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[Represent.]

Because they are the only ones that get it right, consistently. They simply just do it better.

This trend goes way back to Burnout on the PS2 days. Burnout 3 was the last great Burnout title, as soon as they went to open world, with Burnout Paradise, the franchise became stale, samey, lost focus, and fucking died shortly after.

Rockstar Games like RDR and GTA, they are quite frankly the only developers that get open world RIGHT.

Almost all open worlds are lifeless as fuck. NPC's are always janky and goofy in their movements. They say stupid shit, have terrible AI, towns are always empty and quiet. Layout is trash. Repetitive missions. Lack of intensity and a sense of urgency in the story. HUGE, REPETITIVE maps, collectathons, big for the sake of being big. Overly bloated with copy and paste content. Open world game design is Corporate trash meant to check off boxes.

Assassins creed. Watchdogs. I don’t give a fuck. Witcher. Fallout. Skyrim. Spider-Man. Ghosts of Tsushima. All Ubisoft titles.

None of these dudes can make an open world like Rockstar. And it's time they stop trying. Focus your gameplay and narrative and produce Wide linear games. Games will be better for it.

Other devs simply don't have the R* magic. None of their open worlds are even close. None of their graphics are worth a damn when you compare it to RDR2. CDPR had fucking 7 years to make a competent, living breathing city, and the citizens in that city cant even drive around a stopped car. Pathetic really. Just focus on wide linear.

The stories they're trying to tell are all worthless in comparison to what R* does.

You ever get lost for hours in these other games not doing missions? Just driving around the city and taking it in, taking in the world? Going on cop chases. Marvelling at random events? You ever do that in other games? Nah. You don't. You go right to a mission or side mission. Theres nothing else to do in these "open worlds".

What the fuck is there to do in Horizon Zero Dawn? The world is literally lifeless and has absolutely no personality or character to it. So WHY is it open world? It would be a much more impactful and memorable experience had it been a tighter one.

More focused wide linear with great level design, less bloated disasters with zero focus and repetition. Do it right or just dont.

/rant

 

[spawn]

No

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

Someone hasn’t played Ghost of Tsushima....

 

[Represent.]

Someone hasn’t played Ghost of Tsushima....

Same as every other shit. Absolutely a crap open world. Wind. Yay.

 

[BattleScar]

Only one company makes Open World games that I like, so nobody else should try.

Variety is the spice of life. R* games being the only Open World games in existence would be fucking boring.

 

[manfestival]

Lol no
GTA worlds tend to be boring for me. I forced myself to finish playing 5. I never finished a GTA game prior since I always get bored.

 

[GHG]

Playing watch dogs legion at the moment and hard disagree.

The mechanic of being able to recruit any character from the game world just wouldn't work in a linear game. Half the fun is scanning NPCs to see what skills/traits they have and figuring out of they will complement your existing squad. There's a lot of variety and all of these NPCs also have routines as they go about their days.




So essentially it depends on the game. I actually think cyberpunk is a game that would benefit from being more linear and made up of dense hub areas (each with unique activities and NPC logic) rather than one sprawling open world.

 

[Hugare]

Nah, fam. Competition is good.

Most games dont get as many things right as R* does, but they sometimes excel in places where R* is completely lost

Mission design in a freaking gig in Cyberpunk is better than anything in any R* main story campaign

Traversal is better in AC games than any R* game

Combat is better in GoT than any R* game

Some people were already critical about R* design flaws with RDR 2, and maybe they will be even more critical with GTA VI if R* keeps on doing nothing to improve on its flaws

 

[Hal.]

What? Rockstar open world games are wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle.

The best, most soulful open world game ever?

Motherfucking Majora’s Mask

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

Same as every other shit. Absolutely a crap open world. Wind. Yay.

You’re right to a certain extent, but the interactivity and detail limitations are:
A) Restricted to last gen hardware (weak)
B) Time and resources
C) Money

It’s always the same, Companies are more inclined to stick to the same tired games gen after gen.

 

[Excess]

I'd agree if they still made games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Open world games are like the automobile.

Linear games are like the horse.

The industry only benefits by exploring open world innovation. The horse has long been beaten into the ground.

Embrace the automobile.

 

[LazyParrot]

GTA, where the only way to interact with 99% of the NPCs in the world involves stealing their car or murdering them? I think a linear GTA would work way better than, say, a linear Skyrim.

