
✓ Same family of open-world action games: adventure storytelling, racing gameplay and shooter
≠ Stands apart with sandbox freedom, third-person shooting and strong narrative focus, while skipping deep simulation
The largest of the PS2-era entries by a distance: three cities, countryside between them, and systems the series never repeated — stat training, gang territory, vehicle variety from bikes to planes. It is also the most uneven. Mission difficulty spikes without warning, and the RPG-ish stat grind sits oddly against the pace of everything else.
Where it drifts furthest from Drive Beyond Horizons: tone and combat.
It predates Drive Beyond Horizons by 21 years, with what that implies technically.




