DucksUnlimited on 11 April 2015
It really depends. As far as I'm concerned, "open world" isn't a genre, it's a description for games within other genres. In open world sandboxes for example, no, I don't think an impactful main story line is generally of importance. For many other open world games in other genres, though (like the previously stated FFXV/XCX), I think a main story is very relevant.
