Thankfully, there’s no dearth of options when it comes to games that just let you loose into their long winding roads that have a lot going on as you travel along vast worlds. We’ve put together titles we think fit that description and are certainly worth getting lost in. Some of your most memorable gaming moments could be waiting just around a corner in their worlds!

Let’s dive in.

1. Days Gone

A vast expanse of map waits for you and your trusty motorbike in this one. It’s a pity that its beautiful landscapes are marred by the presence of vicious zombies and humans desperate enough to forget their moral codes. But a large part of the game involves cruising along the map on your motorcycle, ensuring you have a safe way back to it if your next dangerous plan doesn’t pan out the way you wanted it to.

Play things right and you’re back on the road, albeit having to make a quicker exit than your entrance. But you never know what else you might discover as you blaze a path to safety in such situations. It’s a world that does a good job of keeping its players invested in Deacon’s melancholy tale.

2. Pacific Drive

From its riveting opening to a rather bittersweet ending, this is a journey that’s underlined by a literal bond between your Driver and the station wagon you commandeer at the start of your adventure. It’s a story beat that works well for the narrative while also giving you a reason to travel far and wide in your car.

The game’s premise provides the scope for a journey like no other along roads that want you to discover everything they have to offer. We’re not going to forget some very memorable anomalies during our time in the Olympic Exclusion Zone in a hurry. Especially the ones that messed with our car.

3. Death Stranding 1 & 2

Whether on foot or in a vehicle, Death Stranding’s trek through a very memorable adventure with Sam Porter is all about traversing a beautiful yet hostile world. Guiding Sam to his next delivery destination is all about the different things you can discover, or be forced to work around, that you can find along the way.

It’s a journey like no other, and it’s a road that’s as unpredictable as the many threats you’re likely to find before you make it to safety again. There’s always a sense of anticipation as you travel across America, Mexico, and Australia, and a sense of awe when you discover the next thing they have been hiding. The original Death Stranding and its sequel continue to evoke fond memories.

4. The Crew 2

There’s a case to be made for The Crew 2’s scaled-down take on America that really brings moments where it’s just you and your car to life as you make your way between its various activities. Although it’s meant to be played with your buddies, its persistent open world design means that it’s quite easy to just get to exploring, driving around in your favorite ride, and having some racing fun along the way.

Of course, getting to pilot aircraft and operate boats were welcome additions, but our first sight of the Grand Canyon in this massive world was definitely among the highlights of driving around in it.

5. Jalopy

Splat and Lutfi’s journey in this one was nothing short of a masterpiece as far as memorable road trips go. The Jalopy in question is almost a character on its own, requiring a fairly realistic amount of upkeep to keep players ticking along in the narrative as they discover more about what was waiting for them at the end of it.

The option to keep the adventure going after its rather sad ending just adds more intrigue to an already satisfying journey. This is one that’s all about the journey, although there’s a case to be made for that destination being a very memorable moment.

6. Final Fantasy XV

In another adventure that has its protagonist accompanied by memorable companions, Noctis Lucis, the Regalia, and the chocobos, sure make travel and discovery a very memorable part of Final Fantasy XV. It helps that your posse is right by your side for the most part, their banter and conversations making the adventure come alive as you travel across Eos.

It helps that you can customize the Regalia and chocobos, giving your adventure that personal touch that makes such experiences special. Whether you’re chugging along on the road or soaring across the skies to your next destination, this is a game that makes the journey there a very enjoyable facet of the experience.

7. Read Dead Redemption 2

Arthur’s journey is one that absolutely exemplifies the feeling of being on the road, with endless possibilities and a world where life goes on, even if you’re not a part of it, being baked into the adventure. This is a world that’s alive, and almost thrumming with activities, secrets, discoveries, and content that’s sure to make your time with this one unforgettable.

There’s nothing that beats a conversation by chance that turns into a full-blown series of side quests, or the many quirky characters the road leads you to, in this one. There’s also the fact that you need to care for your horse as you would in the real world, and a host of activities that make your time on the road feel quite authentic and immersive. As far as open worlds that put you on a long and winding road go, this one continues to be a classic.

