Open world
Encyclopedia
An open world is a type of video game level design
where a player can roam freely through a virtual world
and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives. Video games that include such level design often are referred to as "free roam" games.
The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "sandbox" and "free-roaming"; however, the terms open world and free-roaming describe the game environment itself and allude more to the absence of artificial barriers, in contrast to the invisible wall
s and loading screen
s that are common in linear level designs. The term sandbox refers more to the mechanics of a game and how, as in a physical sandbox, the user is entertained by his ability to play creatively and with there being "no right way" of playing the game.
Despite their name, many open world games still enforce restrictions at some points in the game environment, either due to absolute game design limitations or temporary in-game limitations (such as locked areas) imposed by a game's linearity.
or game designed as a nonlinear, vast open area with many ways to reach an objective. Some games are designed with both traditional and open world levels. An open world facilitates greater exploration than a series of smaller levels, or a level with more linear challenges. Reviewers have judged the quality of an open world based on whether there are interesting ways for the player to interact with the broader level when they ignore their main objective. Some games actually use real settings to model an open world, such as New York City
.
A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline. Since players may perform actions that the game designer did not expect
, the game's writers must find creative ways to impose a storyline on the player without interfering with their freedom. As such, games with open worlds will sometimes break the game's story into a series of missions, or have a much simpler storyline altogether. Other games instead offer side-missions to the player that do not disrupt the main storyline. Most open world games make the character a blank slate that players can project their own thoughts onto, although several games such as Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole offer more character development and dialog.
Games with open worlds typically give players infinite lives
or continue
s, although games like Blaster Master
force the player to start from the beginning should they die too many times. There is also a risk that players may get lost as they explore an open world; thus designers sometimes try to break the open world into manageable sections.
refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually, and is often used to generate game levels and other content. While procedural generation does not guarantee that a game or sequence of levels are nonlinear, it is an important factor in reducing game development time, and opens up avenues making it possible to generate larger and more or less unique seamless game worlds on the fly and using fewer resources. This kind of procedural generation is also called "worldbuilding", in which general rules are used to construct a believable world.
Most 4X
and roguelike
games make use of procedural generation to some extent to generate game levels. SpeedTree
is an example of a developer-oriented tool used in the development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
and aimed at speeding up the level design process. Procedural generation also made it possible for the developers of Elite, David Braben and Ian Bell, to fit the entire game—including thousands of planets, dozens of trade commodities, multiple ship types and a plausible economic system—into less than 22 kilobytes of memory.
Emergence
refers to complex situations in a video game that emerge (either expectedly or unexpectedly) from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics. According to Peter Molyneux
, emergent gameplay appears wherever a game has a good simulation
system that allows players to play in the world and have it respond realistically to their actions. It is what made SimCity
and The Sims
compelling to players. Similarly, being able to freely interact with the city’s inhabitants in Grand Theft Auto
added an extra dimension to the series.
In recent years game designers have attempted to encourage emergent play by providing players with tools to expand games through their own actions. Examples include in-game web browser
s in EVE Online
and The Matrix Online
; XML
integration tools and programming language
s in Second Life
; shifting exchange rates in Entropia Universe
; and the complex object-and-grammar system used to solve puzzles in Scribblenauts
. Other examples of emergence include interactions between physics and artificial intelligence. One challenge that remains to be solved, however, is how to tell a compelling story using only emergent technology.
In an op-ed
piece for BBC News
, David Braben
, co-creator of Elite, called truly open-ended game design "The Holy Grail" of modern video gaming, citing games like Elite and the Grand Theft Auto series as early steps in that direction. Peter Molyneux
has also stated that he believes emergence (or emergent gameplay
) is where video game development is headed in the future. He has attempted to implement open-world gameplay to a great extent in some of his games, particularly Black & White and Fable
.
