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
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…
open world is great if the world is interesting to explore
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.
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.
I like open world games when the time I spend simply being in them without any explicit objective is enjoyable. If I’m thinking “I’m bored, where’s the next task?” then there’s a problem. If I’m thinking “I wonder if I can make a boat that operates by paddling instead of using a fan…” then we’re good.
(Tears of the Kingdom’s physics don’t work that way, I’m sorry to report. Thing flailed around like it was drowning.)
I love an open world game that is done well - Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But so often it is just done because thats what they think is the hot thing, and it does not work
Nay, but I have a few exceptions:
FFXV really benefits from the open world and never felt copy pasted like most others.
Outer Wilds (if that counts) could obviously only exist with a continuous map.
While I dislike most open world games, I don’t think it’s an issue with the open world itself, but with how shallow the games end up being as they all copy the same formula and they all seem afraid to hide “content” from you, so exploration gets trivialized.
I only really like STALKER I think, because it’s generally compressed and dense rather than stretching out over nothingness. It’s technically multiple levels than being overworld I guess.
I didn’t get Breath of the Wild.
I’m a huge open world and/or sandbox nut. Non-linearity is my jam. Kenshi, Rimworld, AssOdyssey/Shadows, Project Zomboid, Witcher 3, X4…
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good story, but story takes many shapes, and not all stories are pre-written; plenty are emergent. I grew up playing with Legos (and still do), and me making whatever story I wanted (or that emerged along the way) was part of the appeal.
Honestly, apart from FF8 and TW3, and now Expedition 33, I haven’t found many games with written stories that grabbed me. I read books when I want that fulfillingly-crafted linearity.
Yes for good games like stalker with it’s incredible, unmatched alife or arma where the large world serves a purpose or gta and red dead with it’s detail.
No to terrible checklist games where the formula is copy pasted across series and not backed up by good ai or good worlds, only with timewasters and checklists, eg ubisoft.
Personlly ive ended up dropping witcher 3 and elden ring thanks to open worlds but for some reason cyberpunk works for me.
Arma is an interesting example. I’d say that it is only an open world game in some scenarios, and often times is a linear game that happens to have a big map and sandbox.
In any case, I’d agree that it having a large world with many possibilities is important for the gameplay and ability to mod/create content across the maps.
You don’t have to do everything in an open world game. Just go from main mission to main mission and you’ve pretty much turned it in to a linear game.
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.
