Support NeoGAF

[WellSheet]

Definitely agree with you here. Not too much, not too little, but just enough. The handcrafted levels design of Dark Souls is the absolute best.
You can tell how everything is interwoven from the story, mechanics, lore, and settings to supplement it. That game changed everything. It challenged the status quo for games and supplemented itself as it's own genre that many try to replicate because it works so well. The best part is when you explore the unknown and build short cuts that weave back upon itself, just pure mastery. Truly excellent and I wished all games held itself to such high standards while taking on the risk. Many companies play it way too safe.

this is some straight poetry.

 

[01011001]

But I enjoyed both HzD and GoT.............oh well

I played GTA3 again the other day and I enjoyed it... yet I can see so many issues the game has it's ridiculous.

you can enjoy flawed and even deeply flawed things even if you know they are deeply flawed. this is why people love watching The Room... a movie that is just... something else xD

 

[Mossybrew]

Nope. I love open world games, sorry.

 

[junguler]

one man's trash is another man's treasure, you hate them, i love them. you just need to look elsewhere for your gaming fix that's all.

 

[CitizenX]

They just need to scale them down, this big open world dick swinging contest has shriveled fast. i think a good example is Days gone. I like the game but when i got to the Southern part i was like, really? i just finished Rise of the Tomb raider and feel its probably an area too much. they like almost everything need a cutter.

 

[MisterBrimstone]

There are many open-world games (There is no "conforming" as there are objectively many more linear games than open-world games out there) because developers have always wanted to create worlds, and now the technology allows them to do so more and to an increasingly better extent than it used to.

Yeah whatever helps you sleep at night. I can believe that only from indie open world games but you are being too naivre.

 

[Zannegan]

Eh, a bad open world game is bad. A bad linear game is worse. Yes, an empty open world full of checklisty objectives is boring, but not half so tedious to me as a corridor packed with samey "action" and setpieces that are basically cutscenes where I have to hold the stick forward and mash A to awesome. At least in an open world I'm free to wander around and make my own fun. The best thing that can be said about most linear games is that they know when to end.

I'm not saying linear games are bad by definition anymore than I'm saying all open worlds are good (we all know that isn't true). But, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between the two styles, I'd go with the more open one every time. Thank goodness I don't have to choose one or the other, and neither do developers. There are plenty of great games in either camp, and even more that fall into the space between, like Halo with its semi-open arenas, Souls Games with their interconnected labyrinths, or Xenoblade with its huge explorable arenas that stitched together into an even bigger, stranger world on the literal bodies of two dead gods.

Choice is a good thing, which is, incidentally, why I tend to prefer open worlds.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I'm burned out on open world games.

 

[Compsiox]

Rockstar, CDPR, and Suckerpunch are the only companies currently authorized to make an open world game.

 

[BluRayHiDef]

Ghosts of Tsushima is one of the best game's of this generation.

 

[Kumomeme]

i believe the problem is not on the format but how it being executed. making open world game is not easy.

 

[bumleforce]

I like open world games. I like Linear games. Some open world games are good some are bad. Some linear games are also good and bad. People like both. Developers make what they want to make.

 

[EventHorizon]

The problem isn't open world games. It's the uninteresting padding of content that many devs do with them. That content padding could just as easily happen for other game types. Unless publishers allow game length to be correctly proportional to the content they contain, nothing will change.

 

[Aladin]

AAA has to be open world. or else it is a compromise. People are invested in too many universes star wars, star trek, witcher, mass andromeda, halo... Reduce the no of fantasy universies, game universes you follow, open world games would look good then i guess.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Only games I buy are open world or games with lots of replayability (sports, shooters, Diablo, even some puzzle games for cheap).

Can't remember the last time I bought a linear SP kind of game. Might have been Dante's Inferno on 360 in 2011 (whenever it came out).

Short SP games are the perfect kinds of games I'll dabble with on Game Pass. Not paying $60 or even a $30 digital deal for an 8 hour game.

 

[Danjin44]

I want to see some proper level design from western developers because 90% of the time they are making open world and it seems like they no longer able to make proper level design so by default they just go with open world.

