What happened to Open World games?

[Shig O'nella]

is that an open world issue or a modern day gamer issue? I keep seeing this complaint everywhere in any genre and not just video gaming either.

Honestly not sure. I have a theory, driven mostly by my dislike of it, that a lot of issues in modern gaming - open world or otherwise, it just seems to be more pronounced in open world games - are caused by Steam acheivements and game wikis.
They give you "the right way to play" instead of play how the hell you like. Throw in active modding communities* which unconsciously reinforces that "right way to play" and your great open world is suddenly another game on rails.

Just my thoughts. Only ever play single player games, so might not apply as much to multiplayer games)

Spoiler: *Example from a game I used to love

Used to play a lot of Starbound. Can't get more open than an entire universe, can you.
Good game with not great graphics, lots of modders, a good sense of community - what wasn't to like? One of the mods, Frackin Universe, started growing. It's the same size as the base game now, pretty much essential to have since almost every other mod references it (or gets deliberately broken in an "update"), and by fuck, you now play Starbound the way the mod author wants you to.

 

[KingOfHypocrisy]

Is there really an issue with checklist stuff besides it being lazy game design? Seems like it's more of a thing the devs do to try and hide how short the story is or so they can say "we have 9000 hours of content in our game!".

I don't really see that many people clamoring to 100% games unless they're achievement whores or are hardcore fans of that specific game and if you look at the unlock percentages for the achievements related to completion stuff it's usually tiny. I think most people will play through the story and only do optional side content if it's fun or gives you a good in-game reward.

 

[Character from a movie]

I would add Far Cry games to that list too, they plastered the world with busywork and are somehow now an unofficial blueprint for open world games.

I started playing Far Cry 4 but had to quit for that same reason. When I walked around the map, I was constantly attacked by random enemies and wild animals. And those goddamn radio towers.
Fallout 4 is similar but the random encounters are cooler in my opinion. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help".

 

[Power Glove]

I started playing Far Cry 4 but had to quit for that same reason. When I walked around the map, I was constantly attacked by random enemies and wild animals. And those goddamn radio towers.
Fallout 4 is similar but the random encounters are cooler in my opinion. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help".

The wildlife in Far Cry games is worse then the enemies most of the time. Far Cry 4 had the visuals though, gorgeous scenery, bright vibrant colours and then came Far Cry 5.... so bland. Loved the religious cult setting but the visual were so bland. Glad to see they spiced that up with Far Cry New Dawn. Come to think of it I enjoy those standalone expansions more then the base games. Blood Dragon and New Dawn are fun time sinks. As for the settlements in Fallout 4, best mod I ever downloaded was to get rid of those radiant quests all together. Makes for a much more enjoyable experience for my taste.

I think that is why I enjoyed Project Warlock so much a few weeks ago, just blast through level after level without any open world nonsense. It felt refreshing. Hopefully open world games are just a trend, like every IP needed to be turned into a collectible card game.

Currently I'm playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and I have say, enjoyed the DLC for BL 2 a lot more simply because here they opted for an open world approach, rather then the more linear style the DLC was. The DLC carried more emotional weight too.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Ubisoft games happened. Assassin's Creed practically normalized this brand of open world games. Random collectibles in the hundreds for artificial length.

I wouldn't blame Ubi and AssCreed, it was going on before that and started pretty much immediately after GTA3. The problem in my opinion is that devs had a game... and they made it open world even if it didn't really need to be like that. Level based games were falling out of style and the solution was making you drive/run to the next level.

GTA3 was to open world what Minecraft was to crafting is what I'm saying.

 

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

I started playing Far Cry 4 but had to quit for that same reason. When I walked around the map, I was constantly attacked by random enemies and wild animals. And those goddamn radio towers.
Fallout 4 is similar but the random encounters are cooler in my opinion. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help".

I felt the same way when I first started playing Far Cry 4. It was just so overwhelming and frustrating trying to explore the map without being constantly attacked. Fallout 4 is definitely a bit better in that regard, but it still has its fair share of annoying random encounters. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help" and focus on enjoying the game for what it is!

 

[The Last Stand]

I felt the same way when I first started playing Far Cry 4. It was just so overwhelming and frustrating trying to explore the map without being constantly attacked. Fallout 4 is definitely a bit better in that regard, but it still has its fair share of annoying random encounters. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help" and focus on enjoying the game for what it is!

