A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of freedom to interact creatively, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves like making a house. Such games may mostly or totally lack any end goals, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. They are often a product of creative elements being incorporated into other genres and systems allowing for emergent gameplay. Sandbox games are often associated with an open world structure, giving the players freedom of movement and progression in the game's world. The game design term "sandbox" derives from the nature of a physical sandbox, which lets people create nearly anything they want within it.
Early sandbox games took the form of space trading and combat games like Elite (1984) and city-building simulations and tycoon games like SimCity (1989). The release of The Sims and Grand Theft Auto III, in 2000 and 2001 respectively, demonstrated that games with highly detailed interacting systems that encouraged player experimentation could also be seen as sandbox games. Some sandbox games involve the ability to interact socially and share user-generated content across the Internet, as in Second Life (2003). Sandbox games Garry's Mod (2006) and Dreams (2020) allow players to use the game's systems to create new environments and modes. Minecraft (2009) is the most successful example of a sandbox game, with players able to enjoy both creative modes and more progression-driven survival modes. Roblox (2006) allows users to create their own games using the Luau programming language. Fortnite (2017) has game modes which allow players to interact competitively, or socialise.
Terminology From a video game development standpoint, a sandbox game incorporates elements of sandbox design, a range of game systems that encourage free play and creativity. Sandbox design can either describe a game or a game mode, with an emphasis on free-form gameplay, relaxed rules, and minimal goals. Sandbox design can also describe a type of game development where a designer slowly adds features to a minimal game experience, experimenting with each element one at a time. There are "a lot of varieties" of sandbox design, based on "a wide range of dynamic interactive elements". Thus, the term is used often, without a strict definition. Game designers sometimes define a sandbox as what it is not, where a game can "subtract the missions, the main campaign, the narrative or whatever formatively binds the game's progression, and you have a sandbox."
In game design, a sandbox is a metaphor for playing in a literal sandbox. Game historian Steve Breslin describes "the metaphor [as] a child playing in a sandbox ... produc[ing] a world from sand", compared to games with more fully formed content. This metaphor between the virtual and literal sandbox is noted by architectural scholar Alexandra Lange, with a sandbox describing any bounded environment that offers freedom to explore and construct. This can distinguish it from conventional ideas of a game, where the metaphorical sandbox is a "play space in which people can try on different roles and imaginary quests ... rather than a 'game' to play."
In describing video games, sandbox design is often associated with the open world gameplay mechanic and vice versa, but these are two disparate concepts. Open worlds are those where the player's movement in the virtual world is typically not limited by the game allowing the player to roam freely through it. Adventure on the Atari 2600 is considered an open world game as the player can explore the entire game world save for through locked gates from the start, but it is not considered to have sandbox design as the player's actions are generally restricted. Similarly, games like Microsoft Flight Simulator are also open world since the player can take their plane anywhere in the game's virtual world, but as there is no creative aspects to the game, would not be considered a sandbox.
Characteristics Sandbox design can incorporate several different game mechanics and structures, including open worlds, nonlinear storytelling, emergent behaviors, and automation of believable agents. It represents a shift away from linear gameplay. This freedom is always a question of degree, as a sandbox design "engenders a sense of player control, without actually handing over the reins entirely".
Player creativity is often included in sandbox design. When a player is allowed to use a game as a sandbox, they gain the freedom to be creative with their gameplay. A sandbox will have a combination of game mechanics and player freedom that can lead to emergent gameplay, where a player discovers solutions to challenges that may not be intended by the developers. A sandbox sometimes gives the player "transformative" power over the game world, where "the free movement of play alters the more rigid structure in which it takes shape." Will Wright describes this generative aspect of sandbox designs, leading to a measurable increase in player possibilities. John Smedley describes this type of emergent gameplay more succinctly, having seen in EverQuest "how hungry people are for sandboxes -- for building stuff". GameDeveloper.com notes the growth of player-generated content as a "particular brand of sandbox design: that game design is so fun in itself that, if properly packaged, it can well be reinterpreted as gameplay itself".
Some games offer a separate sandbox mode, where the player can use a game's creative systems with fewer constraints. "This mode has few restrictions on what he may do and offers no guidance on what he should do." For example, a sandbox mode might unlock unlimited resources, or disable enemy threats. A sandbox mode is separate from the campaign mode, without a main narrative progression. In one sense, an approach to this design is to "enable the player to continue after the main storyline has been 'won'."
