Open-World Games With Extreme Sports

When one hears that a game is open-world, it can mean any number of things. Sometimes, players are restricted to story content and activities directly related to the main theme of the game. Other times, it allows one to engage in seemingly incongruous diversions such as extreme sports.

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The games below feature extreme sports either as a fun minigame or as the singular focus of the adventure. Whatever the case, they all manage to capture the sense of movement and freedom that makes extreme sports so appealing to its practitioners. It also comes with 100% less risk of injury than the real thing, though that might be a minus to some since they consider danger half the fun of extreme sports.

1 Grand Theft Auto 5

Mountain Biking, Base Jumping, Sky Diving

It is easy to dismiss Grand Theft Auto as just a crime simulator and it is not like the game does a lot to argue against this moniker. Most of what players do in the franchise and the fifth numbered entry revolves around committing some sort of felony, whether it be murder, robbery, or something else entirely.

However, Grand Theft Auto 5 has a ton of fun minigames to partake in, and a handful of them revolve around extreme sports. There is mountain biking, base jumping, and even sky diving. The best thing about a lot of these is how well they control compared to regular walking, which always felt slow and heavy in the series.

2 Riders Republic

Various Extreme Sports In Competitive Multiplayer With 63 Other Players

Riders Republic markets itself as the ultimate extreme sports open-world playground, featuring five distinct activities – mountain biking, skiing, wingsuit diving, and skateboarding.

The real allure is the massive races in which players can compete, testing their skills against 63 other competitors. Riders Republic successfully balances the line between appealing to those who do these sports in real life and also being easy to play for newcomers or those who are just interested in it as a video game and not as an adaptation of the sports at hand.

3 Tony Hawk’s Project 8

The Classic Tony Hawk Gameplay Put Into An Open-World

There was a golden era for this franchise that many consider to be from the year 2000 with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 to 2003 with Tony Hawk’s Underground, but the series still had some greatness and creative juices flowing a few games afterward too. 2006’s Tony Hawk’s Project 8 was not the first open-world adventure from the series, but it was more seamless than the other effort (2005’s American Wasteland) while giving each district a unique feel.

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The mission structure was also perfect for the open-world gameplay, with many objectives being triggered just by skating over them and not interrupted by cutscenes or long load times. There is almost nothing more satisfying than doing a single combo from one end of the map to the other, and the world’s design gives players ample opportunity to do so.

4 Steep

Various Extreme Sports On Snowy Mountains

Steep is the predecessor to Rider’s Republic and focuses on snow-covered mountains and the many sports related to such an environment. Players can ski, snowboard, paraglide, and even use a wingsuit, while later updates added even more sports. Absent are the massive races against more than 60 other players like in Rider’s Republic but the difference in setting and sports activities still give Steep value today.

Open-world games from Ubisoft can sometimes face criticism for how their goals boil down to checklists and meaningless question marks on a map, but it is a structure that works well in a sports game where the narrative is not the driving force behind exploring the world or pushing through the main objectives.

5 Skate

Realistic Skateboarding

The other well-known skateboarding series is Skate and it serves as the antithesis to the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. When Tony Hawk games were getting more outlandish, Skate sought to bring it back to basics and make a more realistic skateboarding game. Here, the camera is closer to the player, and tricks are pulled off with the analog sticks instead of the face buttons.

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One should not take this to mean that the game is no fun or does not allow freedom of movement. Once players have a handle on the controls, it becomes simple to pull off some impressive combos and to breeze one’s way around the levels. Considering the difference in controls, there is no need to choose whether Skate is the superior skateboarding game to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. They can live side-by-side and be appreciated equally.

6 Dying Light

Parkour Running

If there was a zombie apocalypse in real life, the ability to free-run through the environment would probably be an extremely handy skill. No way to be backed into a corner when one can kick off the walls and pull themselves up through a skylight. The advantage of parkour running with zombies about is on full display in Dying Light. Coming from Techland, the developers of the original Dead Island, it separates itself from the latter game with a more seamless open world and the ability to free-run through the environment.

There is also the pressure of the day and night cycle, where enemies become significantly more deadly once the sun goes down. Making it back to a safe house before nightfall is where the parkour running comes into effect and zooming through the environment on foot feels satisfying. Just as satisfying as not being a zombie’s dinner.

MORE: Best Parkour/Free Running Games