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There is no defensible single winner for map size, side-quest depth, and postgame content across these games. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the safest choice if you want heavily authored quests plus substantial story expansions. Cyberpunk 2077 offers a concentrated futuristic city with flexible character builds and contract-style activities. Skyrim is the broadest sandbox for wandering and discovering locations, while Elden Ring emphasizes open-ended exploration and detours when a fight blocks your progress. Because the games use different definitions of playable space, quest and location totals, and post-ending content, map footprint alone cannot answer which world feels least empty.
Why map size is a poor standalone ranking
Open-world maps are not measured on a common basis. One game may count only contiguous terrain; another may include underground areas, interiors, islands, or separately loaded regions. Verticality also changes the experience: a compact city with many enterable buildings can provide more navigable space than a larger field of roads and hills. Fast travel, mount speed, swimming, climbing, gliding, and the distance between meaningful activities further change how large a world feels.
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The available comparisons therefore do not establish a reliable square-mile or square-kilometre ranking. Third-party map estimates exist, but their boundaries and measurement methods are not validated across these games. Treat any precise cross-game area leaderboard as an approximation, not a fact. For a player who dislikes empty travel, the useful questions are how often the game presents a meaningful choice, whether optional stories have their own arcs, and what remains after the main ending.
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| Game | World structure | Side-content emphasis | What is firmly established about postgame or expansions |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | Several major regions, including Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige, rather than one uniform landscape. | Core and optional questing presented as a major part of the journey; the publisher advertises more than 100 hours of core and side-quest gameplay. | Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine add story content. The Complete Edition combines the base game with those expansions. |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | A futuristic city built around districts, roads, vertical spaces, and urban density. | Mercenary contracts and freedom to shape a character build; the cited description is editorial, not a standardized activity count. | The supplied evidence does not provide a comparable inventory of post-ending activities or expansion inclusion for every platform. Check the exact edition. |
| Skyrim | A large wilderness sandbox with settlements, dungeons, and marked and unmarked points of interest. | A secondary reference reports 244 quests and more than 300 marked locations, but it does not establish that all quests are side quests or use a publisher-verified count. | The supplied evidence does not establish a uniform postgame total. Edition, platform, and installed add-ons can change what is available. |
| Elden Ring | A vast fantasy landscape designed for branching exploration and alternate routes. | Exploration is deliberately non-linear; editorial coverage emphasizes going elsewhere when a boss is too difficult. | The cited material does not inventory post-ending activities or provide a comparable expansion-versus-base-game breakdown. |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — strongest fit for authored side stories
How its world is organized
The game presents a journey through the Northern Kingdoms and identifies Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige as major regions. That structure matters for perceived density: the world is not simply one uninterrupted field of identical encounters. Urban, rural, and island settings create different travel rhythms, and moving between regions changes the kind of activity you encounter.
#1 Best Overall
![NAMCO - CD Projekt Red - The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt - Complete Edition, Playstation 5 [English Edition]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51dWUfwFl5L._SL160_.jpg)
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What the side-quest evidence actually says
Bandai Namco’s official result advertises over 100 hours of core and side-quest gameplay. That is a publisher marketing claim, not a guaranteed completion time, a side-quest-only total, or an independently measured benchmark. A player who wants optional stories should read it as an indication of scale, not a promise that every hour will be equally dense or available before the ending.
The game’s strongest documented advantage is that its story content continues beyond the base campaign through Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. The official game page describes those as expansions that add story content. If you are comparing editions, the Complete Edition is the straightforward package to look for because it combines the base game and expansions; platform and remastered-feature details vary, so confirm the listing for your system.
Who should choose it
- Choose it if optional narrative arcs matter more than a single seamless map.
- Choose the Complete Edition when you want the documented expansion stories included rather than buying them separately.
- Do not choose it solely because of the “100+ hours” phrase; that figure covers core and side-quest gameplay together and is not a completion guarantee.