The space sim Elite is often credited with pioneering the open world game concept in 1984, though other early 2D games such as Bosconian
(1981), Time Pilot
(1982), Dragon Slayer
(1984), Ginga Hyoryu Vifam (1984), Brain Breaker (1985), Star Luster
(1985), Metroid
(1986), Dragon Quest
(1986) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) also featured free-roaming nonlinear open worlds. Furthermore, there were several early games that offered players the ability to explore an open world while driving a variety of ground vehicles. Turbo Esprit
provided a 3D free-roaming city environment in 1986 and has been cited as a major influence on Grand Theft Auto. TX-1
(1983), The Battle-Road
(1984) and Out Run
(1986) were non-linear driving games that allowed the player to drive through multiple different paths that lead to different possible routes and final destinations
. Hunter
(1991) has been described as the first sandbox game to feature full 3D, third-person graphics.
Nintendo
's Super Mario 64
(1996) was considered revolutionary for its 3D open-ended free-roaming worlds, which had rarely been seen in 3D
games before, along with its analog stick
controls and camera control
. Other early 3D examples include the Legend of Zelda
games Ocarina of Time
(1998) and Majora's Mask
(2000), the DMA Design
(Rockstar North) game Body Harvest
(1998), the Angel Studios
(Rockstar San Diego) games Midtown Madness
(1999) and Midnight Club: Street Racing
(2000), and the Reflections Interactive (Ubisoft Reflections) game Driver
(1999). Sega
's ambitious adventure
game Shenmue
(1999) was a major step forward for 3D open-world gameplay, and considered the originator of the "open city" subgenre, touted as a "FREE" ("Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment") game offering an unparalleled level of player freedom, giving them full reign to explore an expansive sandbox city with its own day-night cycles
, changing weather, and fully voiced non-player character
s going about their daily routines. The game's large interactive environments, wealth of options, level of detail and the scope of its urban sandbox exploration has been compared to later sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels, Sega's own Yakuza
series, Fallout 3
, and Deadly Premonition.
However, the series that had the greatest cultural impact was the Grand Theft Auto
series. With over 14 million sales, some critics treat the release of Grand Theft Auto III
in 2001 as a revolutionary event in the history of video games
, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier. Other critics, however, likened Grand Theft Auto III to The Legend of Zelda
and Metroid, as well as Shenmue
, and noted how GTA III had combined elements from previous games and fused them together into a new immersive experience. For instance, radio stations had been implemented earlier in games such as Sega's Out Run
(1986) and Maxis
' SimCopter
(1996), open-ended missions based on operating a taxi cab in a sandbox environment were the basis for Sega's Crazy Taxi
(1999), the ability to beat or kill non-player character
s dates back to several titles such as Portopia
(1983), Hydlide II (1985) and Final Fantasy Adventure
(1991), and the way in which players run over pedestrians and get chased by police has been compared to Pac-Man
(1980). After the release of Grand Theft Auto III, many games which employed a 3D open world were labeled, often disparagingly, as Grand Theft Auto clones, much as how many early first-person shooter
s were called "Doom clones".
and Halo: Reach
). These modes usually grant you access to a set of existing components such as walls and doors, as well as gameplay objects like vehicles and weapons.
Level design
Level design, environment design or game mapping is a discipline of game development involving creation of video game levels—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor, a game development software designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in...
where a player can roam freely through a virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives. Video games that include such level design often are referred to as "free roam" games.
The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "sandbox" and "free-roaming"; however, the terms open world and free-roaming describe the game environment itself and allude more to the absence of artificial barriers, in contrast to the invisible wall
Invisible wall
An invisible wall is a video game term for a boundary that limits where a player can go in a certain area, but doesn't appear in-game as any kind of visible obstacle, or as an obstacle that in reality could easily be bypassed, such as a mid-sized rock or short fence...
s and loading screen
Loading screen
A loading screen is a picture shown by a computer program, often a video game, while the program is loading or initializing.-Loading times:Loading screens that disguise the length of time that a program takes to load were common when computer games were loaded from cassette tape, a process which...
s that are common in linear level designs. The term sandbox refers more to the mechanics of a game and how, as in a physical sandbox, the user is entertained by his ability to play creatively and with there being "no right way" of playing the game.
Despite their name, many open world games still enforce restrictions at some points in the game environment, either due to absolute game design limitations or temporary in-game limitations (such as locked areas) imposed by a game's linearity.
