Open-World Games Are A Mess
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Sometimes I just gotta lose my credibility by talking about how I don’t like open-world games. One more minute of Genshin Impact and I would have lost my sanity too.
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Big thanks to Slimecicle, Grizzly and Aritz for reading early maniacal drafts of my script, and for various footage.
/ slimecicle
/ grizzlyplaysyt
Music:
Fight Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster - Super Mario RPG
Main Theme - GTA III
In Broad Daylight - Chibi-Robo
New Donk City - Super Mario Odyssey
Corkboard - Kirby Super Star
Liberator’s Hideout - Shin Megami Tensei Dx2
Rage Mage - Skylanders Trap Team
motorized ice sculpture - Going Under
Vs. Marx - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Sound Test - Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
Sanctuary Guardian - Earthbound
Dark Rebirth - JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Battle (Shrine of Trials) - Breath of the Wild
Pulse-Pounding Battle - Sdorica
SAVE the World - Undertale
Metallic Madness Zone (Act 1) - Sonic Mania
Checker Dance - Deltarune
Surviving Exile - Pyre
Snow Mountain - Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Tearing Through Heaven (Thunder) - Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Royal Days - Persona 5 Royal
Zora’s Domain - Breath of the Wild
Rude Buster - Deltarune
The World Revolving - Deltarune
Persona - Persona 3
Main Theme - Outer Wilds
Trial Star - Kirby Star Allies
Meteor Herd - Sonic Adventure 2
Additional Footage and Sources: Yahoo News, Oxhorn, Gamer’s Little Playground, Full Playthroughs, Shirrako, DSPGaming, AQUPAZ, GamersPrey, jackfrags, CultOfMush, Throneful, AdamHartGaming, TheDeluminators, GameInformer, eckosama, Zephyr and Snoman Gameplay Archive
Cyberpunk Glitches: u/Spy4killer, u/schoie01, u/PBAsydney, and u/dontew234
Me in my teens: “ open world games are the future!!”
Me now in my 30’s: ain’t no body got time for that
I said this too!!! I hope every game was open world. I was hooked on fallout 3. Now I regret those words
I said the same damn thing at the start of last gen! I am also 30 and I cannot stomach any open world games anymore. Feels like a chore and the level design falls much shorter.
I’ve finally got around to playing rdr2 and all I’m thinking is that this game should just be a naughty dog style experience, whereas younger me would have been thinking every game should be open world, I’ve felt so alone on my opinion for so long it’s good to know that other people have similar feelings to me
@Every Woman Jobs To The Wall I actually have a 2 year old son. Hence why the “ain’t nobody got time” joke.
@Every Woman Jobs To The Wall games are a form of art and creative expression age shouldn’t matter that would be like judging you for watching your films in your 30s it just doesn’t make sense
Elden ring and botw is the high water mark for me when it comes to open world games. Just being able to explore and finish the game how ever I want is so refreshing.
I agree, BotW and Elden Ring have the best open world structure imo.
And skyrim?
@@CockLord2059 honestly, as someone whose first real open world game was skyrim (and i was OBSESSED with it for a long time), i dont hold it as the high water mark of anything tbh. i think maybe it's because there were enough surface level things in it to keep the attention of my middle school brain before i learned what actually good story telling and gameplay design was. i think maybe the reason i liked it was because the game let you do pretty much anything you wanted within hardware/software limitations. besides that, there are so many problems with the game that were i to attempt to lay them all out in a single comment, i'd need to spend several hours typing up an essay...and i have enough college work rn without that
I love both of these games. But if you take a really hard critical look, the open world experience is still mediocre at best. I think we often enjoy these types because most of them prefer to favor the lowest common denominator of gamers or what I like to call, contaminating them with the Ubisoft Syndrome.
While BotW and ER are mediocre in typical Open World design, they are still different enough from the usual standard open world cattle feed to where it feels really fresh. The sense of discovering something new is amazing in both these games and I will cherish them to my grave.
I just hope with further advancements in creativity with the hardware we have, we'll see more rewarding results when we check the next nooks and crannies in future Open World games. Tears of the Kingdom looks like is gonna take every last inch of the Switch's power to make it happen and who knows what we can expect from FromSoft after how good their first take of a Souls Like Open World game turned out.
Elden Ring is high water mark, Breath of the Wild is lazy.
"Open-World games are a mess"
Me, a DND Player: Well, Yes.
90% Of the time open world in DnD is an illusion.
Not dissing it, but tbf having a world of that scale on the shoulders of one person instead of a machine would be torture.
Then there's Curse of Strahd.
@@elinquisidorperseverante6835 And TOA, Ironically my favorite campaigns were very linear tho.
@@gaburelmesmo3824 Tomb of Annihilation is the "Super hard Gary-Gygax approved" Dungeon or the "Sneaky dethroning of Acererak" one? I always get them confused.
@@elinquisidorperseverante6835 It's the latter LOL
I'm quite the opposite, all of my campaigns are as open as possible. I love it.
*yakko hating on genshin impact*
Me who plays genshin daily: so true go off king
Now time for the classic quote “Same”
"yeah fuck that game"
"don't you play genshin impact?"
