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Although open-world games have been around since the ’70s, the PlayStation 2 is generally considered to be the console that molded the genre into what it is today. It’s hard to deny that the open worlds on this list don’t compare to the size, scale, or visual quality of open worlds today, though many of them are still great fun and deserve recognition for their influence on the genre.
8 Mercenaries: Playground Of Destruction
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was developed by Pandemic Studios - the team behind the original Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Destroy all Humans! - and was released exclusively on the PlayStation 2 in 2005.
The third-person shooter has many similarities to Grand Theft Auto 3, as players can hijack vehicles to drive around the open world and are free to take on missions and side tasks at their own pace. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was well-received by fans and critics, exemplified by the PS2 version’s 84 critic score and 8.7 user score on Metacritic.
7 SSX 3
Despite the open-world subgenre’s rise in popularity, open-world sports games are still a rarity. This is why SSX 3 is still a delight to play today, as the game lets players simply ride about the mountain slopes on their snowboards before taking on events.
SSX 3 was published by EA Sports BIG, a label that was used by EA throughout the 2000s for extreme sports games that cared little about realism and just focused on over-the-top fun.
6 Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto 3 was released in October 2001 and is regarded as one of the most influential open-world games of all time. Rockstar’s game ditched the top-down perspective of its predecessors in favor of a third-person perspective and gave players an open world to explore that felt enormous and incredibly realistic at the time.
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It’s hard to dent that Grand Theft Auto 3 has aged poorly, especially when comparing it to Grand Theft Auto 5, though it can still be good fun today for those willing to look past its visual and technical shortcomings.
5 Final Fantasy 12
Final Fantasy 12 was released in 2006 and was the first entry in the long-running Final Fantasy series to implement an open world. The open-world wasn’t the only innovation to the iconic RPG series, however, as the game also implemented a seamless battle system for the first time, as well as a controllable camera.
Along with its impressive 92 Metascore, Final Fantasy 12 picked up a handful of awards, including Game of the Year from Edge and the Japan Game Awards’ Grand Award.
4 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is the second but not the final Grand Theft Auto game to make this list. Vice City was released just one year after the ground-breaking Grand Theft Auto 3, and it did a great job of injecting more life and personality into the series with its charismatic cast of characters and colorful Miami-inspired setting.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was considered to be one of the greatest games of all time when it was first released. It’s rarely brought up in such conversations today, though just the sight of the game brings a flood of fond memories back to many players.
3 Bully
Yet another title from Rockstar on this list is Bully, a game that is commonly referred to as “Grand Theft Auto in school.”
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Bully was released in October 2006 and took players to a boarding school full of children and teenagers categorized into groups such as Nerds, Jocks, and Greasers. Although the title makes it sound like the goal of the game is to bully kids, the game’s story is surprisingly heartwarming as the protagonist tries to break down stereotypical barriers and unite the divided friendship groups.
Bully’s missions and classroom mini-games are fairly lackluster, though the game is still beloved for how well the school setting is executed with simply exploring the school grounds and nearby town providing hours of fun.
2 Shadow Of The Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus was first released in 2005 and initially received a mixed reception due to how jarring its gameplay loop was at the time. Despite featuring a huge open world that players could freely explore, the game featured no standard enemies and only a handful of points of interest, with the goal of the game simply being to defeat a series of colossi. The game initially received some backlash because of this, as people felt that the game was missing core content.
However, Shadow of the Colossus was soon regarded as one of the gaming industry’s first true works of art and the barren game world became beloved for how it drives home the game’s heartbreaking story. Shadow of the Colossus isn’t for everyone, though those who enjoy it tend to regard it as one of the finest games ever released, even to this day.
1 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The debate as to which was the best Rockstar open-world game on the PlayStation 2 is one that will likely rage on forever, though generally speaking, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the game that is most often regarded as the cream of the crop.
San Andreas was released in October 2004, two years after the aforementioned Vice City. The game stood out with its gritty story based on LA street gangs, along with its RPG elements and the huge range of side activities that kept players entertained for hours.
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