When should landscapes be used?

How many games have 8km^2 maps? To put the size into perspective:

  • Witcher 3 ~12x12km
  • GTA5 ~9x9km
  • Elden Ring’s above ground walkable area ~5x5km
  • Horizon Forbidden West ~5x5km
  • Zelda BOTW ~9x9km
  • World of Warcraft’s Kalimdor continent ~12x12km
  • (corrected these to make them less confusing. these are the rough square map sizes of each game)

Are they nanite, like almost everyone is moving toward these days? If so, I can fill that pretty quickly. If you’re making an entire landscape out of meshes, I hope you’ve got a good PCG scattering algorithm. Though you could use a low detail landscape to place the meshes, turn them into a PCG stamp and set the landscape to editor only, if you wanted to.