"oh yeah, everyday"
@@JoaoVitor-ge4le Just say that it's stockholm syndrome
Even Genshin gacha system is nonsensical and even stingier than vast majority of other gacha games aside from pity (oh yeah on top of of premium currency scarcity from actually playing the game)
Me hearing this man roast the game that had me in a downward spiral: please continue
@@ohamatchhams Girl Hot
Gotta commend the dedication in the Pie Skit. Yakko bought/made a Pie for this
*sad Amber noises*
If you think thats dedication watch scott the woz
@@msteoporras1146 ikr scott even got robbed for jokes his recent videos like damn this guy is dedicated
@@flayncele really does suck he had to be robbed off-schedule but hey at least he made the most out of financial instability
I like that pie 😋
I would argue that The Witcher 3’s multitude of side content stands apart from a lot of the mindless tasks in most other open-world games. Most of the side quests in that game are rewarding for their little bits of story, even if they boil down to repetitive formulas and actions in the actual gameplay. I also found much of the game’s world to be quite scenic and visually distinct, to the point where I would often ride my horse between locations instead of fast traveling so I could soak in the view. As for Spider-Man, web-swinging is probably my favorite part of those games, and I think fun traversal is itself a great justification for a large open map to move around in. Everyone has already talked about BotW, so I won’t reiterate those points, but it’s magnificent as well. But yeah, games like Skyrim have never really been able to hold my attention for long. I’ve started Skyrim several times, trying to do a pure playthrough, but then I get bored, load a bunch of mods, mess around for a few hours, and drop it again for years lol.
Open world was pointless in Witcher 3 , other than the quests represented i.e. *!* marks , the entire map was filled with nonsensical copy paste *?* marks , I mean in the entire Velen only 30% of the map actually had those quality side quests excluding the filler, if the game was like Witcher 2 i.e. small sections of the map joined together it would not have hurt the game at all
the repetitiveness argument is bs anyway. every game ever is repetitive. there is only so many different things and mechanics you can put into a game. in fact, I'd bet my ass off that if we look at every game and look at it's mechanics (especially the turn based combat stuff this guy loves so much) we get 2 hands full of different mechanics that exist in games, similar to how there are only 7 story plots when boiled down. it's all just a different skin. "it's repetitive" is a lazy mans game analysis/review by someone who can't articulate why doing this type of activity in a game gets boring and has been repeated so often that it literally became "repetitive" itself.
imagine someone saying "Super Mario Bros is bad because it's repetitive. all you do in a world is move right, jump at enemies and collect coins"
@@COHOFSohamSengupta Witcher 2 was garbage because it wasn't open world
"other than the quests represented i.e. ! marks , the entire map was filled with nonsensical copy paste ? marks " So?
@@hydrocy.9165 That is your personal opinion on witcher 2 which has nothing to do with its reviews or reception in general
fr
If only Genshin Impact was a bad game. There is a lot of great stuff there, buried under the heavy microtransactions and exploitative practices.
I mean, it is. even without the gross predatory business practices of gacha, it's absurdly tedious and repetitive.
the exploration drip feeds you dopamine by absolutely drowning the world in collectibles to find, and a lot of them are actually hidden behind enjoyable little puzzles or combat encounters that are just challenging enough to be rewarding without being annoying, but the sheer volume of these things makes it mind-numbingly boring after a while.
the traversal is just a mediocre copy of breath of the wild, and the combat pretends to have enjoyable mechanical depth when in reality the extent of its elemental system is "element A + element B = extra damage" with literally two exceptions (Geo's shield mechanic and hydro+cryo's freezing), and other than that it boils down to spamming left click and pressing E and Q when they're off cooldown, different weapon types making next to no real difference and abilities really boiling down to "press button to damage/heal/shield"
@@marcog.verbruggen674 I agree with your point yet I still think genshin is a fun game.
@@smug_slime The only parts of what makes Genshin's exploration worth something close to good is when it's giving primogems or weapons' blueprints, the rest are just superficial or facade
Just think of the stuffs you loot in the game compared to mobile games' grinding tedium and actual open world games' loots
@@ohamatchhams just what do you mean by superficial and facade means? I genuinely don't understand what you mean. give examples please.
and about grinding on mobile games doesn't really bother me since currently I play 3 gacha games including GI and I'm sure other open world game has better loot reward but I bet they are not on mobile phone.
@@marcog.verbruggen674 i played genshin since release and was AR56 and good lord that game was so draining and I'm so glad I quit. I still feel exhausted when I even see genshin mentioned, but that's a me problem lol. I was entirely f2p and super invested in the world of genshin but it was wasting so much of my time and helping to deteriorate my mental health at an alarming rate!!
You can't just drop the Outer Wilds banjo theme on me like that man. All of the feelings all at once.
I don't understand why they think its a good idea to have exp systems in open world games. It is legit there to stop you from going to areas where you are "underleveled". in BOTW you can legit just run to the castle, its hard, but you can do it. The ability to do it is really important to me as a gamer.
I mean, how do you think an RPG open world would work without levels? The character would start the game with every spell and combat skill? It would be unlocked trough doing quests therefore allowing the game to lock some abilities until they want you to have it?
That makes me think of one of my favorite moments from the first Zelda: in following my curiosity and exploring, I found level 8. I hadn't completed level 3, so I was woefully underpowered. Since I had no expectations that I would stand a chance at that point, it wasn't discouraging to get killed very quickly. But the fact that I could just go to level 8 like that was incredible to me. It's not like sequence breaking, where you have to get around the design. It's just... There.
@Luis Filipe BOTW kind of proved that you don't need level up system in a open world just got find way to increase HP and STAM through exploration. In Hollow Knight you get skills through mean of exploring and finding that those skills. So it possible for open world games to do without leveling systems or skill tree.
if more open world games employ that from botw, a lot of open world games would become better imho. but at the same time i get that its something the bled over from the past. like if they make witcher 4 with the open world mentality of botw that game will surpass botw. but yeah exp could still be used just not for excluding you from areas, that we agree wholeheartedly.
The implementation of RPG mechanics in more and more games have put me off. I personally only think they makes sense in turn based and strategy games. It is easier to replace interesting game design by throwing in RPG mechanics.
the metaphors use to theme out the videos are so good 😂 loved this man!
Except Mario Odysey is NOT a small pie.
Yeah BotW is the only open world game I ever actually finished, and it avoids almost all of the issues you laid out here. I tried playing Skyrim 3 or 4 times, and everytime the long intro, walking around forever, Inventory management, and the game not autosaving often enough always put me off after 10 hours max.
