Open-world games feel normal today, but the idea didn’t start with the big hits most people think of. Modern titles like GTA 3, Skyrim, and The Witcher 3 often get the spotlight, yet long before those appeared, developers were already experimenting with freedom, large maps, and worlds that reacted to players in interesting ways.
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Here’s a look at the early projects that helped shape the idea of an open world, even when technology was still extremely limited. Some of these worlds were built from wireframe lines, some from simple tiles, and some from scrolling screens that joined together to form a sense of scale. What makes them important is the way they let players wander, discover things at their own pace, and choose how to move through the environment.
Hydlide
Release Date: 1984
- A proto action-RPG open world where the player can roam freely, enter different areas at will, and return to previous zones.
- Jim is on a mission to rescue Princess Ann and defeat Varalys by finding three magic jewels hidden across the open world.
Hydlide is best described as a proto action-RPG open world where exploration and simple, real-time combat are the main attractions. In this design, areas are connected, and players are free to wander from place to place rather than follow a strict level ladder.
The overall experience of the game feels like an early open-world loop, as players just have to find a place to explore, clear or avoid enemies, pick up an item that unlocks new terrain, and return to previously inaccessible pockets of the map. Because Hydlide was released on Japanese home computers and later ported to MSX and Famicom, it reached a wide audience in Japan and helped establish a template for real-time action RPGs there.
Adventure
Release Date: 1980
- A small but freely explorable map lets players grab items, dodge roaming dragons, and figure out their own route.
- Players control a square avatar on a quest to return the stolen Enchanted Chalice, using items scattered across the map.
Adventure shows one of the first times a game tried to feel like a small open world instead of a set of levels. The map is tiny by today’s standards, but every room connects to another in a way that lets the player wander around and try things in any order.
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It feels like a little kingdom that reacts to whatever the player does. Items stay on the ground when dropped, creatures move around on their own, and the world doesn’t reset just because someone leaves a screen. For a game made in 1980, that freedom is a big deal. Even with its blocky shapes and bright colors, Adventure built the basics of the open worlds people enjoy today.
Elite
Release Date: 1984
- A procedurally generated galaxy made of thousands of star systems, where each system can be visited in any order, and travel is open-ended.
- Lets players shape the game through trading, combat, or exploration rather than following set levels.
Elite started as a Cambridge dorm-room project by Ian Bell and David Braben and launched on the BBC Micro, surprising players with smooth wireframe 3D and an open-ended game model that let the player pick a life in space: merchant, bounty hunter, pirate, or explorer. The game’s procedural tricks made an enormous feeling out of tiny memory, as galaxies and worlds were generated from numbers, so the universe felt really big even on 32K machines.
Playing Elite is breezy in concept but quite deep for its time. Players pilot a spaceship in first-person wireframe, dock at space stations, buy and sell commodities, accept missions, and engage in dogfights. Elite spread far beyond the BBC Micro and became a defining title of the era. It was ported and published across most home systems of the mid-1980s, and notable versions appeared on the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Apple II, Atari ST, and even a PAL-region NES release, which helped it reach hundreds of thousands of players and cement its influence on space sims and open-world design for decades.
Ultima (later titled Ultima: The First Age of Darkness)
Release Date: 1981
- A tile-based overworld that connects towns, castles, and dungeons into a single map open for free exploration.
- Persistent world state and NPC locations allow return visits and non-linear progress through outdoor and dungeon areas.
Ultima was released at a time when computer RPGs were still figuring out what they could be. It first launched on the Apple II, and even though the hardware was tiny in power, the game tried to give players a full world they could walk around without being pushed down a single path. The story sets up a clear mission. Mondain, a powerful wizard, holds a gem that keeps him immortal, and the hero sets out to find a way to destroy both the gem and its owner’s control. Even with that goal, the path is flexible. The player can wander around the overworld, gather gold, pick fights, shop for better gear, or dive into dungeons when ready.
The game switches between a top-down map for outdoor travel and a first-person view inside dungeons. Ultima became the starting point for the Ultima series, which later shaped how Western RPGs would handle worldbuilding, quests, and player freedom.
The Portopia Serial Murder Case
Release Date: 1983
- An investigation-style open world.
- Exploration is procedural and player-directed.
People still talk about Portopia because of how much it influenced Japanese adventure games, and there are even rumors about a remake. It showed that a mystery could feel open, flexible, and full of player choice long before visual novels became a huge genre. The game’s world works like an open investigation. The detective can visit different parts of the city whenever something sparks curiosity, and the story reacts to the places visited and the clues discovered.
