Turbo Esprit

Turbo Esprit by Durell Software is one of the most ambitious games ever to appear on the ZX Spectrum, offering a freely drivable city seen from a bird's-eye view, through which the player cruises in their Lotus Esprit. The goal isn't just to reach a destination, but to complete smuggling and police missions, tail suspicious vehicles, all while obeying traffic, traffic lights, and other cars at intersections, since crashing or ignoring the rules of the road will draw police attention.

The game combines elements of racing arcade action with an open world and simple combat, allowing the player to chase down criminals and, if needed, shoot at them when playing on the side of the law, while in the role of a smuggler the player instead needs to evade the police and hide in side streets. Technically, it's a remarkable achievement, since the city map is expansive, scrolls smoothly, and contains dozens of streets and intersections, which on Spectrum hardware demanded very frugal programming and careful memory management. The sound is sparse, typical for 1986, but engine noise, honking, and crash sounds sufficiently color the atmosphere of an urban chase, where every decision at an intersection can mean success or exposure.

At the time of release, Turbo Esprit was praised precisely for its freedom of movement and for foreshadowing later open-world games, long before that term was even used as a marketing category, and reviewers at the time particularly appreciated the unusual freedom the game gave the player. Today the game is remembered as one of the most original titles of its era, and even years later it remains interesting to see how far the programmers managed to go with the limited memory of an eight-bit machine without having to sacrifice the scale of the game world or the smoothness of moving through it, which makes Turbo Esprit an interesting historical stop even today for anyone curious about the roots of open-world games.

Why play: For anyone curious about the roots of open-world games – it offered an unusual freedom of movement long before the term open world was even used as a marketing category.