Gameplay and design
An open world is a levelLevel design
Level design, environment design or game mapping is a discipline of game development involving creation of video game levels—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor, a game development software designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in...
or game designed as a nonlinear, vast open area with many ways to reach an objective. Some games are designed with both traditional and open world levels. An open world facilitates greater exploration than a series of smaller levels, or a level with more linear challenges. Reviewers have judged the quality of an open world based on whether there are interesting ways for the player to interact with the broader level when they ignore their main objective. Some games actually use real settings to model an open world, such as New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline. Since players may perform actions that the game designer did not expect
Emergent gameplay
Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics....
, the game's writers must find creative ways to impose a storyline on the player without interfering with their freedom. As such, games with open worlds will sometimes break the game's story into a series of missions, or have a much simpler storyline altogether. Other games instead offer side-missions to the player that do not disrupt the main storyline. Most open world games make the character a blank slate that players can project their own thoughts onto, although several games such as Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole offer more character development and dialog.
Games with open worlds typically give players infinite lives
1-up
1-up , pronounced "one up", is a term in console video gaming that commonly refers to an item that gives the player an extra life, to complete the game. In certain games, it is possible to receive multiple extra lives at once...
or continue
Continue (video gaming)
Continue is a common term in video games for the option to continue the game after all of the player's lives have been lost, rather than ending the game and restarting from the very beginning.-Arcade games:...
s, although games like Blaster Master
Blaster Master
Blaster Master is a platforming and run and gun video game released by Sunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a localized version of a Japanese Famicom game titled , which was released on . The game was released in North America in November 1988 and in Europe on...
force the player to start from the beginning should they die too many times. There is also a risk that players may get lost as they explore an open world; thus designers sometimes try to break the open world into manageable sections.
Procedural generation and emergence
Procedural generationProcedural generation
Procedural generation is a widely used term in the production of media; it refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually. Often, this means creating content on the fly rather than prior to distribution...
refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually, and is often used to generate game levels and other content. While procedural generation does not guarantee that a game or sequence of levels are nonlinear, it is an important factor in reducing game development time, and opens up avenues making it possible to generate larger and more or less unique seamless game worlds on the fly and using fewer resources. This kind of procedural generation is also called "worldbuilding", in which general rules are used to construct a believable world.
Most 4X
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...
and roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
games make use of procedural generation to some extent to generate game levels. SpeedTree
SpeedTree
SpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. that generates virtual foliage for animations and in real time for video games and simulations...
is an example of a developer-oriented tool used in the development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
and aimed at speeding up the level design process. Procedural generation also made it possible for the developers of Elite, David Braben and Ian Bell, to fit the entire game—including thousands of planets, dozens of trade commodities, multiple ship types and a plausible economic system—into less than 22 kilobytes of memory.
Emergence
Emergent gameplay
Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics....
refers to complex situations in a video game that emerge (either expectedly or unexpectedly) from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics. According to Peter Molyneux
Peter Molyneux
Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He created the God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, among others, as well as business simulation games such as Theme Park and more recently, the RPG series Fable.Despite the success of his games,...
, emergent gameplay appears wherever a game has a good simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
system that allows players to play in the world and have it respond realistically to their actions. It is what made SimCity
SimCity
SimCity is a critically acclaimed city-building simulation video game, first released in 1989, and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1994,...
and The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
compelling to players. Similarly, being able to freely interact with the city’s inhabitants in Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto (series)
Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...
added an extra dimension to the series.
In recent years game designers have attempted to encourage emergent play by providing players with tools to expand games through their own actions. Examples include in-game web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s in EVE Online
EVE Online
Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
and The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Monolith Productions created by Richard Carroll. It was the official continuation of the storyline of the Matrix series of films. The game began closed beta-testing in June 2004 which was then opened for people who pre-ordered...
; XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
integration tools and programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s in Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
; shifting exchange rates in Entropia Universe
Entropia Universe
Entropia Universe is a massively multiplayer online virtual universe designed by the Swedish software company MindArk, based in Gothenburg. Entropia uses a micropayment business model, in which players may buy in-game currency with real money that can be redeemed back into real world funds at a...
