Games are the yardstick for the development of home computers (which include consoles). The more processing power the processors have, the more sophisticated the video card, the more realistic the graphics in games and the more complex the virtual worlds. This is especially important for open-world games, which must "live on their own" and in which the player does not move along a strictly prescribed "corridor", but wanders wherever he pleases (within reasonable limits, of course). Let's take a look at how this genre has evolved. Read about the evolution of horror games here .
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, 1981
You don't have to expect any special graphics from games of the 80s. Although in those years it certainly didn't seem like that, the games looked gorgeous. Ultima I is considered the first open-world game that is hilarious by today's standards. It was written by a freshman at the University of Texas, Richard Garriott, with a friend in less than a year. Initially, most of the code was written in Applesoft BASIC, and assembler was used for the graphics subsystem. And in the year Ultima I was released, Softline magazine named the game the best RPG for Apple II computers.
Elite, 1984
Perhaps all owners of the ZX Spectrum know about this game. In the first half of the 90s, Elite conquered hearts with a spirit of pioneering and exploration. Although it soon turned into a rather routine winding between the planets for the sake of trade or a hunt for pirates for the sake of pumping its status.
The game world was huge: eight galaxies with 256 planets. Since the resources of computers were very modest, the authors had to abandon the premeditated arrangement of the planets. Instead, galaxies were recreated at launch using procedural generation. And the names of the planets were generated randomly based on a lookup table.
The Legend of Zelda, 1986
The first game in a long-running fantasy-adventure series that is still alive today - the last version came out last year. Originally, the Japanese version was released on a special 128KB floppy disk for the Famicom Disk System. Later, the game was released on a memory controller cartridge that switched memory blocks and supported battery-powered RAM, so players could write their saves for the first time in history.
Sid Meier's Pirates !, 1987
Today the prefix Sid Meier's is associated exclusively with Civilization. But for the first time the name of the author (in general and Sid Meier in particular) appeared in the name of this particular game. The Pirates! we sailed the seas as a privateer in the service of one of the few available countries, but if you wanted to, you could try yourself as a pirate.
For its time, the game was very unusual: the players themselves controlled the development of the gameplay, and the Pirates! paved the way for games like Civilization and Railroad Tycoon... As Sid Meier said, he was inspired to create the game by a trick of one of the programmers who suggested packaging images into fonts, which made it possible to create graphic elements for the Pirates very quickly ! ... One of the innovations in the game was the dynamic playing field, as well as the random selection of many parameters that influenced the player's decisions, which continued to change during the game. For example, diplomatic relations with the same countries could be very different in different game sessions.
Hunter, 1991
Quite a successful attempt at creating a three-dimensional world and one of the first sandbox games. It was possible to complete tasks in different ways, using all kinds of vehicles scattered around the map. The game has enemy soldiers who can be killed, civilians, as well as animals: seagulls, sharks and cows.
The landscape and most of the objects in the game were created as 3D polygons - 182 objects in total. The authors wrote an editor for creating three-dimensional objects in a week. The map was randomly generated. The game tracked the current time of day and, depending on it, changed the brightness of the lighting in the game world. If it was night in the game, then it was possible to illuminate your path with the help of signal lights. The average frame rate was 12 frames per second.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, 1996
The second part of one of the best RPG series. The graphics were pretentious at the time, and computers were generally rather weak for it, so the authors transferred a considerable part of the plot to the dungeons. But sometimes you could go to the surface, buy a horse and ride in search of adventure.
The game had about 15,000 settlements and dungeons available for exploration, and the total population reached 750,000 NPCs. Daggerfall was based on one of the first 3D engines - XnGine. The game world occupied 209 311 km 2 . The player could join different guilds, orders and religions, receiving unique quests. For example, by joining the guild of magicians, the player could create his own spells. The equipment creation system was also implemented.
Body Harvest, 1998
Fighting fantastic action game in which you could travel the world in different vehicles as a genetically enhanced soldier and fight against invading aliens. The player could fight in several time intervals in any order: in the First World War in Greece, in the 1940s on the island of Java, in the 1960s in the United States, in the 1990s in Siberia and in the near future (2016) somewhere.
