Support NeoGAF

[Men_in_Boxes]

Lol "sales == quality" great logic there, COD and pokemon are top tier game design am i rite.

Player choice is the true north in this discussion.

Open world does player choice exponentially better than linear.

Videogames singular greatest characteristic that separates itself from all other mediums is...player choice.

Sales data merely support that fact.

 

[Rival The Ace]

I mainly play plenty of indie games. But the problem is with most AAA game having open world these days there aren't many linear or semi-open world games with a high budget. And it is fatiguing constantly seeing new games turn out to be open world and game series tacking on open world when it does more harm than good.

You must either be sad or broke to be playing only indie games....I'm guessing its both

 

[NightmareFarm]

Player choice is the true north in this discussion.

Open world does player choice exponentially better than linear.

Videogames singular greatest characteristic that separates itself from all other mediums is...player choice.

Sales data merely support that fact.

So if the game offers the player a choice to make themself invulnerable to everything with no drawbacks if they tap L2 I guess that is a good thing since it promotes player choice, right? Or if tapping L2 and circle at the same time lets players fly in the next GTA game. Or if pressing square and circle simultaneously in the next street fighter one shots the other character.

 

[GigaBowser]

I don'ts

Tears Of The Kingdom is the best game of all times

 

[NightmareFarm]

You must either be sad or broke to be playing only indie games....I'm guessing its both

It could be, but it could also be something specific highlighted in the bio which makes many AAA games feel soulless and generic...

 

[Rival The Ace]

Player choice is the true north in this discussion.

Open world does player choice exponentially better than linear.

Videogames singular greatest characteristic that separates itself from all other mediums is...player choice.

Sales data merely support that fact.

Another idiot drunk on Donkey piss,Detroit become Human,has more player choice that actually do affect the progress and outcome of the games ending than any open world game,and so does Majoras mask

 

[L*][*N*K]

Someone gotta burst your bubble my friend, this is the direction we are taking.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

This is NOT one of the world's most expensive hobbies, not even close.

It absolutely is. Not compared to what exist out there, but remember that there is places where internet/ having a PC is not standard. When a console like the PS4 is right now worth a month or 2 of a man's salary, you can consider gaming as a expensive hobby. It is not free like most sports are. Or playing cards.Or reading books. Free to play exist for a reason too.

As for open world, they will continue to exist with multiplayer and be the easy choice to sell a game: see how big and long the game is! And so much player's engagement! X millions are playing right now!

You must either be sad or broke to be playing only indie games....I'm guessing its both

Games like FTL, The binding of Isaac... can allow hundreds hours of great experiences. You can spend years playing just those kind of games and be happy. Some people are into FPS, some into sports... indies can be a good choice,even if yes a few masterpieces are missed along the way.

 

[Rival The Ace]

It could be, but it could also be something specific highlighted in the bio which makes many AAA games feel soulless and generic...

Okay I do agree with that,just played Ghost of Tsushima for the first time...and I'm very disappointed this far,especially in terms of gameplay...game feels generic I'm still yet to see what was the hype all about

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

So if the game offers the player a choice to make themself invulnerable to everything with no drawbacks if they tap L2 I guess that is a good thing since it promotes player choice, right? Or if tapping L2 and circle at the same time lets players fly in the next GTA game.

"A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier

Your description doesn't create interesting choices, so no.

 

[NightmareFarm]

"A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier

Your description doesn't create interesting choices, so no.

And open worlds don't always create interesting choices either.

 

[pennythoughts]

I don't like most open world games but I don't feel like there's any shortage of other types of games. Titanfall 2 is on Steam for $2.99, hop to it!

 

[Rival The Ace]

It absolutely is. Not compared to what exist out there, but remember that there is places where internet/ having a PC is not standard. When a console like the PS4 is right now worth a month or 2 of a man's salary, you can consider gaming as a expensive hobby. It is not free like most sports are. Or playing cards.Or reading books. Free to play exist for a reason too.

As for open world, they will continue to exist with multiplayer and be the easy choice to sell a game: see how big and long the game is! And so much player's engagement! X millions are playing right now!

Games like FTL, The binding of Isaac... can allow hundreds hours of great experiences. You can spend years playing just those kind of games and be happy. Some people are into FPS, some into sports... indies can be a good choice,even if yes a few masterpieces are missed along the way.

I'm turned off by most indie games because they feel cheap and tacked on,but I did enjoy a few like Ori,cuphead and Lost winds

 

[balls of snow]

I wonder is Jedi Survivorr classified as an open world game then.

 

[NightmareFarm]

I wonder is Jedi Survivorr classified as an open world game then.

