Can We Stop With the Open World Games?

[hatok 6,413]

Please?

 

It's getting ridiculous. I was to play a good, compact game. I don't want to walk for twenty minutes to get to the objective marker to get to the good part. Everyone keeps throwing things about. Zelda U is going to be huge. FFXV is going to be huge. FFXVI is apparently going to be ridiculously huge. Assassin's Creed is huge

BUT THERE'S NOTHING TO DO

Let's bring this to Kingdom Hearts. Dream Drop Distance boasts the biggest worlds in the franchise. But to what end? What is gained by making it take way longer to get from one end of the map to the other? There's still the same number of treasure chests as any previous KH, but now they're incredibly spread out and easy to miss.

Making things huge for the sake of it is a huge waste of resources, and I hope the industry gets over it and fast

 

I saw a comment that claimed FFXVI is supposed to be nearly 20 times the size of Skyrim? What a NIGHTMARE. That sounds like the most unpleasant gaming experience I can imagine.

 

Now don't go saying there should be more content to FILL these huge worlds. That's not practical. It'd take way too much time and money, unless they reused missions or had a bunch of useless collectibles. 

 

I just want a nice tight and focused package

is that really so crazy?

 

[Col.Random 3,683]

I actually enjoy open world games like the way Dark Souls does it. You get to explore plenty of places and check out he scenery. Though I must admit, 20 time the size of skyrim is probably insane.They should make a world open, but just avoid overdoing it

[Sora96 17,256]

Well XII was massive, Ito clearly loves big worlds which is why he's doing XVI 17 times the size of Skyrim according to Wada.

[HeyMouseSayCheese 1,133]

DDD wasn't really an open world game; it's basically the same linear KH formula, but each "room" is huge to accommodate Flowmotion. True open world games are things like Crackdown, Arkham City, GTA, Saints Row, most Fallout games, etc., and what makes those kinds of games fun are not only the myriad of sidequests and collectibles to hunt down an complete, but the expansive game worlds full of interesting characters and distractions to waste your time on if you feel like it.

 

DDD isn't like that: worlds are empty except for enemies, the only collectibles are treasure chests, and there are pretty much no sidequests or minigames (expect for Flick Ruch, and UGH don't get me started on that). I understand the complaint that DDD had huge worlds, and would definitely agree that KH3 should have much smaller ones, and certainly much more refined Flowmotion, but open world games are still great fun when done right.

[Kittenz 4,281]

Too cool for adventuring bro?

 

jk this is actually a really interesting opinion even if I don't agree because I love open world games haha

Edited November 23, 2014 by KittensOnFire

[Hero of Light XIV 2,381]

Well clearly a lot of people love them, I love them, developers love them, there's a huge demand for them, and really they don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. So yeah, sorry if you don't like them, but there really is no large scale demand for getting rid of open worlds. That's just how it is.

[RoxSox 3,593]

I do enjoy sandbox games when there are things to do. Skyrim is a good example of a good large world with a good deal of content well spread out. If all open world games accomplished that, it'd be fine.

[FerroAxel7 237]

If you don't like open world games, there's a simple solution: Don't play them. Obviously they're a huge success. Yes, DDD was the largest game in KH franchise history, but there's very little to be explored to begin with. 

  How many side missions are there in Skyrim as compared to Kingdom Hearts? Astronomical. Games like Fallout and Skyrim are filled with immerse environments that take months or even years to completely explore. That's what open world games strive towards: longevity. Getting the most out of a game as possible. That's why the Fallouts and Oblivions and Skyrims take 3 or 4 or 5 years to make. 

[MysticVriska 70]

It's already been stated also that the worlds in III will be the largest they've been yet, so better buckle up for that. Keep in mind though that they can add a lot more to make the size worth it compared to DDD, although I saw nothing wrong with the size of the worlds in DDD. They suited the game, although it is true i can understand why some worlds won't be people's cup to tea in terms of how much they flesh out the world and such. 

[Dio Brando 5,810]

I agree to an extent here

 

Sure I like my games to be open and big but the openness should have a reasonable size for it not just throw an empty barren open world just for the sake of putting one because it's the trending thing in the industry nowadays

 

Developers should strike a balance between openness and linear progression 

[Master Keeper 687]

I agree, making the place huge with nothing on it to do except fighting is really lame.

I wish if we could have more people to talk to and also have a lot of side quests, and they need to improve that on KHIII because even KHII didn't have that amount of side quests and people.

I hope everything improves.

[hatok 6,413]

If you don't like open world games, there's a simple solution: Don't play them. Obviously they're a huge success. Yes, DDD was the largest game in KH franchise history, but there's very little to be explored to begin with. 

