Open world

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Screenshot of the 2019 video game A Short Hike, in which the player can freely explore the game world

In

video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay.[1][2] Notable games in this category include The Legend of Zelda (1986), Grand Theft Auto V (2013) and Minecraft (2011).[3][4]

Games with open or free-roaming worlds typically lack level structures like walls and locked doors, or the invisible walls in more open areas that prevent the player from venturing beyond them; only at the bounds of an open-world game will players be limited by geographic features like vast oceans or impassable mountains. Players typically do not encounter loading screens common in linear level designs when moving about the game world, with the open-world game using strategic storage and memory techniques to load the game world dynamically and seamlessly. Open-world games still enforce many restrictions in the game environment, either because of absolute technical limitations or in-game limitations imposed by a game's linearity.[5]

While the openness of the game world is an important facet to games featuring open worlds, the main draw of open-world games is about providing the player with autonomy—not so much the freedom to do anything they want in the game (which is nearly impossible with current computing technology), but the ability to choose how to approach the game and its challenges in the order and manner as the player desires while still constrained by gameplay rules.[6] Examples of high level of autonomy in computer games can be found in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) or in single-player games adhering to the open-world concept such as the Fallout series. The main appeal of open-world gameplay is that it provides a simulated reality and allows players to develop their character and its behavior in the direction and pace of their own choosing. In these cases, there is often no concrete goal or end to the game, although there may be the main storyline, such as with games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Gameplay and design

An open world is a

level or game designed as nonlinear, open areas with many ways to reach an objective.[7] Some games are designed with both traditional and open-world levels.[8] An open world facilitates greater exploration than a series of smaller levels,[5] or a level with more linear challenges.[9] 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.[9] Some games actually use real settings to model an open world, such as New York City.[10]

A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline.

Mass Effect Andromeda for Electronic Arts, said that there are difficulties in the design of an open-world game since it is difficult to predict how players will approach solving gameplay challenges offered by a design, in contrast to a linear progression, and needs to be a factor in the game's development from its onset. Heir opined that some of the critical failings of Andromeda were due to the open world being added late in development.[16]

Some open-world games, to guide the player towards major story events, do not provide the world's entire map at the start of the game, but require the player to complete a task to obtain part of that map, often identifying missions and points of interest when they view the map. This has been derogatorily referred to as "

series lock out sections of the map as "barricaded by law enforcement" until a specific point in the story has been reached.

Games with open worlds typically give players infinite

continues, although some force the player to start from the beginning should they die too many times.[5] 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.[21] The scope of open-world games requires the developer to fully detail every possible section of the world the player may be able to access, unless methods like procedural generation are used. The design process, due to its scale, may leave numerous game world glitches, bugs, incomplete sections, or other irregularities that players may find and potentially take advantage of.[22] The term "open world jank" has been used to apply to games where the incorporation of the open world gameplay elements may be poor, incomplete, or unnecessary to the game itself such that these glitches and bugs become more apparent, though are generally not game-breaking, such as the case for No Man's Sky near its launch.[22]

Open world, sandbox games, and emergent gameplay

The mechanics of open-world games are often overlapped with ideas of sandbox games, but these are considered different concepts. Whereas open world refers to the lack of limits for the player's exploration of the game's world, sandbox games are based on the ability of giving the player tools for creative freedom within the game to approach objectives, if such objectives are present. For example, Microsoft Flight Simulator is an open-world game as one can fly anywhere within the mapped world, but is not considered a sandbox game as there are few creative aspects brought into the game.[23]

The combination of open world and sandbox mechanics can lead towards emergent gameplay, complex reactions that emerge (either expectedly or unexpectedly) from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics.[24] 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.[25]

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

EVE Online and The Matrix Online; XML integration tools and programming languages 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.[25]

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.[15] 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 emergent gameplay to a great extent in some of his games, particularly Black & White and Fable.[25]

Procedural generation of open worlds

Procedural generation 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 is 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 known as worldbuilding, in which general rules are used to construct a believable world.