8. Mad Max

Max Rockatansky’s determination to build the Magnum Opus and the fact that this vehicle is a very crucial part of the adventure are reasons enough to qualify this one for our list. But it’s in the way that the Magnum Opus weaves itself so naturally into the gameplay loop and combat, in particular, and makes itself a star of the show.

It’s narratively valid, and the fact that customizing its parts can force you to make trade-offs in other aspects makes for a layer of immersion and engagement that solidifies the bond between man and machine in this one. The open world is a stage just waiting for you to discover moments where you and your vehicle are given an opportunity to shine.

9. State Of Decay 2

This one’s a constant challenge due to the world around you, a tale that builds a community around the struggle, and one in which the world can get quite unpredictable from moment to moment. From the need to nurture your community and take down the area’s Awakened Heart, every zombie-infested site is a chance to take your story down a path that’s different from the one you began with.

A lot of it comes down to your fellow settlers, and weaving everyone’s journey together into a gameplay loop that’s quite addictive makes each bit of territory you free from the zombies an achievement, and a very satisfying one at that.

10. Snowrunner

This is a title where the simulation of off-roading on rough terrain is accompanied by very flavorful discoveries that spell out the stories of the regions you explore while you witness your own role in fixing them up firsthand. It’s a great way to have you braving its landscapes, taking care of your fleet of vehicles while getting invested in a progression loop that becomes quite interesting the more you make your way through a region.

It connects you to the land you’re exploring while your vehicles carry you through it all, making this a journey that just draws you into the world it presents you with. You’re the focal point of an interesting bridge between the past and the present, and it’s up to you to build it up, one success after another.

11. Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 serves up surreal beats as you roam a world filled with calamity. But it’s the people you meet and the friends you make along the way that make this a worthwhile journey.

The ability to recruit locals who resist the local militia and their rigid control over the land is a great addition to this open-world, and adds a flavor to the entire journey that’s just too great to ignore. It helps that you forge relationships to discover more of the story and side content as you go, along with helping the local resistance, you know, resist the militia’s growing influence. You’re a cornerstone of that struggle, and the journey felt personal and, as a result, memorable.

12. The Long Drive

The road goes on and on in this innovative concept that’s literally all about being on the road and letting the journey continue. With a focus on freedom, immersion, and exploring the vast desert, this one gives its players a lot of freedom to just enjoy the journey.

You’re given a lot of reasons to just hop into your car and drive along, never knowing where the road takes you in this randomly generated desert. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in a game where the adventure takes you down unpredictable paths, look no further.

13. Forza Horizon 5

Mexico proved to be a great location for this instalment to the Horizon series, and driving along to stunning vistas was both entertaining and visually memorable. Getting to drive fancy, fast cars on roads that wound between different elevations, climate patterns, and, of course, new discoveries was a treat.

There’s an active volcano, ancient structures, cities, towns, jungles, and beaches to find and explore, making this title find reasons to put you at the wheel and send you along on your journey.

14. STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Survival in The Zone and navigating the complex relationships that govern it while also ensuring that you get enough food and sleep, is quite an immersive loop in GSC Games Studio’s much-awaited return to its popular franchise.

Recruiting people to aid in your journey, while the many discoveries and anomalies that await you in The Zone give this entire world a sense of mystery, and venturing into the unknown can be quite hard to top. With the PlayStation version on its way, now might be a great time to dive into a game whose journey to its current build is as interesting as the one it presents to you.

15. Ghost Recon Wildlands

Operation Kingslayer was a brilliant stage for the adventure that awaits you in this very immersive open world. With so much variety in the terrain along with a lot of freedom with how you approach any mission you find out in cartel-controlled Bolivia, this is a world where every inch of land you capture could be one worth the memories, and even lets you disable your AI companions if you believe in taking single-player literally.

However, there is a case to be made for bringing up to three buddies along for the ride. That immediately makes this one a worthy addition, although the AI companions are always there if you’re going for a suitable middle ground. Either way, dismantling a cartel has never felt so immersive, and entertaining too.

