GTA & 4 Perfect Open-World Masterpieces Nobody Remembers

While we don't get many new releases each year, open-world games haven't been in short supply over the last two decades, and history (and our memories) tend to bedominated byGTA 6, Breath of the Wild, Assassin's Creed 2, and The Witcher​​ 3. For every juggernaut that becomes part of pop culture, a fantastic open-world game vanishes into the ether, doomed to an eternity of abandonware and fringe nostalgia.

As much as I enjoy modern entries in the genre, the open-world games of yesteryear are so widely different from current releases that they scratch a different itch. Let's take a trip back to the 2000s and early 2010s to celebrate those open-world masterpieces that, for one reason or another, have been forgotten. Sometimes, this fate even befalls massive franchises like Grand Theft Auto. Yes, I'm being serious.

Spoiler: Licensing issues and digital delistment are often the reason.

Chinatown Wars Is GTA At Its Best And Most Forgotten

Remember When Rockstar Released Quirky Side Projects? I Miss Those Days

• Release: March 17, 2009, on Nintendo DS (ports to PSP and eventually mobile followed)
• Why is it forgotten? You need to play Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS to get the full experience. Also, most people aren't going to pick a top-down game when they can play the full 3D versions.

OK, I know nobody will ever forget the main Grand Theft Auto games, since they are all blockbusters withfew peers. However, it's easy to forget that Rockstar used to release more than one game per decade, and the developer would even throw the occasional bone to players without a home console.

As technically impressive as it was to squeeze a 3D GTA onto the PSP, Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories are ultimately just stripped-back versions of the real deals. A few years later, Rockstar returned to handheld gaming with Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS, a mechanically distinct masterpiece that stands completely on its own two feet (and has been largely forgotten).

Hearkening back to the old top-down GTA games while introducing a modern spin, Chinatown Wars is a true elite sandbox completely tailor-made for its hardware. Rockstar even made smart use of the DS's touch screen for tasks like hotwiring cars, and the story was completely original and in keeping with the franchise's high standards. Chinatown Wars introduced an economy-based drug dealing mini-game that was genuinely addictive, along with tweaking the wanted system to turn into a demolition derby.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction Was The Open-World Bomb In 2005

A Forgotten Game In A Woefully Underused Series

• Release: January 11, 2006, on PS2 and Xbox
• Why is it forgotten? Console exclusivity and a sequel that fell flat on its face contributed significantly, and EA closed down the developer behind the games in 2009.

Pandemic Studios generally knew how to put together one heck of a fun sandbox, and The Saboteur holds up as one of the genre's most stylish representatives. I almost went with that game, but it is readily available through the EA App and Steam, so "nobody remembers" seems a bit too excessive a claim. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, a console exclusive that remains trapped on the PS2 and Xbox. If only there were some way to play the game on a PC!

Dropped into a massive (for its era) version of North Korea, Mercenaries fully embraces the "sandbox" structure, and it was ahead of the curve in 2005. Instead of following a strict path, you pick contracts offered by different factions, and you unlock intel by tracking down bounties, capturing field commanders, or buying intelligence off rival groups. The game doesn't shackle you to one play style, but it encourages you to capture your target alive rather than dead.

As you take on missions for different factions, you can play them against each other, while also having the freedom to skip the tasks you don't enjoy doing. While surpassed by games like Just Cause, Mercenaries' building destruction was absolutely jaw-dropping for its hardware and era.

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Test Drive Unlimited Was Forza Horizon Before Forza Horizon

An Absurdly Ambitious Open-World Racing Game

• Release: September 5, 2006, on Xbox 360, PC, PS2, and PSP (the last two images are from the PS2 version, so that's why they look a bit worse)
• Why is it forgotten?Test Drive Unlimited 2 wasn't terrible, but it didn't really come close to capturing the magic of the original. Forza Horizon's 2012 debut also stole a lot of its thunder. Finally, you just cannot buy TDU or its sequel through a digital store, a fate that awaits most open-world games that license vehicles and music.

It's a tragedy that a generation's first exposure to the Test Drive series might be Solar Crown, since that 2024 train wreck won't inspire most people to track down the older entries. After about two decades, the series shifted toward open-world design with 2006's Test Drive Unlimited, a game that successfully bridged single-player and multiplayer before "shared world" became a marketing term. More importantly, Eden Games brought Hawaii's O'ahu island to life in shockingly impressive detail for the era.

Playing it today, the visuals on the Xbox 360 and PC are more than respectable, especially since Test Drive Unlimited prioritized scale over seemingly everything else. Eden Games went into painstaking detail to recreate more than 1,000 miles of O'ahu, creating an authentic playground well before the likes of Forza Horizon.

In fact, I would go as far as to say TDU feels like a straight-up prototype for the Xbox series, albeit with better pacing when it comes to unlocking new cars. Unlike Forza Horizon 5 and 6, TDU doesn't hand out a billion supercars in the first few hours, so they actually feel special.

Driver: San Francisco Has Been Gone For A Decade

A Creative Open-World Game That Fell To The Genre's Biggest Threats

• Release: August 30, 2011, on PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, and PC
• Why is it forgotten? Licensing issues, of course.

OK, here is a difficult one, at least when it comes to whether it fits this topic. As far as I can tell, anyone who played Driver: San Francisco remembers every moment of its brilliance, which makes sense, since it revolves around an unforgettableopen-world gimmick. The game even sold better than expected, suggesting plenty of folks bought copies... until 2016, when Driver: San Francisco was ripped from digital stores and never returned.

Delistments are frustrating as heck, but the real kicker is that Driver basically ended with San Francisco. Except for a terrible 3DS title and a speedboat-focused mobile throwaway, Ubisoft opted not to follow up the best game in the franchise, never releasing another home console sequel. Nowadays, the only entry on Steam is Parallel Lines, which is better than its reputation but nothing too amazing.

As you play as essentially a floating ghost, San Francisco lets you possess the bodies of different NPCs, letting you jump from car to car or across the city. As this absolutely wacky premise implies, the game doesn't take itself too seriously, and that extends to arcadey gameplay that embraces chaos over control or memorization. These elements, along with others, combine to create a city that feels alive and lively, with constant world-building since you are always stepping into somebody else's world.

Outcast Predates GTA And Morrowind

Not That Most People Know That

• Release: June 25, 1999, on PC (eventually came to PS4 and Xbox through Second Contact)
• Why is it forgotten? Required high-end PCs to run at the time, and a proper follow-up took too long to materialize. Within a decade, the ideas it pioneered were commonplace.

We discussed GTA's most overlooked game, but now let's talk about an open-world masterpiece that launched years before GTA 3 changed gaming forever. Primitive as it might seem nowadays, Outcast was unlike anything else on the market at the time, offering a degree of open-ended freedom that hadn't been seen on this scale. Set on the alien planet Adelpha, the map was split into distinct, massive open regions connected by ancient portal gateways called Daokas; more importantly, after the tutorial, every region/portal was accessible.

Looking back at it now, Outcast's systems were not only ahead of the curve, but some of them still feel modern. You had NPCs with daily routines, contextual dialogue to guide players during quests, and even a reputation system that impacted the world's reaction to the protagonist. Because the story revolved around an occupying army, regions served a supply function in that context, and liberating them directly affected the invaders.

Outcast used a custom voxel engine that delivered far more realistic visuals and depth of field than the norm... along with introducing a hardware bottleneck that helped doom the game to relative obscurity.