Topic: Is "Open World" Hurting Gaming?

I think I might have very marginally preferred City. They're incredibly close though. And I would almost guarantee City cost about twice as much to make.

I wouldn't say they're hurting gaming, but they're just the current fad. Last gen everything had to be an fps. Now everything needs to be open world. It sucks Nintendo jumped in the bandwagon to a very mild result (in my opinion), but I would never say it hurts gaming. It hurts it for me personally, but not overall

@MisterPi I think that's it exactly. Good clarification. It hurts gaming for ME, but not gaming overall. I really enjoy being able to complete a game 100%, but it can be very difficult to find the time to do that and play a fair number of the other games that interest me.

I guess I just feel that open world hurts the focus of a game, and I've always been a fan of that focus.

Side note: I'm very surprised how many people weren't a fan of BOTW. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I've enjoyed most of the other Zelda games more.

I have a feeling they won't hurt gaming in general, since there'll always be other genres. Also, like with any new genre of games, the open world games are slowly maturing. Developers are discovering what makes a good and what makes a bad open world game, and moving on from there.

That said, when it comes to Zelda I hope that Nintendo will consider using different styles, like they do with Mario and Metroid. For Zelda I would hope that to be the top-down view, the 'Ocarina of Time through Skyward Sword' style, and then of course the open world BotW style.

No. I didn't even read your reasoning, I just...no. Games go through trends, and there still a wide variety of games out there. Not all are gret (in fact, I've kind of burnout on most of them, but only because a lot of the ones I was playing just fely lazily designed. Considering the successes out there, that's more a problem with excecution versus the inherent nature of Open World mechanics themselves). In both the Indie and AAA spaces, there are far, FAR more problematic trends than "Open-World."

This video speaks to my concerns. That being said, yeah, I do believe it's just a trend. How long that trend will go on, who can say.

@Gorbash333 Wait, why did that video start by citing the fact that Quantum Break's director can't make a good singleplayer game to save his life, so he's gonna try his hand at multiplayer games instead?

@CanisWolfred Honestly, I've never played, or heard of, Quantum Break. The subject of discussion in the video is what got my attention. The whole idea that a lot who devs are abandoning the single player experience because they make more money from multiplayer titles, and that we, the fans, want more from a game if we're gonna pay $60.

Now, I agree that we should get our moneys worth. But I DO NOT think that open world and countless side quests and random inconsequential tasks are what make a game worth the price.

I'm mixed. I like linear games sometimes, as I feel that developers can make a more curated experience with a clear idea of what experience they are trying to convey. Story can also benefit in this regard as well as difficulty balancing. Sometimes, I like getting lost in worlds but I feel that I burn out on exploring and end up less motivated to finish the game. Case in point, currently playing Mankind Divided and exploring the large Prague hub. I'm getting bugged by phone messages to complete the main mission, but cant stop opening every locked door, hugging the walls to get every secret, hoovering up all available xp and items. It's a little suffocating. I know I don't have to play that way, but I do and that's that. Open worlds sound interesting to me, but my playstyle often dilutes what can be a great experience into mindless OCD repetitiveness.

@Gorbash333 I agree with that, it's just....I don't need to see that video to hear that. That's nothing new, publishers have been saying that for years. It's also an increasingly difficult argument to vouch for, though. Why can't they just budget their games better? You're right, we don't need zillions of quests and collectables to make their games worthwhile, they just have to make more of what's there important. It's just that would actually require more effort, so they instead opt to add a bunch of fluff with the least amount of effort possible, so they yeild higher returns.

Seriously, the more I look at it, the seems like a lot of companies are just trying to get the most amount of money while seeing how much they can get away with. Activision, Ubisoft, Warner Brothers, and of course, EA - the biggest offenders and producers of open-world games as of late haven't exactly been making choices that posititively impact the player experience, but they sure have opened a ton of venues to nickle & dime their customers, while giving them a lot of stuff to keep them coming back...almost as if they don't have a game, but a service.

I'm just saying, I don't agree that games are "too expensive to make." If all players wanted were bigger games, more stuff to do, so much so that they couldn't make a profit otherwise...why are smaller games still selling? Why are non-Open World games still able to make headlines, and quite a few still seem to sell well? You may not hear about it as much, but as has been pointed out in this thread...a lot of people jumped on the open world bandwagon. And now a lot of people are jumping on the multiplayer bandwagon. Heck, I just got off that bandwagon, it ain't that great...once another gimmick comes along, do you think they'll pounce on that like a pack of wolves, too? I know I'd bet money on that...

Either way, I don't see how cost effectiveness could be the issue, when there seems to be plenty of evidence to the contrary.

@Shellcore That's it! Yeah, the way I play I end up with the same problem, losing momentum. It's tough to change that, or even want to change the way you play. It's tough when you want to complete everything, but also want to experience mutliple huge title.

Not more than many other things. For example I can like an open world game, but it is very hard for me to like a first person shooter so for me first person shooters are hurting gaming a lot more than open world games. When something becomes the trend it obviously becomes "too much" and people who dislike it aren't going to be happy about it but that's how the whole "trend" thing works.
There are worse problems out there like dlc that should have been included in the main game, loot boxes, pay to win, misconceptions about how hard a game should be to be fun to play and so on.
Speaking about Breath of the wild I don't think that being an open world game is something bad. It is not its open world nature that makes it disappointing compared to older Zelda games. The problem with Breath of the wild is that the developers thought that random and mostly stupid/shallow events happening in an empty world filled only with boring enemies to fight and boring collectibles could have been a valid substitute for a minutely crafted epic adventure with many characters, twists and unique places, unique misteries and entertaining stories to discover. Take all this stuff, put it in an open world game and you have an open world Zelda game as good as the old ones.