That’s a wrap on our favorite titles that put us on the road and just let us build our best memories of them along the way. Here’s to many more such experiences on the horizon.

Demon Destruction Mini-Game – DOOM 2016

Between all the ripping and tearing, sometimes the Doom Slayer finds a little bit of peace through something a bit less active than taking a Hell Barron’s horn and shoving it into someplace unpleasant. Demon Destruction is found hidden behind some inconspicuous crates in the Lazarus Labs, that once found allows the player to aim for a high score in a cute, terribly addictive match 3 game that plays somewhat like Bejewelled with the classic spritework and a bit more gore.

Square Enix is treating the PC platform right with Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition. While it would have been probably expected for them to release a port of the Xbox One X version with some scaleable visual features and call it a day, they went for mod support and further enhanced visuals. Now, they’re staying on top of post launch support with the first patch to fix a major issue.

The main function of this patch is to fix the framerate tanking every time the player summons an astral. Previously players would have to save and reload the game to fix the issue, so Square Enix staying on top of things is great to see.

Nothing has yet been done about the loading times seen on the PC version, which have a lot to do with how often the game calls SteamAPI during play, according to the modder that fixed those with SpecialK. The patch should download next time you load up Steam, Origin, or the Windows Store. Are you enjoying Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition? Let us know in the comments.

Final Fantasy 15 Windows Edition is finally available which brings along big promises such as the ability to play its in 4K resolution and up to 120fps. Final Fantasy 15 on the consoles has been a rather mixed case of technical performance. Last year, we analyzed both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions and we found the differences between them to be rather miniscule. To recap, the Xbox One X version ran at 3200×1800 resolution without any sort of checkerboard rendering whereas the PS4 Pro build managed to achieve 3360×1890 through checkerboarding. It was a rather strange case, wherein despite having a more powerful hardware, Square Enix were unable to completely utilize the power of the Xbox One X.

With the PC version now out, we decided to give the game a test run. Interestingly, Square Enix have provided specs for 4K gameplay which requires Intel Core i7-7700 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and 16GB of memory. Our test build includes an NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti, 16GB of GDDR4 memory and a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU, which suprasses the 4K requirement. The game features a rather extensive set of graphical parameters which includes the likes of LOD, Shadow Quality, Ambient Occlusion and Filtering. The game also supports Nvidia Gameworks which includes options for Hairworks, ShadowWorks among others.

As expected the game looks rather sharp compared to its console counterparts. Character models, hair effects, draw distances…all are better on the PC port. The fur effects on monsters look amazing, thanks to Nvidia HairWorks. But for some reason or the other, this upgrade is not consistent across the areas we tested. Not only did we witnessed frame rate drops, we also experienced a rather strange blurring issue for distant objects. Final Fantasy 15 on consoles never really did had a great image quality but it’s suprising to see the image quality suffer in some areas the PC version as well. This is specially prevelant while you are driving your car where the blurring effect is clearly visible along with what looks a buggy implementation of 16 X Anisotropic filtering.

This is quite disappointing as the game should basically have no issues on this kind of hardware. Howevere, from a console vs PC point of view, the difference is quite clear. PC trumps both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions by huge margins in terms of several graphical parameters. There are a lot of things here, that simply don’t exist on consoles and for anyone who has a beefy PC, Final Fantasy 15 is a must play game. Hopefully Square Enix will release a patch or two to address the blurry image and performance issues as it could definitely impact the experience for some players.

Finally launching for the PC gaming platform this week, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition brings Square Enix’s magnum opus to Windows machines everywhere. And while the game is a perfectly acceptable port, one enterprising mod creator has taken it upon himself to improve the game even further.

Known as the “Special K mod” released by a user that goes by the name Kaldaien, the addition of Special K helps the game work around some issues, such as long loading times due to the SteamAPI overhead running in the background and stuttering issues that may happen due to texture loading/streaming within the game.

Kaldaien specifically would call out within his post that a lot of these issues can be mistaken for the maligned DRM software, Denuvo. However, the modder is quite positive that it isn’t, and I guess thanks to his work, we can take his word that it “emphatically has nothing to do with Denuvo”. Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition is now available on Steam, Origin, and Windows Store.