I don't like that it leaned towards more open levels. It felt tacked on, the metroidvania esque design in FO was perfectly fine.

 

[Fbh]

Doubt that's going to happen any time soon with the likes of Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy (and probably Spider Man 2 later this year) all getting exceptional sales numbers and solid reviews.
I just hope more devs, specially western ones, take a good look at Elden Ring and TotK and what makes their world so beloved, and then start improving their own open world design.

 

[Zuzu]

I like all world designs whether it be linear, semi-open hub style worlds or open worlds. All of them can deliver a good experience if executed well.

 

[BlackTron]

TOTK can suck my balls lol

I actually agree with you that the open world trend has been a curse afflicting many franchises, but that's gonna be a hard case to make when this megaton game just dropped days ago and happens to be open world, lol. You should be sucking Its balls or at least waiting for the moment to pass. What's next?

Series where shaded graphics had to be used (this has nothing to do with Zelda)
Large adventure games that need more voice acting (this has nothing to do with Zelda)
Games with weapon durability need to die (for the last time, this has nothing to do with Zelda I just happened to be thinking about it)

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I am sorry to inform you this, but open world is the only thing that is enticing these days.

With overload work, people are looking for escapism, and the only thing that allows that is the open world games.

I like doing quests and immersing myself in to that world, while I forget about the harsh reality that I am living currently.

open worlds feel like work

 

[Puscifer]

I Remember when GTA III and Vicy City came out I loved opeen world games because of the story, atmosphere, side missions etc.

Now when I see an open world game it's the same old: here's 100 useless collectibles, the world is divided in x districts, climb towers/activate antenna's/liberate camps to unlock districts, here's a dozen of standard side missions ....Ugh.

I'd rather have a lineair game than these recycled open world games. Since I started working I learned to appreciate linear games more.

And also don't forget that those games are super tiny but they knew how to hide the game world. You can loop across all of GTA 3 and vice city in like 15 minutes and get an idea of the entire game. Now? I swear it's like commuting in LA in terms how long it takes to go a short distance in the relevance of the area, that's a weird feeling.

 

[kunonabi]

MGSV, Xenoblade X, and Death Stranding all managed to become some of my absolute favorite games of the last few years so I can't say I'm sick of open world games or anything but Elden Ring and Zelda have made one thing clear: there is such a thing as too big. This isn't as big a problem with Elden Ring, it was the combat and controls that mostly soured me on that, but with Zelda there is just so much copy and paste to fill the world that it just sours me on exploring. I thought it was so cool to stumble on those caves and tombs the first time in ER but then every subsequent time is just eh. Zelda recycles so much more and for even less interesting rewards. TotK somehow made this worse by just recycling stuff from botw. I'm already burnt out on the side content and I'm only like 15 hours in.

 

[belmarduk]

TOTK can suck my balls lol

Care to elaborate on that point, friend?

 

[KXVXII9X]

Despite loving the heck out of Zelda TotK, I agree with you OP. I am also confused that people are acting like open world games aren't saturated. Come on... A lot of familiar series have gone more open world and I don't think it is too much to ask for more AAA linear games like FFXVI and Jedi Survivor (both which are semi-linear).

I'm curious how Assassin's Creed Mirage will turn out. I always thought Assassin's Creed would benefit with a more linear and tighter focus. I would also like to see more wide-linear concept like in TLOU Part 2 and Crysis 3.

Personally, I would just like to see more variety in gameplay in general. I think that is why I like Zelda TotK despite it being open world. There kind of isn't anything like it atm.

There are however, tons of Action-Adventure open world RPGs and Roguelikes. I see it that that industry is more risk adverse. They see a successful game and everyone hops on it like vultures hoping they can strike the same amount of success.

 

[Northeastmonk]

This is why I skip Ubisoft games and Horizon. My spouse plays all those games to like 80% completion, so I see a lot of the game’s content. I’ll take RDR2, ER, TotK, etc. It’s a case by case thing. I cut out Assassin’s Creed, FarCry, and etc. because they felt like they drag on. I use to love playing AC1-3 and all of 2’s titles. Some of these open world are great. I think playing them back to back can burn you out. Id rather revisit a game than play something like Saint’s Row.

