@@SzatanistaDzezowy I don't care how nice something _looks_ (unless it's a VR game and even then I'd rather something focus on mechanics), I care how nice it feels to _play._ I have played both The Division 1 and Watch_Dogs, and the only memorable thing from The Division 1 for me is survival mode which felt well balanced and had actual tension, and the only memorable thing from Watch_Dogs is the vigilante events that ultimately amounted to people just going "hey bro you're cool" on the streets. I'd rather have smaller areas that are more densely packed with content and side stories like Kamurocho from Yakuza than a massive open world with map markers everywhere that has to copy and paste content everywhere to pad out the run time.
The importance of playtime vs price really depends on the game in my opinion. If it's a tower defence or battle royale, then it better be fun enough that I can get as many hours as I paid EUR (or more), but if it has a solid story and kept me engaged, then 10 hours of gameplay can easily be worth 60 EUR, even more sometimes. I spent 30 hours on Resident Evil Village, and I bought the big one for 80/90 EUR (can't remember). Still feels worth it to me.
@@Mike-official That is *exactly* what I'm decrying..... Playtime shouldn't factor into worth because it'll incentivise devs to just copy paste their content to get to some arbitrary number of hours. (I understand that this isn't the case for ER)
@@JZStudiosonline I thought it was decent. But I only played the campaign in co-op and I had my buddies to fuck around with so It wasn't that mind numbingly repetitive.
It's not about the world, it's about the content I would absolutely despise a game where you just press 3 buttons and your only sole objective is "kill enemies"
I’ll replay a great 10-20 hour linear game experience more than I’ll play an open world game with 100 hours of content. The former has the freedom to have different level designs and locations while the latter is usually restricted to the same general location and the same basic mission structure with padded out fetch quests.
Open world games were supposed to be about interconnected gameplay systems that create a believable world through cause-and-effect dynamics that we can participate in. Instead they're usually about going from point to point, grinding for loot and XP, while giving you a lot of places on the map to do so.
Yet there is no cause and effect to be found. We've mostly seen the effect of a handful of minigame instances tossed and scattered far apart to travel between.
At least BotW got the "Interconnected system" part right. You can just about grab any two game assets, smash them together, and something interesting will happen.
Rockstar does great with set pieces and using locations for story telling rather than just to look pretty! Loved that the stories would also open up locations that normally wouldn’t be explorable like the Gaming Headquarters and Meth House in GTA5 are still really memorable to me. One issue I always had with Far Cry (in particular 4 lol) for comparison is that Ubisoft had all these cool locations for the player to visit but there was nothing more to it beyond random collectibles and maybe some extra exp. Same feelings I had with Spider-Man where missions could have taken better advantage of some locations throughout the city
Honestly I have the opposite view. Rockstar makes the most fun boring games. The details are insane and I appreciate it, but I don't feel the open world complements their games. They throw in an open world in a linear story coz they can. A game which is supposed to be a freedom simulator from society's restrictions, restricts you from doing anything but following the script. How ironic.
@@ashutoshbundela3744 honestly so true RDR2 definitely felt that way, found it fun and beautiful to explore the world but in a lot of ways it felt like the game was just riding horse from spot to spot
not gonna lie, they way you manage to green screen game footage on a variety of objects, and do it so well , is something i enjoy quite a bit with your videos. keep up the good work, Renn! also will you review Far Cry 6 at some point, please?
As someone who has played a ton of games now, I find the busywork of open world games provides no joy anymore. It just becomes an immediate chore. I'm significantly harder to please these days on top of major game releases being more iterative and unambitious than ever before.
I think is fair you feel that way but my tastes differ idk sometimes I like that feeling when you look at all the ticks on an open map and you go “oh yeah that’s a lot of busy work”
Yep. At least in Yakuza and The Witcher 3 there's some effort to put actual story and thought into the side stuff rather than just the usual shit copied 500 times all over the fucking map.
There's something inherently disappointing about Paul Walker-ing into a tree at full speed only to have the car receive minor damage he says....gaht damn that was cold lol
Right? He could be a filmmaker. I was thinking constantly how intelligently this was shot. There's so many video essays on YT and they feel like they are primed to be audio-only, whereas this video is a whole experience!
Skyrim doesn’t need complex movements that would betray the whole game. Walking from point A to B is some the best gaming experiences I had, and I’m not even joking. The scenery, the music, the atmosphere all give an amazing feeling.
Feel like you missed a valid point about replayability. A bunch of these games have so much random shit stuck in them you don't even feel like playing them again, or like you mentioned with Tsushima the gameplay is only fun for so long, so after you finish the game you know if you try to play it again it will just end up in boredom. The older, simpler games like Tony Hawk and Burnout 3, despite being completable in a few hours end up with way more play time in the long run.
The only game that I can currently replay without being bored is the original RDR, don't know why but the story and stranger missions are just so fun and interesting. Fuck the Legend of The West challenges though
Me and my buddies spent over 300 hours on Burnout 3 in summer 2016 just playing it nonstop whilst drinking and getting high I’ve never found a game with that much repeatability in 24 years
@@Liamx-00 I did the same with MGS3. Without cutscenes you can do a "quick play" in 4-5 hours, but there's so much depth of systems and other shit you can fuck around with in that game. 10+ years later you can still discover new things.
Open world games can be incredible. But I feel like less is more is very important when designing them. I feel like a lot of side activities that bigger games shove into everything would feel a lot more impactful if there were only 1 or 2 instances of it in the whole open world, then you would have reason to explore different areas to find these unique features. I've been playing old school runescape recently, and one thing that really stood out is that there aren't many areas that are fully convienent. Like if you want to smith a weapon, first you need to mine ore in one area, then smelt it into a metal bar in another area and finally smith it on an anvil in a completely different area. There aren't many places where all three activities are in very close proximity, so you constantly need to travel to acomplish them. I think what a lot of open world games get wrong is that many of their activities feel exactly the same, if a player has dozens and dozens of ways to kill enemies, then the game should have many areas that make certain ways of killing uniquely innefective.
I think the best open world game ever made is Outer Wilds (no, not Outer Worlds)... give it a go Renn, it is literally one of the best games ever made! it has my highest possible recommendation
Outer wilds and BOTW are two of the best open world games I've ever played. Haven't finished Outer Wilds yet, unfortunately, but I'd guarantee its quality to prod your sense of wander to be unmatched
came here to say this, after the main mission everything else is pretty damn repetitive but I really didn't mind cause the combat was so fun, especially in harder difficulties
He said the combat is good the game is just repetitive and goes on too long which imo is true. I would of loved ghosts if it was about 20 hours but every hour past that 20 hour point I started to hate it and see how repetitive it was.
I love the way you structure and edit your videos! It adds a comedic element while keeping the viewer entertained and engaged, without being over the top. Please keep up the great work, bro 🙏🏼
Metro Exodus is a perfect example of "less is more." It's big and small enough to get you hooked into the semi open worlds while it doesn't take too much of your time.
My only problem is that it seems like a game you can't listen to music while you play. Might miss out on the story. I got ADHD so I like to play games and listen to podcasts/music while I play.
@@ericglenn9984 i used to do the same i have adhd as well but you really get more out of games if you just limit yourself to doing one task at a time not even just talking about story driven games i found that when i multi task like that i wouldn't actually be paying that much attention to what i was doing nor could i remember much i did in the game or the video/podcast that i was listening too
@@ericglenn9984 Fellow ADHD'er here. It does sound like through one way or the other you've let your brain normalize over-stimulation and thus find it far harder to focus on just one thing. Probably that the ADHD has made it easier to fall into that rabbit-hole. My advice is to try to slowly practice doing things mindfully with just some natural white noise for the background. Reading is good, as so much enjoyment can be gained from a slow read of a good book. With the brain it's like with muscles, no matter if one is genetically weaker or stronger practice is still the only way to get better at something.
But I love exploring those worlds, and I also respect the worlds themselves the devs end up creating, isolated from the games they are in, as "anticipations of the virtual worlds we will create". I think it would be very bad for our future in Virtual Universes if we were to turn away from open world or open-universe simply because these (in the larger scale of things) very early iterations are not that thorough.