Final Fantasy 15 becomes a more truly epic RPG with every passing month. Just ahead of the Royal Edition re-release and the Windows Edition port, Final Fantasy XV updates itself yet again to flesh out its game and world with Version 1.22 and 1.23, which do different things but launched simultaneously.

Within the 1.23 update, several new Comrades quests and royal sigils, as well as Chocobo breeding features are added specifically to the Comrades expansion, along with extra trophies which likely go along with the new quests and items. A new scene was added to Chapter 5, transitioning to the Magitek Engine better than before. Bug fixes are also said to be there.

Update 1.22 mostly focuses on new quests added to Chapter 10, but also makes the game compatible with the Royal pack and adds other smaller, information based goodies such as new character dossiers. You can check out the full patch notes just below.

Patch Notes

Size: 3.839 GB (PS4); 4.74 (XB1)

Version 1.23

• Addition of new Comrades quests (exclusive to COMRADES)
• Implementation of new Royal Sigils (exclusive to COMRADES)
• Introduction of chocobo breeding features (exclusive to COMRADES)
• Addition of new trophies (exclusive to COMRADES)
• Addition of a scene to Chapter 5
• Various bug fixes

Version 1.22

• Addition of compatibility with FINAL FANTASY XV ROYAL PACK
• Inclusion of character dossiers (accessible from the Archives)
• Announcement of winning snapshots from fourth photo contest (viewable at Mother of Pearl at Galdin Quay)
• Implementation of new quests in Chapter 10
• Various bug fixes

Final Fantasy XV is making its long awaited debut on Steam, Origin and the Windows Store on March 6th, and Square Enix had an information blowout during the PC Gamer Weekender event. While much of the information was nothing new, there’s a few brand new details worth sharing. While only minor tools will be available at launch for things like creating your own custon character skins, Square Enix promises some more powerful modding tools some time later.

It was also revealed that Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition will include better, more high quality assets than what can be found with the PS4 or Xbox One releases, which should make a PC so equipped to handle it run the best looking Final Fantasy XV that one could play.

In related news, we’ve recently seen a new trailer for the upcoming Comrades updates, which shows off some key QoL changes with the 1.2.0 update. When the Windows Edition finally launches, those who purchase the game through the Windows Store can enjoy cross play and cross save with those on the Xbox One.

ALL DLC INCLUDED

Square Enix have done a pretty great job of supporting Final Fantasy XV with continued post-launch content, and the good news is that the Windows Edition will be launching with all the DLC included. This will include everything from weapons, items and Regalia skins to the three main DLC episodes focusing on each of the three main party members- Episode Gladiolus, Episode Prompto, and Episode Ignis.

We had recently reported on some of the details  revealed about Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition. In the original report,it  was  stated that if you already  owned the base game, you could update to the Royal Edition for just $19.99. Now, Square Enix has reached out to DualShockers and stated that this price point was listed by mistake, and that no final price has been decided on for now.

The Royal Edition was only announced yesterday and it will basically bring some new content such as a first-person camera mode, as well as previously released content such as all of the season pass content. This  new content will also be available on the PC when the game releases on March 6.

For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what the cost will be for players to update to the Royal Edition and we’ll hopefully hear more about it soon enough.

Square Enix has announced the official release date for the PC version of Final Fantasy XV. Additionally, Square Enix has also released announcement trailers for it as well as the the Royal Edition of the game.

Both the Royal Edition and Windows Edition will include all previously released add-ons and DLC content. Along with this, these versions will also bring some additional features such as an optional first-person mode, new dungeons, sidequests, and more. If you already own the base  game, then you can get these additional features and content available with the Royal Edition for $19.99 (provided you are an existing Final Fantasy 15 owner). There’s certainly a lot of content to look forward to as these two new editions of the game will also contain all of the season pass content.

You can find more information about these different editions on the game’s official website. The game is now available  for PS4 and Xbox One and will release for the PC on March 6. You can check out the trailers as well as some screenshots for the Royal Edition below.