So how do we feel about fast travel in today's games?

[Kaeden]

I'm playing and absolutely loving Assassin's Creed Origins and using fast travel pretty often. I usually use it in most games but I know many people aren't fans of hopping around maps with this mechanic. For large games like these, there's a point where I have to use this because traveling on horseback or god forbid, running, just is absolutely ZERO fun. True it does allow you to appreciate your surroundings more but when you have a ton of quests to do, this keeps me from getting way too distracted.

I think it boils down to how it's done for many people. In this game, you can use it just about anywhere and in almost all circumstances. I used to like some restrictions like being out of combat, or out of a cave, etc. to be able to use it. Now, just lemme use it as I see fit.

Question: What are some examples of games that do fast travel right, and which do you feel do it wrong?

 

[SageShinigami]

Fast travel is fine, and off the top of my head I can't think of a game that necessarily does it wrong. Certainly, I can say that there's not many forms of travel that are so fun I'd rather use them than fast travel over huge distances of a map I've already covered.

I'll admit I can't stand when games have fast travel points too far out of the way, though. Like, that defeats the purpose of my using it in the first place.

 

[Hamoody]

Well I feel fast travel is necessary in most open world games. The Witcher 3 does it best imo when it comes to fast travel, where you have to be at that place to get the fast travel option. Something I really hated about the Mafia games was their exclusion of fast traveling. It just gets boring after a while driving from location to location in the Mafia games (especially since the third one is really really repetitive),

 

[Djawed]

I tried to play without it in BotW. Conclusion: it's needed. Worlds are too big.

 

[Chocobo115]

I'm grateful when there are fasttravel options since it allows me to zip around the gameworld and focus on the things I want to do instead of spending it on traveling back and forth.

 

[Bishop89]

All open world games should have it. Traversing is rarely fun especially when you have to go down the same path countless times.
It's up to the user to restrain themselves from using it if they want to explore every inch if the map

 

[Goodbye]

When I start a game I don't really use it, I want to see as much of the world as possible. After a while, fast travel is need. Even Mario Oddyssey has fast travel and it's super handy.

 

[Surface of Me]

Sunset Overdrive is great for it's traversal. It's such a joy to roam around I rarely ever used fast travel. Forza Horizon series as well. I feel like making going around the world fun is very important in open world games, but few devs seem to prioritize it.

Far Cry 2 had the most frustrating fast travel I've ever experienced.

 

[conman]

As a general rule, if a game is fun to play, fast travel should feel unnecessary. But fast travel is fine if it's got some limitations (only works going to certain locations), and it sucks if it's tied to consumables (as in Horizon).

 

[Kurri]

Is there really a way to do fast travel wrong?

 

[Rhaknar]

It's a necessity as far as I'm concerned.

 

[echoshifting]

I'm not really a fan of fast travel systems in general, but it doesn't bother me that it's an option. I never feel penalized for not using it...that's pretty much my one requirement, actually.

 

[diablogg]

I'm not sure I've seen it done wrong or right. I mean it's there for people that want it and if you're opposed to it you don't have to use it.

 

[gcwy]

It depends on the game. I wouldn't ever want fast travel in a game like GTA V because it wouldn't make sense. GTA V's world isn't some empty, barren wasteland with nothing to do. There's something always going on that might interest you, and there's always something to appreciate. Even in the countryside, all the plane/animal activity makes it stand out against other games.

 

[Edgar]

I don't use fast travel if I like a game, traveling distances makes me appreciate the world, makes it a believable place instead a thing to complete objectives in, getting to destination is more special cause you didn't get there immediately . I know I'm in minority here, but even having full time job I just don't used fast travel.

 

[weekev]

In this day of having no time fast travel is a necessity to 100% a game.

 

[Mediking]

Its a well respected quality of life thing in games

 

[Grimminski]

Fast travel is fine in games like Skyrim or Fallout 4 where the worlds hold little to find and explore.

 

[ShinkuTachi]

I absolutely LOVE fast travel and it's absolutely necessary in games!
I mean, Hydaelyn is a beautiful world and it's nice to look at; but, 9 times out of 10, when I log on, I have shit to do.

 

[Balbanes]

All open world games should have it. Traversing is rarely fun especially when you have to go down the same path countless times.
It's up to the user to restrain themselves from using it if they want to explore every inch if the map

Click to shrink...

To add on to this, Super Mario Odyssey might be the most fun game to traverse in from point a to b, but I still take advantage of fast travel when appropriate. If that game benefits from it, all open world games need it.

 

[Ryoku]

Fast travel as an option is fine.
The thing that makes it "boring" is if it becomes THE way to traverse the world.
What do I mean by this?
Create a world that rewards you for traveling without fast travel. It doesn't have to be an explicit reward, either. Just make exploring fun. Provide the player with opportunities along the way (not only in the form of fetch-quests). Only then will fast travel really remain optional.

