ProMods

There are quite a few more or less interesting games out there

But games with an open free world like most games from SCS?
Name me one game where you're free to explore and not locked to a specific task/row of events to complete the game

Like eg StarFlight (1986) an open end game with 269 star systems and roughly 800 planets free to explore
Granted you're on a mission, but ...

Would you consider Farcry (2 and onwards) a game with an open world?

Burnout Paradise.

Some of the recent Need for Speeds also look like that, though I didn't endure them long enough, so I'm not sure about them.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, to some degree (there is still main line, and some locations open only as you make progress along this line, but except for that you can take side quests and explore the world freely; the game also implements an ending, but some mods allow you to continue playing after finishing the main line, and most side quests will continue auto-generating). The next two S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games share the same idea, but they became a bit more limited in this respect.

Well, ok, ETS2 doesn't have an "you have beaten the game"-moment, but it too forces you to do jobs to get money and get better trucks. Therefore if you call it "open ended" (even though it has a finite map), then things like FarCry2 and the TDU series qualify as well, because you do set pieces in the game to progress. ETS2 simply (and artificially) has no official "end moment", but there is a point where you will have seen it all and done it all.

Same for Starflight (which I presume is the PC version of "Spacetrader" for the Commodore64/Amiga), just because there's no official end, doesn't mean the game isn't essentially finite. I think if you want to look a truly never ending games, you need to look at some puzzlers and platformers (an example escapes me at the moment), which had random level generators.

Most racing games
Railroad tycoon
Any Sim City, Sim Elevator, Sim whatever
Battlefield series
World of Warcraft
EVE Online (wich is really diverse)

On the other hand: Since when is driving around not a specific task ?
I guess I only play games where you can basicly choose what to do and what you want to accomplish.

Racing games have a limited map where you progress to next map/level
Tycoon, to a degree but you need to follow a predefined task
Simcity have a limited area you can't extend beyond, task is settled from start
Battlefield has a limited map/ like most MP's
WoW, true
Eve, true

plykkegaard wrote:Racing games have a limited map where you progress to next map/level
Tycoon, to a degree but you need to follow a predefined task
Simcity have a limited area you can't extend beyond, task is settled from start
Battlefield has a limited map/ like most MP's <snip>

In what way is ETS2 different? -the map is finite and, unless you cheat yourself money/experience, you have to do a predifined number of tasks to acchieve the, again, limited amount of accolades available in the game.
It's not because there's an element of randomness to the tasks and there is no set endpoint, that ETS2 is truly open-ended and thus no different from other games which allow the player a large degree of freedom without being truly open ended.

Jan Verschueren wrote:In what way is ETS2 different?

In most games you need to finish a "level" with some specific characteristics, eg between first three and you must finish one level before you can advance to next level
In ETS you can advance even if you don't deliver in time and have damaged the trailer you can go through each "level" at your own pace

[EDIT] You can even stay at a specific level and choose quick jobs and do fine and still advance to higher levels

Don't know the game in your first post, but it sounds like it got inspired by Elite.

So, i would say look at Elite Dangerous.

plykkegaard wrote:Simcity have a limited area you can't extend beyond, task is settled from start

Not in SimCity 4. Cities are part of a region, so that limited area can be a whole lot bigger. In fact, you can exploit that feature to make your city MUCH larger than one city tile in the region. Here's an example:



Yes, there is a set area, but you can just start new regions (with new challenges), which on their own will take years to fill. And with all the custom content that's still being developed for this game (SimCity 4 has been modded to death!), there is always something to improve. Practically, this game is pretty much open-ended.

Best,
Maarten

That looks nice! Unfortunately it's not easy to make European-looking historical city centres in SimCity 4.