You can change autosave timing in the settings. Autosaves can often screw up RPGs too.
if you are not quicksaving every 30 seconds you are playing skyrim or any western rpg in that matter wrong
Hahah yeah no inventory management in bow at all right
@@isodoubIet There's weapon/shield/bow management, but your material storage is infinite. Also it's less management and more "This one has smaller number" *proceeds to throw sword out of atmosphere*
@@videogamemusic2962 " There's weapon/shield/bow management,"
And food.
"Also it's less management and more "This one has smaller number" proceeds to throw sword out of atmosphere"
The fact that it's so braindead, but I'm still forced to do it, is one of the biggest issues I have with it. Weapons in this game are for all intents and purposes just ammo, but unlike an FPS that has an ammo counter in the corner and then politely fucks off out of my way, with botw I'm forced to manually pick out inventory space for every single bullet.
Though many of your points are valid, I find the perspective you hold to be very narrow and unfair when judging the entire open world genre as a whole. You compare and contrast these open world games with other games that carry very different goals and require different mind sets to both play and create. And your bias towards certain games and gameplay design decisions also weakens some of your arguments, especially your bias towards BotW. Breath of the Wild carries many flaws that other open world games carry, like just because it innovates on one core aspect of open world design doesn't mean it's repetitive side dungeons, uneventful side quests, and underwhelming story are free from criticism. And even if they are more forgivable because of the parts done incredibly well, why doesn't this extend to the other open world games? Why are their well done aspects either ignored, mentioned dismissively, or contrasted by their faults, while BotW gets a pass? I also find some of your comparisons to other game genres unjustified, because they're part of different genres that require very different mindsets to play. For example you compare metroidvanias to open world games, and though it's a minor and short comparison, I still find the point to be null, because open world games aren't metroidvanias, they can have similarities, but they are not the same. This extends to many other points you've made, but I don't want to make this a TH-cam COMMENT a whole critique of your pretty good video. But I can't help but want to say this since the handful of your videos I've seen carry similar problems, some more than others, but still, I see this as a problem.
triple a open worlds are garbage tho, he called it out, so what's your point?
@@YWNBAW69 my point's that he's biased towards BotW's design philosophy, and saying everything in a certain group is bad (this group being open world games) just because he enjoyed the exception (BotW) is close minded and ignores other's perspectives. This is amplified even more by the fact that criticisms that are completely valid towards Breath of the Wild like any other open world game are dismissed for arbitrary reasons. For example: Repetitive dungeons, flawed combat, too many collectables, and etc. Another thing is, how can we trust his judgement of open world games, when he hasn't finished many? It's like asking someone whose only ever seen Shang Chi to accurately describe martial arts films. We're supposed to trust his judgement of "Open World Games are Boring" when he's only ever completed like two.
In the end of the day he does have a point, but it's hard to truly trust that point when it's obvious he doesn't have the information or experience to back it up any of his points.
"I just want to shoot the guy"
Yeah that's why I love Borderlands.
And then you have to sort through loot for 2 hours...
@@amysteriousviewer3772 you do ?
This is honestly such a breath of fresh air to find your channel omg you really get it and you’re very funny well done
I really like open world games most of the time because of how pretty and "adventerous" they are supposed to be. Your video perfectly examined and explained a lot of problems which make me never want to actually finish them, thank you for the video.
id argue this video didnt do that. what i got from this vid is that he wants every game to be like hollow knight or metroidvanias cuz according to him they provide a better "open world" experience. two different genres cannot be compared when it comes to gameplay and emersion. u just cant do that. he even trashed on botw, the one open world game thats actually really good, because he sees the same problem that not many other people see. to me this video should be titles "why i hate open world games and love metroidvanias"
@@Aqsticgod He's talking about why he doesn't like open world games and doesn't play them, he never said he wanted to obliterate them from existence. Some people don't like your walking simulators, cope.
@@Aqsticgod He didn't say open worlds are bad he is just pointing out many of the flaws that many open world games suffer with which end up contradicting the idea of an open world. He is just comparing to games like hollow knight to illustrate the points better
Gotta say, this video is great. Having a massive open world has just become a marketing point. By far though, my favourite open world is in Shadow of the Colossus. I don't fully understand why I love it so much, but even knowing that I'm going to find nothing, I still want to explore just to see what the developers built, as the scenery is just so beautiful.
I like how it took me like 5 loops to realize you only have 22 minutes in outer wilds because i kept dying
"quest markers bad" saved your 25 minutes.
The problems with New World in a nutshell
Macaroni macro
Oh hey macro
its the grubhub guy
2:48, Mario Odyssey is more like a dozen good pies that are almost all alike. You finish those pies, and then someone throws a bunch more pie scraps and filling into the empty trays and asks you to eat all of that as well to reach the true ending.
10:36 the game literally keeps track of that, and technically gives you a unique item for getting all of them. Will ~less~ people attempt to 100% the korok seeds with no up-front tracker? Yes. Are there still 900 of them that many completionists will hunt down with no sense of joy? Also yes.
yeah but the point of the korroks is to be a nice surprise not something to be saught out and if you are arguing that the collectothon has too many collectables and a congratulations for finishing which has nor baring on the ending and just says thanks and congrats
The whole mario odyssey pie scrap thing is why i never got all the moons, i felt no happiness after getting the 400th Completely Identical Collectable after doing some menial task.
Though, if you just play for the main story, it’s a fine game.
I collected all korok seeds twice
@@chickennugget6684 just east as much of a pie as you want, no need to eat more when you're already full. In my feeling, it's more like "hey, I know you're done eating, but if you ever want more, there's always gonna be more pie waiting" and that's what I like.
On the korok seeds, you are missing his main point. The way they're presented as a mechanic is important and sets an expectation of how the player should interact with them. The korok seeds aren't put on some sort of checklist or a bar that fills up over time. Just a counter in your inventory that tells you how many you currently hold.
