Is this the Codex? Where are the RPGs?
Some of my favourites :
- World of Xeen, and basically entire Might & Magic series : quintessence of open world, emphasis on exploration, go anywhere at will, try to bruteforce through hard places to get stronger faster,
- Death Knights of Krynn, lvl ~10 D&dD campaign, totally open world, you get to free towns from their enemies in the order you want (SSI's games have an overworld but not all have a similar campaign structure),
- Disciples of Steel : huge game, with a big world and tons of dungeons and combat system close to SSI's games. You won't progress at will, you need to get stronger to be able and go forward without getting slaughtered, which is fine in an RPG. Very satisfying to get stronger and go further,
- Dragon Wars : the world is a dungeon and vice versa, very cool P&P-ish campaign where you advance by checking your skills,
- Realms of Arkania : Blade of Destiny : exploration/survival RPG, truly a big P&P-ish campaign in video game format, best party creation and best journey and sense of adventure in a big part of a world,
- Darkalnds : similar arguments as above,
- Fallout : not much to say, everybody here played it, solve an investigation quest with mostly no checkpoint while exploring towns and solving their problems. Skills are used as well,
- Quest for Glory 1, 3, 4 : once again, here's the world, solve it via skills,
- Legend Of Faerghail : bad things can be said about the game, about bugs especially (real bugs as well as save system), but its open structure where only the small ending dungeon can not be accessed at will is cool.