| Dante9 said: Most open world games - the main quests and locations not withstanding - tend to be empty wastelands with boring, meaningless and repetitive tasks or collectibles scattered around. All that space for pretty much nothing. Instead of that, I'd rather have all that effort put into the storyline. All that open world stuff is usually just filler to bloat the game up, whereas the main storyline always seems to be comparatively short. I'd like better quality over a smaller area. Linear games tend to be the most amazing when it comes to the quality aspect and storytelling. Then again, it's nice to have a bit of choice and freedom in there. |
TW3 was also bloated with filler content though, tons of ? scattered around the map with a couple repetitive things attached. Fallout 3 And RDR2 had a lot of empty space, yet the things you find were more rewarding. Beside the side quests in TW3, most of it was Ubisoft filler.
TW3 did turn into tedium for me after exploring the map, and exploring the map was over far too fast due to less interesting things to find. Death stranding was more fun to explore, turning things upside down. The 'quests' merely repetitive fetch or rather delivery tasks. Exploring the terrain to find and build routes was the main draw of the game and that worked really well in the open world setting.
God of War struck a good balance for me, open enough but also detailed enough and the area gradually opening up kept it interesting. And sometimes you don't need anything at all in between, the open world of SotC worked very well for me. The vast open empty landscape is a huge part of the game. Adding 'content' would only lessen the experience. Finding apples and lizards was enough of a reason to explore and enjoy all the amazing vistas.
For racing games I prefer hand make tracks. While Burnout Paradise and Forza Horizon are fun places to hang out in, the actual racing suffers compared to Driveclub's handmade tracks and GT Sport / Forza's track roster. All these 'ribbons' turn into following the gps while racing, distracting and you never get to memorize the tracks. Plus all that time wasted driving to the next race, fun at first, tedious later on.
Currently playing the most open world game there is, FS2020. No quests, no story, just explore. More fun than NMS and Elite Dangerous. Procedural generation can only keep a game fresh for a limited time until it turns into procedural repetition. Of course FS2020 'cheats' by having a couple billion people make the map :)
The biggest problem with open world games is, how do you fit an urgent timeline into it. Nothing breaks immersion more than messing around for weeks (game time) with side quests and filler content before continuing the perilous rescue mission. And many times I've simply forgotten what the main story was about when I get back to the next main quest. The "you can't turn back from here, finish up other stuff before continuing" is the worst game mechanic ever. It pretty much ensures that by the time I'm done finishing up, I have no clue anymore what was going on in the main story. Perhaps the original Dead Rising had the right idea. Open world on a timeline, can play as many times as you like with knowledge and other things carrying over, but you can't faff around in between.