  How many side missions are there in Skyrim as compared to Kingdom Hearts? Astronomical. Games like Fallout and Skyrim are filled with immerse environments that take months or even years to completely explore. That's what open world games strive towards: longevity. Getting the most out of a game as possible. That's why the Fallouts and Oblivions and Skyrims take 3 or 4 or 5 years to make. 

Open World is a trend, it's infecting lots of series, even if they don't go true open world, they still make things bigger for no reason, like DDD

Zelda is going open world, existing open world games are getting bigger than ever, FF is going open world. Games I wantt o play, but they're being bogged down by huge worthless expanses of nothing in the name of this 'innovation.

 

Skyrim and such is full of side quests, yeah... but inbetween that? Running around while nothing happens, mostly. Open world used to be more manageable, too. It wasn't about having the biggest world possible, it was about letting you explore a content rich sandbox. Now everyone is trying to seel their games to be on promises like "Our game is as big as Paris!"

 

 

I agree to an extent here

 

Sure I like my games to be open and big but the openness should have a reasonable size for it not just throw an empty barren open world just for the sake of putting one because it's the trending thing in the industry nowadays

 

Developers should strike a balance between openness and linear progression 

they also need to recognize when open world design suits their needs

 

 

Too cool for adventuring bro?

 

jk this is actually a really interesting opinion even if I don't agree because I love open world games haha

I don't consider walking in a straight line for several minutes "adventuring"

 

 

DDD wasn't really an open world game; it's basically the same linear KH formula, but each "room" is huge to accommodate Flowmotion. True open world games are things like Crackdown, Arkham City, GTA, Saints Row, most Fallout games, etc., and what makes those kinds of games fun are not only the myriad of sidequests and collectibles to hunt down an complete, but the expansive game worlds full of interesting characters and distractions to waste your time on if you feel like it.

 

DDD isn't like that: worlds are empty except for enemies, the only collectibles are treasure chests, and there are pretty much no sidequests or minigames (expect for Flick Ruch, and UGH don't get me started on that). I understand the complaint that DDD had huge worlds, and would definitely agree that KH3 should have much smaller ones, and certainly much more refined Flowmotion, but open world games are still great fun when done right.

DDD isn't an open world, but my tertiary problem with open world is that they've become about size. DDD became about size "look how big our rooms are"

Back before we had very powerful technology when making open world games, we couldn't really do huge, so instead we had roughly as big as the content they wanted to show off. Open World was more like a regular game with each area scattered across a single map. But now the focus is far removed from that. What's advertised more than anything is "See that mountain? You can go there" but is there anything to DO on the way? What cna I do when I finally get there?

Edited November 25, 2014 by WakelessDream

[Dave 5,715]

Can you define what you mean by, "a nice, tight, focused package?" Because right now, what you want as an alternative to open world games is kind of ambiguous. I doubt you mean something as simple in  design as Angry Birds, but I'm not sure how much room you want to actually allow the character to walk and the player to explore. 

[FerroAxel7 237]

Open World is a trend, it's infecting lots of series, even if they don't go true open world, they still make things bigger for no reason, like DDD

Zelda is going open world, existing open world games are getting bigger than ever, FF is going open world. Games I wantt o play, but they're being bogged down by huge worthless expanses of nothing in the name of this 'innovation.

 

Skyrim and such is full of side quests, yeah... but inbetween that? Running around while nothing happens, mostly. Open world used to be more manageable, too. It wasn't about having the biggest world possible, it was about letting you explore a content rich sandbox. Now everyone is trying to seel their games to be on promises like "Our game is as big as Paris!"

 

 

they also need to recognize when open world design suits their needs

 

 

I don't consider walking in a straight line for several minutes "adventuring"

 

 

DDD isn't an open world, but my tertiary problem with open world is that they've become about size. DDD became about size "look how big our rooms are"

Back before we had very powerful technology when making open world games, we couldn't really do huge, so instead we had roughly as big as the content they wanted to show off. Open World was more like a regular game with each area scattered across a single map. But now the focus is far removed from that. What's advertised more than anything is "See that mountain? You can go there" but is there anything to DO on the way? What cna I do when I finally get there?

Are you just mad open world games are becoming more and more acceptable? FF has been trying new elements in their games for years, it's called evolving. The PS4 has current gen specifications and they're going to treat it as such by adding large worlds. I've never met anyone who had a problem exploring massive lands and finding new things with each play through. It's more exciting then being stuck on a narrow path for the duration of the game. You might like to blindly go where your told, but for the rest of us, we like to explore.  

Edited November 25, 2014 by WakelessDream

[Dracozombie 4,554]

It sounds to me it's not necessarily open-world games you're rallying against -- it's empty games. Huge, expansive settings just happen to be big offenders. Hypothetically, if they did have the time and money to put enough stuff to fill that gigantic space, would you play it? Because that sounds like a kickass game to me. I love exploring, and I love being able to do what I want when I want to.

