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While that has sometimes been the case, there are some older or smaller open-world titles that showcase the ways a singular creative vision can often feel bigger than even the technically biggest open worlds. Conventional wisdom once told us that open-world games would only get better as technology improved and the size of those worlds grew. “Variations” is certainly a word worth keeping in mind when you’re thinking about the history of open-world games and what separates the good ones from the bad ones and great ones. Now, you find variations of that concept in many of the best modern blockbuster titles.
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The idea of being left to your own devices in a massive digital world where nearly anything was possible was one of those things we used to only be able to dream about. Even during the open-world genre’s earliest days when developers were forced to rely on smoke and mirrors to make their visions come to life, the very concept of open-world gaming always felt like the future of the medium.
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