is also full of danger; players must frequently contend with wolves, bears, cold, and hunger.

The Long Dark's survival mode tasks players with nothing other than to survive as long as possible, living off of the land and making the most of the environment to survive. While players will sometimes be forced to act under pressure and think fast, The Long Dark often allows players to explore at their own pace, ensuring their survival with self-appointed goals.

2 Shadows Of Doubt

Metacritic User Score: 8.6

Shadows Of Doubt is a hard-boiled detective simulation that takes place in neo-noir-themed cities. The cities and their denizens are all procedurally generated, with full interiors to explore that encourage players to engage in the title's stealth-focused gameplay. This results in an extremely immersive sandbox that allows players to solve each case in unique ways.

Despite giving players a variety of short-term goals in the form of solving various cases, Shadows Of Doubt succeeds as a sandbox through its well-crafted procedural generation, resulting in a highly replayable experience that allows players to approach the game in their own way.

1 Minecraft

Metascore: 82

This creative sandbox game is notorious for encouraging player creativity and freedom, giving its players full agency to explore and progress at their own pace. While Minecraft technically does have a handful of objectives that players can seek out and conquer, its main focus is on sandbox gameplay and creativity; mining, crafting, exploring, and building a place to call home are key parts of Minecraft's gameplay loop, and all of these activities can be approached in a variety of ways.

Minecraft's massive open worlds are created using procedural generation, making this creative sandbox an infinitely replayable experience. Furthermore, Minecraft's deep, interconnected, procedural caverns are a consistent joy to explore, despite the dangerous monsters that often lurk within them.