 

I'm still confused by what you mean, though. Do you just hate open-world games out of principle, or are you simply annoyed at how there are so many open-world games that smaller, succinct games are being pushed aside? If it's the former, I can't help you there, but I thought Bully (and by extension, GTA) was an open-world game that was fairly tight. If it's the latter, the indie game scene is a treasure trove for that.

[hatok 6,413]

Can you define what you mean by, "a nice, tight, focused package?" Because right now, what you want as an alternative to open world games is kind of ambiguous. I doubt you mean something as simple in  design as Angry Birds, but I'm not sure how much room you want to actually allow the character to walk and the player to explore. 

I'm not interested in an alternative, I just want more variety. I don't want open world games to go away, I want every game to stop moving in that direction, and I want open world games that already exist to stop focusing on how huge they can make their worlds

 

Are you just mad open world games are becoming more and more acceptable? FF has been trying new elements in their games for years, it's called evolving. The PS4 has current gen specifications and they're going to treat it as such by adding large worlds. I've never met anyone who had a problem exploring massive lands and finding new things with each play through. It's more exciting then being stuck on a narrow path for the duration of the game. You might like to blindly go where your told, but for the rest of us, we like to explore.  

Not mad. Open world games are moving in the direction of emptiness. You might like looking at a tree, or an open plane, I'd personally prefer to actually do something. And open world by its nature, at least in the current form where it focuses on big sizes over anything else, has less content per pixel than any game besides an MMO.

 

It sounds to me it's not necessarily open-world games you're rallying against -- it's empty games. Huge, expansive settings just happen to be big offenders. Hypothetically, if they did have the time and money to put enough stuff to fill that gigantic space, would you play it? Because that sounds like a kickass game to me. I love exploring, and I love being able to do what I want when I want to.

 

I'm still confused by what you mean, though. Do you just hate open-world games out of principle, or are you simply annoyed at how there are so many open-world games that smaller, succinct games are being pushed aside? If it's the former, I can't help you there, but I thought Bully (and by extension, GTA) was an open-world game that was fairly tight. If it's the latter, the indie game scene is a treasure trove for that.

Open world and empty have become synonymous, which is my issue. Sure, that would be a kick ass game in theory (though maybe a bit overwhelming at that point)

I used to be a lot more of a fan of open world, liek Fallout 3 was pretty cool. But the trend has been towards big open spaces, every open world game wants to sell you on how super huge their game is now, and more and more games are trying to be that super huge game too.

Like here's an example. There was a recent FFXV gameplay trailer. It was ten minutes long. And it was just Noctis running towards things. They had to fade out because it look Noctis so long to reach a distant location.

Now the angle they try to work here is that you can take in all the beautiful scenery. The camera slides along in wonder every time a creature or somethign moves by... but that's really not going to carry over into gameplay. In gameplay you're just gonna be running. On a big empty plane. A majestic monster might fly by, but so? You've probably already seen a million of them, because gameplay isn't like a movie, you can't just have a majestic moment and move on.

Or let's use an example of a game that's already out. Assassin's Creed IV. Huge open sea to ride around on. Cool at first, but eventually it's just a 5000m expanse between you an your next destination, with little to nothing to do

 

Now you're right, if these huge games could be full of unique content that would be amazing. But it's not really practical. Even if you had enough money, by the time said content is made, technology will have been advanced so far that so many things will have to be reworked to fit that. Ultimately an open world game is exactly like a normal game, on a basic level. You cna only make so much content. And right now the trend is simply to make all of that content increasingly far away from one another

Edited November 25, 2014 by WakelessDream

[Marth 338]

I was going to disagree but then I remembered that a lovely little game called Xenoblade X is coming out. I loved Xenoblade but I felt it being a bit too open, and hearing that the world in X is going to be 5 times larger than Xenoblade just sounds ridiculous. And then there's Reckoning: Kingdoms of Amalur which I haven't completed due to lack of interest and it feeling a bit too large, and the music just not holding me. And then there's Skyrim... I never thought I would say this, but I want at least one or two games similar to FFXIII in terms of open world and linearity. At least in FFXIII the world was a bit expansive but there was nothing to do. FFXIII-2 separated each area from the rest so you felt isolated but there was stuff to do even then because yay sidequests. That may a bit of a broad example but it's just let down with open worlds. I mean not everyone can know each and every map and not get lost.

