| Wyrdness said: It's not actually open world that's a misleading comment from the developer themselves. In MGSV you can only stay in the misson area so mapsize becomes irrelevant, you also cannot travel from one map area to another (Afghanistan to Africa for example) seamlessly like you can in open world games and free roaming doesn't mean open world either, MGSV is a segmented game not an open world gae, it's no different to games like Deus Ex or Bioshock where you can roam in specific areas. MGSV doesn't compare to any openworld game it's essentially MGS3 and the PSP games combined, the's no reason to really explore in it because exploration isn't one of the main goals unlike in a game like Skyrim where I can check out whats in a certain area and stumble upon quest or be rewarded with ultra rare equipment or maybe meet a new companion, it's not a good comparison at all. MGSV is mainly mission objective and that's it. |
There's nothing misleading about Metal Gear Solid V being open world, because it's an open world game. You access the mission area through the full map or while at the base, and the only thing that happens is that during the mission itself the map is narrowed, because Kaz will tell you that you're drunk or something if you willingly choose to go and explore full Afghanistan while on a crucial mission (that you yourself willingly activated) that requires you being on a specific spot. I'm not really sure what's to discuss here, using that same rule mapsize in Skyrim is irrelevant because you have to be in specific places in town or dungeons to keep the narrative going, instead of just jumping around in the world while climbing a mountain in horseback. That's because the narrative is tied to mission-based sequences that take place in a specific part of the world, just like Skyrim can only progress when you're at the specific point in its huge world when required. In both games, however, you can explore its world as you see fit, without any constriction other than going into places you can't really endure yet, or blocked areas that will unlock later (Africa in MGSV, several places tied to main quest in Skyrim). Side quests and other events are accessed at any time during free roam and are not limited or narrowed in space at all (save for you wandering too much away from it, which subsequently voids the mission, not unlike triggering an encounter in Skyrim then fast-travelling to the other part of the world).
You can't fast-travel in Fallout 3 from Washington to Maryland. Does that suddenly make Fallout 3 non-open world? Of course not. In fact, it's faster to move between Afghanistan and Africa in MGSV than it is to do so in Fallout 3, because the later requires interaction with a specific NPC everytime you wish to do so. On MGSV, you're picked up by Pequod (or you don't even have to wait for him, since you can teleport directly to the Command Helicopter), then he'll drop you by on the other place.
The developer said its open world. The critics said its open world and almost all of its players, minus you and probably someone else, say it is open world as well.
And as for your second paragraph, you're wrong again. Exploration is encouraged (especially on those first ten-twenty hours); you can find blueprints scattered around that aid your R&D team. You can search for top quality soldiers that can't be found in bases during non-scripted encounters and fulton them back to your base. Cassettes, either musical ones, or story-related ones, follow the same rule as the blueprints. You find your companion, D-Dog, by exploring, not just because the game gives him to you, then fultoning him back to your base when he's a mere cub. (Or you could miss him altogether during the whole playthrough). Finding the correct plants types will allow you to mass produce several other items, and the early players will have themselves looking for diamonds to boost their otherwise lackuster GMP. Let's not forget stumbling upon an enemy's weapon or resources cache, which will outfit your motherbase with more things. Exploring actually triggers a secret story arc that's arguably better than anything else the plot of the game gives to the player. You wouldn't discover this by simply "doing missions".
The thing is, all of that stop mattering when Diamond Dogs are OP and so is Snake. Why waste your time exploring when you can basically destroy any foe in your path from afar, without blinking? And that's the thing I'm getting at: suddenly an open world worth exploring becomes a barren, boring exercise that gets in the way of the player and finishing the game. That's the thing to fear with Breath of the Wild, that its fun to play on world becomes redundant when Link grews too powerful for it, unless Anouma finds a balance of some sort (or a world scaling).