Most

quintillion planets including flora, fauna, and other features that can be researched and explored.[27]

History

20th century

There is no consensus on what the earliest open-world game is, due to differing definitions of how large or open a world needs to be.

tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons.[32] The overworld maps of the first five Ultima games, released up to 1988, lacked a single, unified scale, with towns and other places represented as icons;[32] this style was adopted by the first three Dragon Quest games, released from 1986 to 1988 in Japan.[40][5]

Early examples of open-world gameplay in adventure games include The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983)[41][42] and The Lords of Midnight (1984),[43] with open-world elements also found in The Hobbit (1982)[44] and Valhalla (1983).[45] The strategy video game, The Seven Cities of Gold (1984), is also cited as an early open-world game,[46][47][48] influencing Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987).[46] Eurogamer also cites British computer games such as Ant Attack (1983) and Sabre Wulf (1984) as early examples.[35]

According to Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard, Hydlide (1984) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) were among the first open-world games, along with Ultima.[49] IGN traces the roots of open-world game design to The Legend of Zelda, which it argues is "the first really good game based on exploration", while noting that it was anticipated by Hydlide, which it argues is "the first RPG that rewarded exploration".[50] According to GameSpot, never "had a game so open-ended, nonlinear, and liberating been released for the mainstream market" beforeThe Legend of Zelda.[51] According to The Escapist, The Legend of Zelda was an early example of open-world, nonlinear gameplay, with an expansive and cohesive world, inspiring many games to adopt a similar open-world design.[52]

driving game from this period,[63] while Iron Soldier (1994) is an open-world mech game.[64] The director of 1997's Blade Runner argues that that game was the first open world three-dimensional action adventure game.[65]

I think The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is one of those games that people can 'project' themselves on. It does so many things and allows [for] so many play styles that people can easily imagine what type of person they'd like to be in game.

Todd Howard[66]

DMA Design (Rockstar North) game Body Harvest (1998), the Angel Studios (Rockstar San Diego) games Midtown Madness (1999) and Midnight Club: Street Racing (2000), the Reflections Interactive (Ubisoft Reflections) game Driver (1999),[70] and the Rareware games Banjo-Kazooie (1998), Donkey Kong 64 (1999), and Banjo-Tooie (2000).[citation needed
]

21st century

Saints Row series, were labeled, often disparagingly, as Grand Theft Auto clones, much as how many early first-person shooters were called "Doom clones".[82]

Other examples include World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series of games, which feature a large and diverse world, offering tasks and possibilities to play.

In the

Revelations, New England during the American Revolution in Assassin's Creed III, the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy in Black Flag, the North Atlantic during the French and Indian War in Rogue, Paris during the French Revolution in Unity, London at the onset of the Second Industrial Revolution in Syndicate, Ptolemaic Egypt in Origins, Classical Greece during the Peloponnesian War in Odyssey, and Medieval England and Norway during the Viking Age in Valhalla. The series intertwines factual history with a fictional storyline. In the fictional storyline, the Templars and the Assassins
, two secret organisations inspired by their real-life counterparts, have been mortal enemies for all of known history. Their conflict stems from the Templars' desire to have peace through control, which directly contrasts the Assassins' wish for peace with free will. Their fighting influences much of history, as the sides often back real historical forces. For example, during the American Revolution depicted in Assassin's Creed III, the Templars initially support the British, while the Assassins side with the American colonists.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was developed by GSC Game World in 2007, followed by two other games, a prequel and a sequel. The free world style of the zone was divided into huge maps, like sectors, and the player can go from one sector to another, depending on required quests or just by choice.

In 2011, Dan Ryckert of Game Informer wrote that open-world crime games were "a major force" in the gaming industry for the preceding decade.[83]

open-source
open world game based on Minecraft

Another popular sandbox game is

best-selling video game of all time, selling over 238 million copies worldwide on multiple platforms by April 2021.[84]
Minecraft's procedurally generated overworlds cover a virtual 3.6 billion square kilometers.

The

Anteworld is a world-building game and free tech-demo of the Outerra Engine that builds upon real-world data to render planet Earth realistically on a true-to-life scale.[85]

No Man's Sky, released in 2016, is an open-world game set in a virtually infinite universe. According to the developers, through procedural generation, the game is able to produce more than 18 quintillion (18×1018 or 18,000,000,000,000,000,000) planets to explore.[86] Several critics found that the nature of the game can become repetitive and monotonous, with the survival gameplay elements being lackluster and tedious. Jake Swearingen in New York said that the players can procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique planets, but they can't procedurally generate 18.6 quintillion unique things to do.[87] Updates have aimed to address these criticisms.

In 2017, the open-world design of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was described by critics as being revolutionary[88][89][90] and by developers as a paradigm shift for open-world design.[91] In contrast to the more structured approach of most open-world games, Breath of the Wild features a large and fully interactive world that is generally unstructured and rewards the exploration and manipulation of its world.[92] Inspired by the original 1986 Legend of Zelda, the open world of Breath of the Wild integrates multiplicative gameplay, where "objects react to the player's actions and the objects themselves also influence each other".[93] Along with a physics engine, the game's open-world also integrates a chemistry engine, "which governs the physical properties of certain objects and how they relate to each other", rewarding experimentation.[94] Nintendo has described the game's approach to open-world design as "open-air".[95]

See also

References

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Further reading