"This is all much more exciting than domestic life I assure you!"
-Codsworth (Fallout 4)
Lately, I keep telling my best friend everytime I find games that interest me, and might also interest him. Now I have a couple of games in my wishlist. It was after I see my list of desired games and the ones I played before that I realize.. Whatever kind of game they are, fantasy, sci-fi, building, zombie game, single player or multiplayer RPG, almost all of them are open world games. After five minutes of silly looks of my face while I was deeply thinking about it, this question popped up in my mind; with the current amount of released open world games, and the ones that still in development, is it good if we have more and more open world games available?
Open-world video games are a type of video game where a player can roam freely through a virtual world, and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives.
-The Gaming Wiki
THE RISE OF OPEN WORLD GAME
To be honest, I do not know what the very first open world game was, how it influenced the course of gaming, and when this open world concept first born because I'm not someone who been gaming since the early golden era of video game. But I do know that game with this sub genre has keep growing in number with improved different features and quality on each release.
From what I read, the first open world implemented game that became the standard for open world games was the controversial Grand Theft Auto III. The game that gained so many negative responses from parents to governments, but it became one of the most influental game of all time. I didn't know if the game was that controversial back then, maybe because I didn't play it when it was still hot, or just nobody give a sh*t about it in where I live. Although I didn't play long enough to complete the game, I'm glad I had the fun of spreading chaos driving a rhino tank.
A few years after that, this kind of game seems to be more and more popular that many of developers started to make more games with open world setting, resulting in the increasing number of open world games from time to time and this questioning post. The sub genre has now become exceedingly popular that even we can find it in so many indie games as well, and more indie developers are attempting to use this type of setting for their creation. Although each of these games has their own different style of gameplay, graphics, stories, and genres, as long as the game set in a massive world with non-linear storyline they are still included as "open world" games. For example, Terraria and Fallout 4. Sounds like an inacurate example because they looked too different if I put it like that, aren't they? With graphic style and gameplay as the biggest noticable difference, both still have something in common which is set in open world universe. To answer my question, let's try to put it this way..
HOW OPEN WORLD GAME COULD BE FUN
When we see a new game and figured that there is "open world" in the description we must be start to think that the game has massive area to explore freely, as it put the players into a massive world where they can completely ignore the main story line and make their own adventure by interacting with anything they can find within the game's world, while also allowing them to go with the main storyline whenever they wanted.
The best part of the free adventure is while we are on our way discovering everything the world has to offer, collecting the shiny stuff and getting more experienced in the game is the best thing we can do, and those could greatly affecting the character's progression in both the side quests and the main quest. And sometimes on our attempt to get it, there will be another enticing story for us to follow as some certain items be the goal. In the end of that small, side story of the game, we realize that what more epic was actually the journey to the said goal.
And to populate the big landscape, I think random encounter is a good idea, it also makes the world feel more alive. And I see this best in Fallout 4, its random encounter is one of the exciting things that we can often find in the Commonwealth. The way I see it, there were 3 kind of random encounters. The ones that don't really affect the player's progression, the ones that does, and the ones that affected by the player's progression. Examples of each of them are (in order): Synth and human Art trying to kill one another, unique merchants who got some legendary trash for sale that can be recruited to our settlements, and Nuka World's raiders that won't harm us if we choose to be their Overboss.
Now, I think this factor is both the good and the bad of open world game; Game with this setting provides tons of different activities for the players to do however they want and whenever they want, thus makes the game take a very long time to be completed.
HOW OPEN WORLD GAME COULD BE NO FUN
What if as you set foot into its world what you see in it is nothing but meaningless filler content with no purpose but only as the excuse to make it huge? That's why we know that exploring the massive open world is not always fun. I do like it huge but if that'd be the case, I prefer running around in a smaller world with plenty of exciting, weirdly interesting, and meaningful stuff that are actually give the lively feeling to the game and affect the player, the player's character and the story progression. No matter how massive the map is, if whatever in it doesn't really provide us anything interesting to do or to discover, we can agree to call it "empty", yes?
If the game has provided many contents and activities to do, various side quests to finish, and tons of things to find and discover, all of these will also need to be great things that actually worth the time. This is a reminder and something that should complete my previous sentence; "interacting with anything they can find within the game's world". If all these things we are interacting with aren't really worth anything, or has to put too much effort in it in order to be done and get the reward, this will just ruin the early expectation, turning it from "Oh wow, what can I get in return for this?" to "Oh wow, I wish I can just undo this and pretend I never did this before because this is stupid."