 

[Eternal21]

I completely agree. The moment I hear the game is open world, I immediately lose interest, because it's just going to end up being another repetitive borefest after a few hours. I'll take The Last of Us over Days Gone any day of the week. Here's an article that touches on this issue: 'Open Worlds vs. Authored Narratives'

 

[thuGG_pl]

I never finished any R* game, but I finished some other open world games.
So no, what a stupid post OP.

 

[Larxia]

Fallout and Elder Scrolls would be better as linear games? Ok sure...
And Spider-Man definitely needs the open-world, super hero games like this need big environments to make good use of their special traversal mechanics, the linear spider-man games without open environments where you could swing freely were much less fun.

Should there be more linear games because too many games try to be open world for the wrong reason? Yes.
Is your list of games having bad open worlds correct? No.

 

[Represent.]

What do you guys like so much about bloated open worlds?

Do you feel you're not getting your moneys worth if its not open world?

Theres nothing better than sublime level design. Linear games do that best.

 

[driqe]

Assassins creed. Watchdogs. I don’t give a fuck. Witcher. Fallout. Skyrim. Spider-Man. Ghosts of Tsushima. All Ubisoft titles.

Ok, now you're right

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Who the fuck would play Skyrim as a linear game? People just avoid that garbage main quest

 

[bxrz]

R* makes a game once every 8 years or whatever and you want to leave a whole genre to them?!?

 

[driqe]

Who the fuck would play Skyrim as a linear game? People just avoid that garbage main quest

 

[Isendurl]

The Irony here is that R* games are as linear as it gets when it comes to mission design.

You might as well be in a tunnel when you start mission in RDR 2.
They build this amazing open world and then they completely disregard it once you start doing main content their game has to offer.

How can people call this good design is beyond me.

 

[Represent.]

R* makes a game once every 8 years or whatever and you want to leave a whole genre to them?!?

If it was up to me I'd ban the genre from existing aside from GTA lol

 

[thuGG_pl]

The whole argument is "I think metal music should only be left to Metallica", because of reasons.

 

[TintoConCasera]

What about Dragon's Dogma? It's small, and instead of being filled with the typical things (Ubisoft style) it's filled with handcrafted dungeons, unique locations and even bosses out of nowhere.

It also has the pawns, which I think add a lot to the experience of exploring the world, as the help a lot with the immersion with all the things they say to you during the journey.

 

[Three]

Open world games are like the automobile.

Linear games are like the horse.

The industry only benefits by exploring open world innovation. The horse has long been beaten into the ground.

Embrace the automobile.

Open world games are just less bespoke in terms of gameplay. The world is created then gameplay elements added with tweaks to the map. A wide linear game is often created with the gameplay in mind first. This isn't an automobile vs horse situation where one has replaced the other.

 

[Represent.]

The Irony here is that R* games are as linear as it gets when it comes to mission design.

You might as well be in a tunnel when you start mission in RDR 2.
They build this amazing open world and then they completely disregard it once you start doing main content their game has to offer.

How can people call this good design is beyond me.

This is because linear game design is objectively superior when it comes to nailing a focused story.

Im not talking about how many ways you can tackle the same mission in a game here. Im talking about the actual Open WORLD. And how lifeless, repetitive and stale they are.

 

[Hal.]

The Irony here is that R* games are as linear as it gets when it comes to mission design.

You might as well be in a tunnel when you start mission in RDR 2.
They build this amazing open world and then they completely disregard it once you start doing main content their game has to offer.

How can people call this good design is beyond me.

Aside from breath of the wild which has endless open world possibilities, my best use of an open world was in GTA San Andreas where I got stuck on some mission where you had to shoot your way into a building/tower or something.

I drove to the other side of the map, got the jet pack, and flew to the top of the tower, skipping the combat and completing the mission.

In a modern open world game, it would definitely have failed me for leaving the mission area.

 

[geordiemp]

Same as every other shit. Absolutely a crap open world. Wind. Yay.

I played ghosts of a week, the combat was and is reallly good.

I played GTA5 for 1 hour, it controls and combat is awful. My god its bad.

Its like playing in treacle. Dont get me started on red dead I move my controler and my characvter moves 5 minutes later redemption. What is the esponse time again, I think it hold the record of slowest .

