This was almost just going to be “Top 5 Fantasy Worlds,” but video games are able to really create an immersive world that allows you to explore and become a living part of the world. Because I have not played nearly all of the games with great worlds, these are just some of the best fantasy worlds in gaming.
5. The Witcher
Most people who are familiar with the world of The Witcher know it through the last installment in the video game franchise, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While that game is fantastic and does a great job building the world itself, there is so much more to it. With class warfare and deeply explored politics and unique moral stances. This world also borrows strongly from popular fairy tales, but takes an unusual approach to many of them. Overall it is just an extremely varied and fleshed out world with a lot of depth to it.
4. Warcraft
Blending science fiction and fantasy, Thor-style, the world of Warcraft takes major inspiration from the Tolkien universe. It has been argued that much of the story is somewhat spotty and incoherent, but with the books and especially the chronicles series, there is a lot of fleshed out and natural story in the universe. For me personally, I like to take the somewhat sporadic and crazy nature of the story as a good telling of real-world history in a fictional world (if that makes any sense). Sure, there are plenty of events that happen seemingly only to justify a reason to fight in the games, but the reasons always seem pretty understandable to me. Azeroth itself has quite a history, but the whole universe in Warcraft adds a lot of additional depth to the world.
3. Legend of Zelda
A franchise that I always remember emphasizes gameplay over story, The Legend of Zelda franchise has managed to create some of the most unique and expansive worlds in video games. What makes it all so interesting is that just about each game technically follows a new incarnation of the same two or three characters: Link, Zelda, and Ganon. Seeing Hyrule during various eras and understanding how the creatures and landscapes have evolved over all of these times makes the world that much more enticing and fun to explore. Even if the stories are not exactly the most unique on a base level, the world and the characters involved are always a pleasure to engage with. Even Termina, the alternate universe version of Hyrule, is fascinating with its unique terrain and lore.
2. Dark Souls
When I first played Dark Souls, I didn’t understand what was going on. I knew a loose history of the world from what they told us in the opening, but that was pretty much it. I didn’t really understand what my goal was or who my character was. This is a large part of why I love the world of Dark Souls so much. In just playing through the game, you can learn motivations, origins, and small details that lead to a feeling of a living and reactive world. This is a world that doesn’t care if you know everything about it, but has the information there for you if you are interested in learning. There are not any bosses or enemies in the world that do not have a reason for being. You even have subtle choices to make that can have serious impacts on the state of the world, whether you know you are making the choice or not.
1. Mortal Kombat
I’ve played Mortal Kombat since I was a child. Whenever I went out somewhere with arcade games, Mortal Kombat was what I looked for first, specifically Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. What I could tell about the Mortal Kombat world was that there were regular people, demons flying around in some of the backgrounds, and very over-the-top characters fighting each other. When Deadly Alliance came along and I tried the Konquest mode, I learned that there was more to the game world, but the way it was presented made it still difficult to follow for me at the time. Finally the next game in the series came out, Mortal Kombat: Deception. This was the game that really opened up the world of Mortal Kombat and allowed you to personally explore all of the realms. These realms resemble the nine realms of Norse Mythology, except that there are only six here.