[DragonMaster 1,166]

I actually agree with this opinion. Even if an open world game is filled with content, the fact remains that it's boring. The whole schtick of open world games is that you can do whatever you want, whenever, but they don't seem to give much reason to actually WANT to do anything. I'll go with Skryim as an example. I can walk around and find random caves, bandit hideaways, etc. But what motivation do I have to explore them? To find new equipment or items for forging/alchemy/sidequests? Okay, sure. But then, why exactly do I need any of this stuff, exactly? The story line is so non-linear and diluted that it becomes unimportant. By playing the game as it was intended and exploring everything I find and doing whatever I want, the narrative loses any sense of urgency and importance it had, and I stop caring. And if I stop caring, then what reason do I have to explore the world, when doing so isn't going to do anything for me?

 

Exploring for the sake of exploring isn't really that interesting. If I don't care about the main story, or the characters ('cause, at least in the few I've tried to play, the characters are incredibly boring), or the combat ('cause, again, the combat never seems to be as fun), then why should I play the dang game? To see the "beautiful" CGI environments? To hoard a bunch of pointless items, or do a bunch of side-quests that involved characters and stories I don't care about and then reward me with items I don't care about? (Actually, these complaints -aside from the combat- would also be responsible as to why I can't really get into Etrian Odyssey games.) No, I'd rather go play something else entirely.

 

You know what games I really love to explore in? Tales of. Fairly linear games with tiny worlds (comparatively). But I delve into every nook and cranny of every dungeon, comb through every environment, and talk to all the people in towns. I explore what there is to explore, search for every treasure I find, and do all the side quests I can. Because the game gives me a reason to want to get stronger, to find those hidden items, to care about the characters and their side quests, and those side quests don't take me so far out of the way that I forget about the main plot entirely for hours on end. Plus, the combat is entertaining enough that I don't mind the enemies as much. Not every game needs to be, or should be, anything like Tales of, but games should give me a reason to care about their content.

 

I'll be honest, it makes me sad that open-world/sandbox games are getting so popular that people cry for every game to have giant worlds. At this point, there may be a day when there are no major game releases that interest me.

 

The above is all totally my opinion, of course.

[Exiblade7 1,917]

I actually agree with this opinion. Even if an open world game is filled with content, the fact remains that it's boring. The whole schtick of open world games is that you can do whatever you want, whenever, but they don't seem to give much reason to actually WANT to do anything. I'll go with Skryim as an example. I can walk around and find random caves, bandit hideaways, etc. But what motivation do I have to explore them? To find new equipment or items for forging/alchemy/sidequests? Okay, sure. But then, why exactly do I need any of this stuff, exactly? The story line is so non-linear and diluted that it becomes unimportant. By playing the game as it was intended and exploring everything I find and doing whatever I want, the narrative loses any sense of urgency and importance it had, and I stop caring. And if I stop caring, then what reason do I have to explore the world, when doing so isn't going to do anything for me?

 

Exploring for the sake of exploring isn't really that interesting. If I don't care about the main story, or the characters ('cause, at least in the few I've tried to play, the characters are incredibly boring), or the combat ('cause, again, the combat never seems to be as fun), then why should I play the dang game? To see the "beautiful" CGI environments? To hoard a bunch of pointless items, or do a bunch of side-quests that involved characters and stories I don't care about and then reward me with items I don't care about? (Actually, these complaints -aside from the combat- would also be responsible as to why I can't really get into Etrian Odyssey games.) No, I'd rather go play something else entirely.

 

You know what games I really love to explore in? Tales of. Fairly linear games with tiny worlds (comparatively). But I delve into every nook and cranny of every dungeon, comb through every environment, and talk to all the people in towns. I explore what there is to explore, search for every treasure I find, and do all the side quests I can. Because the game gives me a reason to want to get stronger, to find those hidden items, to care about the characters and their side quests, and those side quests don't take me so far out of the way that I forget about the main plot entirely for hours on end. Plus, the combat is entertaining enough that I don't mind the enemies as much. Not every game needs to be, or should be, anything like Tales of, but games should give me a reason to care about their content.

 

I'll be honest, it makes me sad that open-world/sandbox games are getting so popular that people cry for every game to have giant worlds. At this point, there may be a day when there are no major game releases that interest me.

 

The above is all totally my opinion, of course.

I totally agree with you. I'd like a video game to have something for me to follow so I can have the purpose of playing the game. For example, I like Skyward Sword for many reasons and one of them is because of the story. The story was so good in my opinion that I felt like I accomplished something every time I complete a dungeon in the game. When U completed a dungeon in the game, the award for doing that was more progression in its story, which I really enjoyed to the fullest.

[Cyber Shaman 990]

Oh man did you guys hear what Hideo Kojima is going to do with the next Metal Gear? I don't mind Open World, but for Metal Gear to have it? Oh god no.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Kite

[ohgodwhat 3]

The problem with open-world games is that they substitute a larger game with a good story.

 

The only game that I'll believe had both an open-world and an amazing story is Witcher 3, and that's not even out yet.