How to create an open world game?

Scene & World Building
1

Hi,

I’m brand new to Unity 5, I have no previous experience with game developing, so I’m aware I’m probably aiming high, however, I’ve always really wanted to make a sort of free-roam, GTA like game, based in my town in England, UK.

My vision is to create a real-scale (if not, maybe 0.5:1) map of my town, with certain buildings with interiors to entre such as shopping centres, a few houses, Nando’s, Tescos etc to add realism.

I also want to use real life cars that have English plates and have the steering wheel on the right with an interior.

I have music from UK artists that I’ve had written content that I am legally allowed to use for the game, one being Stormzy and another being Ard Adz.

I would like to be able to add animations for running, walking, jumping, crouching, picking objects up, using mobile phone, using laptop/pc etc.

I would also like to eventually have the option to join the police in there, and would like to add arrest animations etc.

I want to add missions in but I just want to get the main map, navigation, characters, buildings, cars, animations, audio and start/pause menu out of the way first.

What would be the best way to approach all of this without any experience?

Many thanks

2

I think a good way to accomplish this is by winning the lottery if you are not rich already. Then you can hire a bunch of artists and programmers for doing all the 3D models and game logic. It will probably take some years to finish anyway.

Jokes aside, I think you’re aiming a little high for an indie project. Wish you luck!

3

And you’re going to need quite large amounts of money to create all of the assets to model the city of London.

Start by making pong or breakout. That will give you some idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

4
  1. Acquire Rockstar
  2. Commit entire company to 5 year deadline
  3. ???
  4. Profit

That scope is so far out of your reach I’m not really even sure how you could rationalize that it was worth asking the question here.

5

You’ll have to practice a bit before you make a game of that scale, here’s a couple things to get started:

1.Use Blender to practice making 3D models, start with simple stuff like structures, props, plants.
2. Create a simple town prototype of the ‘world’ you want just using simple shapes, cubes cylinders etc. No animation necessary yet but if you learn Blender fast
3. Create a good hierarchy for your resources in Unity: mainly consisting of scripts, models, materials, images, scenes, prefabs, and sounds
4. Create basic script layout for your game: here’s a pretty generic example using 9 scripts:
Entity scripts: PlayerControl, Enemy, NPC, Item
Component Scripts: Combat, Movement, Skill
Static/Global Scripts: GUIManager, resourceManager
5. Prototype your town using simple models , simple spheres etc, with attached scripts to prototype your game.

Then you can get a good idea of what your capable of now and if you think you should make this game first or start easier it will give you all the basics you need to know.