; and the complex object-and-grammar system used to solve puzzles in Scribblenauts
Scribblenauts
Scribblenauts is an emergent puzzle action video game developed by 5th Cell for the Nintendo DS published by WB Games. The game was released September 15, 2009 in North America, September 30, 2009 in Australia, and October 9, 2009 in Europe. Konami released the game in Japan under the name on...
. Other examples of emergence include interactions between physics and artificial intelligence. One challenge that remains to be solved, however, is how to tell a compelling story using only emergent technology.
In an op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
piece for BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, David Braben
David Braben
David John Braben is a British computer programmer, best known for co-writing Elite, a hugely popular and influential space trading computer game, in the early 1980s.-Life and work:...
, co-creator of Elite, called truly open-ended game design "The Holy Grail" of modern video gaming, citing games like Elite and the Grand Theft Auto series as early steps in that direction. Peter Molyneux
Peter Molyneux
Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He created the God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, among others, as well as business simulation games such as Theme Park and more recently, the RPG series Fable.Despite the success of his games,...
has also stated that he believes emergence (or emergent gameplay
Emergent gameplay
Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics....
) is where video game development is headed in the future. He has attempted to implement open-world gameplay to a great extent in some of his games, particularly Black & White and Fable
Fable (video game)
Fable is an action role-playing video game in the Fable series. It was developed for Xbox, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms, by Big Blue Box, a satellite developer of Lionhead Studios, and was published by Microsoft. The game shipped for Xbox on October 14, 2003...
.
History
Bosconian
is a free-roaming multi-directional scrolling shooter arcade game that was developed by Namco and released in 1981. In contrast to the more linear shooter games of its time, Bosconian allows the player's ship to freely move across open space that scrolls in all directions. The game also features a...
(1981), Time Pilot
Time Pilot
Time Pilot is a multi-directional scrolling shooter and free-roaming aerial combat arcade game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, released by Konami in 1982, and distributed in the United States by Centuri...
(1982), Dragon Slayer
Dragon Slayer
is an early action role-playing game developed and published by Nihon Falcom in 1984 for the NEC PC-88 computer system and ported by Square for the MSX. Designed by Yoshio Kiya, the game gave rise to a series of sequels, nearly all of them created by Falcom, with the exception of Faxanadu by Hudson...
(1984), Ginga Hyoryu Vifam (1984), Brain Breaker (1985), Star Luster
Star Luster
is a first-person shooter and space combat simulator video game developed and published by Namco in 1985 only in Japan. It is an arcade-style combat-dedicated, sci-fi flight simulator that was first released for the Nintendo Famicom. That same year, Nintendo adapted the title for play in the arcade...
(1985), Metroid
Metroid
is an action-adventure video game, and the first entry in the Metroid series. It was co-developed by Nintendo's Research and Development 1 division and Intelligent Systems, and was released in Japan in August 1986, in North America in August 1987, and in Europe in January 1988...
(1986), Dragon Quest
Dragon Quest
, published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005,Due to the inconsistent usage by sources since Square Enix obtained the naming rights to Dragon Quest in North America. Dragon Quest has been used by sources to refer to games released solely under the Dragon Warrior titles...
(1986) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) also featured free-roaming nonlinear open worlds. Furthermore, there were several early games that offered players the ability to explore an open world while driving a variety of ground vehicles. Turbo Esprit
Turbo Esprit
Turbo Esprit is a video game published by Durell Software in 1986 for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC. The game was very detailed and advanced for its time, featuring car indicator lights, pedestrians, traffic lights, and a view of the car's interior controls. It may also be the...
provided a 3D free-roaming city environment in 1986 and has been cited as a major influence on Grand Theft Auto. TX-1
TX-1
TX-1 is a 1983 racing arcade video game developed by Tatsumi. It was licensed to Namco, who in turn licensed it to Atari for release in the United States, thus the game is considered a successor to Pole Position II...
(1983), The Battle-Road
The Battle-Road
The Battle-Road is a vertical scrolling shooter racing arcade game released by Irem in 1984.The game was an early open-ended vehicle combat game that featured branching paths and up to 32 possible routes...