This reminds me of GTA: San Andreas and Vice City Stories, to a lesser extent. You can take over gang territories in Los Santos. The game would randomly alert you that your 'hood is under attack. If you don't defend it in time, it gets taken over.

VCS has this as well, but as businesses. Actually, it was WORSE in VCS. Gangs would randomly attack you in the open world.

 

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

This reminds me of GTA: San Andreas and Vice City Stories, to a lesser extent. You can take over gang territories in Los Santos. The game would randomly alert you that your 'hood is under attack. If you don't defend it in time, it gets taken over.

VCS has this as well, but as businesses. Actually, it was WORSE in VCS. Gangs would randomly attack you in the open world.

I loved the territory system in both of those games, and it would be awesome to see something similar implemented in GTA V. It would add a whole new layer of strategy and depth to the game.

 

[The Foxtrot]

Simply put they don't know why open world is fun.

Stalker is still the best out there due to A-life.
Going out of zaton and encountering a mutant swarm or enemy patrol makes the game interesting.
The amtosphere and tone also help.
Meanwhile you got the newest assassin creed feeling like a worksheet for what the suits think open world is more than anything else.

STALKER: Anomaly is probably the best STALKER experience to date. I love the A-life in those games, it really hammers home the feeling that the Zone is alive, exists independently of you, and will not hesitate to chew you up and spit you out. In turn, it actually makes you feel like more of a badass when you finally get some skill in playing, good equipment, and a fat wallet. Especially because STALKER encourages emergent gameplay, there's many different ways to survive in the Zone, and the games never hold your hand, leaving you to experiment on your own terms.

 

[Character from a movie]

Another "open-world" game I played was Saints Row 3. I think it's open-world, you have to go around the city and all that.
It was fun the first few hours, driving around and killing enemies, etc. But then it got repetitive like Far Cry 4, you couldn't walk ten steps without having some random NPC attacking you. I guess that's the appeal of those games and I just don't get it.
The only open-world game I liked was Fallout New Vegas, but that's an easy answer. And The Sims 3, talk about frying your PC.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Same thing that happened to every other genre. The 7th console generation. Budgets ballooned and the world was in a recession. It was either play it safe or go broke.

 

[Judge Dredd]

One reason I've not seen mentioned is how unadventurous American's are. There are lots of fantasy open worlds out there. Skyrim, Zelda, Witcher, but so many games have to be set in major American cities, and most of those are set in New York. For as much shit as Ubisoft gets for it's open world formula, at least they have interesting places and times.

is that an open world issue or a modern day gamer issue? I keep seeing this complaint everywhere in any genre and not just video gaming either.

How do you min max or 100% in other mediums?

GTA3 didn't straight up tell you what to do/not do.

Yes it did. You had a big letter (sometimes two or three) that showed where to start the next story mission. GTA3s world is fairly empty otherwise. Unless you count collectable packages.

Throw in active modding communities* which unconsciously reinforces that "right way to play" and your great open world is suddenly another game on rails.

That infected other genres too. Anyone finds out you're playing Dark Souls, and expect to be inundated with people complaining that you're "not playing right", especially if you get stuck on a specific boss. I think it's part of the reason Dark Souls clones like Remnant From The Ashes are infinitely better.

 

[Mega Black]

The checklist formula is pretty much the perfect open world design in that that allows for a lot of content in a wide space that tickles the right dopamine receptors, with the added benefit of allowing the easy insertion of microgransactions.

 

[Maurice Caine]

Yes it did. You had a big letter (sometimes two or three) that showed where to start the next story mission. GTA3s world is fairly empty otherwise. Unless you count collectable packages.

GTA3 had unmarked missions, taxi missions, vigilante missions, paramedic missions, RC vehicle missions, import car lists, rampages, collectibles and unique jumps. That's it. You have to find all of that shit.

 

[Bussy Catalog]

Open world is going through the same oversaturation that FPS went through in the late 2000s, too many cookie cutter iterations of the same damn thing. You have to filter through a lot of chaff to find the wheat, but it’s there. BotW and Elden Ring are some of the best open world games ever made, but for every one of them there are dozens of mediocre Ubisoft clones.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

GTA3 had unmarked missions, taxi missions, vigilante missions, paramedic missions, RC vehicle missions, import car lists, rampages, collectibles and unique jumps. That's it. You have to find all of that shit.

