There are already some huge maps out there, Just Cause 2 and 3 both have maps at around 1000km2, and those games are beloved by their players. But if the next Cyberpunk game was announced with Night City now being the size of an actual large metropolis, say like New York, would you say that’s too big? What determines what “too big” is?
I don’t mind size so long as there’s meaningful activity.
For example, Just Cause 2 is huge with a massive variety of biomes but I enjoy hijacking military jets and blowing shit up on repeat and general traversal.
Infamous 2 and Second Son have very neat and small maps that are action packed and fun to traverse.
But then other open world games just bore me.
Elden Ring is right on the threshold of too big.
Depends how full it is, how interesting is it (note this is not the same as full), how fast you can travel, and how fun movement is.
There’s a lot of elements to open world and a lot of devs get the balance very wrong. You end up playing in a map rather than the world.
I prefer smaller open worlds, like in the Yakuza series
Having played Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, I can say that no world is necessarily too big, because infinite is not too big.
WoW is objectively huge, but they made it feel tiny by putting fast travel options everywhere. I would guess that any two points in the world are no more than 5m from each other if routed perfectly.
I want there to exist one MMO where you “live” in a city, and traveling to another city is actually so inconvenient that you only do it if you have to. Not because I want to make the trek, but because I want there to be a world just large enough that any one person has usually seen only ~1%, but the playerbase in entirety has seen >50%. I don’t know if any such game exists.
traveling to another city is actually so inconvenient that you only do it if you have to
They don’t work. Vanguard did it way back when, with their three continent world. Each one had enough content to get from lvl 1 to lvl 50, the max, and your starting race determined your starting location. It could take up to an hour to get to friends. Even on the same continent, with a mount (before they added flying mounts), it could take a half hour of running to cross the map… and players complained so vociferously that they were forced to add fast travel options.
I guess Light No Fire has a good chance of becoming such a game. It’s gonna be No Mans Sky, but on one earth sized fantasy planet. I don’t think it will have large cities though. 🤔
I’d love for just any game with a scale that large. I think it’d be awesome
ARMA 3’s Altis map is too big.
Unless you’re flying a jet. Then it’s still too small!
As long as it has fast travel I don’t mind having a big open world but if the open world itself feels empty without much life then I’m immediately turned off by the game
Funny, I have the opposite complaint about Fallout 4. In what is supposed to be a nuclear wasteland of a city where everyone is struggling to keep their small communities going, there are just too many people in such a small space to make this feel real. I liked Fallout 3 and New Vegas more because the world was properly empty, but still had so many things to discover.
Reminds me of no man’s sky and it’s empty bajillions of planets.
I have 90 hours in no man’s sky and I got pretty burnt out on it. After a certain point, every planet feels the same and lifeless.
They have done some good work in last few years, specially the events here and there are fun. But after the event campaign is over. There is nothing else to hope for.
The Witcher 3 and Elden ring were massive, and I enjoyed them because the world’s were beautiful, non repetitive, and dense with unique material.
It’s about how much time is spent between points of interest. The size doesn’t matter.
To summarize this thread: It’s not the size of the map, it’s how you use it
Hey it’s a totally average sized map! Some would even say it’s too much!
It has pools in it!
It can never be too big, but it’s a problem if it’s a big city with nothing to do (Cyberpunk).
It’s too big when the developers are unable to fill it with enough interesting things to do and discover to keep my attention. But there’s no absolute size I’d automatically consider too big, as it also depends on things like traversal. If you ride through the map on a mech going 400km/h, it can be much larger and more spread out than if I have to traverse the entire map on foot.
That’s definitely a key point. Absolutely loved the first Forest game, the map was just the right size for what content it had, then the sequel has a map 4x the size that is just completely empty for 90% of it. They did make some improvements over early access but it was still mostly a waste
I say density, though Elite Dangerous puts a spin on how large the map should be.
In Elite Dangerous, most of the galaxy is unexplored. The Bubble (human inhabited area) is fully explored, which steadily dwindles as you go to about 1k ly outside the Bubble. Out there, you’re basically on your own.
When you explore and map unexplored areas, you actually get some money depending on the quality of your finds. If you find some Earth-like planets, for instance, you can get a lot of money from exploring. There is also an inexhaustible supply of systems to explore, so there’s no need to worry about running out.
I spent 3 months in the void, didn’t see another player for the entire run.
It’s not about the size, but more about density of meaningful content. I like Elden Ring because every nook and cranny feels worth exploring. It’s the game that dares to hide optional areas behind optional areas, all with their own unique enemies and bosses.
On the other hand, taking Elden Ring as an example again, the mini dungeons were too repetitive. The first time visiting a catacomb is exciting, but it turns into quite a chore after the third time and onwards. You’ve already seen it all. Same thing with the dragon battles.
I think Elden Ring overall strikes a good balance with amount of surprises per square meter.
There was one maze type catacomb with teleporting chests that was like a breathe of fresh air.
