Far Cry 2
2008 saw a number of great games but one of them stood among the rest: the excellent open-world adventure with Far Cry 2, which transports players to the dense and dangerous Savannahs of Africa in search of the titular Jackal. The action can be extremely brutal with guns constantly jamming mid-battle and the constant looming threat of a malaria stroke, but what makes this sandbox so fun is the systemic gameplay overruling it all. You can burn down entire forests with a flamethrower, come up with all sorts of creative tactics to defeat enemies, and much more. This kind of systemic experience was inarguably the highlight of the experience, and this is what would go on to lay the blueprint for the majority of open worlds of the future.
