open world

From open (adjective) +‎ world.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌəʊp(ə)n ˈwɜːld/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌoʊp(ə)n ˈwɜɹld/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ld

open world (plural open worlds)

1. (video games, also attributive) A gameworld that the player may traverse freely, rather than being restricted to certain predefined areas and quests. [from early 21st c.]
   • 2004, Paul Grover, “Computer Games in Your Hands”, in Visual Texts (The Heinemann English Project), Port Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic.: Heinemann Harcourt Education, →ISBN, page 15:

     Role-play games […] they use a closed visual world of walls or grids or open worlds across computer systems

   • 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:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 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 Saints Row games are open worlds, and many consider the Grand Theft Auto series to also be open worlds.

   • 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:

     The second category of storytelling that coexists in GTA [Grand Theft Auto]’s open world takes the form of player-driven stories.

   • 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^[1], archived from the original on 2023-04-19:

     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.

When used attributively, the term is chiefly hyphenated as open-world.

•   open world on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “open-world, adj.”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “open world, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.