I'm really hoping Kena: Bridge of Spirits is NOT open world.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Well... Zelda been open world since the start, but I agree OP, I want to see a bit less open world, I just don’t want walking movie simulator

 

[MB1]

I like open world games but Holy Hell I do not need hundred of icons littering my map, and Ubisoft is the biggest culprit of this. It's not bad in Watch Dogs 2 because the map is a lot smaller but AC Odyssey is just overkill.

 

[iHaunter]

There’s nothing better than open-world games. I simply won’t play linear games. There’s a reason why the best games of each generation are usually open-world.

TLOU and Uncharted are not Linear though.

 

[Chiggs]

I honestly long for some new current, short games that rather have me replay them than having to take vacation to takle them. How the fuck does everyone seem to have such a boner for these Open World games? How do you even got the time? You only play 2 games per year?

Fuck me... I just had vacation this week and decided to finally go one RDR2. Man, what the fuck? As beautiful and impressive as this game is, why in gods name do I still get tutorials about new game mechanics 5 or more hours in. just STAHHP! Same shit made me quit Death Stranding. I'm sick of this. What the hell is going on? The other day I just wanted to test if I can get the emulation of Metroid Prime running and once I did I stuck to it in favour of RDR2. 30 minutes to an hour to learn how the game's to be played and there you go. Completed it yesterday. In RDR2 I'm at 11% now...

Not that I mind games like RDR2. I think it's great they are made. But it's getting out of hand. Every god damn MP game is made in a way that a 5 year old can pick up the controller and have fun with it. But SP... It's like the total opposite. Having only limited time it often takes me up to a week to even get through the tutorials. Is this really what folks want these days? Gimme more games like RE7+RE2 and RE3 Remake. When I was little and had time for these long ass games I didn't get them, now that I do not have the time everyone is shoving them up my butt...

Great post. I feel the same way you do. I don’t have time to learn games when I’m already 5 hours in. I will never finish RDR2, just like I will never finish The Witcher 3.

Make the games intuitive, about 15-20 hours long, and give them replayability through New Game+ and deep customization. Basically, Resident Evil 4.

 

[Kenpachii]

Lol nope.

 

[Woo-Fu]

I've enjoyed every open world game I've played.

 

[GymWolf]

that would be true if they weren't as terribly designed most of the time.

RDR2 is absolutely dogshit with its super linear mission design that gives you precisely ZERO chance for creative play.
and sadly many games are like that nowadays.

honestly, the only AAA open world games in recent memory that still gives you a lot of freedom for creativity while doing main objectives are Watch Dogs 2, Zelda BOTW and Outer Worlds (not sure if the latter would count as an open world game tho... most likely not)

can't really think of many others

This only mean that you haven't played many good open world games...

A lot of open world games give you more chooice on how to approach the mission.
The fact that they lack hacking or physic gimmicks doesn't mean thay lack approaches.

On the other hand zelda has shitty ultra basic stealth and wd2 has shitty combat so even if you have chooice you don't pick these because they suck balls.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Nope. I love open world games, sorry.

I feel the same. I remember playing Driller on the C64, it was probably the first game i'd played that allowed you to freely explore in an open world type setting, there was another game on the C64 with the same type of engine, I could have sworn it was called Ankh but I cant find it and my memory is crap but these games opened my mind to the brilliance of what games could offer

Fast forward to these past few years and there have been some utterly outstanding open world games and as much as people keep bringing up UBIsoft i'm sure anyone in their right mind couldnt deny that they sure can master some excellent open world spaces, even Watchdogs was great in this respect

From my point of view and from years of gaming, open world was always the natural progression of what gaming would evolve to.

..But of course, the linear, non open world game can be equally brilliant. Take Metro, Soma or The last of us, Great games with some of the best stories going!

It all boils down to point of view but to discredit either genre seems a bit daft to me.

 

[PapyDoc]

TLOU and Uncharted are not Linear though.

 

[Gandih42]

I agree with your point to a certain extent OP. I certainly agree that 'Open World' as a buzzword has by far overstayed it's welcome. Games being open world is no longer a novel concept like it was at its inception. But I don't think they are as inherently bad as you suggest. The freedom to explore and tackle challenges however you want is undeniably one of the strengths of open world games, especially when well designed. Many people in this thread are pointing out great examples of this.

