On the other hand later GTAs didn't embrace the open worlds for which the series is known. Once you start a mission the games turn extremely linear without giving the player options.

I love a good hub, especially when it actually changes and grows

Yeah AC just doesn't make sense as an open world RPG.

That’s what Elden Ring really did well imo. The game sort of guides you towards Margit at the start, but he completely destroys newcomers, which causes them to explore the map more and discover more content in the intro areas. By the time they’ve done most of the interesting stuff in the first couple areas and go back to Margit, he’s far more balanced to fight. Still not a pushover but far more reasonable to fight and no longer frustrating.

Yep, and, if you're paying attention and thoroughly exploring, you can actually go around the castle and totally avoid him. You can get incredibly strong before fighting him. It makes you feel like you're actually progressing.

Yes. Many. Stop playing Ubisoft checklist simulators.

AAA needs a bit of a reset and it looks like that's what's happening now.

Yeah, I think that's why open world games are so divisive. Some people want the game to reward them for doing the things they're supposed to do, while some people just view playing the game itself as the reward, and just do what they want within it. The prior hates how difficult it is to find and get to the next objective in an open world, while the latter doesn't need or sometimes even want objectives, preferring to just be in the world.

Everyone has different tastes. My tend to get narrowed the older I get.

Now I pretty much stick to co-op games with drop-in and out via a matchmaking. Usually with a mechanic for tweaking things, like DRG or Darktide.

If I play anything solo, I'm a big mech fan (MW5) or I lean towards city builders.

But overall I need more than survival games or open world blank slates. I know people love those, but I'm from an era without that as the norm. I don't mind some rails if it's good content.

I’ve only skipped him once because Stormveil Castle is an excellent dungeon but it’s cool I have the option if I want to.

Definitely a difference, because I am a completionist. Especially when it comes to Zelda games.

just because I wanted to know what was on the other side

The problem is that the answer is "nothing". There's nothing on the other side. Just more scenery, maybe a shrine or another Korok. The core gameplay loop is still just Zelda, so there's nothing they can do to populate the world with meaningful things to find.

Very true! I remember in GTA3, some missions could be done in different ways, if you already knew what would happen.

Elden ring is really more linear than it is open world, so much content being locked behind certain progress milestones (and difficulty curve unless you're very good). You have no lasting impact on the game world, and the gameplay loop is heavily centered around dying and respawning at checkpoints. It has more in common with a Mario game than with, say, skyrim. Linking the "levels" together I guess has some aesthetic benefits, but honestly if you entered each area directly from the roundtable hold would the experience have been materially different?

so much content being locked behind certain progress milestones

Ehh, sort of? The main story is pretty linear but progress is very open ended, which you can say for almost every open world game, even minecraft.

You have no lasting impact on the game world.

Events you put into motion literally change geography(IE, killing radahn turns an entire area into a smoking crater.)
Individual quest lines have varying levels of effect on the world ranging from affecting enemy spawns to changing the leadership of an entire region.

but honestly if you entered each area directly from the roundtable hold would the experience have been materially different?

Yes, because something that happens in elden ring is that you start with the world map being really small, and then you keep uncovering new areas, making the map bigger, but you have no idea until you actually explore and are hit with how expansive an area that's just hiding behind a bridge is.

In the DLC that feeling is compounded with the pure verticality of the world, a small non-descript cave that you can easily miss without a guide leads you about a quarter of the DLC areas.

The exploration, and the feeling when you uncover a new area, wouldn't exist if you could just warp there from a hub.

Yeah, it shouldn't be skipped, but it's cool that it can be. It's good for challenge runs, or bjngo.

Not much. Open-world is often a design for a looooot of space without intention. It used to be a technical prowess, but now it's mostly for bland chores simulators. Generic open-worlds and mobile games have hurt game design a lot, especially in the 2010's, but IMHO, Fromsoft has saved us from that by creating a semi-open, interconnected world design that felt vast and intentional. Elden Ring was their first modern open-world and they nailed it with all that Souls experience.

Oh hell yes.

I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn Complete (it includes the DLC) and as soon as I got to Daytower, I ran into a guy named Ohtur who mentioned The Cut.. I pivoted and headed up there and by sneaking around everything with higher stats than I had, (which was almost everything) I managed to find resources that got me a wickedly powerful weapon. Game changer. Literally.

Getting to any part of the map and find it's hidden goodies is amazing.

I dunno. I find them on average a bit ham fisted. I love those elements in their games for sure, but it never moved me like certain environments in the last of us, for example.

I’d love to do ER bingo sometime. Looks like a lot of fun.

Spider-Man for the PS4 had fast travel via subway, by why would you miss out on web-slinging your way from one end of Manhattan to the other?

your last sentence is a big reason i think fallout new vegas has a terrible open world. it is painful playing that game without fast travel

imagine Dragon Age in linear

Dragon Age 2 almost is tbh. Very small areas you keep going back to.

Open world =/= giant map

Take resident evil games, Control, Batman. Some larger maps than others, but the key is open. Most of the map or level is available to you to explore how you like, with a linear story guiding you through as well, and then progression opens smaller locked areas and new levels.

