Evolution of Open World Driving Games 1986-2023
1986 Turbo Esprit 0:00
1989 Vette 0:12
1990 Test Drive III: The Passion 0:25
1994 Quarantine 0:39
1997 Carmageddon 0:57
1998 Auto Destruct 1:12
1999 Crazy Taxi 1:27
1999 Midtown Madness 1:44
1999 Driver 2:00
2000 Midnight Club: Street Racing 2:18
2001 World's Scariest Police Chases 2:36
2001 The Simpsons: Road Rage 2:50
2001 Grand Theft Auto III 3:10
2002 Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven 3:26
2002 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 3:44
2002 The Getaway 4:03
2003 Midnight Club II 4:20
2003 The Simpsons: Hit & Run 4:40
2004 Driver 3 4:58
2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 5:17
2004 Need for Speed: Underground 2 5:44
2005 Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition 6:04
2005 L. A. Rush 6:25
005 Need for Speed: Most Wanted 6:462006 Driver: Parallel Lines 7:05
2006 Test Drive Unlimited 7:24
2006 Need for Speed: Carbon 7:40
2008 Burnout Paradise 7:57
2008 Grand Theft Auto IV 8:18
2008 Midnight Club: Los Angeles 8:40
2009 FUEL 8:59
2010 Mafia II 9:20
2010 Crash Time 4 9:45
2011 Test Drive Unlimited 2 10:08
2011 L.A. Noire 10:27
2011 Driver: San Francisco 10:45
2012 Sleeping Dogs 11:06
2012 Forza Horizon 11:27
2012 Need for Speed: Most Wanted 11:48
2013 BeamNG.drive 12:08
2013 Grand Theft Auto V 12:27
2014 Watch Dogs 12:48
2014 Forza Horizon 2 13:08
2014 The Crew 13:28
2015 Mad Max 13:46
2015 Need for Speed 14:08
2016 Forza Horizon 3 14:28
2016 City Car Driving 14:51
2016 Watch Dogs 2 15:12
2017 Need for Speed Payback 15:29
2018 The Crew 2 15:46
2018 Forza Horizon 4 16:02
2019 Days Gone 16:20
2019 Need For Speed Heat 16:38
2020 SnowRunner 16:58
2020 Cyberpunk 2077 17:18
2020 Watch Dogs: Legion 17:43
2021 Forza Horizon 5 18:11
Special thanks to World of Longplays (longplays.org) and RacingGameArchive ( / racinggamearchive ) for providing the gameplay footage
Nixian Channel Description:
We’re lifelong video game enthusiasts with a passion for showing the world how our favorite hobby has grown with us, from individual series to industry-wide retrospectives.
We put significant time and creative effort into each one of our videos, including research, digging into archives, recording voiceovers, and editing. Every video takes as many as 10 hours to produce, because we strive to give our fans consistent, high-quality content.
Our popular “Evolution of...” series goes far beyond simply presenting gameplay footage. We take the time to show how a video game property - its gameplay, character designs, graphics, sound direction, etc. - have evolved over time. We include unique voiceover work on each video to enhance the viewing experience.
People have been playing video games for decades. In that time, we’ve gone from moving a white line up and down to block a moving pixel, to participating in full-fledged, painstakingly rendered real-time battles with people all over the world. We help older gamers look back on how these experiences have changed throughout their lives, and new gamers to understand the broader context of the series they’re playing for the first time today.
The video game medium never stops growing, and we’ll never stop chronicling its evolution.
Editing and voice-over were made by me.