Still playing Witcher III. Got me thinking about how 3D open-world sandboxes have all been converging on some sort of all-genres-in-one standard.

You know, combat and climb-based 3D environmental navigation from beat-em-ups; leveling, skill progression, simultaneous quest-based structure and loot from corpses by way of RPGs both C- and A-, simple “mysteries”, dialogue trees, and collecting random objects to assemble into tools from point-click adventures…

But that’s not ALL genres, is it? And I think that’s why granddaddy of the field GTA is starting to show its age - it derives its lineage from different genres: vehicles from racers and flight sims; combat and multiplayer modes from FPSes (rendered, uh, TP); jump-based ascent, self-contained mission structure, character power increasing from weapon powerups and currency objects that spawn on enemy death and get tracked in the HUD from platformers.

So at this point the GTA series is satire and the Saints Row series is parody, right?