Yes, the game DOES track how many you collect total internally, and you get a unique item (with no function whatsoever), but that's not what matters. The game NEVER tells you in its design to seek these seeds out to ends of the earth. They're supposed to be a little incidental reward for doing a little puzzle you run across, or getting to a hard to reach area.
There are so many because the designers can assume you won't happen to get every seed you come across in this massive open world. It's something you pick up along the way, and eventually get enough to redeem them for upgrades. And after long enough, you can't get anymore upgrades, so they become superfluous and only collected out of the joy of finding a secret.
Anyone insane enough to go out of their way to find them all is never told by the game that they should do it, nor that there is some extrinsic reward waiting for them at the end.
Honestly the crust is usually way better than the filling
When I walk into a zone with 100 different quest markers I’m like ”do I have to do all of this stuff?” rather than ”oh boy do I get to do all of this stuff?”
I hate when a game blasts me with all kinds of useless shit to do rather than letting me discover things by myself. This is why a game like Breath of the Wild is so good. It gives you a direction and you go and run into things organically.
BOTW is so good because it knows it's fanbase is full of jobless morons who find fun in running at grass aimlessly and make a 60 hour run time into 120 because they want to discover "bY tHeMsElVeS"
I’ve always thought I loved open world games, the exploration and discovery.
But I realized, that I never liked them at all. I liked the immersion. Which is something that modern open world games have ripped out. Every open world game has clunky UI menus, constant hints, micro transactions and wasteful leveling.
It killed the immersion.
I always remember the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games fondly, especially for the way they handled fast travel. If you found a group on their way to somewhere, you could ask where they were headed and possibly join them. This was a great way to handle it since travel was very dangerous (there are actually invisible hazards, it's a whole thing) and it made you sometimes go places you may not have been planning on just to travel safely. You could always head to a settlement and hire someone to guide you someplace, too, but your money would run out fast if you did that much. It always felt good to finally see a group, and find we were headed the same way. It was an old series, and there weren't many npcs but it felt more alive because of how those few npcs were presented as friends you actually wanted to talk to because they could legitimately help.
It's okay Men, you're allowed to have an opinion, and if you don't like it, that's okay. I still enjoy it a lot
But shiting on the games that actually make open world games great its not ok
the fact that i enjoyed this video even without agreeing with you is a sign of quality content
Also he treated W3 and Skyrim exactly like the new ubisoft games that is "content"
@@Archeronus saying "quest marker bad" for 25 minutes is "content"
as someone who's played genshin since release, the world is nice and story so far is getting better and better, but I really CANNOT recommend it. even just casually exploring things, after a while you'll run out of things to do besides daily commissions and the tedious late game grind that gets more and more needed to even SURVIVE the world itself.
and as a gacha just like you said it ticks all the boxes to try and milk your money, and I myself at a few points in time have almost faltered to it. if you're still interested in the game, id advise just waiting until the main story is complete in 2075 or something
Well one could just play casually you know, late game grinding is FAR from necessary. They have the function to lower the world level specifically for that reason. And idk what you mean by milking, the game doesn't shove microtransactions in your face, battle pass is completely unecessary, and it's easy enough to get the 5 stars you want as a free to play player with the sheer amount of primogems given out for story, exploration, and events (to say nothing of how good 4 stars are comparatively). And for those that casually want to spend, that 5 buck blessing is actually quite generous (genesis crystal prices are awful though, I'll give you that).
Damn just when cyberpunk finally fixed
Man, it's still a F2P full fledged open world game with cute anime characters. I'd easily recommend it. Just watchout for the gacha, tho
Yeah, it's absolutely one of those games where if you aren't down for the grind you can't keep playing it that much after a while. It can still be nice as a "seasonal player" who basically comes back every time they update the game with new content and events. That's probably the healtheist way to experience the game, the way it's being produced right now. Waaaay down the line when the story gets finished I would probably call it an easy recommend because of how much sheer content the game will have by then.
Another example is Shadow of the Colossus, it truly feels amazing chasing the right path across the forbidden lands, finding the colossus and killing them
Exactly, the game came out in 2005 and the bossfights are still better than nearly every AAA game right now.
because i like options, the open world game in my brain will now have 3 options for its levels of discovery.
"Wanderer" where nothing is marked on the map except already discovered things "if you press the "show discovered" button
"gimme a hint" which will give you a radius when near objects, and the compass is enabled
"guide me papa Ubi" where u have everything marked and a minimap and hud markers. for getting those collectibles without searching
I think what made Skyrim so addicting is how the compass works. You're just walking from point A to B and you see a marker on the compass indicating something is nearby, you investigate, around 70% of the time it's just Draugr Crypt number 155 but sometimes there's some environmental storytelling going on. IDK why but Skyrim feels denser than most open worlds, and also, MODS.
Also one massive point this guy forgot is a games soundtrack botw, Skyrim and the Witcher are all games that are fun to explore and walk around in because the music just puts you in a trance where doing anything can be fun.
Skyrim was a good game for its time. When skyrim came out, open world was not really huge yet. Nowadays, all the games that come out are friggin open world and its very exhausting. I have to work and take care of my family and i dont have enough time for all these 20000 different open world games. I prefer playing short linear games like resident evil, and speed running through them, seeing how fast i can complete them. I can finish most resident evil games in about 2 hours. Im not stuck on one long videogame for 100-200 hours, burning myself out. Even hardcore gamers like me have their limits. We have too many games!
@@jRex918Skyrim is still an excellent game even today. But only with mods.
I can get how some people don’t like open world games, especially if they like multiplayer which is usually an afterthought for these type of games.. but I just love the role playing capabilities that comes with it. I’ve be a Viking, I’ve been a cowboy, I’ve been an assassin, a Samurai, a knight, a gladiator, a pirate, anything you can think of I’ve experienced through these games
I've had this idea for an open world game that uses the massiveness of the map as a means of completion. You're travelling from one end of the map to the other and that's the main objective. You maybe have an overwhelming force pursuing you.
