8 Early Open-World & Sandbox PS3 Games Almost No One Remembers

Highlights

The PS3 generation brought about the rise of the open-world genre, with games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Fallout 3 offering vast and immersive experiences.
Some lesser-known open-world games from the early PS3 days, such as 3D Dot Game Heroes and Far Cry 2, are worth exploring for fans of the genre.
Movie tie-in games like James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game and The Godfather 2 attempted to capitalize on popular films, but didn’t quite elevate the open-world genre.

The PS3 generation is when the open-world genre truly came into its own. The HD era brought with it a lot more computing power to make vaster experiences a thing. One great example is Grand Theft Auto 5 which used to be a series of sandbox games.

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Grand Theft Auto 5 is more than that with plenty of scenery to explore beyond the city. Fallout 3 is another great open-world game with even more freedom such as how players build their character and the story they can create through dialogue trees. Those are the big ones, but there are certainly some more forgotten open-world and sandbox games from the early PS3 days that are worth examining.

8 3D Dot Game Heroes

Metacritic Score: 77

Release Date: May 11, 2010 (North America)
Developer: Silicon Studio
Platforms: PlayStation 3

3D Dot Game Heroes pays homage to the original The Legend of Zelda if it were remade with 3D sprites. One of the cool things about this adventure was being able to craft an original avatar from building blocks or there were prepared sets too. Another hilarious thing is that the player’s sword, when fully charged up, will be massive and can swipe through almost an entire screen full of enemies.

The adventure itself should feel familiar with overworld portions leading players into dungeons. It’s almost a miracle Nintendo didn’t come after Atlus for publishing this game in the West although it is a parody and there is that classic parody law.

7 Far Cry 2

Metacritic Score: 85

Far Cry 2

Released: October 21, 2008

This series truly didn’t hit peak popularity until the third entry but the DNA was almost there with Far Cry 2. It was set in a giant open world where players could run or drive around and cause chaos to their heart’s content. It had plenty of guns and other tools that players could use for their bombastic needs too.

The one downside to the experience was the constant upkeep of health. Malaria was a huge plot point that was ravaging the land in the game, and players had to constantly take medicine to bring it down which often felt a bit too much to handle.

6 The Godfather 2

Metacritic Score: 67

Release Date: April 7, 2009
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360

It’s almost hard to believe that there was a game based on The Godfather long after it hit theaters let alone a sequel. Both games loosely follow the events of the films and books while trying to carve a name for themselves and fill in the gaps. It’s a classic Grand Theft Auto clone of the era wherein players took on a variety of missions from killing sprees to escort missions to chases.

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The Godfather series had a direct rival at this time too, Mafia, which was also a period game about the glory days of gangsters. The Godfather 2 in particular is not a bad Grand Theft Auto clone as it had all the right tools to make it engaging as an open-sandbox game, but it also didn’t elevate the genre.

5 James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game

Metacritic Score: 60

Release Date: December 1, 2009
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Wii, iPhone, iPad, and Android

Before Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, there was another attempt to cash in on this global money-making movie giant via James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game. This was an early HD era game that had open-world segments but many of the zones were locked away from players. It’s kind of like how Liberty City was divided into territories in Grand Theft Auto 3.

Players got various familiar and foreign weapons to stop the evil soldiers of the movie’s plot as it tied both directly and indirectly to the events. For a movie tie-in game at this time, it received okay reviews thanks to Ubisoft putting in the hard work but it’s certainly not a game that needs to be returned to anytime soon.

4 Prototype

Metacritic Score: 79

Prototype

Released: June 9, 2009
Developer(s): Radical Entertainment

In the summer of 2009, two superhero games were competing with each other mere weeks apart. Sony had the exclusive inFamous which gave players electrical powers in an open-world city. Prototype was also set in an open-city environment but the character in this game, Alex, had more body horror powers. He could turn his limbs into blades or bulbous objects that could smash things.

Players could also assume the body of any NPC on the street to absorb their health or to use their body as a disguise. While it was not the better of the two review-wise, Prototype did have more flexibility when it came to powers and thus gave players more freedom overall. To note, both this game and its sequel got a PS4 remaster.

3 Red Faction: Guerrilla

Metacritic Score: 85

Fighting enemies in Red Faction Guerrilla

Release Date: June 2, 2009
Developer: Volition
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360

The Red Faction series made a big splash on the PS2 and other related systems at the time for one thing: destructible environments. Players could blast through walls and make their own doorways although there were some limits. Red Faction: Guerrilla was the third entry and it was the ultimate promise made true.

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Everything in this game could explode or be knocked down including whole buildings. It was the ultimate chaos simulator it thankfully got a PS4 remaster eventually although it unfortunately did not lead to any more sequels.

2 The Saboteur

Metacritic Score: 72

The Saboteur

Released: December 8, 2009
Developer(s): Pandemic Studios

Of the many forgotten Grand Theft Auto clones of this first HD era, The Saboteur was one of the more ambitious ones. It was set in the city of Paris during World War 2 when the Nazis took it over. This blanketed the once vibrant city into a cool black-and-white aesthetic as if to say Paris’ magic was gone.

Players, as a member of the resistance, could overthrow Nazi strongholds to bring color back to the city through any means necessary. It was kind of like bringing nature back to the world in both Flower and Okami albeit in a bloodier manner with plenty of guns, bombs, and cars.

1 The Simpsons Game

Metacritic Score: 71

The Simpsons Game

Released: October 30, 2007
Genre(s): Platformer , Shooter , Action-Adventure , Fighting

The Simpsons Game was kind of like a spiritual successor to one of the most popular games based on the cartoon, The Simpsons: Hit & Run. This game was not tied into any of the season’s major plots but it certainly referenced a lot. It was a fan’s ultimate dream and it had the entire cast return to do their voices too.

The game was a mix of genres that mostly boiled down to platforming and action segments although there were plenty of offshoots like one involving RPG mechanics. While funny, the gameplay may have been a bit too ambitious because the reviews were not stellar. For consoles, this was the last game based on the cartoon.