Will Treasure Adventure Game qualify?
It has ghosts and talking animals and such. :)

I remember the world of Divine Divinity seemed huge to me back when I first played it :D But that's probably just nostalgia talking. I think it was the first open world RPG I played.

Anyway, shouldn't The Witcher 3 be on that list?

And another question- do MMORPGs count? I don't much like them, but I think there's at least a few that meet your criteria.

Venetica: It's a while since I played it but I think it was open world.

Grim Dawn and Titan Quest could also fit.
Avernum 1 - 6: So far I only played the first two parts but they where open world.
Geneforge 1 - 5
The Witcher 3
Lords of Midnight
Inquisitor
Darklands

Avernum 1-3 only count if Ultima 1-5 do.

Also, Avernum 2 has a plot barrier that limits where you can go at the start of the game; it eventually gets lifted, but not right away.

In Geneforge (and probably also its sequels), travel is done exclusively by map screen, so these games don't qualify under the OP's definition. (It's worth noting that Geneforge 1 is structurally open world, in the sense that you can explore in different directions, but it still has the map screen that us used to travel.)

Edit: For the record, the Avadon games are not open world. Blades of Avernum is as open world as Neverwinter Nights and Unlimited Adventures, I believe (personally, I wouldn't count the games themselves as open world, but would instead judge each module separately).

I must've missed it on the first read, then. :)

This may be controversial but I didn't count the Witcher 3 because it seems when you reach the end of a zone it opens up your map and you are forced to fast travel to another zone. Like I said in the OP "Exclusive travel via map screen does not count as open world to me, even if the individual areas are large". For the record I'm not saying that makes it a bad game or anything, it's just that the point of the thread is to list games with a very particular structure. The idea is that you should feel like you are actually traveling across the land in realtime.

Anyway, I added Venetica, which is an obscure little game. Never heard of it at all. I also added The Lords of Midnight Series and Inquisitor. Finally I added Avernum, I had forgotten about those games.

I was under the impression Geneforge used a map screen to get around the world. Same for Darklands from what I've seen. Grim Dawn and Titan Quest I'm not too sure about. They look like they use the Diablo style act structure. The areas may be open but don't you just move from act to act? Do they actually give you the impression everything is connected?

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Nope. Do you know how frickin' big this list would be if I did count them? From the OP "Online only games do not count (I would kill for offline Guild Wars 1!)."

Ah, my bad. I should have paid more attention to your original post :P

I still want to know why you include Might and Magic 1-5 and Avernum 1-3, but not Ultima 1-5; all these games have an overworld area that isn't to scale, but in which you fully control your movement (instead of just selecting a spot from a list) and in which things (like combat) can happen.

To tell the truth, I haven't played these games yet, so I only based my guess from a few raw YouTube videos. You may be right about both.

I like seeing Kingdoms of Amalur in the list. Nice game.

Quest for Glory 1, 2 and 4
3 and 5 both have world map travel

Terraria would also count - fantasy (and a whole bunch else) plus open world

Thanks. I added those.

Here are some more suggestions for fantasy games with open/continuous worlds:

Dungeon Siege*
Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard
Legend: Hand of God**
Legend of Grimrock 2
Prince of Persia
Soul Reaver

* Although extremely linear, it has one huge continuous world if I remember correctly. You can walk all the way back to the beginning but there is no purpose.

** There are three or four randomly generated dungeons in the game that reset when you leave them, but the whole overworld and the passages connecting the overworld areas are fix and you can move freely between them.

In contrast to Titan Quest, Grim Dawn features one continuous world. However, there is at least one point in the game where you have to drop down into a dungeon and cannot go back up, meaning you will have to use a portal to travel back to the earlier regions of the game. Other than that, all the overworld and dungeon areas in the game are directly connected.