Open-world games. Arguably, no other genre has defined modern gaming more than the expansive, experimental, and exciting places this one has taken us to. Over the past 30 years, we’ve gone from grey, empty streets begging to be torn up in a blocky muscle car to glorious, colourful fantasy lands full of adventure and opportunity. But what are the games that have stood out the most, pushed the form forward, and ultimately led to GTA 6’s moment?
As part of IGN 30, I’m going to try to answer that question by walking you through five distinct flavours of open-world game before deciding on the greatest of them all. From web-swinging superheroes and sword-swinging monster hunters to bank heists and shrine raids, here are the 30 masterpieces of open-world game design.
GTA. There are really no other three letters to start with than Rockstar’s industry-changing creation, especially when it comes to city settings. What started as a top-down, level-based car-stealing simulation in 1997 was fun, but limited by the confines of the technology of the time. It would take another four years, and the creation of the PS2 and its DVD storage capabilities, for the series to truly become a phenomenon as it stepped into the 3D era with Grand Theft Auto 3.
Claude’s violent journey through the streets of Liberty City set the template for the next 10 years of copycats — a few of which we’ll look at in a short while. It took a setting first sketched out in the original GTA and combined it with the sort of cinematic storytelling emerging on PlayStation at the time to perform alchemy. The result was a first of its kind and a new gold standard for open worlds.
They may feel like monotonous, clunky missions to play through now, but there’s no denying the permanent blueprint GTA 3 created for expansive city games to come, nor the way it managed to successfully weave a story that evoked prestige television into an open world structure — casting multiple Sopranos alumni in the process. It took the pulsating urban driving experience pioneered in Driver, a 1999 open-zone car chaser, and presented it in a wholly new way. Sure, there were open-world city games before GTA 3, but not many others on this list would exist without it.
After what seems an impossibly short development timeline to comprehend these days, just one year later, those grey, rainy streets would be swapped out for the neon blues and pastel pinks of GTA: Vice City. Again, a huge step up for the series.
Tommy Vercetti’s tale offered virtual time travel back to an exaggerated 1980s that felt like a love fist to the face back in 2002. GTA 3’s city served its street-level crime story perfectly, but Vice City created a sandbox you wanted to spend time in, regardless of plot momentum. Yes, its hit-filled radio stations played a huge part in creating its vibe, but so did its numerous landmarks and distinct gang-controlled regions that made this slice of fictional Florida feel alive.
It felt more like existing in a world, and gave you the opportunity to soak in its culture in a way GTA 3 never did — managing to still provide a propulsive story, but allowing more time to breathe in between missions. In this respect, it borrowed aspects from an even earlier open-world game: Shenmue.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/30-open-world-masterpieces-you-need-to-play