Gothic, 2001
The first of a series of games released before 2011. This is a fantasy RPG. The main character for some crime ends up in hard labor, and this is where the chain of adventures begins. Particular emphasis was placed on interaction with the environment. The player could find food by hunting animals, playing musical instruments, stirring soup in a pot, even writing. The game engine was completely self-written.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, 2002
This game in The Elder Scrolls series is still considered by many to be the best. And the reason is that it was very atmospheric and gave the player the least indulgence, everything was fair: no target cursors on the map, no compass pointing to the target. If in the description of the quest it is said that the treasure is buried under an old tree on the shore, then it was necessary to go to the shore, look for trees and puzzle over which of them might be the treasure. The game is still supported by fans to this day, from time to time improving the graphics engine to make the picture look acceptable by modern standards.
Morrowindwas a sandbox. Players could roam the world right from the start, steal, search, and explore without necessarily going through the main storyline. The game did not force to give the character any specific features or to embark on any path. To do this, the developers have created an extensive quest system for different races, guilds, religions, organizations and aristocratic houses, not to mention numerous side quests.
The world of Morrowind was much smaller than in previous games in the series, but more detailed. We paid great attention to the diversity of flora and fauna. In total, there are about 300 books in the game (not counting the scrolls), which provide an extensive description of the history of the world.
World of Warcraft, 2004
Probably, we already live in those times when it is worth briefly telling what kind of game it is. The monster and patriarch of the MMORPG genre, which has had a huge impact on all such games. Every studio working in this area dreamed of repeating the success of WoW - at its peak in 2010, the game had 12 million subscribers. But nobody managed to outshine the record. Probably, some national projects in some countries were more popular, but on a global scale, Warcraft is still the most popular MMORPG.
Warcraftfrom the very beginning, it was created on the basis that players will do what they want, and quests were only supposed to help adapt, guide users, and also distribute players to different areas in order to avoid local overpopulation. In the following years, several official additions to the game were released.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, 2006
Compared to Morrowind, the game has changed. The game uses the physics engine Havok, high dynamic range lighting and procedural generation to speed up terrain creation. The AI Radiant AI was responsible for the behavior of the NPCs. Moreover, the behavior of the NPC could be quite complex. For example, if the character needed food, he could eventually try to steal it, if circumstances and prescribed inclinations allowed. For the first time in the history of the series, all NPCs were voiced. When creating the design of landscapes, vegetation and buildings, photographs from the trips of the developers themselves, books about nature and pictures of real textures were used. The rendering range has been greatly increased, now the engine showed the world up to the horizon. The game world is a small area, only about 41 km 2, but the density of quests and the frequency of spawn of creatures have greatly increased.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, 2007
For all of us, this game is more than an exotic shooter with RPG elements. More precisely, it is not exotic at all: the architecture and technology are so familiar, dear, and the topic of the Chernobyl zone for many was not at all speculative. And the developers managed to create an excellent atmosphere for which this game is still loved.
The total area of the game world is about 30 km 2 , it covers a part of the Chernobyl zone to the east of the nuclear power plant, including the city of Pripyat. Unfortunately, the game world is not unified and seamless, these are 18 separate maps, between which the player moved through the transition points, and the borders were masked by fences, barbed wire, buildings, etc.
There are many items in the game that can be used as equipment. The behavior of the non-scripts is not scripted, they live a full life: they sleep, eat, fight, complete tasks, rest. The same goes for many of the monsters living in the Zone. The behavior of wild animals is carefully modeled, the engine calculates it, even if the player is currently in another area. The graphics engine is capable of displaying up to a million polygons on the screen at the same time. The ODE graphics engine supports ragdoll animations, destructible objects, ricochets, and skeletal animations. Also, the game has different weather conditions.
Grand Theft Auto IV, 2008
As with Morrowind, GTA IV is considered by many to be the best game in the series in terms of spirit and atmosphere. Suddenly, who does not know: in GTA you live in a big city, living your own life, and perform both plot tasks and separate, side missions. Many are fascinated by the fact that here you can steal all kinds of vehicles, from bicycles to helicopters and boats, and then wind kilometers around, trying not to fall into the hands of the police.