It would be nice with some kind of linear quest in minecraft.

However if they were procedurally generated, I'd lose interest. That's just another layer of grinding.

Right, I get that. But I wouldn't consider the scenery nothing! I liked the scenery!

Had to explain this to a friend when I called the original Deus Ex titles "open world" games. (It's technically semi-open world but, meh, nuances)

I play Fallout 4 like Sims with guns.

Also, mods.

You're spot on!

Star Wars Galaxy's was a great open world game.

I would definitely say Gothic 1 and 2. Cannot imagine the games being better without it.

Elden Ring did it very well.

Thursday

I pretty much always prefer open world, or at least something interconnected like a Metroidvania. Linear makes me feel like my back is against the wall.

You missed a collectable 4 missions ago? I guess I'll see you in New Game+

Killing redahn unlocks a new level and his entire army continues to stand in the same places and respond to you exactly as they did before. That’s exactly what I'm talking about with linearity. "can be easily missed without a guide" also exactly what I'm talking about, there's generally one way of getting everywhere and when it's hard to find that it's very tempting to look it up or ask a friend, exploring is mostly frustrating.

To be clear I'm a fan of the game, but I have spent probably <10% of my playtime on unstructured exploration or side quests (if you can call 5 bits of loosely related dialog in fixed locations a side quest). Not everything has to be open world, and I probably would have had as much fun with ER if wasn't. The most sandboxy bit I would say is the multiplayer, which I wish they had made a bit more flexible, but I do find very funny.

This is what witcher 3 did best imo.

It's open world, and it feels large... But it's not actually that large when you think about it.

And the side areas are so rich and dense that you can do quests from a random hub, some that chain on for quite a while... And then realise this whole time that you haven't actually done any of the main story.

I was excited to learn more about certain monsters in the bestiary, what oils and elements they were weak to etc.

OTOH, just drifting along the map and running into a total stranger who feels perfectly safe in trusting you to escort his daughter or something is kinda meh.
I like open-world, but procedural anything, not so much.

I'll just mention Star Citizen and fetch the popcorn.

It's 100% Open World I'd argue. It was just ahead of it's time

The Witcher 3. Linear as hell story, super fun open world. It was literally gwent simulator for me by the time I finished that game.

I’ll have to agree with this statement.

However, it recently has come to my attention that, unfortunately, the abundance of land between each settlement and the hereby caused long travel times have significantly lowered the property values in regions that have not yet been attached to the Gold Road Transport Enterprises® public transit network.

Unhappy with this status quo, the city council of Liurnia under mayor Boggart reached out to me.

In cooperation with the "Multifunctional Anti-Gravity Intelligent Carriages" research team at the Academy of Raya Lucaria, we have developed plans for a fleet of self-driving, hovering vehicles which will provide a convenient and reliable way of commute around the wetlands, with the central station soon joining the GoldRoad network.

Totally free of charge and non-invasive to the habitat of all local swamp life, this project will be realized by the FIERY GIANT Construction & Regenerative Energy Crucible Technologies LLC.

Death Stranding / Elden Ring cross over?

count me in.

I’ll try to bribe Kojima with exclusive Malenia feet foot pics, understood!

(The research on limb replacement at the Stormveil Medical Center is currently halted following an investigation into ethical concerns regarding the origin of grafting materials, during which a serious breach of the hygiene protocol caused by the decomposing body of a dead demigod that recently lost its immortality was discovered in the building complex’s basement facilities. Our department of divine biohazard containment is scrambling to minimize the ecological damage, describing phenomena like crabs suddenly turning goth or swamp lobsters gathering around a death metal festival music stage.

As soon as these issues are addressed, research is bound to continue and treatments will be approved for the social healthcare program.)

Open world plus mods. Ever heard of Skyrim?

Minecraft made a bajillion dollars.

eh, too many repeated bosses

NFSU2

Breath of the wild and jet island were able to create this feeling of curiosity where I'd go "huh, that think in the distance looks cool, let's check it out!" and then, as I was checking it out, it turned out it is relevant to story and progression and also very cool.

You just described the very reason why I don't like BotW/TotK. They don't feel like Zelda. They feel like a Bethesda/Obsidian game where you just wander around bumping into things, except Nintendo doesn't do it nearly as well.

I say either go all in on the open world concept, and have proper RPG mechanics, or don't do it at all. Don't half ass it or I'm just reminded of Ubisoft titles. That's what the modern Zelda games feel like, fucking Ubisoft titles. Big, empty worlds, with nothing to do. Shrines instead of proper dungeons, and no fun to be found in between except wander forever and pick up flimsy weapons that break after a dozen hits. The games barely even have a plot. That's not Zelda to me. I want more games like Wind Waker, Majora's Mask, and Minish Cap, not more boring open world BS.

I bounced off breath of the wild but got hooked with tears of the kingdom. I didn't finish it though, similar to my experience with wind waker. They all felt like Zelda, just expanded.

If I stuck to the story it would probably be closer to the original experience.