Anyone else hoping next gen breaks the trend of AAA open world exhaustion?

[dope_danny]

If this gen is going to be remembered for anything design wise its hard to argue anything has been more prevalent than "chasing the open world meme" in my opinion. We saw old names like Zelda and Metal Gear turn to it, we saw just about everything big budget first party thing on PS4 try it. I was looking back at the releases of the last few years and on my PS4 alone the notable things include stuff like:

-Ghost of Tsushima: open world
-Spiderman: open world
-Death Stranding: open world
-Days Gone: open world
-Horizon Zero Dawn: open world

To say nothing of third party stuff like all the assassins creed games, FFXV, 90% of Ubisoft releases, ports like fallout, gta, mgsv and even racing games like Forza all turned to "heres a massive open sandbox, because thats what everyone else is doing"

I don't know about you but i'm pretty tired of it. I saw ghost of tsushima and thought it looked great till i saw open world and just lost all interest. the game could be the best of its kind but "see that mountain? you can climb it and see theres nothing there" has well and truly gotten all the interest out of me it can.

I've found myself once again longing for tightly controlled, curated levels and cross sections/"corridors" that allow for far more detailed environmental storytelling and set pieces. Being handed a wide open map now just makes me sigh and wonder how much of it is tedious checkpoint unlocking, camp clearing and the same 6 things on repeat like the "Ubishit" archetype making a visit once again. Like puzzles and bosses have taken such a dramatic step back in favour of the same 'climbing up the yellow painted thing' naughty dog 'cinematic platforming' and 'kill a camp/horde' on repeat as a replacement and i feel like creativity and variety has really suffered as a result.

But they still make money so i can't be a common opinion right?

Whats your take on the idea, do you want another gen and another 5+ years of open world games being the focus of the majority of big budget releases? Are things like Another Horizon and another Spiderman having you excited for more years of map clearing checkpoint gameplay?

[ParanoiD84]

I like Valhallas approch with zero question marks and stuff on the map instead all quests are world events that you find exploring the world it's much more immersive. Kinda like Red Dead 2.

Other then that im also kinda fed up with open world games atm.

[Tech614]

-Ghost of Tsushima: open world
-Spiderman: open world
-Death Stranding: open world
-Days Gone: open world
-Horizon Zero Dawn: open world

-Ghost prior to Ghost the studio made Infamous which was open world
-Spiderman prior to SM the studio made Sunset Overdrive which was open world
-Death Stranding prior to DS Kojima made MGSV which was open world

So with these 3 right here not sure what you expected. Also modern super hero games really can't work outside of open world anyways so spiderman wouldn't be a candidate to be otherwise. The more recent spiderman games that weren't open world all felt way too damn tiny to contain super hero action.

With Death Stranding and HZD you do have 2 studios that weren't making open world games migrate to doing so, and both sold well so I would expect sequels to both that don't rock the boat and use the same formula.

Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, Media Molecule, Japan Studio under Sony's belt all don't make true open world games and I wouldn't expect them to start either. There is also the new SD studio rumored to be working on Uncharted which is likely also not open world. Then you also have the Ratchet team at Insomniac which is also not open world. There are more teams at Sony not making open world games then the ones making them.

Lets look at Nintendo, the only 2 true open world games they ever published are BoTW and Xenoblade Chronicles X...

MS published what? Sunset Overdrive and Crackdown? I guess you can sort of count Forza Horizon.

Hell this kind of go's for any publisher. Outside of Rockstar and Ubisoft open world games are not a majority for any publisher. It's not quite the trend you're making it out to be.

[Skizzit]

I actually like open world games, if they are fun to play of course. I like being able to sometimes just ignore progressing in a game and just faffing about, exploring the world, doing little side quests, and hunting for collectibles and such.

For example, three of the games you listed are among my favorites of this gen. I will say that I hope they continue to move away from the Assassin's Creed style of thinking that busywork = gameplay. As long as they can keep me interested in exploring the world they created and use it to tell interesting stories while also being just plain fun, I am totally ok with more open world games. It seems like things may be headed that way already. Ubisoft has said that Valhalla will be a shorter game than Odyssey was and I hope that means far less repetitive busywork. Time will tell with that one.

With that said, I do hope we see more games like God of War. Games that are semi open world while still feeling like every encounter and area is hand crafted. Allows for the best of both worlds. A linear, well made story and experience while also allowing for side quests and exploration.

[Unholyground]

Open world games I always find 100% more fun with someone else, especially when there are tons of quests to do.

[Baine]

Since the introduction of open world games, I am less interested in linear experiences. There are exceptions of course (like Dishonored). And open world per se does not automatically means it will be good.

[Onikaroshi]

With open world, I'd rather it just be a multiplayer game or mmo.

[msdos]

I like open world when I'm not bogged down by chores. So Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Terraria, Subnautica, Metal Gear 5.

