Do you like open-world video games? There was a time when virtual freedom was a utopia. Imagine a group of visionaries in the 1980s and 1990s trying to squeeze entire universes, infinite galaxies, and breathtaking cities into machines with less memory than your social media profile picture. It's a story of pure technological epicness! This book takes you into the trenches of development, where programmers didn't rely on brute force, but on dark magic, impossible mathematics, and sleight-of-hand tricks to fool your brain into believing you were living in an infinite world.

In these pages, you'll enjoy the origins and early years of this wonderful way of playing, all the way to the popular explosion of Grand Theft Auto III, which brought these games to the front line of the industry:

· Elite, the pioneer of open worlds and its universe of over 2,000 planets on a cassette tape.

· Vette! and the first open driving experience through the streets of San Francisco.

· Hunter and the GTA formula years before GTA even existed.

· The Terminator and Bethesda's first open-world experiments in Los Angeles.

· Lego Island and the toy-like open world designed for younger audiences.

· The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Daggerfall, and true open-world role-playing with gigantic continents.

· GTA 1, 2, and III: the rise of virtual crime and the explosion of open worlds.

The different techniques and strategies used to take video games beyond the limits of a monitor and into almost infinite universes.

Are you ready to explore these early universes? This isn't just a history book; it's a tribute to human curiosity. It's for the player who gets lost in massive maps, for the developer who dreams of wonderful emergent systems, and for the nostalgic soul who remembers their first jump with a Banshee in Liberty City. Discover how we went from a handful of pixels to absolute freedom. The map is unlocked, the engine is running, and the horizon is waiting for you. Enjoy the origins of open-world video games!