4 Open-World Games The Revolutionized Vehicle Mechanics

Key Takeaways

• Vehicle mechanics in video games pose challenges like realism vs. durability.
• Game titles like
  Mad Max, Subnautica,
  and
  No Man’s Sky
  set standards in vehicle design.
• GTA 4
  shines with tight vehicle controls amidst open-world chaos.

Designing vehicle mechanics for video games is a tricky process. How should they handle? Should they be realistic, or ease off the realism for more durability and control? Can they explode? Should they explode? These are just a handful of the questions gamers and game developers alike have regarding virtual vehicles. They become especially pertinent in open-world settings, where the drive (ha) to make these games bigger and bigger means finding novel and compelling ways to traverse them.

For a handful of games, the emphasis they place on vehicles as a means of navigation, traversal, exploration, or even combat, sets them apart from the rest. Featuring some of the most important open-world games to date, these titles pioneered how vehicles function in the open-world genre today.

4 Mad Max

Forging A Path Of Destruction On The Road To Hell

2015’s Mad Max offered a cinematic, high-octane sense of action and adventure. It was certainly a rocky road to traverse for some, with a less-than-stellar main story that didn’t see much weight put behind the protagonist or his enemies, and an emphasis on side missions that were often little more than fetch quests. The parts of this game that worked though, worked very, very well. Cruising around the barren desert and destroying colossal war rigs in a souped up car, the sound design and visceral nature of traversal, it was all well ahead of its time in 2015.

Future Mad Max video game titles have a high bar to clear, with the amount of effort put into vehicle combat being nothing short of cinematic. Whatever other flaws the game had, it made players feel utterly immersed in the moment as they sent colossal death-trucks tumbling along the pavement, finishing in a death-metal squeal and burst of fire.

3 Subnautica

Changing The Way Seas Are Traversed

Subnautica was, and in many ways still is, the talk of open-world and survival enthusiasts everywhere. As a survival game, it nailed that addictive, slowly-broadening loop of resource hunting and crafting that makes or breaks a survival game. The threat of abyssal creatures coming out at night was a similarly potent driving force to keep players aiming for the next tier of upgrades and resources. It was an atmospheric hit among players.

Building a submarine in Subnautica basically meant building a mobile base, an essential fixture in this game where progressing to the ocean floor – and below – was necessary for survival. Subnautica set a new standard in two aspects of vehicle design. The modular system for upgrading and putting together submarines (although they are not individually customizable) was unheard of before this point, and has been emulated in games like Barotrauma since. Subnautica also changed the way underwater traversal was seen in terms of its implementation and potential in other games.

2 No Man’s Sky

Ship-Based Exploration Across The Infinite Stars

While once a game so under-baked it spawned an industry-defining controversy, No Man’s Sky has become a very different game since launch, and in its new, heavily-updated and well-polished state, it’s a lot easier to see many of its virtues. One particular feature worth discussing is the way that spaceship traversal is handled in this absolutely colossal environment. With an entire galaxy available to explore, it was a tall order trying to think of a way to make travel feel both immersive and fun.

FTL travel gets players between systems quickly, but going between planets within one system holds a plethora of experiences at once. It can be quiet and serene, or tense and suspenseful. Taking full advantage of planetary finds, however, and base-building, means finding planets that often put the player at risk of pirate attacks. The modular ship design and tight, intuitive controls for navigation set the precedent for how space travel was implemented in all games beyond NMS.

1 Grand Theft Auto 4

Tight, Revolutionary Vehicle Mechanics

While at the time it was seen as one of the biggest hits in gaming, GTA 4 has, in some regards, been consigned to the shadow of its sequel, the monumentally popular Grand Theft Auto 5. However, if there’s one area where GTA 4 does still shine on its own merit, it’s the tight-but-fluid vehicle controls. Traversing Liberty City in a car that was probably stolen feels just right, with a smoothness and control that many say becomes too loose and sensitive in the sequel.

GTA 4 is one of Rockstar’s harder games, and it’s always cathartic to blow off steam by driving in the most chaotic fashion possible on Liberty City’s many freeways and bridges (and sometimes sidewalks), or taking on the ultimate challenge of driving like a law-abiding citizen, complete with obeying red lights and not causing ten-car pile ups.