Those games are open world, but they allow fast travel. At least in the games that aren't Fallout, traversing the world is elegant and purposeful, my time doesn't feel completely wasted when I do it.
In all of those games I can jump in and just start having fun exploring, I don't need to pick up quests or go to a hub or look in my inventory or whatever and in most of them I have some type of free form creative outlet, like base building.

[Tech614]

I like open world when I'm not bogged down by chores. So Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Terraria, Subnautica, Metal Gear 5.

Those games are open world, but they allow fast travel. At least in the games that aren't Fallout, traversing the world is elegant and purposeful, my time doesn't feel completely wasted when I do it.
In all of those games I can jump in and just start having fun exploring, I don't need to pick up quests or go to a hub or look in my inventory or whatever and in most of them I have some type of free form creative outlet, like base building.

Serious question what open world game released recently doesn't allow fast travel? I can't think of one. So not sure what to take of this post.

[callipygoustp]

Two of my favorite games, by far, over the last decade: Skyrim and FO4. More single player open world games please.... many more.

[msdos]

Serious question what open world game released recently doesn't allow fast travel? I can't think of one. So not sure what to take of this post.

"Not sure what to take of this post"
It's weird because you quoted my entire post, but you're acting as if all I posted was "Those games are open world, but they allow fast travel."
That isn't my entire post, you'd have to read the entire thing and actually comprehend it.

[deenman]

chasing an open world design is fine,as long as you dont sacrifice and compromise in other departments

one of the worst offenders in my experience has been dragon age inquisition,the world is HUGE compared to the first game,but in doing so it filled the world with mindless mmo-like bussywork instead of the interesting story driven dragon age origins world,the world is so much bigger in inquisition but it ends up feeling more empty and souless

witcher 3 did it better,but it can still be done even more so

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Serious question what open world game released recently doesn't allow fast travel? I can't think of one. So not sure what to take of this post.

how recent are we talking about?2 of my favore open world games have no fast travel,dragons dogma and dying light

[quras]

I'd much rather have the open world than the corridor, linear option especially if they can stay away from the more useless and not entertaining, make the gamer grind in this area because we need it to appear to be a long game.

[Tech614]

"Not sure what to take of this post"
It's weird because you quoted my entire post, but you're acting as if all I posted was "Those games are open world, but they allow fast travel."
That isn't my entire post, you'd have to read the entire thing and actually comprehend it.

Oh I figured it would be more respectful to ignore the rest of your post then actually humor the idea that Fallout 76 is a good game. Sorry it still offended you.

[Poppincaps]

I think the main problem with Open World games this generation is that they took inspiration from like Ubisoft check listy open world games instead of games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, and Witcher 3. Of course it makes sense why. Those games have open worlds with vast amounts of hand crafted content. With a Ubisoft open world formula you can just pepper the world with generic base capturing or collectibles.

Like with any industry trend, the games industry tends to overdo it a bit. Like with microtransactions and requiring every game to have a baked in multiplayer mode. I think it'll get better in the next generation. Maybe not though.

[Hellobolis]

it's more about quality than anything else.

i think the bigger issue is the industry fear or singleplayer, which is further exacerbated by people being much stronger against MTX in singpleplayer games.

[Nosnogard]

I'm a sucker for open world and have been since I played my first Elder Scrolls game. Granted, not every game is open world like Elder Scrolls or Fallout, but in general I'm vastly more interested in a game if it involves an open world where I can travel around and explore virtually anything at the beginning of the game. And I'm only glad it's being developed more in games like Assassins Creed Odyssey and Valhalla.

More open world games means personally that there are a lot more gams that I'm interested in, as long as there is beautiful nature and landscape to explore. So if this trend continues I might find myself playing more games in the future, instead of a weird combo of WoW, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Assassins Creed and Minecraft

[ONCHEhap]

Honestly open world can be as good as it's bad,and a lot of it depends on how interesting the world is.

Look at Morrowind against Oblivion for example

The world of Morrowind is very intriguing and fun to explore,you could play the game just for the exploration alone.

Meanwhile the world of Oblivion is bland and boring,and the only interesting parts of the game are in the hubs,making the fact that it's open world completely irrelevant,and hurting the game in the long run

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No, I hope Open worlds continue coming out, taking them away would be a disservice. That doesn't mean Linaer games should die, they can both exist. Keep open world comingg(although with the way some AAA games are, the sizes are hitting big enough that they need more stuff in them then size).

[Shakzor]

I think open world isn't inherently bad or good in itself.
It's very easy to make very bland and boring open worlds with tons of filler crap everywhere and repeating quests that basically make you think "fk this, i'll continue the main quest till i might have to do some of them because i'm underleveled"
While there are also very good and interesting open world where you almost have to focus to not get sidetracked by something interesting you see, like "oh, is that a cave back there? Let's check it out". Those also tend to have a good and clear progression with interesting quests instead of copy-paste filler "gather 10 herbs" "kill 4 wolves"

It's not about if they do open world, but if they make it good. Just because it's open world, doesn't mean it's bad. If they can't make a good open world, they most likely would've also made a boring linear game.