GENERATION OPEN

From ambitious RPGs to sweeping adventures, Jeremy Peel unpacks the history of the open world from PS1 to PS5

That mountain is not just a backdrop,” Todd Howard once said, introducing Skyrim to the world. “You can walk all the way to the top of that mountain.” The winning quote has become immortalised as a meme: “See that mountain? You can climb it.”

It’s a phrase that encapsulates both the wonder and familiarity of open worlds and the genre that’s been built around them, echoed in many game reveals since. How did the promise of distant peaks become not only possible, but a cliché? For that story, we have to go right back to the beginning of PlayStation, and a little beyond. The open world genre is a technical miracle; the work of thousands of developers over decades. And that work isn’t yet done.

See that planet? You can fly there. 

PLAYSTATION 

The rise of the overworld

Early in PlayStation’s life there were no continuous 3D open worlds to be had. Levels had borders and great distances were travelled only via loading  screens. A skybox provided your sense of a horizon, never to be crossed. Yet even within these hard technological constraints, RPG designers managed to design the first overworlds – connecting discrete areas via imagination and sticky tape.