CD PROJEKT RED has also announced an expansion called Songs of the Past, described as introducing a new region, quests, and characters. The announcement captured in the available material does not settle its release or purchase status. Verify whether it is playable and included on your platform before treating it as current postgame content.
Cyberpunk 2077 — dense urban exploration and build-driven activities
Why the city can feel smaller without feeling empty
CD PROJEKT RED classifies Cyberpunk 2077 as an open-world role-playing game set in a futuristic city. A city layout compresses distance: roads, buildings, contracts, and encounters can cluster within a few blocks, while vertical layers and interiors add complexity that a flat area estimate cannot represent. This makes it a sensible option for players who prefer frequent urban landmarks over long stretches of countryside.
Side content and character freedom
GamesRadar’s description highlights mercenary contracts and freedom in character builds. Those are qualitative descriptions, not comparable counts of contracts or a verified measure of narrative depth. The practical distinction is between activities that ask you to complete a job and a quest line that develops a continuing cast or conflict. If your priority is role-playing through different builds and approaches, the city’s structure supports that preference; if you require an officially documented total of side stories, the available evidence does not provide one.
Rank #2
- If you buy this game, you will receive a free next-gen update on December 14th!
- Play as a highly trained monster slayer for hire.
- Built for endless adventure, the massive open world of The Witcher sets new standards in terms of size, depth and complexity.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year edition brings together the base game and all the additional content released to date.
Edition and postgame checks
The sources used here do not establish a complete, platform-by-platform inventory of what remains after the main story, nor do they verify every expansion bundle. Before buying, check whether the product is the base game or a bundle, which platform version it covers, and whether listed add-ons are included. That check is more reliable than assuming that every retail or digital listing contains the same postgame material.
Skyrim — the sandbox choice for wandering and discovery
Interpreting the quest and location numbers
A secondary reference attributes 244 quests and more than 300 marked points of interest to the game, with additional unmarked locations. Those figures should not be presented as an official side-quest count: the source is not the original publisher, the year is not stated, and “quests” can include main, faction, radiant, and other categories. “Marked points of interest” also says nothing about how much story or interaction each place contains.
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Even with those qualifications, the figures explain why Skyrim suits players who enjoy unscripted detours. A marked location can be a dungeon, settlement, landmark, or another activity, while an unmarked discovery rewards leaving the obvious route. The experience is less about a carefully bounded sequence of authored side campaigns and more about choosing what to investigate next.
How it differs from the other three
- Compared with The Witcher 3, its appeal is breadth of wandering rather than a publisher-documented total of core and side-quest hours.
- Compared with Cyberpunk 2077, it trades urban compression for wilderness travel and scattered discoveries.
- Compared with Elden Ring, its quest and exploration structure is more recognizably built around settlements, dungeons, and conventional quest objectives.
The available evidence does not establish a standardized postgame inventory for Skyrim. Installed add-ons, edition, and platform can alter the content you receive, so identify the exact release before comparing it with a complete edition of another game.
Elden Ring — the best fit for non-linear exploration
Exploration as the main form of density
GamesRadar characterizes Elden Ring’s world as vast and emphasizes that you can explore elsewhere when a boss is difficult. That observation captures its defining trade-off: the game may offer a large amount of terrain, but it expects you to treat the world as a set of alternate routes rather than a checklist of side quests. A blocked encounter is often a prompt to investigate another direction, gather resources, or return later.
Rank #3
- PLAY AS A HIGHLY TRAINED MONSTER SLAYER FOR HIRE: Trained from early childhood and mutated to gain superhuman skills, strength, and reflexes, witchers are a counterbalance to the monster-infested world in which they live.
- Gruesomely destroy foes as a professional monster hunter armed with a range of upgradeable weapons, mutating potions, and combat magic.
- Hunt down a wide variety of exotic monsters, from savage beasts prowling mountain passes to cunning supernatural predators lurking in the shadowy back alleys of densely populated cities. Invest your rewards to upgrade your weaponry and buy custom armor, or spend them on horse races, card games, fist fighting, and other pleasures life brings.
