New MicroProse title Outerra World Sandbox could be the ultimate open-world game
Outerra World Sandbox, a new game on the way from developer Outerra and the resurrected MicroProse brand, looks like a game where you can go anywhere and do anything.
Claims of “you can go anywhere and do anything” have historically been somewhat over-exaggerated in open-world games to date. Usually the “you can go anywhere” bit has a few limitations on it, and the “do anything” part has the unspoken caveat that “do anything” actually means either “look around” or “engage in the specific activities that the developer has programmed to be possible on the map at this point”.
Outerra World Sandbox looks to be a little different, though. While there’s still a certain limitation on the “do anything” side of things, this is not a game about hoovering icons up off a map, liberating bases or destroying bandit camps. No, it’s an open-world experience in its purest form: there’s a world, and you can go explore it.
Specifically, Outerra World Sandbox starts with a depiction of the real world, with its terrain, roads, buildings, forests and waterways drawn from “multiple data sources”, apparently. Whether this means the game requires a permanent Internet connection to stream scenery in the same way as Asobo Studio’s Microsoft Flight Simulator remains to be seen at this point, but it certainly provides an intriguing starting point for some virtual exploration.
That exploration can be done on foot, in a land vehicle, on a boat or in an aircraft — or you can just take a “freecam” around to explore without the pesky limitations of physical realism. The idea, it seems, is to allow people the opportunity to visit the places on their bucket list without having to get out of their chair. And while there’s probably something to be said for getting out of all our respective chairs once in a while, the COVID years have certainly made a lot of us more hesitant to do so — to say nothing of the expense involved in travelling the world for real.
Where Outerra World Sandbox gets even more interesting, though, is the fact that the world isn’t a static thing. It can be edited. You can import high-resolution terrain and elevation data. You can manually adjust the details of the terrain and landscape. You can add structures. You can import new vehicles. And all this, of course, can be shared using Steam’s Workshop functionality, meaning that even if you don’t have much in the way of modding skills yourself, you can enjoy other people’s creations for free.
The overall concept is for Outerra World Sandbox to be exactly what it sounds like: a sandbox in which you can create and refine your own perfect world, then explore it in any way you please. If you just want to drive a car around the roads of your world and see where it takes you, that’ll be an option. If you want to sail a boat down your world’s waterways and enjoy the unique viewpoint that such vehicles provide — something quite under-explored in gaming — you can do that. Or if you just want to wander through the virtual city streets under the power of your own virtual limbs, you’ll be able to do that, too.
Since the game has only just been announced, specific details are thin on the ground right now — there’s no word as to whether your world will be “populated” with virtual people and vehicles or even other players, for example — but already the potential of this game to be a fascinating experience should be readily apparent.
If you want to keep up to date with Outerra World Sandbox, which doesn’t yet have a release date, be sure to add it to your wishlist or follow it on Steam.
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