(1984) and Out Run
Out Run
is an arcade game released by Sega in 1986. It was designed by Yu Suzuki and Sega-AM2. The game was a critical and commercial success. It is notable for its innovative hardware , pioneering graphics and music, a choice in both soundtrack and route, and its strong theme of luxury and relaxation...
(1986) were non-linear driving games that allowed the player to drive through multiple different paths that lead to different possible routes and final destinations
Multiple endings
Multiple endings refer to a case in entertainment where the story could end in different ways, described as an alternate ending.-Literature:...
. Hunter
Hunter (computer game)
Hunter is a 3D action-adventure game in which the player navigates around a series of islands. Hunter was developed by Paul Holmes and Martin Walker , and it was released by Activision for the Amiga and Atari ST home computers in 1991...
(1991) has been described as the first sandbox game to feature full 3D, third-person graphics.
Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
(1996) was considered revolutionary for its 3D open-ended free-roaming worlds, which had rarely been seen in 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
games before, along with its analog stick
Analog stick
An analog stick, sometimes called a control stick or thumbstick, is an input device for a controller that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a variation of a joystick, consisting of a protrusion from the controller; input is based on the position of this protrusion in relation...
controls and camera control
Virtual camera system
A virtual camera system aims at controlling a camera or a set of cameras to display a view of a 3D virtual world. Camera systems are used in videogames where their purpose is to show the action at the best possible angle; more generally, they are used in 3D virtual worlds when a third person view...
. Other early 3D examples include the Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda, originally released as in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Nintendo, and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments...
games Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released in Japan on November 21, 1998; in North America on November 23, 1998; and in Europe on December 11, 1998...
(1998) and Majora's Mask
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan on April 27, 2000, North America on October 26, 2000, and Europe on November 17, 2000. The game sold approximately 314,000 copies during its first...
(2000), the DMA Design
Rockstar North
Rockstar North is a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, best known for creating the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings franchises in its earlier guise as DMA....
(Rockstar North) game Body Harvest
Body Harvest
Body Harvest is a video game for the Nintendo 64 video game console, developed by DMA Design . It was originally intended to be an Nintendo 64 launch title, but was delayed due to its original publisher, Nintendo's issues with the game's violent themes, and eventual dropping of the title, leaving...
(1998), the Angel Studios
Rockstar San Diego
Rockstar San Diego is one of the development studios under the Rockstar Games umbrella. The studio pioneered open world racing games with the Midtown Madness and the award-winning Midnight Club series. It is also responsible for the "Red Dead" series of western games...
(Rockstar San Diego) games Midtown Madness
Midtown Madness
Midtown Madness is a racing game developed for Windows by Angel Studios and published by Microsoft. A demo version was released via download on February 1, 1999, and the entire game was released on February 27, 1999. A sequel, Midtown Madness 2, was released in April 2000, and the final addition to...
(1999) and Midnight Club: Street Racing
Midnight Club: Street Racing
Midnight Club: Street Racing is a racing arcade game, developed by Angel Studios and published by Rockstar Games. The game focuses on competitive street racing and the import scene, later popularised by The Fast and the Furious movies...
(2000), and the Reflections Interactive (Ubisoft Reflections) game Driver
Driver (video game)
Driver is a series of mission-based driving video games developed by Reflections Interactive , and originally published by GT Interactive and later by Atari. The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, driving, and third-person shooting in open world environments...
(1999). Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's ambitious adventure
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
game Shenmue
Shenmue
is a 1999 open-world adventure video game developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for the Dreamcast, produced and directed by Yu Suzuki. Suzuki coined a genre title, "FREE" , for the game, based on the interactivity and freedom he wanted to give to the player...
(1999) was a major step forward for 3D open-world gameplay, and considered the originator of the "open city" subgenre, touted as a "FREE" ("Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment") game offering an unparalleled level of player freedom, giving them full reign to explore an expansive sandbox city with its own day-night cycles
Persistent world
A persistent world is a virtual world that continues to exist even after a user exits the world and that user-made changes to its state are, to some extent, permanent...
