As I get older, I notice that the open world formula is tiring! I much prefer a linear game told well than the same game with add-ons.
I was looking forward to Days Gone. I haven’t had it spoiled for me, so I picked it up and when I realized it was open world, it killed my enthusiasm for it.
I just can’t go hours on end forever just because.
For me, open worlds are almost a Nay! I’ve heard great things about Days Gone, and I want to play it, but the amount of time it will take to go through the story, because it’s open world, I don’t know. I get tired just to think about it.
What about you? Do you enjoy open-world games? Do you seek them?
It kinda depends…? personally I play genshin and find it fun, but sometimes exploring for too long get tiring
I love them if they’re done right. Bethesda and CDPR do it right every time. I do really enjoy Ubisoft’s open worlds back in the day, such as the old AC games (Rogue and before), Watch Dogs games, etc. Of course, RDR2 is also a masterpiece in this design. You mentioned Days Gone and I enjoy that one too, it’s designed in a way that doesn’t feel exhaustive.
Problem is, because of the scope of the games, it tends to take too much time. If the devs don’t make the exploration and side activities fun and worthwhile, it’s easy to lose steam and get burned out.
I do find some of them great for killing time, though. I’ll sometimes load up Watch Dogs 2 and free roam, do multiplayer activities, hunt down collectibles as I listen to cybersecurity podcasts. Same with RDR2 if I’m listening to podcasts about America or traditionalism.
The first time to experience it, it’s amazing. Each time after that, it’s a disappointment.
Used to be my thing, but not really anymore.
Haven’t been super interested for a while. Occasionally I’ll find one that stands out, but I’m not out here looking for it anymore. I’ll take a tightly crafted linear game over that any time.
Usually, if I play open world games now, it’s a “point A to point B” situation. I don’t explore the entire world unless I’m really taken with it, and even then I’ll lose interest after a while. (And if there’s no fast travel or some equivalent in-game method to traverse across the map instantly, I very likely won’t bother.)
What I do enjoy, though, are kind of “open zone” games.
A lot of immersive sims fall into this category of “wide open levels, separated by narrative chapters”. Think Dishonored or Deus Ex.
I like that approach as opposed to “here’s everything, go anywhere”.
if its well designed to utilize openworld concept. For example, kenshi is very well designed for openworld. Kingdomcome games are well designed for it too.
Being lazy and not feeling like doing every single thing in openworld game is good thing because it will make replaying it sometime later nicer by leaving content untouched. But if the content is just finding one more collectible then its just awful gamedesign.
I dont necessarily seek out openworld games, just good games that fall into the slots i like. Unfortunately things have been very barren regarding that to the point i’m starting to lose interest in games.
I can’t say one or the other globally. It is very much game dependent for me. There are open worlds that are just wonderful and it’s joy to play them and there are others whose world is empty and useless and that sucks.
One of the best executed open wolrds is old Gothic IMO (Gothic 2 is great too). Sure it’s probably ugly and bland by today standards, but the world is absolutely amazing. It’s completely open from the start, but player is so weak it is probably good idea to play semi-linear at the beginning. But nothing (except for tough enemies) stops you from exploring whatever and whenever you want. And there are tons and tons of things to explore. Hidden cave with loot? Shortcut connecting two roads? Place with very rare alchemy ingredient at the end of narrow valley? Shadowbeast lair? There is so much love put in there I still have cravings to play it even though it’s like quarter of century old game… Quite the same can be said for e.g. Morrowind which is another absolute gem from early 2000s.
But there are also open world games where open world either simply sucks or serves no purpose. I’d have to think about which games fall in there, because once it’s like this I tend to uninstall and forget the title…
As long as it’s a bit of a sandbox: hell yeah. But there needs to be stuff happening, things to do. I love games like GTA, Cyberpunk, Just Cause, Stalker, because you can just go around the world and experience random stuff happening. Sometimes I don’t want a goal, but just a sandbox to create my own stories.
Yeah I find that open world games are only as good as their sandbox capabilities.
Is the openworld meant for exploring, like pre-Starfield Bethesda game? Yeah i love those.
Is the openworld crafted only for wasting player time, like Ubisoft game? Nah.
Is the openworld crafted as a backstage for the main story but also can be explored, like GTA franchise or dying light? Yeah, those are nice.
Is the openworld only used as a backstage for the main story that doesn’t encourage exploration because it conflict with player urgency, like Metro Exodus? I’d rather not.
In my mid-40s and this is more-or-less what I think as well.
It depends. I like Open World games that feel like there’s a purpose to them being Open World.
Like the Elder Scrolls. The point is for you to feel like you’re living in Tamriel. There’s a point to it being Open World.
Or Far Cry (which I admittedly haven’t played), where you’re supposed to be lost in some place, deep in a place that is hostile to you.
And I might get crucified for this, but I honestly feel like the first Breath of the Wild game had no real reason to be Open World. The second one? Yeah, they figured it out. But the first one feels like it was OW just to be OW.
Tl;Dr, the game has to have a reason to be OW. Otherwise they’re just aiming for quantity of content and poitnlessly hurting the quality.
If an open world is just there for collectibles/unlocks or just feels otherwise unnecessary to the primary selling feature of the game (like story), then yeah its a hard pass.
Otherwise, if the open world is actually a core part of the game like in most MMO’s such as Old School Runescape, then it can be quite enjoyable.
I hit a wall recently with Star Wars Outlaws. The open world is cool until you realize that every enemy base has two or three possible entry points, complete with yellow-painted paths. There’s no room for creative infiltration - either you do it Ubisoft’s way, or it isn’t possible in the game. The NPCs in the open world just drive around aimlessly. It doesn’t feel like anyone in the world is trying to achieve anything besides you. It makes me realize how far we have come with modern open world games like the recent Zelda games. Without room for emergent gameplay, an open world feels like little more than a framing device for a game that is actually linear.
open world is great if the world is interesting to explore
Mostly nay. I am not against open-world in premise, but most open-world games do it poorly. I think that a lot of studios make their games open world because these types of games are popular, but don’t give a thought to what that means for their specific game. They want their worlds to seem expansive and think this is an easy solution but it isn’t.
If you make an open-world game, it needs at the very least two things: a compelling method of traversal (mechanics of interacting with that open world), and thoughtful, intentional design (not just large stretches of trees and rocks between towns). I think Breath of the Wild is a paragon of good open-world design.
Ni!
Ekke ekke p-tang zoom boing!
I find the opposite. I love video games, always have, but these days my time is more limited, I might go months without touching them, and I just play to relax. So over the past 10 years or whatever, things like GTAV, Fallout 4, and AC:Odyssey have worked out really well for me. I can pick them up whenever I want and either settle in for some story or just waste time exploring, doing side quests, finding collectibles.
Like what would I rather do in real life? Work toward a single goal day after day, or see what’s on top of that mountain over there just because?
