When it comes to making automotive racing something anyone can enjoy, nothing does it better than a solid open-world racing game. Huge worlds ready to be explored become playgrounds for man’s ferocious machines. So best open world racing games become interesting even for those who don’t prefer general racing games.
Best Open World Racing Games
With the release of Forza Horizon 2 this week, we thought we would go back and look at the open-world racing genre to see what games have stood out over time. What we learned is that there aren’t actually that many releases, but each game that does exist excels in its own way.
Related: Forza Horizon 2 – Racing Paradise
That begs the question: what are the best open-world racing games in video game history? Well, we’ve compiled what we think are the top 10 based on the reception by critics and users, as well as our own opinion. You can find out what these games are in the gallery below.
Top 10 Open-World Racing Games of All-Time
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10. Smuggler's Run
Smuggler's Run is certainly the most unorthodox open-world racing game, especially when compared to the many traditional games on this list. Made by Angel Studios, which would later become Rockstar San Diego, it was a game that sent you on missions to smuggle cargo for a local gang. You would be pursued by CIA and Border Patrol, making for intense moments.
The game's graphics weren't particularly progressive, even for a PlayStation 2 game released in 2000, but it was fun cruising around the forests, arctic tundra, and desert landscapes in dune buggies and other off-road vehicles.
The original website is still up, which is kind of amazing in its own right.
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9. Driver: San Francisco
Ah, the good ol' Driver series. Driver: San Francisco made its way to several platforms in late 2011, and was praised for its innovative Shift mechanic, which allowed you to assume control of people driving other vehicles on the road. This, tied together with an interesting narrative, made it a real stand out from a genre typically dominated by tuner-focused Need for Speed games.
Driver: San Francisco incorporated a substantial world, too. 200 square miles, in-fact. Driving around with others in online multiplayer was a treat.
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8. Midnight Club 2
Midnight Club: Street Racing was the first solid racing game on the PlayStation 2. It would be followed up with Midnight Club 2 a few years later, a game that would improve upon the original in many ways. Its map design was great, featuring Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Paris. It would reward you for learning shortcuts and taking chances. Its driving model was precise, making it a real joy to screech around corners. It also had a damage model, something that was rare for any game released in 2003. The game was really only held back by its lack of variety, including its short list of cars dominated by somewhat uninteresting vehicles.
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7. Test Drive Unlimited
Test Drive Unlimited was considered the most ambitious racing game in history when it launched in 2006. It was set in O'ahu, a Hawaiian island, something no other racing game can say. More importantly, it had over 1,000 miles of road, making it the biggest racing game ever produced at the time.
Test Drive Unlimited had a ton of content. There was a real sense that the game wanted you to explore its rich environments. It succeeded in many regards, but came short of greatness due to its clunky driving model and lack of direction.
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6. Need for Speed: Underground 2
For tuner fans, Need for Speed: Underground 2 is a dream. Here's a game that was rooted in the culture unlike the world had ever seen before. Nitrous Oxide, 4-cylinder rice rockets, and blur effects at high speeds that make you feel like you're in the Milennium Falcon; this is a game that knows its audience well.
While its style may not have been for everyone, it was an immensely fun game to play. This is one of the first open-world racing games to have a good sense of reward. You would earn credits quickly that could be used to purchase new cars, or upgrade existing ones in endless ways.
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5. Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Midnight Club: Los Angeles was a pioneer for big-budget open-world racing games. It was invested in heavily following the successful release of Midnight Club 2. Rockstar San Diego would push graphics to a level open-world racers had never seen before, with high polygon counts on vehicles, and high levels of detail in the environment. Even with that it managed to maintain a solid framerate.
The game had a ton of things to do, even including a race editor to make tracks and share them with others online.
Many might remember the game for its frustrating difficulty, though. Truthfully, it wasn't tuned well. There were some races required to progress that were outright insane. As unfortunate as that was, it's still considered one of the greats by racing fans.
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4. Forza Horizon
The Forza series has quickly become the dominant figure in the racing world. Instead of limiting itself to closed-circuit simulation, it opened itself up in 2012 with the release of Forza Horizon.
Forza Horizon featured an open environment set in Colorado. It had fantastic vehicles and a great sense of variety. The attention to detail is what really made it stand out. Not only was its open-world utilized with tons of events and collectibles, the game had all the subtleties that make a racing game feel authentic thanks to its Forza heritage.
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3. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
Usually when a game looks to revive an old release, it struggles to meet the standards previously set. That wasn't the case with 2010's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, a game with the same name as one of the PS1's best racing titles. That might be due to the fact that it was developed by Criterion Games, a studio that had monumental success with its Burnout series.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was great in many ways. It knew how to send you flying down roads with beautiful graphics, and boasted a strong list of vehicles. Most notably, it incorporated police vehicles in a way that actually benefited the experience. Being chased by police was an intense affair, and being behind the wheel of an interceptor trying to take out targets with several options at your disposal was a blast. It also found ways to integrate social interaction in a novel way with the use of Autolog.
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2. Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise was the first open-world racing game to deliver a fully polished experience. That came in the form of a large world packed with detail and variety, filling that world with more content than most would ever see, and making sure that the minute-to-minute driving experience was excellent.
Cars felt great in the hands, and crashing them was almost just as fun as driving them thanks to an impressive damage model. It was the first Burnout game to feature an open-world, and was destined for success given developer Criterion's talent which was put on full display in the previous Burnout games.
Out of this list, Burnout Paradise has the best progression in terms of car unlocking. It was tuned perfectly, methodically moving you from slower cars up to the frightening V12 beats. Using the takedown system, it would present an exciting way to get these new cars instead of just heading to a shop and pressing a button.
Burnout Paradise would get even better with time, having content such as the addition of motorcycles layered in post-release.
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1. Forza Horizon 2
Forza Horizon 2 is everything you could want from an open-world racing game. Set in France and Italy, its world is beautiful. Made better, there's a day/night cycle improved upon from the previous Horizon release, as well as weather, something racing games rarely include. Simply driving around taking it all in is fun in and of itself.
Forza Horizon 2 packs content while making sure that the content is as exciting as possible. A few facts: Forza Horizon 2 has 210 vehicles, over 700 events, several online game modes hosted on dedicated servers, car meets, 10 hidden vehicles, 5 showcase events, Bucket List challenges, over 140 musical tracks across seven radio stations, and more. Playground Games thought of everything and managed to cram it into this extraordinary masterpiece that isn't just fun for car enthusiasts, but anyone who enjoys an exciting game with cohesive gameplay.
