Calculating and comparing the size of video game worlds can be quite a tricky endeavor. Games often take liberties in making their world traversable for the sake of gameplay - realism in this aspect would make a game dreadfully boring. Imagine walking the full length of Skyrim in real life when Skyrim is supposed to be a full country.

With the grand variety of games that Final Fantasy has, it’s even trickier to try and compare them. How does one put up the 2D worlds of the SNES games against the open-world environments of Final Fantasy 15? And what of the games with multiple worlds to visit? Any answer will be controversial, really.

11 Final Fantasy 5

Final Fantasy 5 is a bit of an odd case. Over the course of the game, Bartz and co. will travel to two quite different worlds with different geographies. Towards the end of the game, those two worlds will merge together in the state that they began in thousands of years in the past.

Despite having three separate ‘world maps’ the actual world seems quite limited in size. Settlements are small, the only notable geographical standouts are some desert areas with no tundra or barren wastelands to explore.

10 Final Fantasy 9

While some may argue that the existence of another entire planet inside Gaia gives Final Fantasy 9 a grander scale than other games, the planet is decidedly small. What we have to go on is the world map.

It features four continents - yes, even the tiny Outer Continent counts. Each has very distinct environments, but apart from the Mist Continent, everywhere is just a little bit barren.

9 Final Fantasy 7

The first few entries here will be games with ’normal’ seeming worlds analogous to our own earth. Notably, these are the PS1 entries. They have multiple continents with intercontinental travel, a range of biomes, and a traversable world map that gives us some sense of scale.

Final Fantasy 7 seems the smallest of these three worlds with a pretty compact world map, it does however support very large cities (especially the monstrous Midgar) and intercontinental travel with ships and airships.

8 Final Fantasy 8

The world of Final Fantasy 8 seems like it might be the biggest of the PS1 era. It’s large enough to support multiple very large cities, intercontinental railways, and three very big continents.

One thing may give players pause, however, and that is the Horizon Bridge. Even in a world with magic and Centran technology an engineering project of that scale would be a colossal undertaking. Imagine a bridge connecting Europe and North America.

7 Final Fantasy 6

Just like Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy 6 has the party exploring more than one world - only in this one, it’s two versions of the same world. Halfway through the game, the nefarious yet magical Kefka wreaks havoc across the entire globe and sends the world into a state of ruin.

While the world remains somewhat recognizable, it’s a whole new world map with new locations to explore, so it’s definitely one of the bigger ‘game worlds’!

6 Final Fantasy 4

Like Final Fantasy 5, this game features three distinct world maps that the player will explore. Unlike Final Fantasy 5, these maps don’t end up merging - players will explore the planet’s surface, and underworld of lava and darkness, and the moon. While the latter is largely free of life and seems an extended final dungeon, it certainly adds to the scope of the game.

What’s notable about Final Fantasy 4’s world is the sheer number of settlements, towns, and castles that the player can visit. With so many different kingdoms, it’s not a surprise that four of the playable characters are either royalty at the beginning of the game or end up becoming royalty at the end.

5 Final Fantasy 15

With a famously open world of over 700 square miles, Final Fantasy 15 is a big contender for one of the largest explorable game worlds ever and often ends up on such lists. While much of it can only be flown over or viewed in the distance or in maps, it’s certainly gigantic.

Comparing this to other games is tricky, however, as players seem to really only explore one part of Final Fantasy 15’s world. While it has snowfields these are a magical, not geographical, feature, but it does have some huge cities that only a larger world would be able to sustain.

4 Final Fantasy 11

As an MMORPG with multiple expansions, Final Fantasy 11 certainly has an advantage in comparisons of world size - it just got bigger with every new release!

With its expansive areas, diverse environments, and all the ways that players can use to travel between areas, Final Fantasy 11 is definitely big. And it feels big too - players will certainly remember the first times they wandered beyond their starting cities to find new settlements in which to quest and how long it took them to get there.

3 Final Fantasy 13

Players will explore two separate ‘worlds’ over the course of Final Fantasy 13 - the world of Cocoon and the world of Gran Pulse. The former appears to be some sort of idyllic Dyson Sphere structure that supports a huge population, thriving with technological advancement.

The latter is only explored a little and the parts that are shown are gigantic sprawls of lush grassland and rocky mountains. In an interview with Final Fantasy 13’s director, Motomu Toriyama suggested that Cocoon is about the size of North America and Gran Pulse is the size of the earth, giving players a fairly accurate estimation of the sheer size of the game’s world map. It’s big.

2 The Ivalice Alliance

Thanks to multiple games taking place in the same world over different eras, we both have an idea and have no idea just how big the worlds of Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 are.

Each game may feature common names for certain locations but each has a vastly different world map which leads gamers to conclude that the world must be very large indeed. This is especially true when considering how big Final Fantasy 12 is, with its three continents and sheer diversity of environments to explore.

1 Final Fantasy 14

Final Fantasy 14 is another MMORPG that benefits from still having regular development updates and an upcoming expansion which will make its already sizeable world even bigger.

At the beginning of its life, players could only explore the continent of Eorzea and while it seemed quite big there was no doubt that its scale was nothing compared to the likes of games where players explored entire worlds.

These days, however, players venture off to other continents and even other worlds - and with so many other nations namedropped in recent events, it looks like the game is only going to get larger. Especially if we eventually get access to more worlds.

NEXT: Final Fantasy 14: 6 Endwalker Fan Theories That Could Actually Be True