@CanisWolfred We're definitely on the same page there. I think it's more about the devs using their time more wisely, in order to make a good game, rather than the budget.

Yeah, I know it's a trend to trend environment. That's not terrible, because things come back around as well. Hey! Maybe Nintendo's announcement today "for kids" will be the next trend! Haha!

To add to this lets not forget that open world is nothing new. Open world games have been around for a long time. I remember playing Ultima on PC back in early 90's and it is open world. I think the rise though had to do a lot with the hardware being at a point where devs can create worlds they have wanted to for a long time. I remember people in early 2000's wondering this same thing about FPS games but here we are today, they didn't ruin gaming and they still are flourishing along with many other genres. Gaming has trends but that doesn't mean any will ruin the hobby or not leave plenty of room for other genres.

When JRPG's were all the rage in 90's I was busy liking games like King's Field. There were still games more to my taste even if JRPG was the fad.

I like open world games a lot of the time (even the ones I am going to complain about), as long as I find interesting things to do in them. I have played quite a few over the last couples years, and have noticed similar tropes with them. Many of them will have good content when it comes to the main story quests, but tend to fall apart when it comes to the side quests. All too often, I feel like I am following the magic markers on the map marked ? to tap a button, listening to an NPC tell me why I need to go do X task, then going to the next map marker, tapping a button again, and returning to said NPC. These sorts of side quests do not offer anything fun or engaging, and simply function to boost game time.

I am generalizing here, but of all the recent open world games I have played, this is a common side quest trope. It might be to go take a picture, collect some random trinket, loot something, etc, but the gameplay is nothing more than A to B than back to A for my XP or in game currency reward. Some games do have side missions that are fun to play, but it feels like they are the exception.

Another thing about open world games that can be frustrating is loading the map with collectibles, and then marking them on the map. These are usually optional, but again, they do not offer engaging gameplay, and don't really serve a function other than boosting gameplay time.

Side missions though, are normally needed to complete the game, since every game these days takes maybe a bit too much from RPGs. You need to grind side missions to increase your level, so you can get back to the main story and not be severely underleveled. So you need to get through a bunch of boring stuff in order to get to the fun stuff. I guess, I would rather have a 20 hour game full of fun and engaging content, than a 40 hour game with only 10 hours of fun content.

I don't think being open world hurts gaming in any way. If some studios make shallow, generic open world games with boring tasks or nothing to do, those are just bad games. It has nothing to do with being open-world but with the respective game designers lacking vision of imagination.
I mean, open world games of some producers tend to always look and feel the same. So yeah, there has been a homogenizing effect as Haru17 mentioned, but only for some studios/producers. Or more precisely, those that are just doing it for a quick cash grab.

Now this is important: Opposing or even demonizing a certain methodology, tool or philosophy just because some people aren't utilising or executing it peroperly is never the solution. The only solution is doing a better job and showing people how it's done (like some studios are doing with their outstanding games).

I actually believe that more games should be open world. The whole point of an open world is giving the player more meaningful things to do, not less, while also giving the player more freedom of choice - even the freedom to play an open world games like BotW completely linearly!
Of course there are and always will be good closed-world games, but I believe if done right, more (not all) games could profit from being more open.

That said, calling open-world games a 'trend' is laughable, really. @Gorbash333 @World
Because not only have open-world games been around for at least two or three decades, but the overwhelming majority of contemporary games is in fact not open-world, so we're really talking about a small percentage of games here. This is a great example of making a mountain out of a molehill...

I think I find open world games the most exciting genre there is. I can't wait to see how well realised the next big thing in open world games is.

I've not played a Sims game in 15 years, but I kind of dream of a game where the world is full of NPCs who are actually living out Sims-like semi realistic lives, where every building is a real space you can enter and interfere with, actually disrupting lives.

The single player games I most want to put time into are the open world ones.

I haven't played many open world games, but I love what BOTW does. There are so many side quests and other things you can go do if you want, but none of it is mandatory. I know these things probably aren't explicitly mandatory in other games, but your often get stuck if you don't go do some of them to get stronger. In Zelda, there is no leveling up or anything, so you are as strong as you are good, and getting lost in side quests is not going to change anything other than give you more fun if you like it. Maybe open world just is not necessarily the best for RPGs where it might make grinding even more of a chore.

@gcunit

Maybe part of the issue is that it's not clear what the "next big thing" will actually be. It seems like open worlds have kinda been done as well as they can be for the time being.

Games like FF7 remake, Red Dead 2 and Cyberpunk might all be quite interesting takes on open-worlds but I doubt any of them will do anything new with this approach. Maybe the next Elder Scrolls will try something new.

Cyberpunk might push the boundaries in terms of open-world cities I guess. That's not something that's been explored very much.

@shani You're demonizing linear games in the same post you call for not demonizing different approaches to games. You don't understand game development concepts like resource management one bit.