Yuji Horii made Portopia before he created the Dragon Quest games, and he wanted players to feel like real detectives instead of just following a straight script. It first came out on Japanese home computers like the NEC PC-6001, and later moved to systems such as the PC-8801, FM-7, MSX, and Sharp X1. The most famous version arrived in 1985 on the Famicom, where it switched from typed commands to simple menu choices so anyone could play it with a controller.
The Legend of Zelda
Release Date: 1986
- A unified top-down overworld full of hidden caves, secret exits, and optional zones that can be explored in many sequences.
- Item-based access and discoverable shortcuts encourage backtracking and reward curiosity across the same continuous map.
The Legend of Zelda is a classic top-down overworld open world where exploration is the heartbeat of the game. Hyrule isn’t huge by today’s standards, but it gives the player freedom in a way that was rare at the time. Nintendo built the game because Shigeru Miyamoto wanted players to feel the same thrill he felt exploring forests and fields as a kid. Instead of guiding the player step by step, the team made a world that trusts players to figure things out.
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Over the years, The Legend of Zelda has appeared on many Nintendo platforms, from the NES and Famicom Disk System to the Virtual Console, the NES Classic Edition, and the Nintendo Switch Online library. No matter the system, the core experience stays the same. It’s a world that encourages exploration, rewards curiosity, and still feels welcoming decades later.
Panorama Toh (Panorama Island)
Release Date: 1983
- A continuous island environment with footpaths and vehicle routes connecting different zones.
- Areas can be revisited at any time, and exploration reveals new routes.
Panorama Toh is one of those early Japanese games that tried something brave for its time. It gives the player a small island to explore freely, which already feels different from the more linear computer games of that era. Nihon Falcom released it for the NEC PC-8801, and it became one of the studio’s first steps toward the action-RPG style they later became famous for.
Even though the map isn’t huge, the game takes the island like a real place players can circle around, revisit, and slowly understand. Panorama Toh may not be widely known outside Japan, but anyone looking back at the earliest open-world ideas can see how it helped shape the action-RPG style that Falcom would later refine.
Courageous Perseus
Release Date: 1985
- A scrolling landscape where villages, caves, and outdoor regions link into one connected world.
- The game retells the Perseus myth with exploration, combat trials, and item-based progression across its connected map.
Courageous Perseus is one of the earliest RPGs to show how an open map, real-time combat, and free exploration could work together even in the early ’80s. It’s small, rough around the edges, but full of early ambition. The game starts with Perseus washing up on the island, and from that moment, the whole place is open to explore.
What makes Courageous Perseus fun to look back on is how it blends action and exploration without turning everything into separate screens or levels. The island loops together nicely, so players can leave a risky area, strengthen Perseus, and return later when they’re ready. It’s the same kind of design that later action-RPGs would refine, but this one did it in a simple, straightforward way that anyone could grasp.
Riglas
Release Date: 1986
- An interconnected 2D world mixing outdoor zones and interior spaces.
- Exploration is non-linear, with routes opening based on what players have discovered.
Riglas is somewhere in between a side-scrolling action game and an open, exploratory RPG. Some may describe it as an early “sandbox” or “prototype” of non-linear JRPG design, as it shows how developers were experimenting with seamless worlds and player choice before those ideas became common.
The story puts players in a world filled with strange creatures and maze-like areas. Riglas moves through different zones, fights enemies, and picks up items that help him survive the journey. The game doesn’t rush the player; instead, it encourages slow, careful movement while figuring out what each area expects.
Mercenary
Release Date: 1985
- A full 3D vector planet with surface regions, cities, and underground bases all existing in one space.
- Players can walk, drive, or fly anywhere, including reaching high platforms and distant structures freely.
Mercenary from 1985 is the kind of game that feels strange at first, but once someone settles in, the world becomes kind of fun to explore. Everything is shown in first-person with clean vector lines, so the whole planet of Targ looks like a giant wireframe playground. It doesn’t try to look realistic, but the simple style makes the world feel open and easy to read.
Even with its wireframe look, players can experiment, poke around, try odd ideas, and discover shortcuts on their own. The combination of first-person vector view, a huge continuous planet, and the ability to walk or take airborne vehicles to elevated places is exactly what made Mercenary feel like a true, playable 3D open world back in the mid-1980s.
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