open world
nounUK /ˌəʊp(ə)n ˈwɜːld/ · US /ˌoʊp(ə)n ˈwɜɹld/
Etymology From open (adjective) + world.
1
Video games Also A gameworld that the player may traverse freely, rather than being restricted to certain predefined areas and quests.
- Role-play games […] they use a closed visual world of walls or grids or open worlds across computer systems2004, Paul Grover, “Computer Games in Your Hands”, in Visual Texts (The Heinemann English Project), Port Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic.: Heinemann Harcourt Education, →ISBN, page 15:
- Open world games (sometimes referred to as "sandbox games") are one of the most popular genres of video games. They typically feature non-linear gameplay, the ability to roam the game world freely any way the player chooses, unscripted interaction with non-player characters (NPCs), and a living, breathing city, countryside, or fantasy environment to explore.2007, David Hutchinson, “Kid-friendly Grand Theft Auto”, in Playing to Learn: Video Games in the Classroom, Westport, Conn.: Teachers Ideas Press, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 110:
4 more examples
- Liberty City, the virtual space of Grand Theft Auto III, can be interpreted as the spatial universe that qualitatively changes and combines the limited character attributes of the inhabiting non-player characters. Because they all seem to live and act in such a huge open world, they appear to be more complex themselves.2008, Michael Nitsche, “Combining Interaction and Narrative”, in Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, →ISBN, part I (Structure), page 54:
- The Saints Row games are open worlds, and many consider the Grand Theft Auto series to also be open worlds.2014, Carolyn Handler Miller, “Video Games”, in Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment, 3rd edition, Burlington, Mass.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Focal Press, →ISBN, part 4 (Media and Models: Under the Hood), page 283:
- The second category of storytelling that coexists in GTA [Grand Theft Auto]’s open world takes the form of player-driven stories.2017, Chris Solarski, “Transitions in Open-world Games”, in Interactive Stories and Video Game Art: A Storytelling Framework for Game Design (An A K Peters Book), Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, section II (The Dramatic Curve and Transitions), page 170:
- What Guy doesn’t know, but the audience surely will (it's all over the trailers), is that he's not a real person at all but rather an NPC—or non-player character—in a popular and extremely violent open-world video game.2021 August 6, A. A. Dowd, “The Ryan Reynolds Action-comedy Free Guy is a Truman Show for the Fortnite Age”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 19 Apr 2023:
- Related terms
- fast travel, hub world, overworld, sandbox game