As open world games continue to evolve, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the genre has a permanent spot in the industry. There’s something about the open-ended, free-form nature of these types of games that drive players to want more. Whether it’s the unique playfulness of something like Minecraft or the epic crime saga of the Grand Theft Auto series, open-world games are big business, with GTA alone having sold over 150 million copies.
With the new generation of consoles boasting greater processing power and the scope for far larger game maps, lets take a look at some of the biggest open world games coming soon.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a tactical shooter that is set in Bolivia, which in the game, is the largest supplier of drugs like cocaine in the world. The supplies of such drugs are controlled by the Santa Blanca drug cartel, a powerful organization whose influence has destabilized the region. The rise in power of these drug cartels concerns the United States Government, as they have become a world threat. As a result, the United States Army dispatches an elite special operations unit called “the Ghosts” to destroy and reveal the evil connection between the drug cartel and the local government.
Players play as a member of the Ghosts. The game will not be set in a futuristic setting unlike its predecessors like Advanced Warfighter or Future Soldier. Instead, the game is set in modern day, similar to the original Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon. As a result, the weaponry featured in the game will be typical and more realistic and will be similar to the weapons most militaries around the world use today.
The Division
The Division takes place in mid-crisis New York, and the player’s mission is to restore order by investigating the source of the virus. Players have to team up with other Division agents as they progress. As the game is set in a third-person perspective, the character model is visible. Players can customize their character, backpack and level up weapons, gear, and skills. The game features a dynamic, time based weather system. Players can use this for strategic advantage.
In the game, a pandemic that spreads on Black Friday causes the United States Government to collapse in five days; basic services fail one by one, and without access to food or water, the country quickly descends into chaos. In the wake of the devastating pandemic that sweeps through cities across the country, including New York City, it is discovered that the spread of the disease is transmitted through germs on banknotes.
As a last resort, the player is part of a classified unit of self-supported tactical agents, known as the “Strategic Homeland Division (SHD)”, or “The Division” for short.
No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky is an upcoming adventure survival video game developed and published by British studio Hello Games. Players are free to explore the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion planets each with their own set of flora and fauna. By exploring, players will gain information about the planets that they can submit to The Atlas, a universal database that can be shared with other players of the game. Players also gain materials and blueprints to upgrade their character’s equipment and purchase a variety of starships, allowing them to travel deeper into the center of the galaxy, or trade with other ships.
Some activities will draw the attention of Sentinels which will attempt to kill the player-character for killing too many lifeforms or draining too many resources from these planets. Players participate in a shared universe, with the ability to exchange planet coordinates with friends, though the game will also be fully playable offline; this is enabled by the procedural generation system that assures players will find the same planet with the same features, lifeforms, and other aspects once given the planet coordinates, requiring no further data to be stored or retrieved from game servers.
Fallout 4
Fallout 4 takes place 200 years after a war over resources that ended in a nuclear holocaust in 2077 – roughly the same time as the events of Fallout 3. The setting is a post-apocalyptic retro-future, covering a region that includes Boston, Massachusetts and other parts of New England known as the Commonwealth. Unlike previous titles, Fallout 4 ’s story begins on the day the bombs dropped: October 23, 2077. The player’s character takes shelter in Vault 111, emerging 200 years later.
Fallout 4 ’s gameplay is similar to that of Fallout 3, with a camera that can switch from first- to third-person view, but is supposed to feature more appealing gameplay, featuring a split-piece armor system, base-building, a dynamic dialogue system, in depth crafting system which implements every lootable object in the game, and much more.
Throughout the game, players can recruit party members who would accompany them and assist them in battles. Players also have the ability to construct and deconstruct buildings and items, and use them to build a settlement, which can attract and inhabit other non-playable characters.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Set within London in 1868 during the Industrial Revolution, the story follows twins Jacob and Evie Frye as they navigate the corridors of organized crime during the Victorian era and fight against the established order, controlled by the Templars. The game retains the series’ third-person open world exploration as well as introducing new traveling systems and refined combat and stealth mechanics. Ubisoft has confirmed that Syndicate does not feature any form of multiplayer gameplay.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate marks the first time in the series where the player can freely switch between two different protagonists. It will also be the first main entry in the series to feature a playable female protagonist. (Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation featured a female protagonist, but that game is not a part of the main series.) Male lead Jacob Frye is meant to be more of a hot-headed brawler, specialized in close combat, while his twin sister Evie is strong in stealth and relies on her intelligence and wit.
In 1868, at the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, with the Assassin Brotherhood all but eradicated, twins Jacob and Evie Frye leave Crawley for London and arrive to find a city controlled by the Templars, with both the Church and the Monarchy losing their power. Raised as Assassins to follow the Creed, Jacob and Evie aim to take back the city from Templar control by infiltrating and uniting London’s criminal underworld, aided by notable figures of the era such as novelist Charles Dickens and biologist Charles Darwin.
Just Cause 3
Set several years after the events of Just Cause 2, Rico Rodriguez leaves The Agency and returns to his homeland of Medici, a fictional Mediterranean island under the brutal control of dictator General Di Ravello who has set his eyes on world domination. Wanting to stop him, Rico goes on a journey to destroy his evil plans.
The map size has been confirmed to be similar to that of the setting of Just Cause 2 with 400 square miles being dedicated for the new setting. However, its volumetric terrain has increased to allow more verticality – as a result of this, it is now possible for the player to explore subterranean caverns and to scale buildings more effectively and realistically.[6] The world of the game is composed of five major biomes, with each having unique landmarks and landscapes.
Not that players will care much about all that as long as they can blow everything up!
Homefront: The Revolution
Homefront: The Revolution is set in 2029, two years after the events of Homefront and four years into the invasion of the United States by the Greater Korean Republic (GKR). The GKR has lost the western states which also include Hawaii and Alaska to the Americans, following the Battle of San Francisco. However, the GKR has shifted their control to invade and capture many of the eastern states, with Philadelphia becoming their central base.
The new Philadelphia is a heavily policed and oppressed environment, with civilians living in fear as the Korean People’s Army patrol multiple districts in the city. In the city, a second rebellion is brewing and the resistance grows stronger, being led by Dana, the resistance leader, and youngest member of the resistance, Ethan “Birdy” Brady.
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