It’s a case by case basis. When GTA6 comes out, it’ll be like this whole discussion never existed. I’m hoping FFXVI is good. I’ve got that preordered. I also didn’t like how big XV was. It felt boring. There was nothing to do half the time and you had to drive to places. I didn’t like it. I would much rather have something like FFXII’s world. There’s a sense of escape to the world, but it’s not this long drawn out landscape with nothing in between. Lol it sounds like I’d hate Death Stranding, but I finished Death Stranding around its launch. There has to be a gimmick or something special about the environment otherwise it’s just a slog. God of War Ragnarok wasn’t my favorite game either. I had a better time playing RE4R. I put 200 hours into Elden Ring and got the Platinum. It doesn’t make sense to say all open world games are bad. I’m not going to buy the next Watchdogs or Saint’s Row. I narrowed it down to where I personally don’t play a lot of Ubisoft’s games. I don’t mind going on a long journey inside a video game, but the mission structure and objectives can suck the joy out of it. TotK is great because you can get to the objective as fast or as slow as you want. Taking breaks also helps.

 

[Rea]

A good example is Elden Ring. I miss the old level design like Bloodborne, sekiro.

 

[kikii]

Care to elaborate on that point, friend?

 

[duck_sauce]

I mainly play plenty of indie games. But the problem is with most AAA game having open world these days there aren't many linear or semi-open world games with a high budget. And it is fatiguing constantly seeing new games turn out to be open world and game series tacking on open world when it does more harm than good.

Speak for yourself.
I love open world games. The more the better imo. I dont think open world games do more harm than good. It is not the genre that is your problem. It is the interpretation of game developers that seems to be your problem.
You can habe liniear games that are absolutly dreadful in its execution.
There are enough games out there for a hundred lifetimes. Youst play something else.

Or as many souls fanatics love to say: Not every game is for you. Just play something else. Sont change the vision of the developer. That is how it is intended to play

 

[L*][*N*K]

TOTK can suck my balls lol

You gotta wait though, TOTK is busy getting its balls sucked by FFXVI right now.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Only ballooning costs can stop the trend. And creativity bankruptcy, maybe.
The audience has been carefully cultivated to expect more and more content from AAA releases. Completely linear games hardly cut it anymore. Resident Evil can have so many titles in a few years because of remakes and an audience from 25 years ago, and I guess anything where your character has a gun can sell even if it’s not open world. But open world elements have been creeping more and more into linear games.

With open world you can throw anything at the wall, and almost everything will stick. People will be able to choose what they like and enjoy it at their pace, while ignoring the rest. Completionists will invest hundreds of hours into a single game. And since pacing in games is quickly becoming a lost art, it’s much easier for the devs to just put in a few mandatory checkpoints and let players set their own rhythm. There’s also endless possibilities for DLC and MTX, which can take their time coming because most people will spend months on the game anyway. If your game is linear, the timing of DLC is trickier because you can’t expect most people to still be there after a month, or to return to an already beaten game just for DLC.

Open world has solved a lot of problems related to game design on the developers’ part. It’s not just the market that wants the genre, it’s devs. Devs take pride in making huge games with sprawling worlds filled with content. It’s what most of them dreamed of when playing games in the 80s and 90s, and it allows them to put in their personal views, opinions and interests too.
As with many things in today’s market, blame the success of GTA 3 and onward. It’s the foundational game for the success of the open world genre on console and, therefore, the market at large after the PS2 era.

 

[hinch7]

Feel the same OP. Way prefer a tighter, focused game for singleplayer titles. The most recent open world games I've tried, have way too much filler and follow the usual Ubisoft formula; that I don't have time for.

There are exceptions for me however for games like; GTA and Elden Ring. That comes every once in a while that are exceptional and offer insane level of detail and complexity in the game design that's well worth exploring and playing through thoroughly.

 

[March Climber]

There's nothing linear games do that can't be done (admittedly much harder) in an open world. There are things open world can do that linear can never.

Videogames and player choice are intertwined like DNA. Open world supports that DNA exponentially better than linear.

Maybe you could have helped the Mirror’s Edge team figure out how to make an “open world” like Catalyst work, because they sure as hell made a worse game once they went open world with level design.

Better yet, help the guys, who make open world racing games, to figure out how to make the moments between actual races(where you’re driving to them) less boring and less filler.

I know that you’re known for sometimes trolling on GAF, and if this is one of those times then this was excellent work.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the bench mark of open world all other open world games need to learn from.

 

[Danjin44]

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the bench mark of open world all other open world games need to learn from.

Ummmm….no thank you. I want the game to be actually fun to control and play.

 

[March Climber]

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the bench mark of open world all other open world games need to learn from.

Whenever rockstar fixes their extremely rigid mission design I’ll finally agree with this statement.