That’s a really great idea. You should go into game directing/making.
Bruh smashing the genshin impact cutout with a super smash ko background and Undertale music was next level satisfying
FINALLY someone who felt the same about breath of the wild when they first played.
I was made out to be some weirdo when I would get distracted for hours messing around with side stuff and trying to get weapons and horses without really playing the story.
Fast travel made it feel like I wasn't supposed to explore until I did 90% of the story while the narrative said otherwise.
I DO plan to play it more don't get me wrong , just glad someone else had the same brain wave reaction of explore that I did
Watching this after playing 40+ hours of ToTK in 4 days is hysterical.
Zelda BOTW, Zelda TOTK and Elden Ring are the exceptions. These are the only real open world games where exploration and freedom is encouraged and rewarded
ha, i'm the same when it comes to side content - i love doing them so much that i tend to neglect the main story until i go "well, guess i did everything in the game. Oh yeah, the main story exists!" and proceed to win too fast because i accidently overlevelled by doing side content.
and for bloated open-world games, it tends to make me lose interest before i'm even halfway through the main story, which ends up making me drop the game for months or years. I tend to restart a game if i haven't played it in a while, so i kinda have to force myself through it all again or remember wtf was happening and proceed on my old save (before losing interest once more because of the side content).
as someone who took 3/4 of a year to finally play undertale after its incessant whining in the back of my steam library, and it instantly became my favorite game... I completely agree with the food poisoning after the first bite of a buffet analogy more than anything ever
I love how you talk about how tedious other games are and mean while, metroidvania games force you to tediously backtrack through their huge maps in order to collect a specific item to then backtrack all the way back to the point where you need to use said item, JUST to progress through the story.
"A Short Hike" is a perfect small open world game that you should really try out
Completely agree. I've always prefered linear games.
What people search for in open world games is not really there. The only advantage of open world games is that it is easier to manufacture within big corporations without any artistic freedom or risk taking. It is made for the general public. It can be uninspiring. It can be bland because... there's a lot of it.
I appreciate Aether Currents in ff14 tbh. I was in such a rush to do the story and the raids, but I think back and I remember those quiet moments hiking around, looking for aether currents. I remember walking at night, and spotting Alpha, an NPC buddy, just randomly chilling on a cliffside, and I take a few screenshots together.
I honestly don't see the problem with Genshin. Yeah, the game has mobile game mechanics because it IS a mobile game. It might be a Breath of the Wild rip-off, but it does have a completly unique story line (and doesn't cost a kidney and a half [at least in Poland]). I can't lie I have some pretty good luck with the wishing system, without spending a penny, but there the game is completly playable without getting any additional characters besides the main four (Bwaap).
The game has problems, that's true, especially the recent shitstorm that was the anniversary, but the game's good nonetheless.
I really like roguelikes like risk of rain 2 and enter the gungeon because it's like infinite pies, each tasting similar but with their own tast
The crust is my favourite part of a pie...
I usually prefer a mix of open-world and other genres of games, but I just can't help myself. There are some open world games, like Far Cry 3, that I absolutely adore. My favorite one is Skyrim; even if it is a prime example of a mess, it's still a perfect mess, in my eyes at least. But yeah, it's gotta be the only open world title I have literally never gotten bored playing. imo some other awesome open world games with amazing stories are Spiderman PS4, Horizon, and the Batman Arkham series.
I think a big issue a lot of people, myself especially, have with Skyrim is the lack of focus and direction the game has. I don't personally believe that being able to forget that there's a main story going on is a good thing and Skyrim is atrocious at this, where no one in the world will ever comment on the dragons unless you're in the main story. In addition, Skyrim never pushed itself one way or another, either grounding you as an adventurer who has to explore ruins and caves by the skin of their teeth and whatever they have on them, or being a super-badass who hyper-murders everything in their way. Part of that is the EXTREME open world, the developers and designers could never know what you had on you, so they can't build the world in a specific, orderly challenge or be able to create constraint on you. You can watch the dragons destroy Helga then just wander the hell off to anywhere, chasing butterflies and picking flowers. Or immediately become the Dragonborn and slay every dragon you meet until you save the world and no one cares.
@@frickendachicken1856 tbf the people do mention the dragons, but i see where you're coming from. Still tho, it's beautiful in its own messy way, I suppose.
This is why I preferred mass effect series so much more than andromeda. Not just because of the bad storytelling and facial animations, but the pure fact andromeda also had such expansive maps. EVERYTHING was on a different planet that you had to walk for miles and sit through a cutscene for, such as quests, crafting material etc.
You don’t need open world for good immersion into a universe. The original mass effect series was just pure concentrated storyline in its map designs and quests.
The open world part of the first game with mako they cut out in the second and third games because they knew it would be tedious.
What i find fascinating about open world games is how little variety they have. Like you can go in any direction but you will be fighting the same types of enemies in pretty much the same way, the environments usually have little impact on the game play itself aside from maybe being able to throw someone off a cliff occasionally.
Every time someone mentiones open world games, I mention Gothic. The first two of them, third is actually suffering from those open-world problems as well.
But first two of them feel actually Role-play instead of do-the-task-our-way game. And since it is ancient, interface is minimalistic and immersive as heck.
agree a lot with this
other thing that make Open-world games worst for me is when they're start putting number on it like some game now gun headshot not kill anymore because your gun is low level so go do this side-quest or pay real money to upgrade it. this is worst like Assassin's creed now hidden blade can't kill big enemy anymore now
and other is that the side-quest writing is not that good NPC give you quest just to go there kill the guy come back it's so boring
I saw his eyebrow twitch as soon as he said “Nintendo TH-camrs and rpgs” oh boy where in for a wacky world
I can't get into open worlds unless the gameplay irrespective of the map is super engaging. The exception is driving games, where I think open worlds work insanely well. Going for a drive in Forza Horizon with no goal in particular is so fun, especially since I'm just really enthusiastic about cars.