- EXPLORE A MORALLY AMBIGUOUS FANTASY OPEN WORLD: Built for endless adventure, the massive open world of The Witcher sets new standards in terms of size, depth, and complexity. Traverse a fantastical open world: explore forgotten ruins, caves, and shipwrecks, trade with merchants and dwarven smiths in cities, and hunt across the open plains, mountains, and seas. Deal with treasonous generals, devious witches, and corrupt royalty to provide dark and dangerous services. Make choices that go beyond good & evil, and face their far-reaching consequences.
- TRACK DOWN THE CHILD OF PROPHECY: Take on the most important contract of your life: to track down the child of prophecy, the key to saving or destroying this world. In times of war, chase down the child of prophecy, a living weapon foretold by ancient elven legends. Struggle against ferocious rulers, spirits of the wilds, and even a threat from beyond the veil – all hell-bent on controlling this world. Define your destiny in a world that may not be worth saving.
Why side-quest comparisons are difficult
The cited material does not provide an official quest total, a side-quest-only count, or a postgame activity inventory that can be compared directly with the Witcher 3 claim or the secondary Skyrim figures. Questlines can also be easy to miss without exploration, which makes a raw count a poor measure of how much optional story an individual player will see.
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Who benefits from its structure
Select Elden Ring if you value discovery, alternate paths, and the freedom to postpone a difficult boss. Select a different game if your definition of “lots of side quests” means a clearly signposted series of optional conversations and multi-step narrative jobs. The two preferences overlap, but they are not the same.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to choose when “not too big” is your priority
1. Define what feels empty to you
- Long travel with few decisions: favor a dense city or a region-based structure.
- Repeated combat without story: favor games with documented authored expansions or clearly signposted quest arcs.
- Too many markers and errands: avoid using location counts as a quality proxy and choose by setting and pacing instead.
- Being blocked by a boss: favor a world that explicitly supports detours and returning later.
2. Separate three kinds of content
Ask whether a listing includes the base game, paid story expansions, and whatever happens after the main ending. “Postgame” can mean free-roaming after the finale, a new quest region, repeatable activities, or a separate new-game mode. These are different benefits. The evidence here firmly documents story expansions for The Witcher 3, but it does not support a complete cross-game ranking of the other categories.
3. Verify the release you will actually play
- Write down your platform: PC, console family, or a specific generation.
- Check whether the listing is a base game, a complete edition, or a bundle with add-ons.
- Read the included-content section rather than relying on the game’s title alone.
- Confirm regional availability and whether an announced expansion has actually released.
- Only then compare price, storage, and install requirements; those details are listing-specific and are not established uniformly in the available material.
A practical recommendation by player type
| If your priority is… | Start with… | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Optional stories with substantial documented expansion support | The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition | It combines the base game with Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, and the publisher advertises more than 100 hours of core and side-quest gameplay. |
| A compact-feeling urban world and flexible builds | Cyberpunk 2077 | Its futuristic-city setting and editorially described mercenary contracts keep activity concentrated around an urban environment. |
| Wandering, hidden places, and a huge sandbox | Skyrim | The secondary reference reports hundreds of quests and marked locations, with the important caveat that the categories are not standardized. |
| Exploration that lets you route around a difficult boss | Elden Ring | Editorial coverage specifically emphasizes leaving a difficult encounter and exploring elsewhere. |
What cannot honestly be ranked
No source in the available set establishes a common map boundary, a consistent quest taxonomy, or a complete postgame inventory for all four games. That means a definitive claim such as “Game A is the largest,” “Game B has the most side quests,” or “Game C has the best endgame” would overstate the evidence. The useful comparison is conditional: The Witcher 3 leads on documented expansion story content; Cyberpunk 2077 on urban density and build expression; Skyrim on open-ended sandbox wandering; and Elden Ring on non-linear exploration. Your choice should follow the kind of activity you want to repeat, not an unverified area number.
Quick Recap
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