@@stinkmonger open world games peaked at 2015,witcher 3,fallout 4 and....yeah that's it. Sorry but riding around on a piece of ass to get to the actual content is getting boring.
Man.. you SERIOUSLY have a talent for entertainment and presentation. I could watch you make a presentation about making toast and it would be awesome! Thank you for your hard work,and keep it up!
Hey Renn, just found your channel through this video. It was so good that I went back through your channel and watched for almost 2 hours. It is unexplainable to me how you don't have half a million subscribers by this point, your content is awesome. I can tell just how much work you've put it to this channel, all the editing and scripting must take ages. Keep it up man, I think over the next few months your channel is really going to explode!
I hope I could have your editing skills. These transitions are purely legendary. Anyway, excellent video as always, I hope this one will have the recognition it deserves.
I tend to enjoy linear action games due to them having actual combat encounter design. Open world games just have random groups of enemies with basic behaviour that you run into but linear games have arenas that are designed. They take into account where you come in, enemy placements, possible spawn points for reinforcements, cover and flank routes, the arrangement of different enemy types and how they compliment one another and the arena with possible power weapons, resupply stations and vantage points. It all makes for much more interesting combat.
Yeah but its destructiveness comes at the cost of individualality. I think most open world gamers like freedom and being able to explore and immersive yourself in a world. And do quest and discover people and special objects that others may have not. You are teo separate types of gamers so of course you wouldn't like the same thing but I think that the focus on A.I. is trivial (to these games) and how he talked about progression was subjective. Especially considering I have the problem of playing mostly the story and then replaying it and going around the world. And harder combat doesn't mean more engaging, the combat in Rdr2 isn't hard but when combined with the story and atmosphere and the reason we are doing it it becomes engaging. Or when you are exploring the world and get held up by outlaws and then have to shoot your way through them. Or just shooting and robbing people for money to buy some things you want to customize your chracter. There are so many benefits to this type of genre that go way past its flaws. The restrictiveness of linear games means everyone will have mostly the sameexperience. Which is more akin to a movie rather than a movie. This is one reason I like TLOU2 because it is more open combining both the well made A.I. of a linear games with a more open world to explore and get your own experience from.
Actually it's doable in open world game. Surprisingly enough, fallout 4 proved this. After modding that game so the AI stop being too retaded and shoot rubber bullet, I notice a lot of arena in that game actually let the ai flank you, gain vantage point on you and the wildly different enemy types actually change your approach to fight. Half of Bethesda was putting in the work while the other half just invalidate them all. Another example is stalker: anomaly. Level design focus on atmosphere over gameplay, sure. But the varied, lethal enemies and the strict resource management make up for their shortcoming
Skyrim? Oh hell naw.. that world is fun as hell to walk around in randomly. I saw 3 Giants punching a wooly mammoth when a dragon straight fired up on on all 3... that shit was wild. You may have to play Skyrim more than 10min bro lol
Honestly, I think Morrowind had the best fast travel system - between the silt striders, boats, mages guild teleports, the propylon master index plugin and Barilzar's mazed band in the Tribunal expansion, you could get around the map quickly, but still had to plan out your routes and cover ground on foot, and - with the latter two - actually had to work to earn them.
Moving across morrowind in of itself scaled with your progress too, yeah you can move pretty efficiently using recall, interventions and paying the guild and silk striders; but by the time you get some magic levels and are in the mid game you can jump across the entire map and get anywhere at a moments notice with fall damage spells, really fun.
i loved kingdom come: deliverance as an open-world game because it gave some urgency in some of the quest lines where you could actually fail a quests if you weren't on time. instead off "you have all the time in the world" also it gives the players a warning not just start a quest if you are not gonna play it vibe.
Genuinely one of the most underviewed and underrated channels out there. The production value and the tight writing of your scripts is great, and I really like the sort of middle ground you have between making fun of the "outdoor youtube video" trope and actually doing it really well at the same time.
Yakuza immediately popped into my head. Smaller areas that somehow feels larger than Skyrim, and very dense with activity for the player. There is a reason to run to and fro in the same place - because you might have missed something, maybe there is a substory here, or a place to take a break and play a minigame. There's literally no reason beyond looking at the same scenery to do this in a modern Ass-Creed or GTA. Can you tell I have 57 days of playtime across the series
I tried losing myself in Kamurocho in Yakuza 0 but I couldn't because of how artificial and segmented it is. I guess I'm too accustomed to the GTA and Red Dead Redemption cinematographic realism and immersion. Maybe I'll enjoy Yakuza Kiwami 2 or 6 with the new engine.
I've played so many linear games since PS1 that I will still prefer openworld over linear ones. Although there can be exceptions because nothing is set in stone or to the extremity that it's either one or the other. I think RDR2 managed to pull off a good open world. It's got so many secrets it encouraged me to explore. I set myself a goal for the next 2-3 hours to, hunt or fish a certain animall or finding a specific plant for crafting, just explore a certain region for a gold treasure, weapon, crafting recipe, or maybe encounter strange people that inhabit the world. There's more to do like challenges, finding different horses, or unique hats, and plenty more, but the unpredictability of the living world of people, animals, and terrain, keeps me adapting my goals. And that's what makes it fun for me. I wasn't, and still am not, in a rush of finishing the game. I just want to exist in the game because the world is believable and gorgeous to be in. I don't care about boasting that I finished it. I'm not getting a prize for it. Once I know all its secrets I can replay it with a sole focus on the story. But maybe that's problem, you can go about two ways in openworld games. You can either finish the story as fast as possible and explore later to find all its secrets. Or you do everything from the start at the expense of the story (and maybe become overpowered), only to replay it for the story while knowing all its secrets. This video has a lot of good points, and well thought out and true arguments, but when an openworld is done right, it offers the mistery of exploration and the unbound freedom not found in linear games. And a good story is just the icing on the cake. If you have more games at your disposal you can have access to so many openworlds you can play and finish at any time you like. If it's one the few you have, you can have bang for your bucks. Telling a good story is not exclusive to linear games. It just depends if the player can have its priorities straight, or developers can deliver one. And while many become repetitive, you can put it aside to pick it up later. Although more diversity in gameplay mechanics is always welcome to keep you longer engaged. Sorry but the title of this video sucks, although I respect and agree with some contentions of this analytical critique by these two creators.
A sign that an open world game is good imo, is if you can replay it. For me that comes down to; if I can start the game and not be bogged down by mandatory story beats. I realized that when I deleted my BoTW file by accident and was pretty adamant I wasn't going back. A week later, I started again like "welp, I can at least go the opposite direction this time without having to do any story stuff." I've only replayed 2 open world games in my life: BoTW and New Vegas. Both of which have really loose narratives.
There are a few opinions in here that I disagree with (I actually prefer when fast driving doesn’t kill you, it allows me to get crazy when driving and I enjoy that) but like always, amazingly well written and produced. Hats off.
"I actually prefer when fast driving doesn’t kill you, it allows me to get crazy when driving and I enjoy that" Ubisoft after making FC2 : "Write that down! Dumb down all penalties for our next open world games. And cater to these people so our games sell no matter how shallow."
I like sweating like hell and trying my hardest and nailing sick drifts. I don't like the frustration of utterly fucking up and being punished for like twenty whole seconds in-game for holding a button down half a second longer than needed... Some people actually have exhausting work to do in their lives and don't want to be further tested by twitchy or boat-like driving controls, I get that, but I've done over 600 hours of stress-testing with Vesaro products, racing simulators. You start to care about your lap times or the money stops being worth the stress! I personally believe we shouldn't lower our standards and should challenge ourselves as much as possible. If you want a passive experience, then enjoy a more passive medium, like film. Can't expect your driving to become passive because you want it to be; people don't know what they want and when they get what they ask for they're miserable. Game design has gone down the toilet PRECISELY BECAUSE devs are trying to cater to the psychology of - effectively - addictive repetition of mediocre difficulty in games to milk as many hrs as possible from the customer
This channels editing style is so refreshing, I absolutely love the crafty green screening & overall creative thinking throughout the video. Keep it up man, this is golden content right here. 👌
Your editing has reached some kinda zenith, dude. How you've managed to find a balance point between amateurish little-boy goofs and such slick transitions is really impressive. I see you.