When the movement and the gameplay is the same thing, everything is just delicious
adhd explained over the span of 25 minutes
Decision Paralysis, I like that word, I'll use it
The only open world game I have played and enjoyed is Genshin Impact (yes I know its cringe blahblah) but it made me just amazed with the beautiful scenery and music, especially the smaller areas in Genshin like Enkanomiya. It is relaxing to just walk through the landscape and take it in after all the fighting, and it is also the only open world game that I have fun with. (i know that botw, legends arceus and sv are amazing games, but they always made me feel lost / overwhelmed when starting)
You already tried Kenshi for PC? Its open world post apocalyptic squad sandbox. No missions or mandatory story. Choose a start, create a character (or more than one depending what start you choose), do whatever you want (loot, kill, kidnap, trade, base building, etc). The world is big and most of it is empty, because you know...post apocalyptic. Its my favorite game
I feel like most RDR2 criticisms are missing the forest for the trees. Because this line of thought is heading down a very dangerous path of: There can only be one kind of "Good Open World". After beating Death Stranding and falling in love with it I started to flat out hate most open world titles.
"Expansive open worlds and the game design choices that come along with them are often for me what turn-based combat and anime RPGs are for many others: incredibly tedious and generally uninteresting."
HOLY SHIT THANK YOU, I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE LIKE THIS
I always find myself struck by the Paradox of Choice in most Open World games; the more "options" I have, the less happy I am. With pretty much every "true" Open World game, I inevitably find myself going through the same cycle: I'll finish the tutorial or the first mission or so, and the game will go, "Okay, we're done giving you strict instructions, go out into the world and do whatever you want!" And it will dissolve into me going, "But what should I do? Should I go to X or Y?" "You decide!" "Okay, am I a high enough level to fight the enemies in X? Do I have the correct gear or skills to handle the puzzles or dungeons in Y?" "Go and figure it out!" "Is there an area that's maybe better for honing my skills or getting some upgraded gear first, so I have a better understanding of where I'm at?" "That's up to you!" "Okay, look, I don't want to go all the way to X only to find out that its full of end-game enemies I can't fight because I have crappy weapons and armor, and my health is so low everything can one-shot me, and I don't want to go over to Y only to find out after 2 hours of dungeons that the puzzles require skills and items that I don't get unless I go to Z first. Just tell me where the next areas for after the tutorial are." "Nope! We're not telling you s*it! Learn it all yourself, we don't care if you die or waste hours in a fruitless puzzle dungeon, it's an Open World!" "F*ck this, I'm going to go play Borderlands." Games with direct questlines and the like, like Skyrim or Fallout are a little better, but only in that I'll just blindly follow the quest until it's over, and I just end up back at square one.
there's a certain irony to the western open world design. on one hand, the world is supposed to be the focus, the selling piece, filled with wonder and excitement and possibly. it is supposed to be an integral point of engagement that drives the entire experience. on the other hand, the profuse clutter of point markers, minimaps, excessive interfaces and menus tell you the opposite: the world isn't real, it doesn't matter. what you are really engaging with is the interface, the artifice. and unlike most menu-based games, there is nothing behind it.
yeah assassin's creed Origins felt like a sandbox that is size of the biggest shopping mall to exist with all the fun toys to play with scattered around the huge area while some old homeless man burbs at your face with his drunken breath giving you a map for how to find all the millions of things scattered around with alot of nothing interesting between...
Yeah, open worlds have never interested me, but their’s one in particular that’s an exception, Just Cause 2
The map in Just Cause 2 is bigger than the entirety of GTA5, by all accounts I should hate it, but the game gives you so many options to traverse the land, grapple hook, parachute, cars, boats, helicopters
"What else are they doing?" is the best way to describe the BS these games have become. Zingers, one-liners, stupid, hand holding dialogue has just become the norm
Now, in 2024, with CDPR finally wrapping up its Cyberpunk arc it seems that they've very much delivered on the "alive" world of NC. Whether strolling through grimy, neon-lit markets or taking a rainy night cruise through the downtown core the vibes are downright immaculate and if it had released in its current state it would've been counted among the best games of the decade.
I love how you seem to bring up Sayonara Wild Hearts every chance you get. Such a cute little game. And "Wild Hearts Never Die" is an absolute banger that never fails to cheer me up!
My favourite open world game is Far Cry Primal that was more about survival than taking on some power crazed megalomaniac! I loved how you saw your settlement grow as you added more people to your tribe and how you keep coming across rival tribesmen who appear to be out hunting and not just wandering around aimlessly and you can then experience the single most pleasurable thing in the history of gaming by sneaking up behind them and whacking them over the head with a thigh bone!
It's not about the amount of space in your game, it's about the amount of game in your space.
I don't want a massively huge map filled with phoned in "radiant" quests that amount to fetching this or killing that.
I'd rather have half as many quests and space but have them actually mean something.
My favourite example of this ought to be the Baldurs Gate series. It was as close to "open world" as they could get at the time (the map was divided into squares but most of them were accessible - if you could get there and survive) and each little part of the map had its own stories, quests, hidden goodies and reasons to go there.
Sometimes it was just a little goofy encounter rewarding you with a scroll and some experience, but sometimes you'd find quests for enchanted weapons, a whole ass new end game item store, optional party members, etc. tt.
I really don't think Baldurs Gate would've been better with a map ten times the size filled with "spontaneous" kill 8 wild dogs/kobolds quests.