My main gripe with open world games is how homogeneous they have become. I'm sure this can largely be attributed to the Ubisoft formula. I can't deny that the formula works for myself, and many other people, which is why it is applied so widely. I'm guessing that one of the reasons it has worked so well is that it lends itself well to padding. Makes it easier for the developer to promise lots of content and gives the player value for their money. Personally, I greatly enjoyed my time scouring every inch of Greece in Ass Creed Odyssey, despite most the content being extremely similar.

But I think the formula has a lot more potential if it focuses on more than biggerer and betterer worlds. Utilize some of the strengths that traditionally linear games have. Some things I would like to see more of in open world games includes:

• More opportunities for emergent gameplay (I'm told BotW did this well).
• Make the worlds more of an adversary rather than window dressing (I thought Death Stranding did this fairly well).
• Better level design. To me, SoulsBorne games is an obvious place to draw inspiration.
• More verticality and better use of it. Scaling a tall structure in AC doesn't mean much when there are few to no consequences of falling down.

Obviously making more interesting and dense open worlds will result in them being smaller and possibly have less content. I would argue that less content with more depth is often better, but luckily there is room for both. I just think currently the 'copy-paste' formula is so effective that real innovation in the open world formula has been almost completely stifled. I recently played Prey (2017) and while it is not exactly an open world, it is a near perfect combination of open areas with great level design that gives players creative freedom. Maybe people can point out some examples of awesome innovations in good open world games? Like, Ghost of Tzatziki seems to have shook the open world landscape by using the wind, environment and animals to direct the player.

 

[Laptop1991]

I love open world games, could they be made better, yeah, but they are my favourite type of games that i spend the most hours on, its the multiplayer/online only side of OWG like Bethesda is pushing that they should stray away from in my opinion.

 

[Kadayi]

I think the main issue for me is lack of dynamism in open world games. Much love for The Witcher 3, but in terms of time that game covers a long period, but there's no seasonal change and even after a certain someone dies the battlefield stuff doesn't change. Small quibbles in the scheme of things, but I think if you're game takes place over a period then you should see things change and evolve in some fashion as time passes.

 

[captain_cabbage]

In GTA III, which may be the first game that inspired this whole genre, driving around the city *was* the fun part. Besides that there was an actual sense of progression via finding new vehicles, unlocking new parts of the city and getting better weapons.

Then developers slowly forgot why they needed open world in the first place. The first Assassin's Creed game is a great example of what went wrong. The whole game is about doing the same thing over and over. Enter a city, find the target, assassinate, escape the guards, rinse repeat. There's no scaling in terms of difficulty or rewarding the player, the whole thing feels "flat".

 

[Ceadeus]

With most of all the major AAA going open world , the novelty is starting to be predictable and the fun wears off quite rapidly.

 

[SCB3]

In GTA III, which may be the first game that inspired this whole genre, driving around the city *was* the fun part. Besides that there was an actual sense of progression via finding new vehicles, unlocking new parts of the city and getting better weapons.

Then developers slowly forgot why they needed open world in the first place. The first Assassin's Creed game is a great example of what went wrong. The whole game is about doing the same thing over and over. Enter a city, find the target, assassinate, escape the guards, rinse repeat. There's no scaling in terms of difficulty or rewarding the player, the whole thing feels "flat".

Though I loved Origins and Odessey, I feel like AC needed to adopt more from the Hitman games in terms of assassination, it feels too by the numbers at times

 

[Naked Lunch]

I cant think of a single open world game that I like. The level design just isnt there.
And the game series that transition to open world (like MGSV) take a nose dive in quality. Its a night and day difference.

 

[JoeyWestSide]

I've always liked open world games. To me with linear games I feel like I'm constantly saying, "really, I can't do that?!"

 

[martino]

Counter point: Most linear games suck. Open world games give developers + players more choice so open world games have more potential.

i agree.i prefer to manage my pacing. Open world give control overt it
Too much linear games use ultra corridor boring traversial + forced walked or little interactive to be longer that they really are and it brings nothing interesting (maybe sometimes it's technical (i will wait them on that with SSD next gen though))

 

[asustitan]

I agree, I can't stand open world games, too long, boring walking miles upon miles. I just don't have the time.