I dont play games to see the variety of scripted NPC, I play for the combat. Is there any in R* games ?

 

[mansoor1980]

Because they are the only ones that get it right, consistently. They simply just do it better.

This trend goes way back to Burnout on the PS2 days. Burnout 3 was the last great Burnout title, as soon as they went to open world, with Burnout Paradise, the franchise became stale, samey, lost focus, and fucking died shortly after.

Rockstar Games like RDR and GTA, they are quite frankly the only developers that get open world RIGHT.

Almost all open worlds are lifeless as fuck. NPC's are always janky and goofy in their movements. They say stupid shit, have terrible AI, towns are always empty and quiet. Layout is trash. Repetitive missions. Lack of intensity and a sense of urgency in the story. HUGE, REPETITIVE maps, collectathons, big for the sake of being big. Overly bloated with copy and paste content. Open world game design is Corporate trash meant to check off boxes.

Assassins creed. Watchdogs. I don’t give a fuck. Witcher. Fallout. Skyrim. Spider-Man. Ghosts of Tsushima. All Ubisoft titles.

None of these dudes can make an open world like Rockstar. And it's time they stop trying. Focus your gameplay and narrative and produce Wide linear games. Games will be better for it.

Other devs simply don't have the R* magic. None of their open worlds are even close. None of their graphics are worth a damn when you compare it to RDR2. CDPR had fucking 7 years to make a competent, living breathing city, and the citizens in that city cant even drive around a stopped car. Pathetic really. Just focus on wide linear.

The stories they're trying to tell are all worthless in comparison to what R* does.

You ever get lost for hours in these other games not doing missions? Just driving around the city and taking it in, taking in the world? Going on cop chases. Marvelling at random events? You ever do that in other games? Nah. You don't. You go right to a mission or side mission. Theres nothing else to do in these "open worlds".

What the fuck is there to do in Horizon Zero Dawn? The world is literally lifeless and has absolutely no personality or character to it. So WHY is it open world? It would be a much more impactful and memorable experience had it been a tighter one.

More focused wide linear with great level design, less bloated disasters with zero focus and repetition. Do it right or just dont.

/rant

agreed 100 percent .

 

[TheCrowsReaper]

Nope. I’ll leave it up to the experts, many of whom have thrilled me with incredible games for many, many years, over your take, of which I don’t agree with at all.

 

[Moogle11]

I’m with you there OP. I play open worlds games in a largely linear fashion anyway, usually making a beeline for the next objective marker I’ve got tracked. Exploration just isn’t my thing and I wouldn’t bother with open worlds games if there’s were enough AAA story-driven linear games to fill my gaming time.

 

[Sakura]

Rockstar's games are fucking boring and they play like shit. Yeah they put a lot of attention to detail, but the actual stuff you can do and way you can interact with the world is shallow as hell.
And really, how would games like TES or Witcher be better as linear games? I got far more lost and immersed in Morrowind than I ever have in any GTA.

 

[Husky]

Lol no
GTA worlds tend to be boring for me. I forced myself to finish playing 5. I never finished a GTA game prior since I always get bored.

My take exactly, GTA bores the fuck out of me. I prefer the crime sandboxes of Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs, and Watch_Dogs with an underscore, why the fuck did they abandon the underscore with Legion.

I'd fuckin love an open world Metro game set in that underground. Whenever I play Metro 2033, I wanna go off-rails and explore, check out some of the other settlements.

 

[Alebrije]

Fallout 3 and New Vegas are better than any GTA game.

 

[Isendurl]

This is because linear game design is objectively superior when it comes to nailing a focused story.

Im not talking about how many ways you can tackle the same mission in a game here. Im talking about the actual Open WORLD. And how lifeless, repetitive and stale they are.

OK, but if the main focus is the story wouldn't it better if that game was linear?
Isn't that your whole argument here?

 

[Werewolfgrandma]

Because they are the only ones that get it right, consistently. They simply just do it better.

This trend goes way back to Burnout on the PS2 days. Burnout 3 was the last great Burnout title, as soon as they went to open world, with Burnout Paradise, the franchise became stale, samey, lost focus, and fucking died shortly after.

Rockstar Games like RDR and GTA, they are quite frankly the only developers that get open world RIGHT.

