The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

My favorite game of all time by a large margin. I'd mostly given up on open world games after being disappointed by Skyrim and GTA V, but this one is a different beast entirely. I absolutely love how you can interact with literally everything in the world and the plethora of movement options you have at your disposal. You can approach any enemy in a variety of ways. And the world is chock full of content and places to explore and discover. This game truly captured the magic of exploration that no other game has done, where you explore just for its own sake.

I also loved the sense of solitude in a desolate world, with only a few tiny towns across the entire landscape. I loved the contemplative tone and the minimalist music. I also liked the enemies that are intelligent and carry on with their own lifestyle and activities even in your absence. I also loved the shrines and the fun physics puzzles they have, which creates the perfect cycle between exploring the world and popping into shrines for 10 minutes every once in a while to solve a puzzle. I also liked the weapon degradation system as it encourages using diverse weapons.

I spent 1000+ hours on this and have pretty much no complaints beside the fact that I wasn't a big fan of the divine beasts (standard puzzles, meh aesthetics). But everything else completely overshadows this minor flaw.