In preparation for the development of the game world, the team took more than 100,000 photos of the streets of New York and filmed several hours of video. The city was considered the most important element of the game, the size of the territory is three times larger than in the third part, and the detail of the world was increased, including taking into account the high-rise buildings and differences in the heights of the landscape. About 600 actors worked on the dubbing of the characters, they uttered over 80,000 lines of dialogue. The game script alone was about 1000 pages long. Motion capture technology was used to animate the characters; in some scenes, up to 8 actors participated at the same time. About 300 minutes of facial animation was recorded, with 100 control points placed on the actors' faces.
Rage Online, 2010
Russian fantasy MMORPG, which is related to several previous games in the Rage series. Once a single world was split into pieces by the impact of a comet - allods, which are kept from disappearing in the astral plane with the help of magic. In such a fragmented world, each piece of which has its own landscape and architecture, players do everything that they usually do in an MMORPG.
The game has 6 races, 28 classes and more than 1,500 story missions. Game servers were created taking into account the load of 200 transactions per second on the server.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, 2011
So far, this is the last game in the series. New story, new characters, new adventures. Fans still support the life of the game: they created a bunch of mods, seriously reworked the graphics engine, so that after a full-fledged facelift and brestlifting, the game begins to look completely different from its birth.
The size of the game world is comparable to Oblivionhowever, the mountainous terrain makes it difficult to move. The game has nine topographically different zones, differing in the composition of the vegetation. 150 dungeons, 244 quests and over 300 attractions. The graphics engine supports dynamic lighting, any objects can cast shadows. Improved vegetation generation, tree branches have their own weight, which affects their sway in the wind. Snowfall is not implemented in the form of decorative sprites, snow dynamically covers surfaces. Wind affects the flow of water in rivers. When talking to the player, the NPCs can move and gesture rather than stand still. The AI system has been improved to make it even harder for NPCs to act. The game was voiced by over 70 actors who spoke over 60,000 lines of dialogue. A dragon language and a dragon alphabet of 34 characters were developed for the game.
Far Cry 3, 2012
Far Cry games have always been amazingly beautiful by the standards of their time. The third part was no exception. But the plot is still the same action movie, in which the rate is placed on the graphics and a variety of ways to destroy enemies.
The game world is a tropical island. You can drive, fly and swim in different vehicles. Forests and coastal waters are inhabited by fauna, which interacts with each other without the participation of the player. You can hunt for living creatures and get useful materials, from plants - get useful substances. The terrain is procedurally generated, and the parameters have been adjusted for realistic terrain. To improve the gaming experience, the authors worked over 250 hostile encounters, their results were taken into account by the game and were updated only after a long game.
Grand Theft Auto V, 2013
Another "for now, the last." The graphics have become better, the possibilities are even greater: we fly, drive and swim on almost everything that moves, do sports, dive with scuba diving, beat muzzles and cars, shoot - everything for which this series is loved.
The game was developed by over 1000 people. The city and the surrounding area are modeled after Southern California and Los Angeles, in particular, satellite images of its road network formed the basis of the gaming Los Santos. The developers even modeled the demographic distribution. Licensed for the game are 241 songs that are played on the radio.
Infamous: Second Son, 2014
The protagonist has superpowers that allow him to fly around Seattle as a luminous ghost, withstand heavy damage and do (in) justice with fire and sword. Depending on the player's plot choices, by the end of the game, his character takes the side of good or evil.
The game city is inspired by Seattle. To fill the streets with different people, the developers made 3D scans of the faces of 75 volunteers. The master models created from these scans contained an average of 1.4 million polygons.
Dying Light, 2015
A very atmospheric game with an interesting story. A certain Middle Eastern city of Harran (inspired by the Rocinha slum in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro and Wroclaw, Poland) was infected with a virus that turns people into zombies (I said, a very interesting story). The main character-special agent is thrown into the zone with a task and joins the community of the surviving townspeople. The game has a lot of parkour, countless hordes of zombies, nightmarish nights with monsters coming out into the city and plot inserts that catch your soul.
There are more than 100 samples of weapons in the game, mostly melee ones, which wear out and break down over time. Weapons can be repaired and modified. Various items can be created from the blueprints. Over time, the physical capabilities of the character improve.