A lot of open world games do suck but a lot don't. In the good open world games a large open world adds the feeling that the game is an actual world. Like Red Dead Redemption 2, I actually feel like I'm in a real world, even if 80% of it is... just nothing. I still enjoy "living" in it, walking to a destination rather than running/fast travelling there. In Oblivion or Skyrim (with about 6,000 mods) I enjoy the big world. Same with Fallout 3/NV. Much of the world is a wasteland with nothing/little in it, I still love it though because it makes the game feels like a real world that I'm in. I suppose it's just a case of different people liking different things.
i remember that fallout 4 made it to where you only find certain weapons depending how high a level your characters was. At first one would only be able to find pipe weapons. It was a full on open world game but they "wall it off" by having certain areas have enemies who were way more powerful. They would be higher level, have better armor and weapons. It felt that was a good way to keep the player in a fixed area for the time being. But as one would get higher in level more powerful weapons would unlock.
Only introduces more issues for players who want to be efficient. You want that world spawn power armor to be X-01? Better make a shitload of shelves and statues to farm xp.
No, that's not what's happening, you're just getting level gated loot. The enemies aren't any more powerful in certain zones or anything like that, the game just scales random encounters as well. What you're describing is how most scaled games work in general so I wonder how many games you've actually played.
@@oh-not-the-bees7872 nah, I've been to areas further south in the map and had a hard time fighting them on my level 100 character, while I could kill raiders closer to concord or the vault in like 1 shot. There's Def some area scaling.
First video I've ever seen from your channel. Just want to say the clear amount of effort, production, time, and attention to detail was mind blowing. From the transitions to the memorization of script or creativity with approaching each topic, I was thoroughly impressed. Never seen so much cool stuff with a green screen (I'm a boomer), either. Sold me when your custom-made closed captions credited the games from whose footage you were using, though. Subbed harder than Subway. Unbelievable effort that hopefully doesn't go unnoticed.
Your Papa Tony has always said of these games "So much to do and I don't want to do any of it" love you son, I've been having a shit time at the moment (your step mom is a real pain) and I'm looking forward to catching up on all your vids today
This is seriously one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen. I’m puzzled as to how you managed to impose footage onto some of these surfaces, and your transitions are seamless. Well done.
The main problem is most of these huge open worlds feel lifeless and are devoid of meaningful activities -ubisoft is the worst for this, just fill up a huge empty space with a thousand question marks which are just collectables and the same tower climb X30. Small hub worlds like those in DE: mankind divided are the best imo, not ridiculously huge but dense with lots of secrets, stories to uncover and many organic side quests. And Prague actually feels alive and like an actual living, breathing city
A good 8 hour campaign you can play 10 times is infinitely better than a 60 hour campaign that gets boring after 10 or so hours. Games dont need to be longer and bigger, they should be more focused and polished.
Arkham Asylum was a shining example of that concept. You can finish the game in a single night, just like Batman does in the game. The best of the series.
My dissatisfaction with open-world games is that the sense of a vast world has diminished. I'm not talking about the actual size of the map you can walk on. For example, in the old Final Fantasy series, you could literally travel around the world. There were bustling cities, idyllic countryside, snowy regions to the north, perpetual summer towns, and vast deserts. However, in FF15, the area you can freely explore is essentially just one region of the continent. There are only a few towns. In this case, I would have preferred the feeling of traveling around the world, even in a closed setting. Thinking about it, FF13 seems to have tried to balance the breadth of the world with the quality of graphics. FF16, by limiting the world's stage and dividing the map into several sections, seems to be trying to find a solution, reflecting the series' history and its trial and error.
This is probably in place of the far cry 6 review cuz renn ain't playing that shit after 5 and new dawn, also web of shadows being mentioned in a video always makes me happy
Dude, you hooked me when you whipped out the green portrait from your pocket, but when you laid down with your green screen and just kept going, you sold me. You're a creator I wanna see more from. Good stuff, just subbed
This video had some the most of amusing use of "Green Screen" that I've ever seen. Especially that dumpster one. Overall great video, Renn with 2 N's. 👍
I hate this video because a ton of people took away from this that open world games as a genre sucks, when that is far from the case. Just because a few bad open world games exist, does not mean the entire model is bad. I would much rather play a game where I'm given choices than a linear borefest. The tradeoffs to allow for open world are worth it; the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
My attention span on TH-cam is abysmal. However, I sat here watched all 21 min of ur video; needless to say you put in more work and effort in this one video than EA has in all their games. You my friend, just earned a sub😤👍🙌
First time viewer here and this video was great! So creative and kept a great upbeat energy throughout the video while maintaining balance with the more analytical parts. I feel the same way about a lot of these games and I hope there's more refinement in open world games that come out in the future, especially in next gen games, so we avoid games feeling like shiny to-do lists. I've seen The Outer Wilds mentioned but also check out The Pathless for another 'open world' game that doesn't feel like it wastes your time.
You instantly get a thumbs up just for that title. I'm so tired of open world games, all because game length is what's used to put a price on a product. I miss good linear games that had a beginning and an end, and lacked absurd filler side quests.
Really glad you brought up pacing and padding as an issue with open world games. I love the Yakuza series for example but the pacing can really grind to a halt in some entries with the amount of side activities there are, and it ain't helped by the fact that they're sometimes yearly releases at that. And you aren't wrong with how some games are badly stretched out either, there almost always reaches a point where its tempting to drop them or just rush through the story missions to get it off your backlog and never replay it again.
None of that stuff is required in Yakuza though. There's only a handful of them throughout the series that activate on their own, you have to actually look for most of them. And they don't really give you anything other than XP, which the main missions give you way the hell more XP so you can just play the main story if you want. You can straight ignore them.
That feels like a problem with the gamer themselves. Unless the game forces you into playing side activities to progress through the story, it is your fault for letting the activities distract you.
I think you’re kinda wrong about that because a lot of open world games are are some of the best games I’ve ever played like BOTW or Skyrim or Elden ring
Unlucky john can't swim and that post story cool area is restrictive. Would be nice if you could take the boats and go on vacation for example for completion of your pokedex
Control and Metro Exodus are the perfect semi-open world games that have just the right amount of everything. Great story, enjoyable gameplay, good optional quests, and perfect game length.
I'm there with you, I loved what they did, breaking it into large sections with quite a lot of freedom to wander and get into extra stuff, but it also wasn't MUST do. There's always a linear track to jump onto, or off of, whenever you feel like it. The places aren't too big to overstay their welcome and it winds up being a pretty 'free' experience with a full story to carry through it.
