What are your favorite video game worlds?

[anth0ny]

Majora's Mask anyone?

[ZeroAX]

Majora's Mask anyone?

I always found the N64 Zelda worlds kind of....shattered. Perhaps cause they were designed as puzzle pieces instead of being designed as living worlds. Besides the best Zelda world is the Windwaker's great sea.

[CRTGAMER]

I'm surprised Team ICO worlds weren't mentioned yet.

[Ack]

The Zone, from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is a world I find both intensely beautiful and horrendously terrifying. While I enjoy open worlds, the decaying relics of technology and civilization in a world where men will kill for an old tin of canned meat and a few bullets combined with the all pervasive fear of radiation, mutation, and the horrible catastrophic tendencies of natural forces completely out of sync...it just does something to me. I find myself energized while wondering a world in which caution is of the utmost importance, where the slightest misstep can lead to a grisly death in an environment that will chew up and spit out even the most experienced of its travelers.

I wish there were more worlds like that in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. I enjoy visiting wastelands in video games where men are just as likely to murder for fun as they are for another man's money, or even something as simple as his shoes. Worlds like those in Borderlands, where society is backwater and the cities are literal trash heaps, appeal quite a bit to me. I also greatly enjoy cyberpunk worlds, where near-future technological advances with far reaching ethical conflicts are portrayed in a stunning foreground, offset by a typically urban setting so decayed you can practically taste the rot in the air.

[Bradtemple87]

everything oddworld

[Xtincthed]

Twinsun of Little Big Adventure by far.. i've spent my childhood there!

[Original_Name]

The Zone, from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is a world I find both intensely beautiful and horrendously terrifying. While I enjoy open worlds, the decaying relics of technology and civilization in a world where men will kill for an old tin of canned meat and a few bullets combined with the all pervasive fear of radiation, mutation, and the horrible catastrophic tendencies of natural forces completely out of sync...it just does something to me. I find myself energized while wondering a world in which caution is of the utmost importance, where the slightest misstep can lead to a grisly death in an environment that will chew up and spit out even the most experienced of its travelers.

I wish there were more worlds like that in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. I enjoy visiting wastelands in video games where men are just as likely to murder for fun as they are for another man's money, or even something as simple as his shoes. Worlds like those in Borderlands, where society is backwater and the cities are literal trash heaps, appeal quite a bit to me. I also greatly enjoy cyberpunk worlds, where near-future technological advances with far reaching ethical conflicts are portrayed in a stunning foreground, offset by a typically urban setting so decayed you can practically taste the rot in the air.

Ack, here are a trillion points -- have fun with them. I really enjoyed this post, you did such a great job articulating many of the elements of post-apocalyptic and cyber-punk worlds that I always have a hard time capturing outside of "BECAUSE IT'S JUST SO DAMN COOL!" My Midgar segment attempted to capture that, but an open-world really does contribute to that feeling in a big way... depraved people living in trash-heaps is, for some reason, an incredibly appealing concept to me both aesthetically and psychologically.

[darthmunky]

Elder Scrolls
Mass Effect
KOTOR
Jade Empire

[Lord_Santa]

apart from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I find Morrowind, Daggerfall and foremost the Gothic series worlds to be extremely fine-detailed

I love me Morrowind and Daggerfall as much as the next guy, but Gothic has me by the balls

it's the sense of danger at every corner, no leveled-lists, etc. you just wander at your own pace and see what you can live to tell about

that and I am still amazed by the graphics and details to each and every NPC and locale

apart from that, Ultima IV-V has a special place in my heart
they are just so vast and filled to the brim with adventure, 'tis hard to compare to anything else

of course I'll give Knights of Legend a special mention as well, albeit it only consists of six towns; it's still huge enough and inhabited enough to be fully believable

and whoever mentioned Fallout and subways in the same sentence obviously hasn't tried Fallout

I do however find great enjoyment in the first of those games, but that's more of my Post-Apoc-side that craves it

mainly I enjoy Fantasy with swords, spears and bows

there are plenty of worlds out there, which have given me thousands of hours of enjoyment, but the one I hold dearest is Ultima V

it's probably pure nostalgia, but the feeling I get as I travel through the moon-gates, or to the under-world or just sailing the high seas is incomprable (perhaps a little comparable to Ultima IV)

I've made "friends" with so many characters in Ultima V and completed so many miscellanous quests for random people that I felt that a huge part of my youth belongs in that game

there's just something special about wandering a humongous world-map like the one it has and at the same time striving to achieve good in there, by completing tasks and becoming The Avatar

[SwooshBear]

Pac man. Nuff said