New Free Open-World Game Is A Full Recreation Of Toronto That's Bigger Than GTA 5

Published Nov 12, 2026, 7:01 PM EST

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

When we think of the biggest open-world games, Grand Theft Auto 5 certainly comes to mind. While it may not be the biggest in terms of sheer scale, the impressive amount of detail, sprawling cityscapes, and small-town Americana all coalesce to give the impression of a lived-in world teeming with possibility. Indeed, until the moment Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out, GTA 5 will be the very best urban open-world available.

That is, of course, apart from a brand-new, completely free open-world game that aims to usurp GTA 5 by offering fans an even bigger urban open-world space. This isn't merely an Unreal Engine 5 asset that's suddenly become playable, but rather an expansive recreation of Toronto filled with roaming NPCs, objectives, a day-and-night cycle, and an abundance of highly detailed systems that make the world feel just as alive as GTA 5, if not more so. Frankly, this game may even be able to match GTA 6's massive open-world.

COO, also known as Covert Ornithological Operations, is a free, browser-based 3D open-world game set in a recreation of Toronto. Built using AI by the co-founder of Windscribe, Yegor Sak, COO features a world that is nine times the size of Grand Theft Auto 5's map, spanning around 630 square km of real streets, parks, stations, assorted landmarks, buildings, and more. If you live in Toronto, you can go and visit your street, or your favorite coffee shop, park, or even seedy alleyway. It's all been rendered in COO.

COO has three different game modes, all of which revolve around exploring the city as a robotic pigeon controlled by the government. In the game's Live mode, you can explore Toronto as it is at that very moment, with real-time weather, air traffic, and time of day reflected in the game world.

The Operations mode is the closest COO gets to a story, with players assigned a handful of different tasks that they can complete. Finally, Free Roam allows players to choose the time of day and flutter about as a pigeon, pooing on nearby passersby and generally having a good time flying around Toronto.

It is worth noting that, by the developer's own admission, COO was developed in just seven days utilizing 10 parallel AI workstreams. Sak explained via X the process that went into getting AI to craft the enormous free open-world game, stating that he started with "real data: OpenStreetMap footprints for every building in Toronto, with heightsX from the City’s open 3D Massing dataset." He would then have "agents write procedural generators that dress each building in its district’s style."

Of course, it's up to each individual to decide whether they want to support the use of AI in video game development. COO is certainly an impressive result of the work of AI and Sak's guiding hand, but whether it was worth the resources required to power the aforementioned parallel AI workstreams is debatable. If you are interested in trying out COO, you can do so via its official website. Simply wait for the game to load and then hop into the vast open world and play what is ostensibly Grand Theft Auto with pigeons.

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