Topic: World Sizes

Technology has been growing stronger and faster over the years, and with it comes gaming systems capable of portraying large, open worlds. Just look at the new Legend of Zelda: the plateau that was shown in the demo was only about 2% of the entire map! (or so I've heard). And Xenoblade Chronicles X; that map is huge as well. But why does it feel like gaming worlds are always getting smaller?

Perhaps this is a personal experiance, but I always hear reviews for games with a huge open world, yet when I play them, they don't feel much larger than the latest similar game I've played. Is there a particular reason for this? The only guesses I have are that either world sizes seem smaller due to movement speed (teleportation, transportation etc.), or we're reaching a point where no matter how much larger you create a world it won't feel much different since the scale of the world is getting too large to really appreciate.

The only reason I've been thinking about this recently is because I was playing the HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and I noticed the huge difference between simply walking from a certain location to another, or just teleporting. Either option gets you to your destination, but I feel that when you teleport you lose so much of the experience. I'm concerned that the upcoming Zelda will have some similar hindrance of the vast and open world due to some form of faster travel.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

@Benjelo Yeah, I wonder this too. I agree with what you're saying about teleportation, but for me the other factor is that these worlds are often JUST big, with not a whole lot of other defining features. So the worlds are huge, but they feel smaller because they're not jam-packed with unique, meaningful secrets that make the map feel dynamic and alive.

@World I definitely agree with that. I think Xenoblade X might have suffered from that a lot. The world was really big, but most of the time you were just running through wide open fields. From what we've seen with Breath of the Wild so far, it seems the world will have lots of little things to do everywhere, so that knocks out one of my concerns for the game at least.

haha I'm glad I got an opinion from someone with the perfect username for this topic

@Benjelo Teleporting is always just an option though.

@gcunit That is certaintly true, but it just doesn't feel right to not take advantage of the most efficient option.

This is just my personal view, but when you play a game like LOZ, you project yourself unto the character. You're the one killing the monsters or opening the chest or whatever it may be. As the character who is trying to save the world, it would make the most sense to use the quickest method to save it.

When I pause to consider that it would be more enjoyable to simply walk to the place I want to go, it makes me feel kind of disconnected from the game. I'm no longer immersed in the experience when I make a choice like that. If they made the option to teleport a little more challenging, like it takes up some money or other resource, then perhaps I would be able to see it as just an option. However when it's freely available to me like it is in so many games, it's a logical decision that needs to be made to maintain the experience.

Maybe that's taking the idea of projecting yourself unto a character a little to far though haha.