Until then, I’ll be sure to hold down that follow button and not stray two feet from my objective so that the mission doesn’t instantly fail.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Oh sort what open world game would you say is the bench mark

 

[Danjin44]

Oh sort what open world game would you say is the bench mark

For me it have fun traversal and interactive and most importantly not afraid to be gamey, at end of the day they are games and I want to have fun playing them.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

For me it have fun traversal and interactive and most importantly not afraid to be gamey, at end of the day they are games and I want to have fun playing the

So what is your favourite open world game

 

[March Climber]

Oh sort what open world game would you say is the bench mark

This is an impossible trap question, because the minute another game is brought up, it won’t be able to match Red Dead 2’s emergent AI and storytelling systems.

By this metric, the game simply doesn’t exist yet. A dream game would be for it to utilize a nemesis system, Red Dead 2’s side content systems, Red Faction Guerilla’s destruction system, Fallout New Vegas dialogue systems, discoverability of Elden Ring, and the extremely open gameplay mixture of MGSV’s combat controls and a building game or creative mode(like ToTk).

 

[DenchDeckard]

An open world like zelda or elden ring as all good. Anything else, with ubisoft design can do one for a while I think.

 

[Danjin44]

So what is your favourite open world game

I personally loving how TotK gone about doing its open world, especially exploring deep underground is both challenging and really fun. I even made a vehicle from scratch to help me navigate through it but environments are very complex and challenging and I love it.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

I personally loving how TotK gone about doing its open world, especially exploring deep underground is both challenging and really fun. I even made a vehicle from scratch to help me navigate through it but environments are very complex and challenging and I love it.

TOTK Devs we're inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2

 

[MagnesD3]

I'm sorry but normies love open world games, the mainstream audience will eat it up regardless of quality since they prefer to make thier own fun by piddling. Try to take solace that there are at least a couple actually good open world games that have released in the last couple years.

 

[Danjin44]

TOTK Devs we're inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2

And how is that anything to do with how bad it feels to control your character in RDR2 and badly design missions?

One of the big problem with RDR2 is it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It want to be cinematic linear game or open world simulation and this opposite design choices keep clashing.

The great thing about TotK open world design is every system is working together with proper goal in mind.

 

[Big Baller]

Only Nintendo does it right.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

And how is that anything to do with how bad it feels to control your character in RDR2 and badly design missions?

One of the big problem with RDR2 is it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It want to be cinematic linear game or open world simulation and this opposite design choices keep clashing.

The great thing about TotK open world design is every system is working together with proper goal in mind.

I played botw thought it was boring guess we like different things

 

[crackajack]

...open world aspect feels like unneccessary bloat a lot of the time and just makes getting from place to place without menu teleporting a bore. Not to mention levels feel more intricately designed in linear games....

a lot of the time? always! Spiderman was possibly the first open world game where I did not mind going from A to B too much, but after this first novelty impression it might also wear off, and I used quick travel a lot too.
I understand why people play (and prefer) open world games, they deliver more bang for the buck, after years of people whining about too short games and tacked on MP modes, they solved those criticisms, but at what cost? I'd rather have a fine 10h handcrafted experience (and filler crap put in Coop and MP missions) than some 50+h bloatware where 40h is just repetitive filler nonsense stretching the mostly anyway thin main story even more, deforming it to some forgetable incoherent sidemission-like no urgency task.
Mafia is imho still the only game where the open world did not hurt the main mission, since there were no side missions and the world was just decoration, but that was of course no sandbox open world game at all.
The second you offer choice any proper story seems to implode in those games. People can mock all Quantic Dream games for various reasons, but at least choice is actually affecting the outcome there (in some of their games more, in some less), properly changing the fate of the playable figures and not just sidemission after sidemission with results that have no real consequence to the main plot whatsoever beside upgrade points and extra money or some other distracting gamey stuff.
If you don't want good stories in your games, open world is certainly no problem, but if you actually want interactive stories to rival movies and books, enhanced with that player choice element, which is exclusive to this medium, open world is for now a variable that does not help one bit, rather pulls any decent story down to low quality fan fiction shovelware.
Sadly more and more Indies jump on this design philosophies too. Just cram your game with stuff and people flock to it. urgh.
Procedural and even more AI developed stuff might actually save us from this since computers might be able to develop levels that feel handcrafted and allow to adjust size and de-/activate missions according to anyone's preferences. A task human devs fail at splendidly.

 

[Danjin44]

I played botw thought it was boring guess we like different things

Sure, I like games that’s not afraid to be proper game.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Sure, I like games that’s not afraid to be proper game.

Like Fortnite

 

[Danjin44]

Like Fortnite

 

[G-DannY]

Just remove "?"s and task/collectible icons from the map and you fix 90% of open world games.

Just follow main quest and explore/check while on the run, following hints and landmarks.

Open world biggest faults are to rely on collectathon ocds and 100% completionists to inflate play time