I actively despise open world games because of the whole “Size of an ocean, depth of a pond” issue, play it for 3 minutes and you’ve seen all there is to see.
While I fully agree in most cases, Elden Ring has to be the best counter example. The open world nature both adds many interesting details to the lore through the relative positioning of locations/PoIs, and has an increased sense of discovery. Running through the Lands of Shadow for the first time was the best gaming experience I’ve ever had.
Eldenring is the poster child of open world design. I played the game 100 hours or so when it launched. I loved it but never really finished it completely. I started playing again with the seemless coop mod and it was like playing a whole new game. I found things that i missed, like a lot of things. Dungeons i just walked past, weapons i never found, bosses, complete areas. I could probably play the whole game again and take completely different routes and have na almost new game. Things like this don’t happen in other open world games. Never in my life did it occur to me to replay another assassin’s creed game, it was already painful the first time after 10 hours or so.
I know exactly what you mean. Before SotE released, I played Ghost of Tsushima, and it’s incredible how different the games feel. GoT gives you much more agility and options for solving combat situations, yet it feels incredibly samey. I was guiding myself more by the map than by landmarks. Elden Ring is the polar opposite - combat is much more limited, yet it’s so much more fun.
Couldn’t disagree more. The stuff I liked about ER feel disconnected from the open world, and I feel likes its sprawling reptative scope detracted enjoyment from it for me.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an open world, but the minute a game is described as an “open world game”, my interest severely wanes.
For example the genre of management simulation games like Factorio or Satisfactory have open worlds because you can explore and expand in any direction.
Factorio and Satisfactory are open world factory games. There are probably examples of level based ones though. SpaceChem and Infinifactory come to mind but they’re arguably puzzle games when viewed in that context.
I actively despise open world games because of the whole “Size of an ocean, depth of a pond” issue, play it for 3 minutes and you’ve seen all there is to see.
Not so with the more linear titles.
While I fully agree in most cases, Elden Ring has to be the best counter example. The open world nature both adds many interesting details to the lore through the relative positioning of locations/PoIs, and has an increased sense of discovery. Running through the Lands of Shadow for the first time was the best gaming experience I’ve ever had.
Eldenring is the poster child of open world design. I played the game 100 hours or so when it launched. I loved it but never really finished it completely. I started playing again with the seemless coop mod and it was like playing a whole new game. I found things that i missed, like a lot of things. Dungeons i just walked past, weapons i never found, bosses, complete areas. I could probably play the whole game again and take completely different routes and have na almost new game. Things like this don’t happen in other open world games. Never in my life did it occur to me to replay another assassin’s creed game, it was already painful the first time after 10 hours or so.
I know exactly what you mean. Before SotE released, I played Ghost of Tsushima, and it’s incredible how different the games feel. GoT gives you much more agility and options for solving combat situations, yet it feels incredibly samey. I was guiding myself more by the map than by landmarks. Elden Ring is the polar opposite - combat is much more limited, yet it’s so much more fun.
Couldn’t disagree more. The stuff I liked about ER feel disconnected from the open world, and I feel likes its sprawling reptative scope detracted enjoyment from it for me.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an open world, but the minute a game is described as an “open world game”, my interest severely wanes.
For example the genre of management simulation games like Factorio or Satisfactory have open worlds because you can explore and expand in any direction.
Factorio and Satisfactory are open world factory games. There are probably examples of level based ones though. SpaceChem and Infinifactory come to mind but they’re arguably puzzle games when viewed in that context.