Many games' tutorials utilize this type of design, since "sandboxes are game play much like the real game, but where things cannot go too wrong too quickly or, perhaps, even at all. Good games offer players, either as tutorials or as their first level or two, sandboxes." The game designers allow players to experiment in a safe environment, as "the point about open-ended/sandbox design and when they work best in teaching the player is through learning by doing".
Cohesive narratives in sandbox design can be difficult since the player can progress through the game in a non-linear manner. Some sandbox designs empower players to create their own stories, which is described as sandbox storytelling. Sandbox stories can either replace or enhance a main plot. Some games give players "pure agency by giving them tools and a sandbox", sacrificing the story in favor of player creativity. Where the game systems are reactive enough, this "does not remove the narrative, but rather transforms predetermined narrative into dynamic, responsive narrative". According to Ernest Adams, "in sandbox storytelling, the idea is to give the player a big open world populated with opportunities for interesting interactions ... in any order". Sandbox stories can also be told through shorter quests, conversations, collectables, and encounters, all of which reward players for engaging with the world. This side-content becomes an "extremely common and an excellent format for sandbox gameplay: one central campaign (itself perhaps multi-threaded), plus a large number of side-missions". In general, sandbox storytelling occurs when the player can move through the story independently of their movement through the game space.
Designers also refer to sandbox worlds and sandbox game spaces, which create the feeling of a large open world. The concept of an open world is much older than the term sandbox. Overall, "a sandbox design usually means that the game space is not divided into discrete units", which emphasizes continuity and exploration. This can sometimes overwhelm the player, which is why successful game designers draw on "urban design principles that can be used to build successful sandbox spaces". As a best practice "when creating these sandbox worlds, [designers] should divide them up into distinct areas to aid the player's navigation and orientation." Overall, a sandbox world should "provide the player with a large open set of spaces in which to play, and give him or her things to do". "The more a game's design tends towards a sandbox style, the less a player will feel obliged to follow the main quest."
Game designers often need to create more dynamic game systems to support sandbox-style gameplay. Physics systems are part of the sandbox experience of several games. The popularity of voxels has also shown another system that can create "colourful sandboxes to dismantle and reconstruct."
There is also the value of more robust artificial intelligence. GameDeveloper.com notes how "a sandbox means that the whole game becomes more of a simulation where AI plays an important role." This means that "believable and self-motivated characters have become key to sandbox play, because they produce a rich space for interactivity and greatly help establish the open-world aesthetic." Game designer John Krajewski observes for "a game that features sandbox-style play, the AI needs to provide enough different and interesting characters to interact within the world, and the size of the world doesn't have to get very big before it becomes unfeasible to hard code them all."
An open-ended sandbox experience is sometimes contrasted with goal-oriented gameplay. Sandbox design usually minimizes the importance of goals. Rather than 'winning' a game, a sandbox design allows players to 'complete' a game by exploring and actualizing all of its options. This lack of victory condition may define sandbox as not a game at all. "For many, a game needs rules and a goal to be a game, which excludes sandbox/simulators." In sandbox mode, "the game resembles a tool more than a conventional video game".
History
Multi-user dungeons (MUDs) are early examples of the principles of sandbox games originating in 1980; users of MUDs would generally be able to gain the ability to create their content within the MUD's framework, creating opportunities to collaborate with other users. However, MUDs never gained commercial release; while they inspired the first massively multiplayer online (MMO) games like EVE Online, the creation aspects of MUDs did not carry into commercial games.
Before 2000, the bulk of what were considered sandbox games in commercial software came from two genres:
Space trading and combat games: Elite (1984) is considered one of the first sandbox games: the player as a space pilot traveled across a randomly-generated galaxy, engaging in combat with enemies (one of the first games to use simulated 3D combat through wireframe graphics) and trading resources at various planets to improve their ship towards the best class possible, but otherwise the player has freedom towards completing this goal. Elite led to several similar trading and combat games, including The Seven Cities of Gold (1984), Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987), Star Control (1990), and Freelancer (2003). City-building and tycoon games: Early city-building games like Utopia (1982) were more focused on arranging city features for achieving high scores, but with SimCity (1989), Will Wright wanted to give players more freedom to create a city and see how it operates while challenging the player to manage the growth of the city against its finances. SimCity success led to many similar city-building and other tycoon games including Railroad Tycoon (1990), SimIsle (1995), and Capitalism (1995).
Two games at the turn of the 21st century redefined the notion of what a sandbox game is.