I always imagined as a kid in the 8bit/16bit era that the best games in the future would be open world, do anything, go anywhere games which were incredibly realistic. Realism was something I really wanted in games.
We kind of have that now and the cruel irony is, today I actually way prefer games which are more linear, but full of creativity. Realism is quite a low priority in my view. In fact if I hear a game is open world it even puts me off a bit - you know you're going to have to deal with a lot of the same bloody headwork that you do in real life. If I want to run through endless cold, dark streets in the rain looking for "that place" I can do that for real by stepping out of my front door. Video games = Escapism.
So I hope open world doesn't become the main genre of the future, but I suspect it may well be. The mainstream gets what the mainstream wants but, sadly "open world" often looks a lot better on paper than it is in reality. It would be different if they called it "tedious slog" or "getting lost sim".
Too much planning, and you'll never get anything done.
Karl Pilkington.