I don't even recall the game mentioning or guiding you towards the RC or Offroad missions. Unique Jumps and Import/Export *may* have had a little blurb pop up in the corner, but that was it. Marty Chonks missions don't even have a mission corona you have to just hear the pay phone and be curious enough to answer it.

I have always found it odd how much it upsets people that there is stuff to do in an open world that isn't even required of you. It's such a weird complaint to me. "This game has too much content!" then just don't do it? It feels like such an autistic "I *need* all the achievements!" thing that popped up with the 360.

But to answer the question, it takes work. Ubisoft has gotten into a pretty steady system of how they do open world games to get them out in a timely manner I'd imagine, and getting that dollar as quick as possible is the most important thing.

 

[Megaton Punch]

Ubisoft games happened. Assassin's Creed practically normalized this brand of open world games. Random collectibles in the hundreds for artificial length.

This is probably the correct answer. Ubisoft realized that open world game + infinity collectibles = dopamine fountain, and once they codified that formula, everyone else followed suit because it's free money. Yes, open world games have always been collectathons to a degree, but it wasn't until the Ubisoft Formula that the game literally sat you down and said "here are the five billion collectibles you need in a convenient list".

Before that, open world games were about discovery. You had no idea what was out there or what any of it meant. It was up to you to wander around the world until you stumbled upon something cool. BotW still does this somewhat. But in most games, it's more like a scavenger hunt. The game tells you what's out there and has you go find it. You know there are 97 diamonds, 120 briefcases full of cash, 35 weapon skins, etc. You just don't know exactly where they are. Which is okay if that's what you're into, but to me it feels more like I'm mindlessly checking off boxes rather than actually experiencing the game world.

I loved the Horizon games, but jesus christ was Forbidden West egregious with the checkboxes. I spent almost all of my time going from point of interest to point of interest in straight lines, ignoring anything around me, because that's the only way to get the game's ultimate weapons. It's shitty.

 

[Mega Black]

This is probably the correct answer. Ubisoft realized that open world game + infinity collectibles = dopamine fountain, and once they codified that formula, everyone else followed suit because it's free money. Yes, open world games have always been collectathons to a degree, but it wasn't until the Ubisoft Formula that the game literally sat you down and said "here are the five billion collectibles you need in a convenient list".

Even better, Assassin's Creed and Ubisoft figured out you could do away with all the pesky interactivity and emergent gameplay opportunities an open world provides (these are hard to make work and fun) if you just segmented everything off and didn't let the player interact with anything sans collectibles and enemies. Many of the earlier AC games would penalize you a little for killing or assaulting random civilians, but the 3-Rogue era wouldn't even let you touch them.

They're skinner boxes and incredibly easy to make and pump out by the dozens. Randomly generate an environment, plop down some art assets, add bandit camps for easily segmented combat zones, wash your hands and call it a day.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Tangental to the subject at hand but I really miss open-world RPGs that aren't trying to aggressively force you through a story.

I played through the original Dragon Warrior the first time during the pandemic after getting absolutely nowhere in it as a preteen and really enjoyed the way the game doesn't handhold you at all, you just get dumped into the world to explore and if you wander into a place you're underleveled for you just get your shit kicked in and that's your fault but there's no foul and you don't lose anything aside from some cash if you were dumb enough to go exploring while loaded. Another good example is the Exile and Yipe games if anyone aside from me has ancient Macintosh nostalgia, or Star Control 2 for the gold standard of space fuck-around nonsense.

Skyrim, Fallout and such are good in their own right but sometimes I just want to wander around and chill out doing dumb RPG things while listening to a podcast or history lecture.

 

[Anachronistic]

I started playing Far Cry 4 but had to quit for that same reason. When I walked around the map, I was constantly attacked by random enemies and wild animals. And those goddamn radio towers.
Fallout 4 is similar but the random encounters are cooler in my opinion. Just forget about "Another settlement needs your help".

If you think it's bad in Far Cry 4, never play Far Cry 2. The enemies spawn just as often but none of the outposts can be captured. What this means is that from beginning to end, you'll be harassed by enemies everywhere with no option of clearing the map and making it safer for yourself. There's no friendly NPC's except for the safe zone towns which make the world very bleak. The enemies also regularly rubberband up to you in MG trucks so you can't even outrun them in a car.