Skyforge, 2015
The game takes place on the planet Aelion, named after the first patron, the great god Eli. Once he disappeared and aliens began to attack Elyon. At the same time, more and more immortals began to appear on the planet - that is, players - who must protect the world.
The developers paid a lot of attention to the reliability of the interaction of objects with light: the way surfaces reflect light subconsciously gives us basic information about the material from which they are made. When rendering, the so-called deferred physical shading is used, which is based on a number of physical formulas for calculating the correct reflection of light, depending on its intensity and angle of incidence, as well as the material. This not only improves the quality of the picture, but also makes the work easier for designers and artists.
Each Skyforge game server was supposed to support up to 100,000 players generating about 7,000 transactions per second. The game has more than 100 locations and 14 classes.
Horizon Zero Dawn, 2017
In the post-apocalyptic world, robots rule, and people have degraded to the level of barbarian tribes. The main character is the girl Aloy, who explores a dangerous and wild world with a bow and a spear, and must prevent a new catastrophe. Horizon Zero Dawn has become one of the best-selling games for Playstation 4.
The game world has different climatic zones: forest, jungle, desert and snow-capped mountains. There are 25 robot models developed for the game. The main storyline allows you to get to know all the tribes and makes you travel the world.
Red Dead Redemption 2, 2018
Third-person shooter set in the Wild West. The game is dedicated to the adventures of a gang of robbers. Here you can freely travel across a huge territory, hunt, rob, participate in shootouts, participate in races, etc. In terms of the degree of reliability and details of modeling nature, animals, physics and atmospheric phenomena , there are still few who can compete with Red Dead Redemption 2 .
The main transport in the game is horses, their different breeds are modeled. Horses can be stolen, but wild ones have to be bypassed. Carts and trains are also available. Hunting plays an important role as a source of food and useful materials. When communicating with inscriptions, you can select different branches of the dialogues. The physical capabilities of the protagonist are influenced by the ambient temperature and clothing, he can lose weight or get fat, depending on the abundance of food. In Red Dead Redemption 2, you can wash and get a haircut from time to time. Weapons wear out over time and require maintenance. When shooting at people or animals, you can aim at different parts of the body, so as not to kill, but to injure, and the behavior of the victims depends on where they are injured.
In total, about 2000 people worked on the game.
Days Gone, 2019
Post-apocalyptic third-person action zombie. Several years have passed since the pandemic that turned most of the people into zombies. And the main character is one of the few people who are trying to survive in a destroyed world.
You can complete game tasks in different ways, both in hand-to-hand combat and with the help of long-range weapons. The main character's transport is a motorcycle that can be upgraded. The game has a dynamic weather change. There is a system for repairing and improving weapons.
Death Stranding, 2019
One of the two most hyped games in recent years. Humanity is mostly destroyed by the invasion of some ghostly creatures, and the remnants of people hid in shelters. We play
In the game, you can create various objects according to drawings, including using a special 3D printer to print useful objects and devices. When creating the game world and characters, photogrammetry and motion capture technology were used.
Cyberpunk 2077, 2020
The last game in the collection made a lot of noise in the press long before its release. We were promised unprecedented graphics, a detailed world and a very exciting storyline. Almost succeeded: the game turned out to be raw to the point of disgrace, which resulted in a scandal with a temporary suspension of sales and a refund of money to everyone. But if Cyberpunk 2077 is finished to a working state, then it will be a really great game. The main character is a mercenary in a world of a relatively distant future, in which cyborgization has stepped far forward. Around the continuous violence, poverty, the power of corporations and organized crime groups. And in this beautiful far away, your character follows one of three selected storylines, with chases, shootings and fights.
When designing the city, the developers resorted to the help of urbanists. A full cycle of day and night change has been implemented, as well as dynamic weather, and all this also affects the behavior of NPCs. The game has story minigames: hacking, fighting, racing, shooting. In the animation system, great attention is paid to the realism of muscle modeling. Of course, motion capture is applied.
In the future, we will see Grand Theft Auto VI, The Elder Scroll VI and Dying Light 2. Perhaps they will further raise the possibilities of open world games. The main thing is to get out as soon as possible.