It's not until you sit down and think about how long it's been since GTA III, that you realise tons of modern games (especially in 2015) are absolutely, ridiculously, unfathomably HUGE. GTA's world-changing expedition into free-wheeling anarchism made lightbulbs go off in tons of developers' heads as they simultaneously kicked themselves for not thinking of it sooner, and then got to work applying the open-world template to their respective franchises. As such, we've seen everybody from Geralt of Rivia to Spider-Man take a shot at creating an "immersive experience" where the tagline is a variation on "See that? You can go there!" In a way, it feels like gaming is heading towards this as a homogenised framework for pretty much every action-orientated experience. After all, most games exist to present another world to you; a set of rules, characters, plot lines and environments to get lost in - so why not do so and give the player free-reign to explore to their heart's content? So far this has led to some truly phenomenal titles where the base staples of the genre match up perfectly to a developer's original vision, the following 15 games taken from 2010 to now exemplifying everything that makes open-world gaming so special. Is this structure the future of all video games? Let us know in the comments, and consider these 15 candidates as positive signs of things to come if your answer is a resounding 'Hell yes'.