Crash 4 is my kind of game. Short and dense. Everything you see has been crafted. No copy and paste grass.

How would you class Cyberpunk? It doesn't look open world to me.

 

[Vow of Silence]

There's plenty of good games in every genre. There's a bunch of great open-world games -

Horizon Zero Dawn
Breath of the Wild
Ghost of Tsushima
Witcher 3
Days Gone
AC Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2

These are all good games, even if there are things I may change about some of them.

Been reading this thread in amazement that no one had mentioned Witcher 3 yet!

The main thing that pisses me off about open world games is the collectible filler stuff that unlocks stuff, so even though it is optional if you are a completionist and want to max out your character/equipment it feels mandatory. Means you end up just mindlessly flitting places to collect shit and ruins exploration.

However I will say that Zelda BOTW has the best organic exploration out of any open world game I’ve played and uses that mechanic so what do I know.

 

[WellSheet]

....Ghost of Tzatziki seems to have shook the open world landscape by using the wind, environment and animals to direct the player.

Oh sweet Baklava! I knew the sequel was going to be creamy, yogurt based and set in Greece. Take that UBISOFT!

 

[MightySquirrel]

Neh we Need MORE open world games!

 

[REE Machine]

Kind of a fan open hub worlds now in games. A streamlined game with openish areas to explore and change it up

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

We need denser cities / towns and more physics-bound objects that can be interacted with. I also want roving bands of marauders who make it very difficult / impossible to travel on the main roads. Traveling in open worlds is usually too easy, especially with fast travel.

Increasing the distance between cities is cool when it's PS1/PS2 era and you're accustomed to Silent Hill draw distance. Increasing the distance between cities to the point where traveling between locations becomes a major time investment over the course of the game seems backwards. Only a handful of open world games spend the extra time to fill that world with interesting mechanics and breadcrumb trails.

 

[WellSheet]

We need denser cities / towns and more physics-bound objects that can be interacted with. I also want roving bands of marauders who make it very difficult / impossible to travel on the main roads. Traveling in open worlds is usually too easy, especially with fast travel.

Increasing the distance between cities is cool when it's PS1/PS2 era and you're accustomed to Silent Hill draw distance. Increasing the distance between cities to the point where traveling between locations becomes a major time investment over the course of the game seems backwards. Only a handful of open world games spend the extra time to fill that world with interesting mechanics and breadcrumb trails.

I agree! Especially the last sentence.

I get it’s a big ask too...give me a HUGE game world and fill it with new and interesting twists and turns all the time.

that’s why I believe God of War 2018 or Control so perfectly walked that line. You had meaningful rewards for side quests, saw unique areas to explore and learn about, had fun/new combat encounters with new or very varied enemy types and usually new gameplay set pieces or mechanics were sprinkled in....that kind of handcrafted approach is usually only seen in the main missions...and open world games in general lack even that kind of TLC with their main missions.

Prey, Dishonored, Bioshock ...immersive sims or cousins of that genre, fit well here too.

 

[iHaunter]

They're fake open-world. Talking about TLOU I not II.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I agree! Especially the last sentence.

I get it’s a big ask too...give me a HUGE game world and fill it with new and interesting twists and turns all the time.

that’s why I believe God of War 2018 or Control so perfectly walked that line. You had meaningful rewards for side quests, saw unique areas to explore and learn about, had fun/new combat encounters with new or very varied enemy types and usually new gameplay set pieces or mechanics were sprinkled in....that kind of handcrafted approach is usually only seen in the main missions...and open world games in general lack even that kind of TLC with their main missions.

Prey, Dishonored, Bioshock ...immersive sims or cousins of that genre, fit well here too.

I haven't played either GoW 2018 or Control but it is encouraging to hear those games paired variety with their game structure.

If the distances on the map are intended to be meaningful, then it should translate to meaningful choices for the player.

Far Cry series (though suffering from other problems) is one of the best open world franchises in this regard. Metal Gear Solid 5 is another. The games allow the player to leverage the world persistence and the long distances to execute harebrained schemes on the AI enemies. Playing the guerrilla fighter is so much fun, but most games force you to play close-quarters commando. You'd think that on a big map the first thing devs would dial in is the act of sniping from a distance and how the enemy AI reacts to that, but alas....