My ideal kind of game are semi open world games. I am free to explore but in a smaller space I can see where I can go stuff is spread out. But I also love myself a linear track to show it to me. An example of what I mean is definitely the Xenoblade franchise save for x which is one of few open world games I absolutely adore. I like most of them but fallen in love with few
Gravity Rush is one of if not my favorite series ever made. But I completely agree with you on the tailing and stealth missions. Why they have them in a game regarding gravity shifting is just incomprehensible. The only mission I felt got away with stealth is when you go through the city with Dr. Brahman, because they actually have airboats looking for you, so you have to find an appropriate path through flying to get to where you need to go but still have to well...fly... or fall would be more accurate.
One thing I've agreed with this guy known as Zaric Zhakaron with, is that most open world designs are mediocre at best. The games I struggle enjoying in open world settings are the ones that take a Ubisoft formula approach or one that's too reliant on collectibles for completion because it's just so boring. If I want a Collectithon, I'll play Gravity Rush, Ratchet and Clank, or Spyro.
this is a good point. the problem is lots of gamers completely shut down any positivity about games that focus more on content than ability to walk around and do random pointless stuff. the open-world concept is great in theory because you can always take an existing part of the world and add additional content as needed. the bad is that it almost never happens in single-player open-world games. You'll end up with this huge world with a few interesting things but it'll be mostly empty and filled with shit side-quests; collect 1 million flowers, kill this random enemy just because, deliver a pizza (damn you, Death Stranding), etc...and almost always the main story suffers because of it...or Maybe that's the point, the plot was paper-thin as is that they need to throw in all the cliche bullshit to add value to be worth the $60+ .
"The quantity over quality and short games aren't worth it" are what is killing gaming for me. I have seen the overall quality in presentation (art direction, sound design, animations, physics, atmosphere, music, writing, pacing, A.I., etc) and content go down due to it. Games seemed to double down in escapism fantasy. Gamers are increasingly addicted and need more and more. Live service games, MMO's, open world, and procedurally generated worlds where you die repeatedly give them that fix.
My main problem with open-world games is, because developers won't be able to know where a player has gone, what items they've received, what skills they've unlocked, what bits of story they've experienced, the large maps have to be filled with generic objectives that tend to be copy-pasted from game to game. And because the developers won't know which story bits the player has witnessed, the story also has to be generic. You can't show a character in the story using X power or Y item, or in having learned Z lesson, use what they've learned to tackle a challenge (which is what makes characters, and thus the story and world, engaging).
Compared to linear games where the developer will know exactly what abilities a player will have access to, what items they'll have unlocked, what skills the game has set them up to learn, and what the characters themselves have experienced, which will then allow them to craft an intricate and detailed level or gameplay challenge around the predetermined information.
People can shit on the PS1-PS2-era FF games for example for being too linear, where you walk on a set path with only a couple branches here or there, but you compare the gameplay and stories for those games compared to FFXV, and there's no real contest for me on what's enjoyable. Part of what made the Mass Effect OT so wonderful was that missions filled with story and character and world development were never more than a short ship ride and walk away. Even if the gameplay boiled down to being a corridor shooter, I had a lot more fun there than with Andromeda, which is filled with boring MMO fetch quests. It's no coincidence that Andromeda is best when you're invading an enemy base or ship, which are linear experiences.
Doesn't help that almost every franchise I love has tried to go the open-world route, which ended up tarnishing my views of those series. I'm hoping to hell that Elden Ring doesn't suffer from these same problems. Luckily for games like Zelda and Fromsoft games, their characters have always been blank slates, with only stories as a minor backbone to give the player the excuse to go on said adventures (and in Fromsoft games, the story is left open to the player's interpretation based on items they discover, so I think ER will be safe there.)
i would get married and die by the time valhalla finishes
Spider-Man is the only open world game I've enjoyed recently. Even BOTW got really boring after while just having to WALK everywhere. You touched on it, but, what's the point of an open world if you put in fast-travel that is more likely to be used than not? Spider-Man nailed their traversal methods so perfectly, I literally had no idea there was fast travel until I had beaten the game and saw someone upload the fast travel cutscene to Reddit. I never knew it existed because I never felt the need to seek it out. And I think the important distiction between Spider-Man and other open world games isn't the fact that you web-sling across the city, which is, of course, extremely fun; it's because the open world isn't "open". Every street is filled with people and cars and noises. There's rarely a section, save for Central Park, that doesn't have something going on. In other games, you can travel a great distance without seeing anything. But Spider-Man feels alive. So you have the perfect traversal system that makes going across the map fun, and you have the very filled in city that makes it feel like you're actually doing stuff. The scripted events don't feel nearly as scripted because it's a fucking massive city. That shit's bound to happen!
y doesn’t seem right to lump Red Dead Redemption 2 with the rest of these worlds. Sure every single point you made applied to the game, and I agreed with everything you said, but it was intentionally tedious.
I never see anyone talking about gravity rush, even if it was to point out a (very fair) critique it’s cool to see someone recognize it!
I fully agree that genshin should be considered a slot machine designed to addict people instead of a game, but it just has something about it. I'm surprised I keep trudging through all the half baked mini games and mechanics, awkward camera controls, janky movement and... fishing... aswell as dealing with characters that feel like they haven't been tested for more than 5 minutes 10 max, don't get me started on the end game content (or lack thereof) or stupid boss design. The exploration and some of the combat being ripped straight from breath of the wild and the music being amazing probably helps a little though.
I think that most of these problems comes with the genre. Every genre has its weakness.
Metroidvanias, for example, have been suffering from their own poisons for ages (low sense of proggression, lack of direction, weak plots, etc).
It is what it is, I guess. Few games actually pioneers a genre or dares to try something different.
Me personally I enjoy the large open worlds. Loved Skyrim, FO4, GOW, and of course RDR2 . And am currently playing Ghost of Tsushima and loving that as well.
Yakuza is proof that size doesn't matter. It's the same few blocks with a couple changes, but it feels very much alive and livable. It's memorable, sometimes utterly dumb, but in a good way.
Saints Row IV shows that recycling assets isn't necessarily a bad thing, and, to me, struck a good balance.
