"This is all much more exciting than domestic life I assure you!"
-Codsworth (Fallout 4)
Lately, I keep telling my best friend everytime I find games that interest me, and might also interest him. Now I have a couple of games in my wishlist. It was after I see my list of desired games and the ones I played before that I realize.. Whatever kind of game they are, fantasy, sci-fi, building, zombie game, single player or multiplayer RPG, almost all of them are open world games. After five minutes of silly looks of my face while I was deeply thinking about it, this question popped up in my mind; with the current amount of released open world games, and the ones that still in development, is it good if we have more and more open world games available?
Open-world video games are a type of video game where a player can roam freely through a virtual world, and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives.
-The Gaming Wiki
THE RISE OF OPEN WORLD GAME
To be honest, I do not know what the very first open world game was, how it influenced the course of gaming, and when this open world concept first born because I'm not someone who been gaming since the early golden era of video game. But I do know that game with this sub genre has keep growing in number with improved different features and quality on each release.
From what I read, the first open world implemented game that became the standard for open world games was the controversial Grand Theft Auto III. The game that gained so many negative responses from parents to governments, but it became one of the most influental game of all time. I didn't know if the game was that controversial back then, maybe because I didn't play it when it was still hot, or just nobody give a sh*t about it in where I live. Although I didn't play long enough to complete the game, I'm glad I had the fun of spreading chaos driving a rhino tank.
A few years after that, this kind of game seems to be more and more popular that many of developers started to make more games with open world setting, resulting in the increasing number of open world games from time to time and this questioning post. The sub genre has now become exceedingly popular that even we can find it in so many indie games as well, and more indie developers are attempting to use this type of setting for their creation. Although each of these games has their own different style of gameplay, graphics, stories, and genres, as long as the game set in a massive world with non-linear storyline they are still included as "open world" games. For example, Terraria and Fallout 4. Sounds like an inacurate example because they looked too different if I put it like that, aren't they? With graphic style and gameplay as the biggest noticable difference, both still have something in common which is set in open world universe. To answer my question, let's try to put it this way..
HOW OPEN WORLD GAME COULD BE FUN
When we see a new game and figured that there is "open world" in the description we must be start to think that the game has massive area to explore freely, as it put the players into a massive world where they can completely ignore the main story line and make their own adventure by interacting with anything they can find within the game's world, while also allowing them to go with the main storyline whenever they wanted.
The best part of the free adventure is while we are on our way discovering everything the world has to offer, collecting the shiny stuff and getting more experienced in the game is the best thing we can do, and those could greatly affecting the character's progression in both the side quests and the main quest. And sometimes on our attempt to get it, there will be another enticing story for us to follow as some certain items be the goal. In the end of that small, side story of the game, we realize that what more epic was actually the journey to the said goal.
And to populate the big landscape, I think random encounter is a good idea, it also makes the world feel more alive. And I see this best in Fallout 4, its random encounter is one of the exciting things that we can often find in the Commonwealth. The way I see it, there were 3 kind of random encounters. The ones that don't really affect the player's progression, the ones that does, and the ones that affected by the player's progression. Examples of each of them are (in order): Synth and human Art trying to kill one another, unique merchants who got some legendary trash for sale that can be recruited to our settlements, and Nuka World's raiders that won't harm us if we choose to be their Overboss.
Now, I think this factor is both the good and the bad of open world game; Game with this setting provides tons of different activities for the players to do however they want and whenever they want, thus makes the game take a very long time to be completed.
HOW OPEN WORLD GAME COULD BE NO FUN
What if as you set foot into its world what you see in it is nothing but meaningless filler content with no purpose but only as the excuse to make it huge? That's why we know that exploring the massive open world is not always fun. I do like it huge but if that'd be the case, I prefer running around in a smaller world with plenty of exciting, weirdly interesting, and meaningful stuff that are actually give the lively feeling to the game and affect the player, the player's character and the story progression. No matter how massive the map is, if whatever in it doesn't really provide us anything interesting to do or to discover, we can agree to call it "empty", yes?
If the game has provided many contents and activities to do, various side quests to finish, and tons of things to find and discover, all of these will also need to be great things that actually worth the time. This is a reminder and something that should complete my previous sentence; "interacting with anything they can find within the game's world". If all these things we are interacting with aren't really worth anything, or has to put too much effort in it in order to be done and get the reward, this will just ruin the early expectation, turning it from "Oh wow, what can I get in return for this?" to "Oh wow, I wish I can just undo this and pretend I never did this before because this is stupid."
One example of it was in a side quest in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the shards collecting quest where I needed to collect hundreds of shards that scattered throughout the separated maps in DAI. These shards would then used to open doors within a mine that if you fight through it to the dead end, the rewards are permanently increased elemental resitance for 20%. I don't think 20% is enough for all the searching and everything I've been through, sure there were lots of loot in the end and while I was at it, but still.. 20%? Come on. Don't get me wrong, I like DAI but that quest is just lack of a spectacular reward.
BACK TO THE QUESTION
So is it good if we have more and more open world games available? Well what I seek is not only great experience, but it have to be different great experience on each new titles. I believe that's what we all wanted, no? It depends on how much enjoyment can I get and how differently unique the questioned game can be. That's what matter to me, not the size, but how much it has to offer. Whether the game were made by the big boys or indie game devs, if it has differently enticing experience, then yes, I think I want more open world game.
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