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Game Development vocabulary · Level Design

Open world

Meaning in game development, with examples

nounCommon term

In game development, open world means: A large game world that players can explore freely and in almost any order, instead of moving through a fixed series of levels.

In Turkish: açık dünya

How it is used

Used as a noun and, with a hyphen, as an adjective: an open-world RPG. Open-world games need streaming technology, many points of interest and careful navigation design. The opposite is a linear game.

Example sentences

  1. Building an open world with a team of twelve is extremely risky.

  2. The map is an open world, but the story missions are quite linear.

Common collocations

  • open-world game
  • open-world RPG
  • explore the open world
  • seamless open world
  • level designThe work of creating the spaces a game takes place in, such as maps, missions and stages, and deciding where players go, what they meet and how hard it is.
  • procedural generationCreating game content such as maps, dungeons, terrain or loot automatically with algorithms and rules, instead of building every piece by hand.
  • critical pathThe shortest route through a level or game that the player must follow to finish it, as opposed to optional side areas, secrets and side quests.
  • level of detailA technique that swaps a model for simpler versions as it gets farther from the camera, so distant objects use fewer polygons and the game runs faster.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Level Design

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