Almost all open worlds are lifeless as fuck. NPC's are always janky and goofy in their movements. They say stupid shit, have terrible AI, towns are always empty and quiet. Layout is trash. Repetitive missions. Lack of intensity and a sense of urgency in the story. HUGE, REPETITIVE maps, collectathons, big for the sake of being big. Overly bloated with copy and paste content. Open world game design is Corporate trash meant to check off boxes.

Assassins creed. Watchdogs. I don’t give a fuck. Witcher. Fallout. Skyrim. Spider-Man. Ghosts of Tsushima. All Ubisoft titles.

None of these dudes can make an open world like Rockstar. And it's time they stop trying. Focus your gameplay and narrative and produce Wide linear games. Games will be better for it.

Other devs simply don't have the R* magic. None of their open worlds are even close. None of their graphics are worth a damn when you compare it to RDR2. CDPR had fucking 7 years to make a competent, living breathing city, and the citizens in that city cant even drive around a stopped car. Pathetic really. Just focus on wide linear.

The stories they're trying to tell are all worthless in comparison to what R* does.

You ever get lost for hours in these other games not doing missions? Just driving around the city and taking it in, taking in the world? Going on cop chases. Marvelling at random events? You ever do that in other games? Nah. You don't. You go right to a mission or side mission. Theres nothing else to do in these "open worlds".

What the fuck is there to do in Horizon Zero Dawn? The world is literally lifeless and has absolutely no personality or character to it. So WHY is it open world? It would be a much more impactful and memorable experience had it been a tighter one.

More focused wide linear with great level design, less bloated disasters with zero focus and repetition. Do it right or just dont.

/rant

I kinda agree but can't think of wide linear games. Any examples?

 

[Sander Cohen]

R* makes a game once every 8 years or whatever and you want to leave a whole genre to them?!?

Exactly. I would like to play a few more open world games before I die ffs.

 

[perkelson]

Rockstar world is essentially empty. Instead of doing quests and content they would rather spend their time filling game with crap like reacting to someone blowing smoke in their face.

Recently released C77 vs GTA are like that.

When C77 player goes to do some new quest the GTA player spends most of their time chasing with police 999999 time because this is all there is to do in GTA. So only thing they can do is to compare other games to it hoping that someone cares about random non gameplay thing because there is nothing better to do.

 

[Represent.]

OK, but if the main focus is the story wouldn't it better if the game was linear?
Isn't that your whole argument here?

In any game where there is a story that is meant to be taken seriously, it would be better told as a wide linear game. Especially with tight level design and amazing combat. Open worlds have no focus, save for a few.

Some genres I admit lend themselves to open worlds, but the vast majority of open worlds dont need to be open world.

Ghosts of Tsuhima would have been a masterpiece with tighter focus.

I kinda agree but can't think of wide linear games. Any examples?

TLOU 2, God of War, SSX on 360/PS3, Uncharted 4, Crysis 2, perhaps dishonored

 

[Guilty_AI]

Rockstar games are literally the best example of games that should not have been open world dude.
They might look good but are absolutely worthless for the game's main focus.

 

[SafeOrAlone]

I see where you're coming from. I'm sure there are plenty of examples that we could use against you, but I've also experienced disappointment at some of my favorite franchises adopting a disappointing open-world. Secondly, it does feel like there is an expectation for big AAA games to have an open world, that the industry would be better off without.

 

[sainraja]

Because they are the only ones that get it right, consistently. They simply just do it better.

This trend goes way back to Burnout on the PS2 days. Burnout 3 was the last great Burnout title, as soon as they went to open world, with Burnout Paradise, the franchise became stale, samey, lost focus, and fucking died shortly after.

Rockstar Games like RDR and GTA, they are quite frankly the only developers that get open world RIGHT.

Almost all open worlds are lifeless as fuck. NPC's are always janky and goofy in their movements. They say stupid shit, have terrible AI, towns are always empty and quiet. Layout is trash. Repetitive missions. Lack of intensity and a sense of urgency in the story. HUGE, REPETITIVE maps, collectathons, big for the sake of being big. Overly bloated with copy and paste content. Open world game design is Corporate trash meant to check off boxes.

Assassins creed. Watchdogs. I don’t give a fuck. Witcher. Fallout. Skyrim. Spider-Man. Ghosts of Tsushima. All Ubisoft titles.

None of these dudes can make an open world like Rockstar. And it's time they stop trying. Focus your gameplay and narrative and produce Wide linear games. Games will be better for it.

