Sandbox game

A video game that gives players substantial freedom to explore, create, or pursue goals without a fixed sequence of challenges. Its play often centers on player-directed choices within a responsive world.

Open world: A game world that permits travel across a large area with few imposed barriers or prescribed routes. Many sandbox games use open worlds to let players choose where to go.
Minecraft: A game built around mining, crafting, exploration, and construction in a block-based world. Its construction tools and survival options made it a defining sandbox example.
Linear game: A video game whose progression follows a largely predetermined sequence of events or challenges. Its prescribed sequence contrasts with the sandbox's player-directed goals.
Game modding: The alteration or extension of a video game by players or independent creators. Modding lets sandbox communities add tools, rules, and entirely new play styles.
Emergent gameplay: Unplanned play outcomes produced by interactions among a game's rules, systems, and players. Sandbox rules can combine into situations designers did not script.
Grand Theft Auto V: An open-world action-adventure game set in the fictional region of San Andreas. Its city supports free-roaming play alongside a structured crime story.
Open-world game: A video game with a large traversable environment and substantial freedom of movement. An open world may still impose a fixed story or mission structure.
Minecraft Education: An educational version of Minecraft designed for classroom activities and collaborative learning. Its sandbox tools are adapted for building lessons and shared projects.
Player agency: The capacity of a player to make choices that meaningfully affect play or its outcomes. Sandbox play depends on choices having room to shape the experience.
The Sims: A life-simulation game series in which players direct the daily lives of simulated people. It makes open-ended social and domestic play its main activity.

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