 

[TheMadTitan]

While open world sandbox games like GTA and Saints Row don't require them, fast travel spots are good to have, especially if you want to blast through a few story missions and sidequests back to back.

But in comparison to say, something like Assassins Creed or Elder Scrolls, yeah it's not needed as much because open world sandboxes like GTA/SR rely heavily on emergent gameplay. The world around you is always doing something that can devolve into its own dynamic gameplay instance in a matter of seconds. You could finish a mission, hop in a car, drive and stumble on a car accident that sends the NPCs into a frenzy that ultimately attracts the cops, creating some three way conflict that causes a multi-car pile up, with some of those involved being opposing gang members that are programmed to shoot each other on sight.

Then the world devolves into chaos as the initial NPCs flee, the cops focus their attention on the warring gangs, and then somewhere in that mess, you, the player get shot, and three minutes later, you're fighting the military. In comparison to Assassins Creed or Elder Scrolls, where once you finish a mission, you wander around until you stumble into bandits or something; nothing is going to evolve into a gameplay instance without player input in most open world games, so fast travel is going to be more required there.

 

[Naveed]

I will use fast travel systems to a certain extent but I feel like the fact that they are there is an admittance by developers that there is some sort of flaw in open world game design. If the act of traversing a world is not fun then what's the point of having an open world in the first place? I think Sunset Overdrive is an example of a game that does so much right with it's traversal mechanics. Roaming sunset city was almost a game in and of itself and I didn't want to fast travel. And more recently Breath of the Wild had so many things to discover in every area of the map that I just wanted to explore Hyrule.

 

[Lazarre]

I find fast travel to be more a problem than a solution in most games. It seems handy at first, but then you start hoping around the world and lose sense of space and time.
IMHO in most games fast travel should be an option that you can completely turn off. If it's needed, then maybe you have a problem with the way your quests are designed, or with your overall world composition.

 

[Antiwhippy]

I don't mind fast travel at all, but it's nice if the game can justify it through their world like nier.

 

[Fliesen]

I don't think any larger / open world game without and sort of fast travel would really work, nowadays. Even in Mario Odyssey it's a godsend.

Fast travel destinations shouldn't be so redudantly placed on the map, though, that you'll be fast traveling, where regular traversal would have only taken you a minute.

There's ways to 'balance' it to make the world still feel 'connected' and not have people teleport whenever they killed that last goblin for their quest. Like the way it was used in the Witcher - meaning that you can only fast travel FROM certain points on the map, as opposed to just bringing up your ingame map anytime.
Or having fast travel on a multiple-minute long cooldown.

 

[Kaeden]

I'm trying to think if there are in fact any large open world games that don't have any type of fast travel. Can anyone think of one because I can't.

Thinking of some of the MMOs I've played over the years, I do tend to like the fast travel systems where you actually travel instead of instantly port from one spot to the next. For me it's about the immersion and how it fits into the game world. Traveling on a Chocobo or tunneling through on a tram makes sense and those are the ones I def enjoy the most.

 

[enkaisu]

I think fast travel is necessary for pretty much all open world games. No matter how gorgeous or finely crafted the world is, sometimes you just wanna get somewhere immediately and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Mr Swine]

Well I feel fast travel is necessary in most open world games. The Witcher 3 does it best imo when it comes to fast travel, where you have to be at that place to get the fast travel option. Something I really hated about the Mafia games was their exclusion of fast traveling. It just gets boring after a while driving from location to location in the Mafia games (especially since the third one is really really repetitive),

Click to shrink...

Driving in Mafia is the best thing imho, specially driving those old 30-40's cars

 

[Hamoody]

Driving in Mafia is the best thing imho, specially driving those old 30-40's cars

Click to shrink...

It got boring for me after a while, but I have to admit the music is the number one reason It felt awesome to drive in Mafia.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Not only necessary, but a much appreciated QoL feature. I don't even need a lore explanation. The explanation is that I'm skipping the part where characters travel a long distance.

 

[Sprat]

I hate it. It completely ruins any sense of immersion for me.

 

[ChrisD]

There are a number of areas where Fast Travel kept Mario Odyssey moving at a nice clip. Prevented me from traversing the same, finely combed area over and over while attempting to get a Moon.

It single-handedly saved Danganronpa V3 for me. If I had to walk everywhere I'd go nuts.

It's always hard for me to not just Fast Travel all over after a certain point in any game, though, and that kind of bothers me. Is it my impatience, or is the game's world just not holding my interest enough to traverse it manually after a point? And is that even inherently a problem?