Other devs simply don't have the R* magic. None of their open worlds are even close. None of their graphics are worth a damn when you compare it to RDR2. CDPR had fucking 7 years to make a competent, living breathing city, and the citizens in that city cant even drive around a stopped car. Pathetic really. Just focus on wide linear.

The stories they're trying to tell are all worthless in comparison to what R* does.

You ever get lost for hours in these other games not doing missions? Just driving around the city and taking it in, taking in the world? Going on cop chases. Marvelling at random events? You ever do that in other games? Nah. You don't. You go right to a mission or side mission. Theres nothing else to do in these "open worlds".

What the fuck is there to do in Horizon Zero Dawn? The world is literally lifeless and has absolutely no personality or character to it. So WHY is it open world? It would be a much more impactful and memorable experience had it been a tighter one.

More focused wide linear with great level design, less bloated disasters with zero focus and repetition. Do it right or just dont.

/rant

Sort of agree and not totally BUT Burnout Paradise was greeeaat!

 

[perkelson]

The most hilarious thing is when people call Rockstar games open world "sandbox". Like wtf you are smoking there is no sandbox there, there are no systems, everything spawns around you and there are only few prescript-ed events that repeat over and over.

Those people remind me BOTW fans who played for the first time open world game and think BOTW open world is amazing with its Ubisoft design.

 

[Isendurl]

In any game where there is a story that is meant to be taken seriously, it would be better told as a wide linear game. Especially with tight level design and amazing combat. Open worlds have no focus, save for a few.

Some genres I admit lend themselves to open worlds, but the vast majority of open worlds dont need to be open world.

Ghosts of Tsuhima would have been a masterpiece with tighter focus.

I don't necessary disagree with you, I think a lot of games would be better with tighter focus. I just don't see how can you say that and then praise Rockstar for literally building linear games on top of open wold.

I disagree with the notion that the best way to tell a story in a game is with linear approach though. Its most conventional way definitely, but games are at their best when they are trying to take full advantage of their medium and are not just copying movies.
And the fact that Rockstar as "masters of their craft" are doing just that, without even trying to do anything else, bugs me quit a bit.

 

[TintoConCasera]

The most hilarious thing is when people call Rockstar games open world "sandbox". Like wtf you are smoking there is no sandbox there, there are no systems, everything spawns around you and there are only few prescript-ed events that repeat over and over.

Those people remind me BOTW fans who played for the first time open world game and think BOTW open world is amazing with its Ubisoft design.

Kinda agree, most open worlds feel like a list of chores instead of a living place.

But if we get to that point... what could be a real open world? Kenshi? Caves of Qud?

 

[wolywood]

The Irony here is that R* games are as linear as it gets when it comes to mission design.

You might as well be in a tunnel when you start mission in RDR 2.
They build this amazing open world and then they completely disregard it once you start doing main content their game has to offer.

How can people call this good design is beyond me.

Yep. Ubisoft gets a lot of flak for their bloated copy paste open world design (much of it justified) but at least the Watch Dogs games give you a ton of freedom in how you approach and complete missions.

 

[John Day]

Yes, let’s not have competition in any genres.

Jesus Christ, these hot takes...

 

[Barry Burton]

Most of my favorite games are those that occupy the space between open-world and fully linear, so I don't disagree. Generally speaking I think open-world games tend to be too large, and the content tends to be shallow as a result. They also generally don't have strong, memorable level design either (Breath of the Wild is one of the few that does). For example, because I just finished playing it, I have a hard time being immersed in the world of Cyberpunk 2077 because 99% of my time spent in the open world is following the yellow dotted line from one icon to the next. The game doesn't really benefit at all from having a big world; if anything, I think it suffers for it. I'd much rather have a smaller game world, densely packed with unique and compelling content.

Funny enough, I think Rockstar's rigid approach to mission design would be better suited for non-open world games. Their story missions don't take advantage of the open-world structure at all, and the gorgeous detailed worlds that they build serve as little more than backdrops.

 

[Nezzeroth]

You don't always need a dense open world. You can fuck around in a world map without much to do and still have a good time without 100 scripted events happening. You simply like linear game design more, and that's okay.

Horizon doesn't need things to do everywhere. It's the world after humanity's extinction and the apocalypse, having large areas of the map without humans or quests is realistic.