though i agree with some of your points , in my humble opinion open worlds are the best video game genre , and I'm talking about good open worlds like most rockstar and bethesda titles and cdprojektred's the witcher 3 . the crazy amount of content , incredible world building , different interesting mechanics , branching , big or small sotries depending on the quests , meeting different characters throughout the world and seeing how your choices affect the world around you and the characters around you is what sets apart open world games is why i love them . in fallout new vegas you can literally kill everyone and every choice is going to affect what's going to happen in the end . in the witcher 3 there are side quests that feel like campaigns of their own and also affect the ending and the characters . you'll still get to use your gear and all the cool stuff you unlocked in the main story after finishing it in side quests and around the world rather than losing all of that after the game is over unless the game has a new game plus option . the amount of incredible memories gta vice city san Andreas , gta 4 , gta 5 , the 3d elder scrolls ( specially skyrim ) , fallout 3 , new vegas and the witcher 3 ( with its 2 amazing dlcs blood and wine and heart of stone ) gave me are memories i will remember and cherish for a life time ! edit : forgot to mention red dead Redemption 1 and 2
You have an opinion very similar to a friend of mines. He absolutely loves witcher and elder scrolls. Sadly I can't seem to get into open world games. (not the big ones anyway) I've tried skyrim, witcher 1, 2 and 3, dead island, fallout 3, days gone, horizon zero dawn and many others. They all bore me and I genuinely think it's because their rewards are never worth it to me. That, and I strongly believe that if you fast travel in a game then the open world has failed to justify its inclusion. But I have liked a few of them. (Most of them rockstar's games because their stories are so intriguing) But a few others were outerwilds, batman arkham city and patholgic 2, but those hardly feel like a typical open world game to me. Like, Lol! I WISH I could like witcher 3. I've started that game three separate times and have yet to finish it. SHOW ME YOUR WAYS! LET ME LIKE WITCHER 3 PLS
I typically have the opposite opinion of open world games. Soo much boring crap that isn't worth, the world feels soo small because it feels like a playground without anything fun or worthwhile in them. The combat is often soo garbage I just go back to playing custom mappacks of doom 2. The layout in those are themselves are like works of abstract art. secrets and surprise encounters nested within large halls, domes,simple mazes, spires and arenas connected by smaller paths leading to the next relevant destination in some instances. Other times they have smaller arenas, confined spaces, trap boxes that have paths that lead to larger central zones that generally are chaotic as all hell to get through simply because the number of enemies around. in all of this there are also a variety of ways resources are hidden around or guarded by obstacles through out the area with signs ranging from subtle tells like distant sounds of platforms moving, suspect floors,walls, layout sections that seem like they could be blocking something, valuable objects openly visible but with a hidden trigger required to access them, the possible mechanisms that can count as triggers, a few of triggers themselves being easy to spot while the main prize and more well hidden and guarded triggers tucked away elsewhere. Prizes with obvious paths but tricky traversal and awkward sections making them a challenge to reach, sometimes even these are hidden in plain sight. combine this with varied enemies and partially abstract architecture with hints of more concrete structure logic and you have the core template for shooters possible in custom doom and quake maps. . Very few open world games have any sense of danger throughout the experience since the combat is almost guaranteed to sucks, the layout most definitely sucks, the activities usually suck and the stories typically also suck. No sense of urgency, risk, or worthwhile reward as everything is just given to you or told to you upfront with no sense of mystery to it.
You forgot one major problem that most open world games have, ludonarrative dissonance, so many games suffer from that. For example The Witcher 3, you MUST save Ciri as soon as possible but you can do whatever the fuck you want if you are in the open world, you can spend 20 hours in a row playing gwent and there is no consequence, so the story loses its impact and sense of urgence. Another example is Fallout 4, the MC wants to know what happened with his son asap but you, the player, can play every single fucking sidequest and forget about the main story completely.
You think that's bad, play Yakuza 0. Witcher 3 was more "We should check this out" than "We have to do this immediately." Y0 had you on the run from the entire Yakuza, streets are unsafe, people are getting murdered, a dangerous conspiracy, an enthralling mystery around a patch of land, you're watching girls in bikinis wrestle, teaching a woman to be a dominatrix in front of kids, and racing toy cars. Man, I need to play Y0 again, what a legend of a game.
I've found myself playing a lot more linear games as of late. I've gained an appreciate for games I used to say "eh, whatever." to. JRPGs, replaying old pokemon games and visiting new ones, Resident Evil 2 remake, Fire Emblem, Control, and others haven take over my playtime, where I used to play a lot of Fallout, Skyrim, Cod/Battlefield (multiplayer), Assassin's Creed, and other open world titles.
You mentioned that some times people play, not because they're having fun with the game, but because they're hooked on reward and progression. Warframe does that to you, and that's why it's difficult to stop palying. Games Space Engineers, Satisfactory, Cities skylines, Fallout New Vegas or Mass Effect don't seem to do that, which is very nice.
Open world can be redundant, but most of today's "linear" game experiences are so dumbed down and restrictive, and, sometimes, repetitive, i just can't don't get even more bored with them. To me, the better option tends to be games that set between both worlds, like imeersive sims or RPGs with hubs, like Mass Effect.
This explains why I haven't been able to finish most open world games. Some of the most memorable games to me were linear. For example, Soma and Hellblade were powerful emotional experiences to me that no open world game has ever managed to beat. It's a shame that gamers often see linear games as lesser in terms of content (and not full price worthy). In addition, funny enough, I often find linear games more replayable than open world because they feel more meaningful and less time wasting.
This makes me even more glad that Stalker: Anomaly exists. Yeah, it was basically glued together by the community from the previous games, the engine and AI was fixed and polished, plus you can always install mods, but it tends to be far better expiriance than most stuff currently availible on the market, even when Stalker commits it's own sins- basic quests, AI still can bug out, some mechanics are tidious.
I haven't played a "true" open world game since Skyrim because I have absolutely no interest in them, in fact hearing that a game is "open world" is now an immediate turnoff for me. To me, open world games are about doing menial tasks with repetitive and easy combat while you wait for cool stuff to maybe sometimes happen. The overarching narrative holds no weight when you can delay an "urgent" situation indefinitely by doing side quests for 3 days. On the other hand, there is nothing like a finely crafted linear game, even if it's only 6 hours long. I'd rather spend 6 hours completely engaged with properly balanced combat and a well developed story than 50 hours wandering around aimlessly where nothing can challenge me. I think that the idea of people feeling "shorted" by a game that isn't sufficiently long has really damaged the industry. It is of course true to a certain degree, but way too many people will turn their brains off once you tell them a 10 hour game costs $60. Most 50 hour open world games only boil down to about that much actual enjoyable gameplay anyway.
White light on a renn video???? My favorite video essay guy appearing on another one of my most liked channels??? That’s awesome man! Time to go rewatch his catalogue 😂
I recently got back into gaming after about 7 years - I honestly expected major advances in gameplay in that time but so far feel like I can’t differentiate a game released this year to one from 10 years ago. Some even seem worse, like COD franchise! Maybe I expect too much.
bro. im trying to start filming stuff, and holy shit. the way you find ways to do anything with nothing is amazing. the time you laid down with the green screen. pulling that one out from your short leg. the trashcans. your thought process and problem solving skills are just so abstract, quick, and improv friendly(yes and) if for some reason you come to the carolinas hit up your boy i will deff intern with a cam. i gotta see a day on your set XD
Rockstar's games are my favorite types of open world games. They never feel boring and repetitive to me, I'm always in the mood to replay them. I think they nail the genre the best. I also liked Bethesda games until Skyrim. They have really nice worlds with an interesting lore, but they are always janky and age like milk from day one and the dungeons and caves are repetitive. Ubisoft open worlds are the types that you should take notes about how NOT to do an open world. They are the perfect example of mediocrity. The main and side missions and are often indistinguishable. The map is absolutely full of grindy, repetitive stuff and thousands of collectibles. Every side activity is repetitive and there's hundreds of them. When you simply open the map screen in an Ubisoft game and see all that shit you already feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
Probably why I enjoy ac 2-4 far cry 3-4 era games they made because despite being open world they can be 100 percented around 30 hours the issue is that ubisoft have stayed similar in that way but they have just gotten longer causing odyssey being a game that should be around 29 hours like ac 2 or brotherhood but they take around 100 hours they had repetitiveness but it seemed just enough where you go I'm good now but you are basically done with the ga e so it's easy to complete
But I feel like we can do even better than Breath of the Wild. - Towers are a little too similar to each other. - Fast travel needs more limitations - A different map system in general might be better. Instead of having the player climb towers, have them be able to find maps of the world, throughout said world. Or better yet, have them create their own. - Allowing the player to obtain great tools one by one instead of giving it to them all at the start, so that the player has more things to look forward to. - Sometimes, less is more. Breath of the Wild reuses a lot of assets for its shrines and stables, making things feel kind of generic sometimes. Maybe if there were less of certain structures, they could put more effort into the things they do have in making them unique, detailed, and special. - Weapon durability needs to at least be reconsidered. - Giving more impactful rewards might be more pleasing to players. These are just some ideas. If I really wanted to go more in-depth, I'd spend an hour or more discussing how open worlds can create a compelling....*open* ***world.***
Rage 2 is a great example of a game with awesome mechanics and abilities that would have been absolutely awesome in a linear game with traditionally designed levels, but was relegated to the realm of monotony and tedium by forcing it to be open world for no good reason. As a result most combat encounters are your typical open world dreck
Not really. The 4 divine beasts all have different main quests and bosses and all the shrines and koroks are optional besides the and there are 91 unique shrines to play. don’t know how that recycles content
I just got into this generation of gaming with a PS5. Honestly, I'd take a 8-14 linear experience with good story over one with a 40+ hr open world any day. I just can't bring myself to complete a myriad of side quests when I just want to know the story. Nier Automata might be one of the only open world-styled games I don't mind playing because I love the environments and music so much and they really resonate with me.
