Still, if someone is yearning to explore an expansive map without spending a dime (at least initially), they can turn to a select few games. For instance, 2023's Honkai: Star Rail takes a lot of hints from HoYoVerse's other massive free RPG, Genshin Impact, but its open-world design is not one of them. These projects just do not debut all that frequently. Updated by Mark Sammut : Free open-world games are difficult to come by, especially if fantasy-laden MMORPGs are removed from the equation. Here are the best free open-world games someone can dive into without spending a dime. However, that hasn't prevented some from taking a different approach to monetization and releasing their big, beautiful digital worlds for free, though perhaps at the cost of paid DLC or microtransactions. This is because open-world games such as Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption 2 entail high development costs and a market value that's difficult to ignore.

RELATED: Open-World Games That Take The Longest To Beat

There are some free RPG and co-op games here and there but rarely do open-world games go the free-to-play route. The free-to-play market is dominated by battle royales like Warzone and team-based multiplayer games like Team Fortress 2.

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