One example of it was in a side quest in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the shards collecting quest where I needed to collect hundreds of shards that scattered throughout the separated maps in DAI. These shards would then used to open doors within a mine that if you fight through it to the dead end, the rewards are permanently increased elemental resitance for 20%. I don't think 20% is enough for all the searching and everything I've been through, sure there were lots of loot in the end and while I was at it, but still.. 20%? Come on. Don't get me wrong, I like DAI but that quest is just lack of a spectacular reward.
BACK TO THE QUESTION
So is it good if we have more and more open world games available? Well what I seek is not only great experience, but it have to be different great experience on each new titles. I believe that's what we all wanted, no? It depends on how much enjoyment can I get and how differently unique the questioned game can be. That's what matter to me, not the size, but how much it has to offer. Whether the game were made by the big boys or indie game devs, if it has differently enticing experience, then yes, I think I want more open world game.
For more gaming stuff..
Follow me, would you kindly?
A Little More Support From Me On Every Milestone
Techland Be Like "Thank you for playing our game. Here, have your 10 free DLCs."
Guess Who Video Game Characters Nissan Choose To Star Their Advertisement
I think there are more and more games pursuing an open world style that just can't handle the pacing and content requirements of a solid open world game.
Simply being open world doesn't make a game feel alive and limitless, if done wrong it can have the opposite effect like you said, and leave you with an empty, pointless feeling experience.
Well done, this is a quality gaming article, good work!
Thank you very much, I'll try my best to keep it up.
I think maybe it's because we are in the time when game devs still tweaking/experimenting and haven't figure out what's best for their open world games, that's why many of these games didn't end up well. So if this really is the reason behind all the emptiness in recent open world games, then they should know that we are expecting the next ones to be great, not good but great.
I think Zelda was one of the first open-world games.
What open-world games, do you have your eyes set on this coming year?
_Rob
For 2018 I'm looking forward to State of Decay 2, Days Gone and Shadow of the Collossus would be in my wishlist if they are not PS4 exclusive. And I will choose one pirate game between Sea of Thieves or Skull and Bones. And... Anthem looks dope. But I'm gonna need to learn about these games further.
How about you? Maybe you know better open world games than these? If you do, I'd like to hear it.
Personally, I'd die for a Red Dead Redemption 2 :)
Days gone seems pretty cool, also!
Oh right, Red Dead Redemption 2! That game is also could be in my wishlist.. If it's available for PC
It's a question of choice but as these days most of games are open world it seems that's what in demand. I love Uncharted / God of war the utmost. Rain was another amazing game from Sony. Personally I prefer open world with an amazing storyline. Eagerly awaiting next release of Uncharted and GOW.
I don't know if I should "eagerly" waiting for God of War, because I don't have a PS4. That game surely is a must play.
Open world game these days are so dominating that pieces of linear plot started to exist in open world game. Dragon Age: Inquisition has that, there are missions where we need to fight our way in a linear setting. I don't know if this suited well with open world game.
Yeah, I guess for open world story line is very important as it also involves decision making in some games.
God of War is mind blowing, though if you play you should start from GOW 1. The graphics are better from GOW 2 and GOW 3 is a delight to watch n play.
Happy gaming...
The first open world game? Pokemon on the GameBoy maybe? True you had to do stuff to access the next area but once it was open you could go back and catch Pokemon elsewhere? Or the original Elite way back in 1984?
You just wrote that so I'd come and answer because I'm so old didn't you
😡 😭 😪 😅 😂 😁 😄
Sorry to disappoint, but no, not because you're old. But I'm happy that you are here to answer XD
Elite games seems to be underrated series, as an open world space game I see it wasn't as booming as No Man's S%#!
And I'm pretty sure the stuff you had to do in Pokemon back then didn't annoy the players as much as "to-do-stuff" in open world games these days, or did it?
I'd like less open world games, mostly because games that do not need to be open world are using them to their detriment (Nier Automata immediately comes to mind and I'll be mentioning this in my upcoming review).
While open world games can be done excellently like Witcher 3 or GTA, I find that far too many of them have aimless fluff and do not capitalize on the fact they are open world. Instead they fill the world with chores (and I call them chores because that's what they feel like) instead of interesting things to do and see and they become really boring and repetitive as a result. Good examples of that are the Assassin's Creed games.