My biggest gripe with open-world games these days is that they feel like single-player MMOs. Lots of cookie-cutter bullshit that triggers the compulsive part of my brain, but feels like the gaming equivalent of junk food: it's good in the moment, but immediately gets forgettable and too much of it makes you really sick.
I mean some people are more inclined towards some types of games, some people like RPGs and doing every single thing in the Open World even though they are boring, but they do it either way, because they love Open-World games.
I’m dead. I’ve never seen a video that captures my emotions about open-world games so accurately.
I ended up rushing through Skyrim and Fallout 3 as a kid just because they had too much going on. Basically did the same with Horizon, BOTW, and Biomutant after getting burnt out in the literal first hour of each game.
damn caught some serious whiplash at the end
I platinumed lbp and the game also taught me a new type of algebra, good game
I understand what you're saying but I disagree on a lot of key points. Sorry buddy you missed on this one
You look like my classmate's mom and you are my new favourite youtuber. Your videos are great!!
Jesus, the pie analogy is SOOO spot on why I don't play and can't finish open world games these days.
some games get boring as hell when i cant explore, and when i do some games get even more boring when i find nothing
I'm going to link this video to every one of my friends who says "YoU DoN'T lIkE oPeN wOrLd??" because I'm sick of having to explain these problems.
Enjoyable video, but I have no idea what your on about when you say that checking off completionist boxes sucks. Possibly one of my favorite things to do in video games, and open worlds are perfect for that kinda stuff
This gives me an idea. An open-world cel-shaded ARPG centered around Magic. Your strength isn't calculated with numbers. The only thing stopping you from going to higher-level areas is a difficulty rank that indicates how much trouble you'll have with the area's enemies, and that might only be because you've neglected the Wind. Fully customizable where unlocking new abilities adds a new dimension to the customization. When you unlock new movement abilities to reach otherwise impossible areas, they also make it easier to traverse the open world. Don't want to run? Skate over the ground at the speed of a supercar! That's too slow? Fly! You'll eventually do this faster than a Blackbird!
Following footprints of a man who burned down house was a quest about the transfer of power from the North to the Nilfguardian empire and the how the pride of a drunkard incited racism amongst once close neighbors while giving you a moral decision to take the money or do the right thing.
And the finding the old lady's frying pan was an insight to the dealings and espionage that occurs in the shadows of Nilfguards war, while also hinting at a returning character from previous witcher games.
But yeah, sure, super boring if you're just reading the objectives and following the map like the a good little drone that doesn't need to think because nuance isn't as stimulating as a fresh baked pie handed to you on a silver platter. Metroidvania's are literally the origin of open world games, and they're so small that it doesn't require any brainpower to remember tiny and intricate locations with simple objectives.
Ubisoft is shit, ill give you that, but calling Witcher 3's sidequests dull and using them as evidence to show Open-worlds are bad is the reason why Developers focus on quantity instead of quality, since a lot of people apparently notice quality if smacked em in the face. You're the reason why Devs don't bother put quality in open world games. This is why we got Cyberpunk 2077 instead of actual quality quests. Your popular video isn't gunna help, you just scared any future open world game dev from realizing their vision with your cynical simple outlook.
YES, thank you! I am tired of people reviewing every video game, like they are all the same. The truth is, no one has to like every game out there.
Even Open World games are entirely different from each other. The focus of Witcher 3 is it's worldbuilding, story and characters. They use the open world to keep the immersion, with haunted forests or fresh battlefields.
Breath of the Wild on the other hand is the first open world game, that successfully centers around exploration. Of course it's more fun to explore Hyrule, than the world of Witcher 3, but they aim for totally different playstyles. It would be fun, if Geralt could use a paraglider, but that is not the point of the game!
If you follow the amazingly written side- or mainquests, you will eventually explore most of the map and maybe find some secrets on the way.
I find it weird how open world vidya fans are united in how incredibly butthurt and overly mad they get that someone is criticizing a genre that has taken over every single game in the industry.
"The flames, they're burning!"
oh really, I thought they would freeze...
The Yakuza series is a great example of being the exception. The thrive on having small maps but a lot of fun and interesting things to do there
Little dark age of Open World RPG's
-Too big world
-"?" markers
-Randomized loot
-Enemy scalling
-Grinding
-XP Boosters
I agree with everything in this video. I've been meaning to get Ghost of Tsushima but I'm going to wait until I get a PS5. Meanwhile I've started playing Elden Ring and it's a masterpiece in world design imo. It looks gorgeous, and everywhere is deliberately designed to have something hidden for you in every nook and cranny in the world. Exploration is so much fun and I'm constantly getting distracted by stuff in the distance, thinking "ooh I wanna explore that". I'm loving my time with it and I hope developers like Ubisoft can take a page out of their book and start crafting open worlds that actually reward exploration with very little guidance, as opposed to filling your screen and map with icons and clutter.
I hope developers see this and realize we're ready for something new.
By something new you mean running around every corner of the world because "qUesT mArkErs bAd"?
Mario Odyssey isn’t even an open world game. Shows how much of an expert you are…
Witcher 3 is an exception for me, since i fell in love with the lore even before I bought the game. I was in love. 260 hours spent in the masterpiece.
10:34 and that’s how to end a gamers social life
that tiny fragment of End Times that you played gave me a fucking PTSD episode
Open world games were done first in MMORPG. Elder Scrolls were just single player MMORPG. BOTW had a beautiful world to explore but had to most broken game mechanics of any open world game I've played. The difficulty curve drops off a climb by mid-game becoming nearly invincible. They added weapon durability so to give purpose to find the Korok seed just to increase weapon inventory space. These seeds had the same baby puzzles over and over again. What an insult doing those baby puzzles , put round object into round hole and square in the square hole.
Weapon durability didn't add challenge to the game. In SotS the Pit weapon durability adds to the game. BOTW is just slapped on to fill the empty world. Busy work just like MMORPG.