I totally agree with you. Except with the Nier Automata shout out. I found that game to be boring after the first chapter. Story based games like Uncharted will always be superior.
@@Morgue12free I can totally understand that. I didn't find the gameplay extremely riveting tbh. It's somewhat mindless and repetitive. But it's one of those games I like to just relax too and be immersed in the world, music, and environments from time to time. I also liked the story touching on existentialism and found that to be an interesting aspect to the story. Uncharted 4
Breath of the Wild is one of the few open world games where I’m constantly excited to explore and find new things, the whole world is so deliberate and interesting with secrets everywhere. Personally the shrines get annoying as some of them are kinda repetitive, but I still enjoyed doing them out of necessity to upgrade health and stamina. The whole game is so well designed to make every area distinct with its own culture, weapons, plants, etc. Truly a one of a kind game in my mind as open world games are plagued with a problem that can only be described as “wide as an ocean, but as deep as a puddle.” They through you in a world so large they they couldn’t possibly make every corner of it important or interesting and therefore pointless.
@@Slop_Dogg I mean it was my first Zelda game and I think it’s the second best game I’ve ever played. Something just feels so natural and open about the exploration like no other game. Have you ever tried it?
@@Slop_Dogg I'm not saying it doesn't share the flaws of any open world game, it just feels like more time was spent making sure areas had something to offer instead of making the game open world for the sake of it
@@Yodalemos the game gives you multiple main linear quests in the adventure log. all the exploring you don’t really have to do and that’s the best part
I love the Sims 1 music in the background of your videos! XD Pretty good transitions, as well. I don't agree that open world games are bad, but a pretty good video overall.
Most of the games criticized here had me really hyped to play them. Then I did, and for hours it was fine, but then came a sudden realization that I was just wasting my time, that the game was just nothingness. The latest one I tried was Farcry 5. What a chore. Oddly enough, according to popular opinion, and with all willingness to fight the horde trying to crucify me, I have to include Zelta BOTW in that list. I gave that overrated garbage three strikes. The last time I tried it managed to engage me for 15 hours before I got sick of its vapid nonsense topped with filler. I'm most definitely done with open world unless there's something different to it. I heard from a friend that Fenix or whatever from Ubi has a lot of humor in its story. Thing is, if there's a company guilty of making standardized, bland, boring open world games, it would be them, so to say I'm wary of that recommendation is a huge understatement.
I like TES and Fallout a lot, and one of the main reasons I didnt like BOTW was because the world was so big with so little between encounters. If a game is open world it needs to fill that world with oddities, trinkets, and challenges or quests and have a state of flow from one section to the next.
@@florianz8922 "I miss linear zelda and posted this on reddit and I was crucified" Zelda has always been an open-world game. Link to the Past. Twilight Princess. Majora's Mask. Ocarina of Time. They are all open world. I think the reason they don't feel like it is because it didn't have all the filler.
@@minutemansam1214 2D games do open world really well because they are way more densely packed with obstacles, enemies, puzzles and interactions. 3D games feel way slower to move through and the map is designed with bulk rather than density.
Same man I'm trying witcher 3 right now and just getting bored of it,so much useless horse riding and for what a bunch of filler events and weapons that i sell anyways
Open world kind of kills replayability for me. I keep wanting to go back to Spiderman or Ghost of Tsushima since their PS5 updates but then I remember all the trivial side activities and scavenging I had to do. Or I can do New Game Plus and trivialize all the challenge. Unless it's an RPG where I can build a unique new character, I don't enjoy any progression system that requires busy work to get. It's something I really appreciated about Red Dead Redemption 2. Yes there's a lot of things you can do on the side to upgrade (but not only did it make sense for the setting of the game) but you also could beat the game with any set of guns and your basic abilities. So replaying I can engage with the side content if I want to or not. I don't need to worry about it from a mechanical standpoint. The main progression should just be given out with the story, and side stuff should be additional for your own enjoyment to get, not a requirement.
I struggle to remember any major mountian in Skyrim where you have nothing on top. Usualy it is some chest, or some ruins or another point of interest. Bethesda makes the best open worlds in games, and it is honestly pretty weird how bad most non-bethesda open world games are. P.s. While GTA V is better in traversal, its open world is pretty empty, and mostly serves as a decoration. In Skyrim, each 30 seconds of walking you find some dungeon, or enemy camp or some loot etc.
i see where your coming from but in the end it really comes down to preference, one of the reasons why skyrim is my favorite game is walking around for hours finding shit. Something that someone else can find arguably boring but for me its just so fucking fun.
It's honestly kinda funny how these games are turning into clones of each other. All of them have a sub par story, The Mission structure is copy and paste and they go overboard on the progression.
The problem with linear games are I'm not trying to watch a movie or buy into a story that I just don't care about. I'm trying to play a video game and I feel like linear games focus too much on emotional plays or cutscenes that force the direction regardless of what I want
Hey Renn! I know you probably won’t see this, just wanted to say I’m surprised you’re only at like 170k subs. These videos are amazing. Your humor makes me genuinely laugh. I love it a lot more than the older VO gameplay videos, but I know these take a lot longer to script and shoot. Seeing your take on “gaming concepts” (like open world, p2w) is refreshing, and imo I like them better than focusing on a single game. Can’t wait to see you hit 1m subs
If you wanna talk about traversal in open world games, you have to talk about Days Gone. The motorbike physics and upgrade system make traversal so much fun and engaging. In terms of content, there's so much to do from Hordes and nests to bounties and Nero checkpoints. All that content in a relatively small map on top of an excellent story, it's the most underrated game in my opinion. I bring it up as often as I can lol. It gets a bad name because its a zombie game, but its a dam good zombie game. If you're reading this and you haven't played it, please do!
i do think your assuming open world games and games with curated experiences have the same goal to me open world games are generally supposed to be more about that progression high
![ตีสิบเดย์ [FULL] | ตัวตึง! ปากกล้า! ท้ารบ! "ทนายไพศาล เรืองฤทธิ์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pU3dXTsaBVc/mqdefault.jpg)
Start your free trial on GameMaker Studio 2 here: opr.as/RennsReviews
Song list:
00:00 - TES - Awake
00:19 - Chocobo returns - FFXIII
01:23 - Shine - Mirrors edge
01:32 - GRAW theme
01:40 - Katamari on the jazz
02:28 - Cyber Fury
03:03 - The yaschas Massid FFXIII
03:35 - Buy mode 4 - The sims
05:30 - Katamari on the jazz
05:50 - GRAW theme
06:02 - Skyrim theme song
06:11 - Sleeping dogs theme
06:22 - Rage 2 main menu theme
06:33 - The disaster - RDR2
06:47 - dreams of venice - AC2
07:24 - discodeath - robert parker
07:51 - cozy elevator rides
08:36 - Katamari Damacy overture
09:37 - as a light flame
10:32 - Just Cause 4 ost
11:16 - kinect sports season 2 theme
11:50 - Nicos shop - DMC 5
12:30 - far horizons - TES
13:10 - DJ party - The touryst
13:43 - neighborhood 2 - the sims
14:14 - shine mirrors edge
14:52 - swanky funky
15:09 - neighborhood 3 - the sims
15:36 - everyday things
16:21 - life is beautiful - deadly premonition
16:47 - art of balance - the touryst
17:31 - power core - blood dragon
17:49 - unknown track - the touryst
18:09 - staff roll - the touryst
18:54 - neighborhood 2 - the sims
19:41 - don't wanna
20:56 - houston Re - katamari forever
Sounds cool
Dietz nuts! No f'real ima use this tho
Will you please do a review of Red Dead Redemption 2
Game maker is the only thing I love more than Ghost Rectum Wildlands.
your days gone lol
I love how in one way or another Ubisoft will be on a list. And not in a good way
Why not? Their worlds are top tier. Gameplay is often too repetetive, but worlds are great imo
@@SzatanistaDzezowy Miles wide, puddle deep.
