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?
To summarize this thread: It’s not the size of the map, it’s how you use it
There is no open world that is too big. They can only be too small.
However, the quality of an open world is not predicated on the size of the open world, but rather what is actually in it.
And this doesn’t mean that open worlds must be drowning in content, as the quality of the content itself also matters, and certain worlds that are large and empty can still be interesting due to its traversal being good, or the sandbox nature of a large empty world.
Some of the worst examples of open worlds are the kind that are just filled with isolated little fetch quests; busywork that’s all marked on the map with no element of organic exploration. Or the kinds of open worlds where nothing actually happens “organically” without the player starting it.
The best kinds of open worlds are the ones that emphasise exploration and/or have background systems governing the world in some way (i.e. factions that interact with each other without the explicit involvement of the player).
I think that all comes down to how the travel, visual appeal, and POIs are handled. As well as a personal interest in the gameplay loop. The following are my general opinions on a few games for why I think they do or do not work.
Daggerfall would be way too big, because the POIs are few and far between and there is no visual interest between, but it worked because it had fast travel.
Each of the successive TES games had more visual interest to them and wel spaced POIs and I spent a lot of time walking on first playthroughs without fast traveling anywhere.
Similarly No Man’s Sky could seem too big at first blush, but if you like the gameplay loop it’s infinitely fascinating. For anyone wanting to move further in it’s also helpful that there are gates to help make large jumps, without them being a requirement to enjoy things.
Cyberpunk 2077 was very visually interesting and had a ton of POIs and was fun to traverse on foot and in a vehicle. I thought the size was fantastic on my first two playthroughs. The third time the badlands areas got a little frustrating though.
Stalker and Stalker 2, are very fun to traverse by foot for me despite being very large. They are visually very interesting, especially 2. There are plenty of things you can stumble on and explore. In fact on my first playthrough of Stalker 2, I didn’t even realize it had a fast travel option for over 60 hours because I didn’t feel the need to look for one to use. Loved the huge size of those.
WoW was horribly oversized, as are many MMOs. WoW was(and imo still is despite many upgrades since I played, just not a fan of toony looking games) completely uninteresting visually, had no “on the way” POIs and had no motivation to look around. Long travel was a chore on top of a burdensome gameplay loop. I hated WoWs size. It felt big just because it would take people longer to play. I can’t express how fucking boring it was to me. And exploring had zero reward. I remember wandering into the water and swimming for like 30 minites to get behind some massive tree or something (all I remember was it was a brown gradient that’s how dull the visuals were) and I get behind it and there was fuckall. That was the last time I played I think. More brown gradient and uninteresting light blue water gradient stretched off into a foggy white gradient. Fucking hated WoW but especially its size. MMOs like that are the equivalent of having a rail shooter that’s more train ride simulator than shooter. It works for other people, I just couldn’t stand it.
Outward is a fantastic game but it’s world feels a little too big sometimes. I don’t really enjoy wandering it that much even though I enjoyed the game on the whole. Just felt I got to the point of sprinting from one objective to the next because I was tired of traversing the map.
So it’s really game dependant imo. If they nail some key aspects, size doesn’t seem to matter.
Nothing much new to say, just reiteration. A big or huge or gigantic map is fine, so long as it’s populated by meaningful content.
Really wish Forspoken had been more populated. It’s a huge world, and combat/abilty wise it’s a great pure-mage action game, which I really really loved about it, that’s not a very common thing. But my god, the world is so empty despite being so big, and most side objectives are just collectothons. There’s some more difficult endgame content, but no real reason to grind up for it.
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 don’t think that means it didn’t work, I think that just means it’s not for everyone. I’m a firm believer that, “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”. Small indie games take firm stances on their gameplay all the time, not every game is for everyone, and that’s ok, that’s how you get unique and interesting gameplay experiences. But that’s easy for and indie game to do because making an indie game is cheap.
MMOs have the unfortunate reality that they’re architecturally complex, and expensive to operate, and thus need to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible to justify their existence to investors. They don’t have the luxury of making the experience they want, which is why they all end up just copying WoW’s enshittified gameplay, but with less polish.
My hope is that this indie revolution we’re in expands to “large scale” multiplayer games. Not so massive that it’s prohibitively expensive to run, but not so small that it’s a ghost town. I think that’s when we’ll start to see interesting MMO experiences again.
I’d love for just any game with a scale that large. I think it’d be awesome
There are space games with procedural large scale galaxies to the point that the entire playerbase can only ever hope to see ~15% of the systems, but that’s why I put the >50% qualifier in there. That’s TOO big. Anyone can generate an effectively infinite procedural world, I want a large world.
When I had originally conceived of this, it was in the context of a pokemon MMO. You would have your home town, and as a trainer, or researcher, or rocket member, etc, you’d travel at a real-time pace akin to the show.
Alternative IP that it could work with are dragonball (imagine the playerbase on a months long search to find/fight over the dragonballs so they could awaken the dragon and make a wish to the devs), or Avatar (each player would have a chance to spawn in as a random bender. One player at any given time is the Avatar. Events happen to strengthen some benders and weaken others. Players make war and peace at will).
There would obviously be challenges in running these types of experiences, but currently it feels like the cost of standing up an MMO is so much that no one ever does anything interesting. Instead they just copy WoW.
It’s never too big. That’s why I’m pumped for The Wayward Realms (from the creators of Daggerfall, easily the largest world of its time).
How have I not heard of this one?
I did hear about Light No Fire from the No Man Sky devs. Looks impressive from what I’ve seen so far on it with it’s supposedly literal Earth sized world.
Basically, how much of the world is interesting/fun.
For example, Fallout 3 doesn’t do a great job of this, as much of the world is baren with no story or gameplay. Half of the world feels like it could be cut out without much loss. The Yakuza games on the other hand, have smaller worlds but they feel massive and fun because there’s always something to do moments away.
The work-around is to make travel fun, so the “empty-space” is just more gameplay. The Just Cause games are the perfect example of this. All the movement mechanics are quick and satisfying, from the grapple and parachute, to the driving, to the OP wingsuit.
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.
Having played Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, I can say that no world is necessarily too big, because infinite is not too big.
I am looking forward to Light No Fire and have played countless hours of Minecraft and Star Citizen.
“Too big” doesn’t exist as long as I am enjoying myself.
Echoing what others have said: size doesn’t really matter until it’s notably empty with nothing of interest to justify it.
But also, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
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.
There is no limit, but I am also a big fan of Daggerfall and thus clearly insane.
Are you insane, or have you achieved CHIM?
Not that there’s an appreciable difference…looking at you, Michael Kirkbride.
The halo infinite campaign open world was kind of not alive enough so even though I’ve played bigger game worlds I think that’s something to consider…
An Open World is only too big if it requires loading screens at transition points that aren’t natural. An Open World can have an insufficient density of relevant content, where exploring it has too little marginal utility to the player, and therefore it is ultimately not useful to exist.
