Game Design Essentials: The Top 20 ‘Open World’ Games

Aha - so John H’s second in Gamasutra’s ‘Game Design Essentials’ series, following ‘20 Difficult Games’, looks at the roots and design lessons of ‘open world games’ - titles in which the player “is left to his own devices to explore a large world” - from Adventure through Metroid to Grand Theft Auto.
Here’s something from his intro, helping to define the tricksy term: “When we discuss “open world games” in this article, or sometimes “exploration games,” we mean those games where generally the player is left to his own devices to explore a large world. What all of these games share is the seeking of new, interesting regions at whatever time the player deems fit. No force forces the player’s motion into new areas. There’s no auto-scroll, and there are no artificial level barriers.”
The whole article is a little retro game-focused, sure, but as Harris says, design mechanics are […]

Original post by editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) and software by Elliott Back