@@WMan37 Nope. The Division 1 or Watch Dogs 1 and 2 have best cities in all videogames last gen. Just stunning worlds to travel.
@@SzatanistaDzezowy I don't care how nice something _looks_ (unless it's a VR game and even then I'd rather something focus on mechanics), I care how nice it feels to _play._ I have played both The Division 1 and Watch_Dogs, and the only memorable thing from The Division 1 for me is survival mode which felt well balanced and had actual tension, and the only memorable thing from Watch_Dogs is the vigilante events that ultimately amounted to people just going "hey bro you're cool" on the streets.
I'd rather have smaller areas that are more densely packed with content and side stories like Kamurocho from Yakuza than a massive open world with map markers everywhere that has to copy and paste content everywhere to pad out the run time.
ShortHax is a bot account. It’s been exposed in a number of videos lately that they have taken over comment sections
Meanwhile, the sentiment of "well, I got 60 hours out of my 60 dollar game so good investment" is spreading like wildfire.
The importance of playtime vs price really depends on the game in my opinion. If it's a tower defence or battle royale, then it better be fun enough that I can get as many hours as I paid EUR (or more), but if it has a solid story and kept me engaged, then 10 hours of gameplay can easily be worth 60 EUR, even more sometimes. I spent 30 hours on Resident Evil Village, and I bought the big one for 80/90 EUR (can't remember). Still feels worth it to me.
i got 444 hours in ER so i think i got my moneys worth
@@Mike-official That is *exactly* what I'm decrying.....
Playtime shouldn't factor into worth because it'll incentivise devs to just copy paste their content to get to some arbitrary number of hours.
(I understand that this isn't the case for ER)
I get the sentiment. I get through a lot of games fast and that doesn't really mean their bad or I didn't get my money's worth
Agreed. Some of my favourite RPGs are 20-40 hours in length, and the enjoyment was well worth the price of admission.
"Ghost Rectum Wildlands" gave me a good chuckle
It sucks, that really could've been a great game.
@@JZStudiosonline I thought it was decent. But I only played the campaign in co-op and I had my buddies to fuck around with so It wasn't that mind numbingly repetitive.
Yeah hihi he changed a word to rectum thats funny.
@@chabbab6698 r/woooosh
Yeah
I'll always take a great 10 to 20 hour linear experience over a souless open world
same.
Same here
It's not about the world, it's about the content
I would absolutely despise a game where you just press 3 buttons and your only sole objective is "kill enemies"
That's I what I feel with botw and most open. Their empty and boring
I’ll replay a great 10-20 hour linear game experience more than I’ll play an open world game with 100 hours of content. The former has the freedom to have different level designs and locations while the latter is usually restricted to the same general location and the same basic mission structure with padded out fetch quests.
Open world games were supposed to be about interconnected gameplay systems that create a believable world through cause-and-effect dynamics that we can participate in. Instead they're usually about going from point to point, grinding for loot and XP, while giving you a lot of places on the map to do so.
Just negative space for the sake of horse riding and seeing your graphic cards bleed
Which is why nv is so good, you're able to see firsthand the politics at work throughout the game.
Yet there is no cause and effect to be found. We've mostly seen the effect of a handful of minigame instances tossed and scattered far apart to travel between.
Open worlds are meant to be interactive and interesting. But these industries seem to think an open world is just a really large map.
At least BotW got the "Interconnected system" part right. You can just about grab any two game assets, smash them together, and something interesting will happen.
Rockstar has my favourite design when it comes to open worlds: randomness when in the world and linearity when doing a mission.
Rockstar does great with set pieces and using locations for story telling rather than just to look pretty! Loved that the stories would also open up locations that normally wouldn’t be explorable like the Gaming Headquarters and Meth House in GTA5 are still really memorable to me. One issue I always had with Far Cry (in particular 4 lol) for comparison is that Ubisoft had all these cool locations for the player to visit but there was nothing more to it beyond random collectibles and maybe some extra exp. Same feelings I had with Spider-Man where missions could have taken better advantage of some locations throughout the city
Yeah, but sometimes their missions are _too_ linear, to where it completely breaks your sense of freedom and immersion.
rockestar Is Using The Exact Game Play And Game Design For Past 19 Years.
Honestly I have the opposite view. Rockstar makes the most fun boring games. The details are insane and I appreciate it, but I don't feel the open world complements their games. They throw in an open world in a linear story coz they can.
A game which is supposed to be a freedom simulator from society's restrictions, restricts you from doing anything but following the script. How ironic.
@@ashutoshbundela3744 honestly so true RDR2 definitely felt that way, found it fun and beautiful to explore the world but in a lot of ways it felt like the game was just riding horse from spot to spot
2 minutes in and I suddenly realize how I missed Renn with 2 ns
Our favorite boy in the whole wide world
FR!
Well I mean. He is our little boy.
@@Puppy_Puppington … in the whole wide world
I'm about 3 minutes in and I love your style, the lack of mindless screaming, well presented opinions and facts, you sir are indeed doing it right
Renn really is my favorite little boy in the whole wide world.
How many do you know?
TWU
not gonna lie, they way you manage to green screen game footage on a variety of objects, and do it so well , is something i enjoy quite a bit with your videos. keep up the good work, Renn!
also will you review Far Cry 6 at some point, please?
As someone who has played a ton of games now, I find the busywork of open world games provides no joy anymore. It just becomes an immediate chore.
I'm significantly harder to please these days on top of major game releases being more iterative and unambitious than ever before.
I think is fair you feel that way but my tastes differ idk sometimes I like that feeling when you look at all the ticks on an open map and you go “oh yeah that’s a lot of busy work”
Yep. At least in Yakuza and The Witcher 3 there's some effort to put actual story and thought into the side stuff rather than just the usual shit copied 500 times all over the fucking map.
You and me both.
Thank you for putting what I have been feeling into words.
play cruelty squad
There's something inherently disappointing about Paul Walker-ing into a tree at full speed only to have the car receive minor damage he says....gaht damn that was cold lol
I Paul Walker into trees, buildings, and everything in between. Open world games should be called Paul Walkers.
Unnecessary jab at Paul Walker....
@@jerryb4705 It's what Paul would have wanted.
Truth though
Wow those tree and ground textures look so real, AND THOSE SHADOWS!!!Do you have ray tracing enabled? What specs do you run real life on?
Shrooms
I know for sure, that he's playing on hard difficulty (he chose to play as fat dude with glasses and Grey hair).
@@emulation2369 yeah I pick easy mode so i become the rock
@@justadictatorridingonanuke3714 *beautiful woman with onlyfans
I got some lenses for my hardware, the graphics are waaaaaayyy better. I feel like I was playing with a blur filter before.
Bro said Breath of the wild was good, then proceeded to explain all the reasons it sucks
i feel like breath is one of the only exceptions to the rules if that makes sense ? i guess you
could say it’s a … breath of fresh air 😉
the quality of these videos is just mindblowing. i love how he doesnt just sit in a room when he talks he actually switches everything up
Right? He could be a filmmaker. I was thinking constantly how intelligently this was shot. There's so many video essays on YT and they feel like they are primed to be audio-only, whereas this video is a whole experience!
Reminds me of vsauce or something
Skyrim doesn’t need complex movements that would betray the whole game. Walking from point A to B is some the best gaming experiences I had, and I’m not even joking. The scenery, the music, the atmosphere all give an amazing feeling.
Feel like you missed a valid point about replayability. A bunch of these games have so much random shit stuck in them you don't even feel like playing them again, or like you mentioned with Tsushima the gameplay is only fun for so long, so after you finish the game you know if you try to play it again it will just end up in boredom. The older, simpler games like Tony Hawk and Burnout 3, despite being completable in a few hours end up with way more play time in the long run.
The only game that I can currently replay without being bored is the original RDR, don't know why but the story and stranger missions are just so fun and interesting.
Fuck the Legend of The West challenges though
Me and my buddies spent over 300 hours on Burnout 3 in summer 2016 just playing it nonstop whilst drinking and getting high I’ve never found a game with that much repeatability in 24 years
Ah, Burnout 3... Quality game right there. You've brought back some nostalgia for me.
