It has already stopped. Stuff like GTA5 and BOTW made the worlds as big as they ever need to be. I don't care how big your world is if it's lifeless, tedious, copy/paste galore, boring to traverse, full of repeated activities, etc.
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For how much longer will "X will have the biggest open world ever" be a selling point to you?
- Thread starter oni-link
- Start date
As long as the world and the placement of the attractions feel authentic, I indeed like big worlds. But it was never (AcOd fails often in this point) a big selling point for me.
Not that your opinion is wrong, I absolutely agree with you, but God of War isn't really open world. Is more of a hub world with connected levels, games like Rdr or ac for example are completely different.
Yeah, games are more than the sum of their parts, and also contain many different elements, which is again, not what I'm talking about
Do you not remember any developers using 'a huge open world' as a selling point?
They interested me back in the day, especially with something like Morrowind. Since they are a dime-a-dozen these days, it really comes down to substance to keep things interesting. I need to know more about the game and not just that it has a huge open world since my first instinct is that it will be bloated with time-consuming travel and/or uninteresting busy work.
-AC:Odyssey
-Collectathon
Well....you're definitely not wrong when you say you haven't played the game lmao
What game literally just has a single trailer dedicated to walking SOLELY about how big a map is instead of what you do in it. Even size is not solely the thing they talk about when they talk about map size but also density of content. We're talking about a hypothetical marketing campaign that doesn't exist.
A good post that runs counter to the way I framed the OP
I don't really like the way these discussions are framed because they seem to presuppose a number of things like 1: that large world designs with elements of sparsity are inherently bad, and 2: because the former is bad, then the opposite, ie small densely packed world designs must be inherently good.
If anything, I have a bigger problem these days with open worlds that are just crammed with too much shit right next to eachother, and developers often seem to suffer from this terminal fear that someone, somewhere might miss out this cool little piece of content they made, so they go really out of their way to throw it all right in your face (the absolute worst mechanism being NPCs running up to you and guilt-tripping you into doing their stupid side quest). I am just so tired of the relentless sensory overload I get from playing these types of games.
With large open worlds given ample room to breathe and a more realistic sense of scale, I think there is at least still room for design to give players option to skip through all the filler and get straight to the important stuff if they want to, like fast travel mechanics. But it's far from as easy to think up design solutions to my gripes with the former dense world design.
If anything, I have a bigger problem these days with open worlds that are just crammed with too much shit right next to eachother, and developers often seem to suffer from this terminal fear that someone, somewhere might miss out this cool little piece of content they made, so they go really out of their way to throw it all right in your face (the absolute worst mechanism being NPCs running up to you and guilt-tripping you into doing their stupid side quest). I am just so tired of the relentless sensory overload I get from playing these types of games.
With large open worlds given ample room to breathe and a more realistic sense of scale, I think there is at least still room for design to give players option to skip through all the filler and get straight to the important stuff if they want to, like fast travel mechanics. But it's far from as easy to think up design solutions to my gripes with the former dense world design.
This has basically never felt like a positive to me unless we're talking about a sequel to a relatively small game. I'd rather a small but dense open world over a sprawling and relatively sparse one any day.
I started with the first 3 options and others asked me to add in the second 2 options
I think people in general take polls a little too seriously, the poll is a bit of fun, the content of the posts is more important
I want content density, not to laboriously ride a horse through miles of barren but pretty real estate
Bigger Worlds are already a massive turnoff for me.
In fact well going through red dead I was thinking that this game would be so much better if they just used the bottom half of the map and maybe made the size of St. Denis bigger.
In fact well going through red dead I was thinking that this game would be so much better if they just used the bottom half of the map and maybe made the size of St. Denis bigger.
OP's threads tend to be like that as they're usually created as a reaction to another thread. :/
Quality >>>> quanitity
Give me a well crafted open world (Morrowind) vs randomly created openness (Oblivion / Skyrim)
Give me a well crafted open world (Morrowind) vs randomly created openness (Oblivion / Skyrim)
It's more about linearity than how large a gaming world can be for me.
Given how open world games lean away from linearity, I naturally move towards those games. So yep, it is a good selling point for me. I enjoy exploration and dicking around large open world games. Small corridor type games can't fill that void. ( I still play them though. )
Given how open world games lean away from linearity, I naturally move towards those games. So yep, it is a good selling point for me. I enjoy exploration and dicking around large open world games. Small corridor type games can't fill that void. ( I still play them though. )
This is the third time you've replied to something I'm not saying
Do you not understand the concept of a "selling point"
If you want to argue that marketing departments of huge AAA games never/rarely use map size as a selling point, feel free to do so, but you're replying to me as if I said "why do developers only use one thing about the game to market them to people?"
Well yeah, of course they don't, but that's not what I'm saying
I don't even disagree with anything you're saying, and I'm not even sure if you disagree with me. It would help clarify things if you stopped replying to things I'm not saying though
Yea, 2018 where we no longer spend hours collecting 100 feathers in order to get a cape. Calling AC a collectathon in this day and age is hilarious.
Why're we discussing one aspect of a game as a marketing point in isolation when it affects other aspects of the game? You started a discussion that treats one aspect in isolation.
4th time lol
Do you also argue that developers have never used game length as a selling point?
"Huge open world" is pretty meaningless to me. It better have a lot more meaningful content in it than a smaller open world or otherwise it bores the hell out of me.
It's never done much more for me than make me think "oh neat, here's hoping they fill it with lots of interesting things to do".
You do realize this thread is asking whether or not we personally feel about open-world size, regardless of how well it works as a marketing tactic for the general public?? Hell, even the thread title communicates that pretty clearly. Embarrassing post.
