Bully / Canis Canem Edit. The best small open-world games

The game Bully, known in Europe as Canis Canem Edit, should be treated as a relic of times gone by, times when Rockstar Games didn't have all the grandiosity and pathological attachment to minute details. This Bullworth Academy storytelling title gives the player 5 square kilometers to explore. This small map managed to accommodate not only the school and its surroundings, but also parts of the nearby town. The lack of huge swathes of land meant the developers could focus on refining the Academy itself.

The setting of this game is itself unique. Oddly enough, we rarely get the chance to play a schoolkid (about the only game that comes to my mind is the Harry Potter series). This being a Rockstar game, we naturally get to play a very troublesome kid. I'll confess that I can't imagine this game developed today. In many ways, it's similar to the Yakuza series – despite the small map, an exceptional amount of activity has been crammed in here, so we don't waste time on mundane travels through empty land (I'm looking at you, Red Dead Redemption II). And as we all know, when a game doesn't bore us, we're not likely to abandon it half way through, but can follow subsequent events with bated breath. I silently hope that, if there is indeed a sequel coming someday, that Rockstar Games doesn't unnecessarily stretch the map out.

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Older installments of The Legend of Zelda

I'm not entirely convinced that most of you will understand this choice. It wasn't until its last main installment, Breath of the Wild, that the series entered a truly open world. And it did so in an excellent way, allowing a lot of freedom in completing the main storyline, and popularizing solutions which are eagerly copied in games like Genshin Impact, or Immortals: Fenyx Rising. However, before Link experienced the enormity of this freedom, previous games also tackled open, worlds, albeit much smaller.

Of course, the design of The Legend of Zelda game was constrained by technology for many years. We entered subsequent open locations to follow the story there. This formula worked well for many years, and improved as technology expanded the possibilities. Before the cult of Ocarina of Time was born, before we explored the tropical locations in The Wind Waker and took to the skies in Skyward Sword, the world in the first two-dimensional installments of the series was microscopic and only took a few hours to traverse. The developers compensated for the limited space with diversity and a large number of everything we faced – enemies, traps, and puzzles.

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the second game in this list that can't quite be said to be a typical sandbox. And it's not just the very strong focus on plot and the overall linearity of this production compared to the rest of games listed here, but also the location design. The way they're constructed are hubs. Although – if one insisted – one could speak of a semi-open world, because this term also reflects the facts well.

I would venture to say in the case of this game, we're dealing with the "fullest" game in the whole set. There are so many things to do in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, so many side stories and activities begging to be explored, that we can feel overwhelmed. When I checked other people's opinions online, I found that I wasn't the only one with that impression. Mankind Divided is a good example of overdoing it. The individual locations are roughly a square kilometer in size. That's not a lot. When the developers realized their idea of stuffing the game to the brim with activities, they crossed the thin line beyond which the game becomes tiresome. However, I realize that not everyone will share my point of view, so I leave the final evaluation to you. Nevertheless, I regret that the series has gone into the freezer again and we may not see a continuation ever again, or at least not in the familiar form. Because even if the game had some shortcomings, it simply comes off better as a whole when compared to Cyberpunk 2077.

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New Hitman trilogy

I'll admit that I've never been a fan of the series, plus I like its critically acclaimed Absolution the best. At the same time, I am full of appreciation for what IO Interactive has managed to create. The new trilogy of Agent 47 ought to become the benchmark of a perfect mix of sandbox and stealth. Konami, with their Metal Gear Solid series, can go and hide. You can see that the latest installments of the series are the result of many attempts to thoughtfully develop the original idea from 2000.

Hitman turns out to be exactly what a sandbox should be. The gameplay areas are not very large by today's standards, but a lot of work and heart has been poured into them, so each element fits perfectly with the rest. Of course, there are some highs and lows of the location design, but we never go below a certain baseline, oftentimes exceeding it. Danish IO Interactive has fully focused on allowing the player to complete the task in any way (though, of course, within the technological possibilities). Agent 47 appears on the map, is told what to do, and that's mostly it. No holding your hand unless you really want to and activate the relevant assistances in the options. We can complete an assignment quietly, spectacularly, or we can come up with something completely original. If the developers had followed the trend of making maps as big as possible and draping them with a million markers, Hitman would probably have shared the fate of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which at one point completely spilled due to a lack of an idea for itself.

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