@@Liamx-00 I did the same with MGS3. Without cutscenes you can do a "quick play" in 4-5 hours, but there's so much depth of systems and other shit you can fuck around with in that game. 10+ years later you can still discover new things.
I'm still trying to play Skyrim (vanilla) again
Open world games can be incredible. But I feel like less is more is very important when designing them. I feel like a lot of side activities that bigger games shove into everything would feel a lot more impactful if there were only 1 or 2 instances of it in the whole open world, then you would have reason to explore different areas to find these unique features.
I've been playing old school runescape recently, and one thing that really stood out is that there aren't many areas that are fully convienent. Like if you want to smith a weapon, first you need to mine ore in one area, then smelt it into a metal bar in another area and finally smith it on an anvil in a completely different area. There aren't many places where all three activities are in very close proximity, so you constantly need to travel to acomplish them.
I think what a lot of open world games get wrong is that many of their activities feel exactly the same, if a player has dozens and dozens of ways to kill enemies, then the game should have many areas that make certain ways of killing uniquely innefective.
I think the best open world game ever made is Outer Wilds (no, not Outer Worlds)... give it a go Renn, it is literally one of the best games ever made! it has my highest possible recommendation
Been meaning to give it a go!
@@RennsReviews Hope to see it :)
I second this. Outer Wilds is ALL about exploration and discovery. to say any more is unneeded.
The best open world game ever made is very obviously Assassin's Creed Valhalla☺️
Outer wilds and BOTW are two of the best open world games I've ever played. Haven't finished Outer Wilds yet, unfortunately, but I'd guarantee its quality to prod your sense of wander to be unmatched
I have to disagree about Ghost of Tsushima’s combat. I have over 200hrs in that game and still love the combat
I just started playing Ghost of Tsushima and I have to agree, the combat is so good
came here to say this, after the main mission everything else is pretty damn repetitive but I really didn't mind cause the combat was so fun, especially in harder difficulties
He said the combat is good the game is just repetitive and goes on too long which imo is true. I would of loved ghosts if it was about 20 hours but every hour past that 20 hour point I started to hate it and see how repetitive it was.
I also have to disagree with that. Ghost of Tsushima's combat was so well designed that I never got bored of it on the entirety of my playthrough.
I love the way you structure and edit your videos! It adds a comedic element while keeping the viewer entertained and engaged, without being over the top. Please keep up the great work, bro 🙏🏼
Metro Exodus is a perfect example of "less is more." It's big and small enough to get you hooked into the semi open worlds while it doesn't take too much of your time.
I remember how in the first area i stumbled on anna in that whole i was just exploring mindlessly and it drew me back in to the story
My only problem is that it seems like a game you can't listen to music while you play. Might miss out on the story. I got ADHD so I like to play games and listen to podcasts/music while I play.
@@ericglenn9984 i used to do the same i have adhd as well but you really get more out of games if you just limit yourself to doing one task at a time not even just talking about story driven games i found that when i multi task like that i wouldn't actually be paying that much attention to what i was doing nor could i remember much i did in the game or the video/podcast that i was listening too
@@ericglenn9984 Fellow ADHD'er here. It does sound like through one way or the other you've let your brain normalize over-stimulation and thus find it far harder to focus on just one thing. Probably that the ADHD has made it easier to fall into that rabbit-hole.
My advice is to try to slowly practice doing things mindfully with just some natural white noise for the background.
Reading is good, as so much enjoyment can be gained from a slow read of a good book.
With the brain it's like with muscles, no matter if one is genetically weaker or stronger practice is still the only way to get better at something.
I didn't play exodus I prefer the previous games
Skyrim almost always had something to do when discovering a new area
I’ve never seen a dumpster be put to that much good use since Glenn cheated death on The Walking Dead
Shoutout Brian Zane
Didn’t not expect that reference on this video
Glenn and Renn - coincidence????
But I love exploring those worlds, and I also respect the worlds themselves the devs end up creating, isolated from the games they are in, as "anticipations of the virtual worlds we will create". I think it would be very bad for our future in Virtual Universes if we were to turn away from open world or open-universe simply because these (in the larger scale of things) very early iterations are not that thorough.
No one is saying to turn away from them, he’s saying developers need to try harder and make these open worlds better.
@@giiavvana Title of the video is Clickbait.
I think you are just young and don't feel the fatigue yet.
@@MGrey-qb5xz take off the rose-colored glasses, old games ain't that good
@@stinkmonger open world games peaked at 2015,witcher 3,fallout 4 and....yeah that's it. Sorry but riding around on a piece of ass to get to the actual content is getting boring.
Man.. you SERIOUSLY have a talent for entertainment and presentation. I could watch you make a presentation about making toast and it would be awesome! Thank you for your hard work,and keep it up!
Also credits to the editor who makes it even more entertaining.
Hey Renn, just found your channel through this video. It was so good that I went back through your channel and watched for almost 2 hours. It is unexplainable to me how you don't have half a million subscribers by this point, your content is awesome. I can tell just how much work you've put it to this channel, all the editing and scripting must take ages. Keep it up man, I think over the next few months your channel is really going to explode!
I hope I could have your editing skills. These transitions are purely legendary. Anyway, excellent video as always, I hope this one will have the recognition it deserves.
Open world games:
A genre in which the gameplay breaks the story, and the gameplay often sucks ass.
Why do people play these?
I tend to enjoy linear action games due to them having actual combat encounter design. Open world games just have random groups of enemies with basic behaviour that you run into but linear games have arenas that are designed. They take into account where you come in, enemy placements, possible spawn points for reinforcements, cover and flank routes, the arrangement of different enemy types and how they compliment one another and the arena with possible power weapons, resupply stations and vantage points. It all makes for much more interesting combat.
Yeah but its destructiveness comes at the cost of individualality. I think most open world gamers like freedom and being able to explore and immersive yourself in a world. And do quest and discover people and special objects that others may have not. You are teo separate types of gamers so of course you wouldn't like the same thing but I think that the focus on A.I. is trivial (to these games) and how he talked about progression was subjective. Especially considering I have the problem of playing mostly the story and then replaying it and going around the world. And harder combat doesn't mean more engaging, the combat in Rdr2 isn't hard but when combined with the story and atmosphere and the reason we are doing it it becomes engaging. Or when you are exploring the world and get held up by outlaws and then have to shoot your way through them. Or just shooting and robbing people for money to buy some things you want to customize your chracter. There are so many benefits to this type of genre that go way past its flaws. The restrictiveness of linear games means everyone will have mostly the sameexperience. Which is more akin to a movie rather than a movie. This is one reason I like TLOU2 because it is more open combining both the well made A.I. of a linear games with a more open world to explore and get your own experience from.
Actually it's doable in open world game. Surprisingly enough, fallout 4 proved this. After modding that game so the AI stop being too retaded and shoot rubber bullet, I notice a lot of arena in that game actually let the ai flank you, gain vantage point on you and the wildly different enemy types actually change your approach to fight. Half of Bethesda was putting in the work while the other half just invalidate them all.
Another example is stalker: anomaly. Level design focus on atmosphere over gameplay, sure. But the varied, lethal enemies and the strict resource management make up for their shortcoming
Open world games have not gotten it right since the original GTA trilogy
Whoa, that's exactly what he said in the video!
An open world game done right can be phenomenal. Red dead and gta, fallout and Skyrim, etc.
Skyrim? Oh hell naw.. that world is fun as hell to walk around in randomly. I saw 3 Giants punching a wooly mammoth when a dragon straight fired up on on all 3... that shit was wild. You may have to play Skyrim more than 10min bro lol
Honestly, I think Morrowind had the best fast travel system - between the silt striders, boats, mages guild teleports, the propylon master index plugin and Barilzar's mazed band in the Tribunal expansion, you could get around the map quickly, but still had to plan out your routes and cover ground on foot, and - with the latter two - actually had to work to earn them.
I get the sense from watching the video that he's never played Morrowind
Moving across morrowind in of itself scaled with your progress too, yeah you can move pretty efficiently using recall, interventions and paying the guild and silk striders; but by the time you get some magic levels and are in the mid game you can jump across the entire map and get anywhere at a moments notice with fall damage spells, really fun.
i loved kingdom come: deliverance as an open-world game because it gave some urgency in some of the quest lines where you could actually fail a quests if you weren't on time.
instead off "you have all the time in the world" also it gives the players a warning not just start a quest if you are not gonna play it vibe.