I wouldn't call God of War an open world game, the lake was more of a hub that branched out into several different areas. Yakuza's probably a better example.
I initially voted for 'It was never important to me' but upon further thought I went with 'it's what you do with it that counts' because I think it depends on the developer and franchise. I'd trust CDPR to deliver a huge open world filled with meaningful content because Witcher 3 was amazing but I didn't trust Ubisoft when they said AC Odyssey would have a much larger open world because the side content in Origins (and all their other open world games) was an absolute chore.
It's all about environment design for me, not scale. Open worlds are kind of the brute force method for ensuring that your game world feels big and immersive, but with good design you can succeed at it with much smaller maps.
It hasn't been for some time now.
Look at Just Cause 3. That map is gigantic, and doesn't really do anything for it other than encouraging fast travel when you realize you need to go to a spot on the entire other side of the map and you'd spend like 10-15 minutes trying to traverse there via normal travel.
Look at Just Cause 3. That map is gigantic, and doesn't really do anything for it other than encouraging fast travel when you realize you need to go to a spot on the entire other side of the map and you'd spend like 10-15 minutes trying to traverse there via normal travel.
Actually, better question, who treats a single aspect of a game as a selling point? Like where i the hypothetical person who hears, "oh biggest world ever, sign me up I literally don't wanna know anything else"
"we have a big open world" is absolutely a selling point. However, this thread is not very genuine, as it's basically another one of your reaction threads where you create a skewed poll and topic.
Devs have literally done exactly that...
It depends. While I want larger open worlds that really make me feel like I'm part of something bigger (hence my vote for yes) at some point there's just not the budget available to really make this happen. I'd love to see a game like Space Engine where you can actually fly between the stars and even into another galaxy if you want with a narrative and story to tell and goal to move towards. That would be pretty awesome. Elite: Dangerous mixed with No Mans Sky is the closest analog I can come up with.
I'm pretty tired of the bigass, larga, even bigger with more quests than I ever want to do worlds. Breath of the Wild was perfect, but the game itself held me in. Not the world. I don't even want to play Red Dead 2 because I feel like there's just too much, and so much of it I don't care about
I am pretty turned off by large open worlds, but mainly because they are empty. I guess if they were full of real things to do then I'd feel differently.
Note to Devs: collectibles are not real things to do.
Note to Devs: collectibles are not real things to do.
I don't kind big open worlds but I need some kind of convenient and easy fast travel. RDR2 was annoying to get some places and I would set my horse to the cinematic auto move and set the controller down while I did something else. That just didn't seem like good game design to me. Give me xenoblades fast travel where you are there instantly.
This was never a selling point to me and it never will be. The bigger and more open a world, the more tedious it becomes is the actual reality of these things 9 times out of 10.
So few developers can actually make the side content interesting and with good writing.
So few developers can actually make the side content interesting and with good writing.
Many games are already massive. The size of the world isn't compelling if it isn't fun to explore. I always liked old JRPGs' handling of world size progression - the more you play (and thus more world is revealed) comes with iterative vehicles for getting around. Something like Spider-Man works as the world is fun to move around in. But if your fastest possible transport is a horse and the world is enormous I feel it just becomes an exercise in fast travel or how long you endure before succumbing to fast travel.
Again, I don't think you understand what a selling point is, and you're oddly upset with me apparently
The title is asking people a question, I don't see how that's not genuine, and I've said I like huge open worlds and I like Ubisoft
You were the one who bought BG&E2 up, and my reaction from the other thread was a comment I left saying I think the game will be good because Ubisoft are doing well with generation
I might be confused here but I think Open World game doesn't really mean huge areas. It's the sandbox nature that counts. GOW is one of the best game I have every played in my life (it went up), and 100% it isn't an open world.
Just give me 4 times the size of Witcher 3's introductory area and have it be like metroid and I. am. good. When I found how big Witcher map really was I was seriously impressed.
Just give me 4 times the size of Witcher 3's introductory area and have it be like metroid and I. am. good. When I found how big Witcher map really was I was seriously impressed.
I'm quite surprised so many people consider these polar opposites though. I think there's a lot to gain from huge open worlds in single player games were immersion is important, like The Elder Scrolls and Assassin's Creed. The wide open spaces can look beautiful, and help sell the feeling of a realistic world. And personally I feel like Assassin's Creed Odyssey would be a stronger game if it had LESS "points of interest" cluttering up the map, so they wouldn't feel so repetitive. A future TES game could quadruple Skyrim's map size but keep the same number of dungeons and I'd be perfectly happy. I think the key to making that work is ensuring traversal is enjoyable (eg: visual quality of the world; animation quality of the player character; improving horse/vehicle gameplay; resources to gather and treasures to find in the open world; NPC AI and their dynamic use of the open world etc.).
RIght now I don't think the size of open worlds is the real problem, but the obsession with dotting POIs every 500 yards.
Because the way the question is framed encourages contrarianism and poor hot takes. As I'm sure you've noticed from many of the replies here.
I legit have trouble thinking about examples of modern games where you spend a ton of time on collectibles. Legit the only thing that comes to mind is Spiderman but even those have worthwhile rewards.
This was never a selling point to me. Personally the only game I've ever played where I truly felt like I was part of a big world was WoW. No other game has achieved that sense of scale for me.
There was a time this seemed interesting... remember when there was a loading screen between the two halves of Vice City? Bigger and seemless really pushed the boundaries the past two generations. This gen? I don't want games to get any bigger, quite the opposite in fact. It's all about the content, design, story and characters - the detail.