Death Stranding is another one. The difficulty of traversal makes that distance "meaningful" and makes roads / ropes / ladders all the more useful when you lay one or get to use one laid by another player. Yet, the distance between locations is short by any modern open-world standard. When I moved to the second map I was actually shocked because I thought the first map was small. One of the early missions sends the player to an incinerator with the "dire" time limit of 48 hours, but it was just down the road (plot reasons for this, however).

Wunray and 01011001 mentioned Arkane and Eidos I think they are right on the money. I would prefer smaller "open worlds" with intricate layouts, complex interaction between NPCs, multiple routes, quests that are interdependent of one another, etc.

 

[PapyDoc]

They're fake open-world. Talking about TLOU I not II.

Since when Uncharted and TLOU 1 are open world ?

 

[Terce]

Ghost of Tsushima is the only open world game I've enjoyed in the past 5 years. While it follows the same points-of-interest style map, the writing and time put into these POI's actually make them engaging and enjoyable.

To me it seems like it's mainly a design issue, because how can you be expected to create a unique experience for each POI on the map so average / casual players are drawn to complete them? You create a camp template with 5 enemies, then copy and past it with 6, then with 7, ad infinitum. This seems to be how most of these open world games function, and with combat that isn't very engaging to begin with, they end up just padding the game with crap instead of creating anything of substance. I felt the same way about BoTW but at least the shrines helped to offset the monotony, Tsushima on the other hand is in an entire other playing field and seems so far beyond what these other games are trying to accomplish.

 

[Vaelka]

Generally speaking I don't like open world games, I feel like they overwhelm me and usually they lack real depth.
Climbing a Ubisoft tower or an equivelant to that isn't fun to me or interesting.
Neither is a massive amount of empty space with repeated assets.

I am more fine with semi-open world games like Nier Automata or heck even Diablo.
I mean technically speaking Diablo 2 is an open world game just not to the same extent.
But then there are cases where I prefer it, I prefer the world in WoW for example over the world in FFXIV but I still think that FFXIV is a better game.
One criticism I can understand about FFXIV tho is that the world feels a bit too instanced, there's a ton of variety to it still but it doesn't feel like an actual world in the way that WoW does. But that's also an MMO so I look at it way differently and my expectations aren't the same as in a singleplayer game and you spend so much time in the same zones so...

I used to love them tho but I honestly have a really hard time with them today, I've tried to replay Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind so many times before. But what usually happens is that I install Skyrim and a shit ton of mods and I do the first quest to grab the tablet then I lose interest really fast when I am left to do whatever I want.
The world just isn't interesting enough to grab my attention and I feel like I don't have a clear goal.
I just don't enjoy running around doing nothing in a game.

Same with a game like HZD or Ghost of Tsushima there's just too much of nothing.
In a game like Diablo 2 tho there's all of this uptime where you're constantly killing and moving forward or you have a clear goal in your mind that you're constantly doing and then the downtime is going back to town and selling / restocking.
But in most open world games you just run/ ride or whatever around for long periods of time and combat can be over so quickly. I just feel like I am wasting my time.
And then when things actually happen it's just standing around listening to people talking and delivering story exposition then it's back to running/ riding around again.

Dark Souls and Darksiders worked better than games like HZD and AC imo too.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

It looks like FFVII: R is heading in that direction.

 

[Elpidio Valdés]

Developers just need to get rid of the "Ubisoft" mentally and the ridiculous ? markers on the map and come up with meaningful content. I started Ghost of Tsushima a couple of days back. And while I'm loving the game, in just a small section of the map I have ran into 6 or so fox den's and 3 bath springs. That's not meaningful content at all. Don't even get me started on AC: Odyssey or I'll rant all day.

Like others have said before, give me more worlds/maps like Deus Ex and Dishonored. Compact but with lots of good content.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

I have to say that Tsushima is the new gold standard. I've never once felt bored, or overwhelmed so far!

 

[Mr.ODST]

Im starting to hate open world games, after completing Origins, tried odyssey and turned it off after an hour, its just an exhausted formula for developers to TRY and fill out content and playtime to make gamers feel happy it even happened in FFVII Remake.

Rather explore and find meaningful story driven areas rather than "here is a shrine now go find the 100+ others)