Sandbox games let you experience the world the way you want to experience it. So today lets celebrate some of the best open world games to have been created.
Richard Garriott’s now classic Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness is considered by many to be the first sandbox video game. What Ultima I allowed you to do was to experience the world on your own terms, you could go wherever you pleased and encounter whatever you discovered over there.
Part of the reason many people never completed The Legend of Zelda was because of its openness, at the time many players hadn’t come across a game that would allow you to go wherever you want to, you weren’t going to have your hand held in this game.
Crazy Taxi wanted you to explore while driving a taxi, but not driving in the sense of a leisurely trip through the mountains when the leaves colors are changing. This crazy taxi sim wanted you to go through its world doing some insane stunts that would normally compromise your ability to live.
In 2001 Rockstar Games brought us a new sandbox game that would knock everyone’s socks off. This glorious game was the often maligned Grand Theft Auto III. This brought a franchise into the 21st century and also took sandbox games to the next level. This game allowed you to traverse the seemingly vast city by several modes of transportation. This really truly put Rockstar on the map, and since this game’s release they’ve only made better games.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl puts you into a fictionalized Pripyat, but this reality contains some surprises that make the game even better. This game lets you take the sandbox experience to a vaguely real environment, but don’t get comfortable, because this alternate world will be throwing some seriously terrifying creatures at you, and not in the Pokemon sense.
Fallout 3 let you loose on a irradiated wasteland that featured friend and foe. You were able to traverse the world at the pace and direction of your choosing, so many instances were only able to be experienced through this style of play. Because of Bethesda’s genius the game still holds up after all these years.
Minecraft is the game that is whatever you want it to be. It’s a sandbox game that allows the player to play the game however they want to, the world is yours to mold. If you want to fight baddies, and win the game, you can do that. You were also encouraged to just dig all day and avoid conflict, Minecraft kicked it up a notch by letting you decide how your game would play out.
Disney’s aptly titled sequel to the Disney Infinity is Disney Infinity 2.0. This game allows you to interact and change the world, or toy box, to your liking. You can populate your world with enemies that need banishing, or toys to play with. They’ve made the genre a better place with their entry into the sandbox domain, the only goal of the game is to have fun.
