There is no open world that is too big. They can only be too small.
However, the quality of an open world is not predicated on the size of the open world, but rather what is actually in it.
And this doesn’t mean that open worlds must be drowning in content, as the quality of the content itself also matters, and certain worlds that are large and empty can still be interesting due to its traversal being good, or the sandbox nature of a large empty world.
Some of the worst examples of open worlds are the kind that are just filled with isolated little fetch quests; busywork that’s all marked on the map with no element of organic exploration. Or the kinds of open worlds where nothing actually happens “organically” without the player starting it.
The best kinds of open worlds are the ones that emphasise exploration and/or have background systems governing the world in some way (i.e. factions that interact with each other without the explicit involvement of the player).
I did hear about Light No Fire from the No Man Sky devs. Looks impressive from what I’ve seen so far on it with it’s supposedly literal Earth sized world.
It’s too big when the developers are unable to fill it with enough interesting things to do and discover to keep my attention. But there’s no absolute size I’d automatically consider too big, as it also depends on things like traversal. If you ride through the map on a mech going 400km/h, it can be much larger and more spread out than if I have to traverse the entire map on foot.
That’s definitely a key point. Absolutely loved the first Forest game, the map was just the right size for what content it had, then the sequel has a map 4x the size that is just completely empty for 90% of it. They did make some improvements over early access but it was still mostly a waste
Its not about being too big but too little stuff to do IMO. The first Assassin’s Creed wasnt even that big but felt like a wasteland going from one side of the map to the other
Bestiary entries are vast, almost a book in game format, and most add to lot of worldbuilding even if not needed for the main plot itself.
Also bosses, sidequests, enviromental cues seldom aren't at least hinted by a few NPCs often dozens of hours before they're relevant.
Overall details are often explained when you look in the right corners of the game. Even some weird weather cycles seem to have some logic applied. And in a single case, it felt inspired by a real-world element, one even Mad Max 4 used a cut in the beginning.
And I wonder if the sky-gazing kid in one of the airships that says she saw something in the sky was referring to Deathgaze or the continent from Revenant Wings....
In Disco Elysium the game straight up called me out for apologising so much. It hit me so hard I stopped apologising as much irl. 10/10 game would be ashamed again.
I want to answer Xenogears because of all of its story and storytelling, but the worldbuilding itself is kinda standard, if not for the scope of it. You do end up learning about pretty much everything there is to learn - the world and its history, the characters and what moves them, the politics, the conflicts, the geography, the physics, the religions, the supernatural, the origins of mankind - not to mention a full class on philosophy. And then whatever question you still have left, there’s a book about it in addition to the game.
And you start with a classic amnesiac character in a small village.
yeah, PC here, i didn’t really much games before digital distribution came along, but i was enjoying every demo i got on a cd that came with magazines, now - over 20 years later i have nothing to play
This sounds like analysis paralysis. If you have 5 games, it’s easy to select one. If you have 416, it’s difficult to select one.
I’ve often found that the more options I have, the more difficult it is to come to a decision. And when you think about “what game should I play,” it sounds like a silly problem to have. But when you extend it to other problems in life, like “what should I have for dinner,” then you see it start to cause some pretty serious problems.
Lately I think I spend more time trying to decide what to play than I do playing games. Then I’m not always successful in making a decision, or might run out of time, and then I don’t play any games. Following the same reasoning, sometimes I don’t eat dinner.
If you start to notice this is becoming an actual problem, the good news is there are tools and techniques that can help you make a decision. About a thousand of them. Good luck picking one.
This is definitely part of it. When we had Game Pass, which would add 3 or 4 new games a week, the kids would spend their time trying them out to see if they liked them. Games that had been on the service for a while got ignored, as they weren’t presented as “new”.
That was one of the beauties of Game Pass to be honest, in that the kids would try out whatever was released that week, whether it was AAA or a small indie, and generally they preferred the novelties of the indies.
Now, with just one huge list of older games, they’ve got that paralysis.
You could download three random games from your list and present them the same way as though they were new? Think that would be enough? I mean idk how Xbox is laid out, but I assume new games show up on the Home Screen which is how they access the new games of the month or whatever, right?
it’s always funny playing RE games and reading notes and you’re like “why would anyone write this down and confess to this?”
“I ate frank in the PD holding cell,he protested,but I consumed him anyways. I don’t feel right, it feels like that wasn’t something I should have done…”
It’s because you’re the type of person who would not. The type not to self incriminate.
Go on WorldStar, LiveLeak, and YouTube and you’ll see all kinds of videos and ask yourself “Why are they filming this?”, and then again “Why did they post this on the Internet?” Same shit.
At least they’re doing everything out in the open so there’s plenty of evidence if we at some point in the future decided to prosecute people like this. Like, after world war 3 or sth
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