Free-roaming

While Metroid introduced multiple endings to a linear game, other more recent designs have presented free-roaming worlds incorporating multiple gameplay paths.

Source: wiktionary

Let the player trigger these in any order she chooses; this is vital because the game ceases being static and takes on the illusion of a free-roaming game.

Source: wiktionary

Its free-roaming world was a departure for both the programmer and for console gamers, and in retrospect it was an ambitious undertaking that could have all gone horribly wrong.

Source: wiktionary

From the distance of today, my guess is that it was the free-roaming horses that had most to do with the increase in carnivores, mainly because nobody was trying to protect them.

Source: wiktionary