 

[Apoptomon]

I'm impatient at times, so fast travel from anywhere is great for when I don't feel like exploring.

 

[Shadow Yuk]

I think it's ok: if you want to explore the world you get the opportunity to do it, while people that don't find necessary travel lands with their feets can always use fast travel.
I'm playing Shadow of War right now, and I find myself using it sometimes if I'm doing missions and I don't want to lose time traveling from one point of interest to another

 

[Kaeden]

It's always hard for me to not just Fast Travel all over after a certain point in any game, though, and that kind of bothers me. Is it my impatience, or is the game's world just not holding my interest enough to traverse it manually after a point? And is that even inherently a problem?

Click to shrink...

For me, if the option is there, it's really, really hard to not use it. Sure I can convince myself to hop on my horse and ride 7 blocks instead of finding a close location on the map to get there a bit quicker, but coming back in to town to turn in a quest by having to leave a cave and then ride back, yeah that won't happen. And even though I know this is the quick and easy way to do it, it's hard to ignore. I have a good bit of time to game these days but even then I feel like I'm wasting my time for really no good reason.

 

[Snormy]

Fast travel is glorious when the alternative is slow and shit manual travel over long distances repeatedly.

When traversal feels good and you're not simply talking to NPCs for single lines on opposites of the world map it can be fun. I rarely use fast travel in Gravity Rush 2 because falling through the air was so much fun. I would hit the ground so I can slide for that 5 seconds before launching into the air again even though it slows me down.

 

[MadMike]

Fast travel is a necessity to me. I love exploring open world games, but I have limited free time, and forcing me to run around everywhere is a good way to turn me off of a game entirely.

Dragon's Dogma I feel has a poor implementation on fast travel. It's convoluted and inconvenient. I generally prefer the way it's done in something like AC Origins. Once I've discovered a location, in this case a sync point, I can travel there at any time.

 

[Berserking-Guts]

Fast Travel is necessary but if implemented poorly it can rob a game of exploration and immersion.

 

[calcputer]

I'm almost at 600 moons in Odyssey and I think I am going to start fast travelling less. The worlds are so great and the movement feels so nice that I dont want to breeze through the rest of the game quite as much like just checking off a list.

Fast travel is a great quality-of-life mechanic, if you want to play without ever using it you can, it just helps you experience more content faster.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

It's fine but if the world was fun to navigate, I'd navigate it.

They need to make interesting worlds again because ELEX/Nier Automata/Yakuza series/DivinityOS/UnderRail and Fallout New Vegas are the only recent examples I can think of where I didn't fast travel.

 

[shimon]

A necessary QoL feature. You can always not use if you'd rather travel on foot/horse/whatever.

 

[LossAversion]

I would prefer if games offered an in-game solution for fast traveling like the carriages in Skyrim. I'm not going to cry about it too much though as there are more important features to worry about.

 

[Kuosi]

Huge time saver, a necessary QoL and it's optional so those who care about the immersion aspect can just choose to not use it.

 

[subdry]

When I start a game I don't really use it, I want to see as much of the world as possible. After a while, fast travel is need. Even Mario Oddyssey has fast travel and it's super handy.

Click to shrink...

This is where I'm at. I deliberately avoid using it, but I'm always happy when games restrict fast travel use and force you to unlock it.

My ideal fast travel isn't instantaneous, since that always takes away my immersion in the game world. The flight paths in WoW are a great example of fast travel done well, in my opinion. The instant click on a location you've visited and effectively get teleported there in the 3D Fallout series is how not to do it.

 

[Phil's Empty Chair]

Can't live without it.

 

[LuckyChamCham]

Fast travel is fine, sometimes I don't want to trek across the whole map just to reach my destination. I don't use it immediately though, but once i get a feel of the whole map or rather explored most of it, then i use it.

 

[Deleted member 9971]

I don't mind it but in huge games like Zelda Breath of the Wild i only fast travel to the towers. So if there are so many fast travel options i just use the main ones or a couple i pick myself, so that there atleast is still some travelling going on.

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

It's needed in some games, unneeded in others, and fine in most as long as it's optional. A game like Cold Waters or M&B need fast travel, a game like Morrowind or Gothic don't, and it's fine in games like Dragon's Dogma or Witcher 3. Sometimes they're huge QoL time savers, sometimes it really can break immersion and be unrealistic and other times it's good to do to get somewhere quick if you forgot something or another. I never understood the backlash Oblivion got from fast travel cause it's optional lol

 

[Persephone]

Fast travel is a life-saver. I know some people play Skyrim no fast travel runs because there's always crazy stuff to encounter as you're walking around, but I've got no patience for that shit. The only game I can think of that managed to do fast travel badly was Final Fantasy XV.