, changing weather, and fully voiced non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s going about their daily routines. The game's large interactive environments, wealth of options, level of detail and the scope of its urban sandbox exploration has been compared to later sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels, Sega's own Yakuza
Yakuza (series)
Yakuza is a Fighting game video game franchise created by Amusement Vision and owned and published by Sega.The series has sold at least 3.2 million copies as of March 2009...
series, Fallout 3
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...
, and Deadly Premonition.
However, the series that had the greatest cultural impact was the Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto (series)
Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...
series. With over 14 million sales, some critics treat the release of Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 open world action computer and video game developed by DMA Design in the United Kingdom, and published by Rockstar Games. It is the first 3D title in the Grand Theft Auto series. It was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, May 2002 for Microsoft Windows,...
in 2001 as a revolutionary event in the history of video games
History of video games
The history of video games goes as far back as the 1940s, when in 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device." Video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and...
, much like the release of Doom nearly a decade earlier. Other critics, however, likened Grand Theft Auto III to The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda, originally released as in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Nintendo, and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments...
and Metroid, as well as Shenmue
Shenmue
is a 1999 open-world adventure video game developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for the Dreamcast, produced and directed by Yu Suzuki. Suzuki coined a genre title, "FREE" , for the game, based on the interactivity and freedom he wanted to give to the player...
, and noted how GTA III had combined elements from previous games and fused them together into a new immersive experience. For instance, radio stations had been implemented earlier in games such as Sega's Out Run
Out Run
is an arcade game released by Sega in 1986. It was designed by Yu Suzuki and Sega-AM2. The game was a critical and commercial success. It is notable for its innovative hardware , pioneering graphics and music, a choice in both soundtrack and route, and its strong theme of luxury and relaxation...
(1986) and Maxis
Maxis
Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...
' SimCopter
SimCopter
SimCopter is a 1996 computer game from Maxis. This game is a 3D offshoot from Maxis's normal fare, putting the player into a 3D city. Like Streets of SimCity, SimCopter lets the user import SimCity 2000 maps into the game.- Objective :...
(1996), open-ended missions based on operating a taxi cab in a sandbox environment were the basis for Sega's Crazy Taxi
Crazy Taxi
Crazy Taxi is a sandbox racing video game developed by Hitmaker and published by Sega. It is the first game in the Crazy Taxi series. The game was first released in arcades in 1999 and was ported to the Dreamcast in 2000. Subsequently, it was ported to the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube by...
(1999), the ability to beat or kill non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s dates back to several titles such as Portopia
Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken
, is an adventure game designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix . It was first released on the NEC PC-6001 in June 1983, and later ported to other personal computers...
(1983), Hydlide II (1985) and Final Fantasy Adventure
Final Fantasy Adventure
Final Fantasy Adventure, known as Mystic Quest in Europe and as in Japan, is a Final Fantasy spinoff and the first game in the Mana series. Published by Square in 1991 on the original Game Boy, it later saw a North American re-release by Sunsoft in April 1998...
(1991), and the way in which players run over pedestrians and get chased by police has been compared to Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
(1980). After the release of Grand Theft Auto III, many games which employed a 3D open world were labeled, often disparagingly, as Grand Theft Auto clones, much as how many early first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
s were called "Doom clones".
As a game mode
Sometimes, open world gaming is included as a game mode in a game that is not mainly open world (a prominent example being the Forge mode in Halo 3Halo 3
Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2...
and Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach
Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 console. Reach was released in North America, Australia, and Europe on September 14, 2010. The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the...
). These modes usually grant you access to a set of existing components such as walls and doors, as well as gameplay objects like vehicles and weapons.
See also
- Emergent gameplayEmergent gameplayEmergent gameplay refers to complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics....
- GameplayGameplayGameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
- Grand Theft Auto clone
- Nonlinear gameplay
- Procedural generationProcedural generationProcedural generation is a widely used term in the production of media; it refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually. Often, this means creating content on the fly rather than prior to distribution...
- WorldbuildingWorldbuildingWorldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. The result may sometimes be called a constructed world, conworld or sub-creation. The term world-building was popularized at science fiction writer's workshops during the 1970s...