I'd like to see more games with focus over more open world games because far too many developers don't actually know how to properly make one and sometimes I want shorter, tighter experiences instead of sprawling 50+ hour open world games.
For these bad open world games I feel like the developers aim to make the game to last longer and longer, not better. That's why they put in the chores to keep the players busy for 50+ hours. Why they can't fill it with interesting stuff that we actually wanted to spend hours instead is maybe because the world size is too damn big and need to have so much things in it, too much that they lose focus on what are they gonna give us from the game. Assassin's Creed is good, but I agree that it is also a good example in this case.
If you minus 3D rendered when considering open world, we have had them forever in the form of Muds. I remember as a small kid logging onto GEnie and paying by the hour to play a fantasy mud back in the early days of the internet. I didn't know it wouldn't just drop you when you went over your minutes and needless to say my parents received a very large phone bill of a few hundred dollars(since GEnie was ridiculously overpriced then.....paying for a host connection by the hour should be an indication). Anyways! Great post and it does seem we are flooded with Open World. Just as long as it is good then it doesn't matter to me.
Thank you! I think the same way, as long as it is great doesn't matter how many open world games out there. Otherwise, I'll find another game that has completely different experience from this open world games, which is (mostly) linear game.
I don't know about this GEnie, but it sounds like a great game you have back then, though it was overpriced haha. Another good stuff that I missed out.
I love those types of games.
Me too, but I'm afraid if I'm getting bored of them
Nice post..i like post
Umm.. Yeah I like post too.
I really like open world games specially the open world hack and slash (arpgs?). I think if done right such games can never get boring. They usually add the replay value and always intresting to see how things happen in that world.
Right, the question is what the game devs decide to give us in the large scale game. Every elements that don't suit the game well will reduce the replay value possibility
yaaaaay !!
It's a yay for me too, but may I hear your reason why it's a "yay" for you?
iam open world lover game and no reason for me @gaming-stuff
My thoughts about Open World Games are exactly what you said in the final paragraph. If the company didn't make the game cheaply... and if the Open world elements don't stand in way of the narrative then I'd like that so much...
But I think most recent AAA Games only put open world elemnts because they're popular, not because they add something to their game. (like Assassin Creed, could do better with Less content) and that's sad~
To add something new and interesting is what could make the game great, that's what I think. Not to add the amount of the same thing and then put $60 just because it has large area.
Yeah, Totally agree!! That's the main flaw of No Man's Sky as I heard.
Speaking of doing the same things over and over.. I just made a post about this.. have you heard about Skinner Box? those elements spread a lot in recent games.
I've never heard of it, I'll check out your post then. This is my first time to hear that I guess, so I want to know further
well, you probably noticed those elements... just not heard the term "Skinner Box" which is more psychological term than a gaming term.
Open world shouldn't be forced in all games, even though nowdays you see open world games mostly in certain genres of games. I'm not going to go in-depth about this post, but I'm here to tell you a short story.
When I was younger, I was playing more racing games. They weren't as great as they are nowdays, but some of them had some kind of "open world"-type thing.. you could go off the main track and drive around the map, which was even more than grass. A part of the fun was skipping the whole racing and adventuring around the map.
It wasn't open world like it shouldn't be typically done, but it game extra value in the game as it wasn't only about being the fastest and the best. The adventure and exploration can give a deeper contact with the game, almost like a kind of a backstory. The world in the game can feel like it's so much more than the narrow viewpoint you get when playing.
However, going back to the post, the big wrong in open world games is forcing player to go around long distances looking for random objects. It's never fun. Most of the world should be an optional thing, not forcing players to run after petty items.
Is NFS Most Wanted on PS 2 was one of them? If it was, I had a lot of fun in that game too, messing around with the cops and driving around the entire city to find destructable constructions to crush them.
I didn't know if I was playing a racing game with open world-type of map, I didn't even know if it was called "open world". And I think the more we know about this type of game the higher the standard we put on this sub genre, expecting greater fun from games with this setting.
The shards collecting side quest I mentioned is the perfect example for your last statement. Well it's a side quest which means it doesn't force the players to complete it, but there is still "forcing the players to go miles away" part in it that we can see when we decide to go on that quest.
Nice profile pic btw, makes me hungry