A system in which players participate as characters in a virtual game world via game clients executing on client devices. An observer mode is provided that enables users to navigate in the game world without requiring a game client so that a user can navigate the game world while not actively playing the game. When a user accesses the game in observer mode, a view of the game world is rendered from the viewpoint of an observer's character; the observer's character may not correspond to a character in the game and the observer's character may not be visible to the players in the game. The rendered view of the game world is streamed to a viewing application on a personal device. Navigation inputs allow the observer's character to move freely within the game world.