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[WoJ]

I love threads like this.

A few that come to mind for me:

Final Fantasy IV - as a kid discovering there was an entire world underground was pretty mind blowing.

Final Fantasy VII - Again, you kind of had to be there for this, but I remember when this game came out my friends and I thought this game was going to be a deviation from the typical Final Fantasy/JRPG formula and be entirely contained in Midgar. The way the game started certainly made it seem that way. Then after 7 hours or so you escape Midgar and have the entire world map presented to you. It was a "holy shit" moment if there ever was one.

Mass Effect 1 -

Spoiler

A few moments for me. Both on Virmire. I didn't do Wrex's side quest and he got shot dead by Ashley. I was not expecting that to happen to a main character. Then the Sovereign interaction in Saren's base followed up by sacrificing Kaidan/Ashley. At the time I hadn't really seen two main characters just offed like that combined with the reveal of the Reapers just took the game and series to another level for me.

 

[Harkonnen]

Alien Isolation, maybe? The more I played the more I felt 'it must be ending now' but noooo... there's a lot more to do.

So good I didn't want this game to end. It kept me interested and involved from start to finish.

 

[NanaMiku]

Odin Sphere

 

[Danjin44]

Odin Sphere

Epic goes through the roof one the whole Ragnarok sequence starts.

This game does it 1000 times better job than God of War Ragnarok.

 

[BlackTron]

I was kind of a naive kid when I played OOT, and thought the whole quest was to find the three spiritual stones. But instead of the game ending, Link aged 7 years to do twice the amount of content you just cleared. I was completely floored.

 

[Corian33]

Tales of Symphonia does the thing where the story seems to come to a conclusion and then "Nope, there's an entire inverse world to go through, you're only halfway there!"

I always have fond memories of that game because I bought it on a complete whim just from looking at the box and absolutely loved it.

 

[Beechos]

Phantasy star 3. You got to play as not 1, not 2 but 3 generations of heroes.

 

[SpongeMonster30]

Elden Ring when I got to that underground area just by pulling a lever.

 

[kiphalfton]

Prince of Persia Lost Crown.

Map kept going on and on, and it was good.

 

[Dr Bass]

FF6, getting to the World of Ruin.

Small by today's standard. Totally epic at the time.

 

[Alexios]

Grandia does this but I won't spoil it. Also Skies of Arcadia a bit.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Elden Ring.

Too many moments where I had to stop to take it all in, while realizing there was so much more to look at and explore.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

Ghosts and Goblins. Beat the hardest game ever made and then learn to get the true ending you have to do it all again... from the start... on an even harder difficulty. Literally doubles the size of your quest.

Recent example would be Shadow of Mordor. I thought it was just one map and by the time I cleared the first map I felt I had saw everything the game had to offer and then you end up opening up a second (much more vertical) map and it was like a whole new adventure.

Bloodstained RotN also ripped off SotN with the inverted castle which doubles the map size effectively.