That's a great game.
Genuinely one of the most underviewed and underrated channels out there. The production value and the tight writing of your scripts is great, and I really like the sort of middle ground you have between making fun of the "outdoor youtube video" trope and actually doing it really well at the same time.
Hey Renn I know this is a 2 year old video but I’ve got a question! The headphones at 4:20 seem to be the Logitech G933, but what microphone is that?
TBH the best open world games are ones like Yakuza, compact, interesting, and with no wasted space.
Yakuza immediately popped into my head. Smaller areas that somehow feels larger than Skyrim, and very dense with activity for the player.
There is a reason to run to and fro in the same place - because you might have missed something, maybe there is a substory here, or a place to take a break and play a minigame. There's literally no reason beyond looking at the same scenery to do this in a modern Ass-Creed or GTA.
Can you tell I have 57 days of playtime across the series
I tried losing myself in Kamurocho in Yakuza 0 but I couldn't because of how artificial and segmented it is. I guess I'm too accustomed to the GTA and Red Dead Redemption cinematographic realism and immersion. Maybe I'll enjoy Yakuza Kiwami 2 or 6 with the new engine.
@@hayk3000 kiwami 2 is the overall best game in the series tbqh. Also, judgment uses the new system too.
I've played so many linear games since PS1 that I will still prefer openworld over linear ones. Although there can be exceptions because nothing is set in stone or to the extremity that it's either one or the other.
I think RDR2 managed to pull off a good open world. It's got so many secrets it encouraged me to explore. I set myself a goal for the next 2-3 hours to, hunt or fish a certain animall or finding a specific plant for crafting, just explore a certain region for a gold treasure, weapon, crafting recipe, or maybe encounter strange people that inhabit the world. There's more to do like challenges, finding different horses, or unique hats, and plenty more, but the unpredictability of the living world of people, animals, and terrain, keeps me adapting my goals. And that's what makes it fun for me.
I wasn't, and still am not, in a rush of finishing the game. I just want to exist in the game because the world is believable and gorgeous to be in. I don't care about boasting that I finished it. I'm not getting a prize for it. Once I know all its secrets I can replay it with a sole focus on the story.
But maybe that's problem, you can go about two ways in openworld games. You can either finish the story as fast as possible and explore later to find all its secrets. Or you do everything from the start at the expense of the story (and maybe become overpowered), only to replay it for the story while knowing all its secrets.
This video has a lot of good points, and well thought out and true arguments, but when an openworld is done right, it offers the mistery of exploration and the unbound freedom not found in linear games. And a good story is just the icing on the cake.
If you have more games at your disposal you can have access to so many openworlds you can play and finish at any time you like. If it's one the few you have, you can have bang for your bucks.
Telling a good story is not exclusive to linear games. It just depends if the player can have its priorities straight, or developers can deliver one. And while many become repetitive, you can put it aside to pick it up later. Although more diversity in gameplay mechanics is always welcome to keep you longer engaged.
Sorry but the title of this video sucks, although I respect and agree with some contentions of this analytical critique by these two creators.
A sign that an open world game is good imo, is if you can replay it. For me that comes down to; if I can start the game and not be bogged down by mandatory story beats. I realized that when I deleted my BoTW file by accident and was pretty adamant I wasn't going back. A week later, I started again like "welp, I can at least go the opposite direction this time without having to do any story stuff."
I've only replayed 2 open world games in my life: BoTW and New Vegas. Both of which have really loose narratives.
did this man just say riding around in rdr 2 wasn't satisfying?
There are a few opinions in here that I disagree with (I actually prefer when fast driving doesn’t kill you, it allows me to get crazy when driving and I enjoy that) but like always, amazingly well written and produced. Hats off.
"I actually prefer when fast driving doesn’t kill you, it allows me to get crazy when driving and I enjoy that"
Ubisoft after making FC2 : "Write that down! Dumb down all penalties for our next open world games. And cater to these people so our games sell no matter how shallow."
I like sweating like hell and trying my hardest and nailing sick drifts. I don't like the frustration of utterly fucking up and being punished for like twenty whole seconds in-game for holding a button down half a second longer than needed...
Some people actually have exhausting work to do in their lives and don't want to be further tested by twitchy or boat-like driving controls, I get that, but I've done over 600 hours of stress-testing with Vesaro products, racing simulators. You start to care about your lap times or the money stops being worth the stress!
I personally believe we shouldn't lower our standards and should challenge ourselves as much as possible. If you want a passive experience, then enjoy a more passive medium, like film.
Can't expect your driving to become passive because you want it to be; people don't know what they want and when they get what they ask for they're miserable. Game design has gone down the toilet PRECISELY BECAUSE devs are trying to cater to the psychology of - effectively - addictive repetition of mediocre difficulty in games to milk as many hrs as possible from the customer
Well, not everyone can be 100% right. And by that I mean you :)
This channels editing style is so refreshing, I absolutely love the crafty green screening & overall creative thinking throughout the video.
Keep it up man, this is golden content right here. 👌
Your editing has reached some kinda zenith, dude. How you've managed to find a balance point between amateurish little-boy goofs and such slick transitions is really impressive. I see you.
A lot of open world games do suck but a lot don't. In the good open world games a large open world adds the feeling that the game is an actual world. Like Red Dead Redemption 2, I actually feel like I'm in a real world, even if 80% of it is... just nothing. I still enjoy "living" in it, walking to a destination rather than running/fast travelling there. In Oblivion or Skyrim (with about 6,000 mods) I enjoy the big world. Same with Fallout 3/NV. Much of the world is a wasteland with nothing/little in it, I still love it though because it makes the game feels like a real world that I'm in.
I suppose it's just a case of different people liking different things.
i remember that fallout 4 made it to where you only find certain weapons depending how high a level your characters was. At first one would only be able to find pipe weapons. It was a full on open world game but they "wall it off" by having certain areas have enemies who were way more powerful. They would be higher level, have better armor and weapons. It felt that was a good way to keep the player in a fixed area for the time being. But as one would get higher in level more powerful weapons would unlock.
Yeah and all that sucks lol.
I'm pretty sure other fallout games had that weak weapons for low lvl players thing
Only introduces more issues for players who want to be efficient. You want that world spawn power armor to be X-01? Better make a shitload of shelves and statues to farm xp.
No, that's not what's happening, you're just getting level gated loot. The enemies aren't any more powerful in certain zones or anything like that, the game just scales random encounters as well.
What you're describing is how most scaled games work in general so I wonder how many games you've actually played.
@@oh-not-the-bees7872 nah, I've been to areas further south in the map and had a hard time fighting them on my level 100 character, while I could kill raiders closer to concord or the vault in like 1 shot. There's Def some area scaling.
First video I've ever seen from your channel.
Just want to say the clear amount of effort, production, time, and attention to detail was mind blowing. From the transitions to the memorization of script or creativity with approaching each topic, I was thoroughly impressed. Never seen so much cool stuff with a green screen (I'm a boomer), either.
Sold me when your custom-made closed captions credited the games from whose footage you were using, though. Subbed harder than Subway.
Unbelievable effort that hopefully doesn't go unnoticed.
Your Papa Tony has always said of these games "So much to do and I don't want to do any of it" love you son, I've been having a shit time at the moment (your step mom is a real pain) and I'm looking forward to catching up on all your vids today
This is seriously one of the greatest videos I’ve ever seen. I’m puzzled as to how you managed to impose footage onto some of these surfaces, and your transitions are seamless.
Well done.
Is it me or do Renn's videos get exponentially better each time?
The main problem is most of these huge open worlds feel lifeless and are devoid of meaningful activities -ubisoft is the worst for this, just fill up a huge empty space with a thousand question marks which are just collectables and the same tower climb X30. Small hub worlds like those in DE: mankind divided are the best imo, not ridiculously huge but dense with lots of secrets, stories to uncover and many organic side quests. And Prague actually feels alive and like an actual living, breathing city
A good 8 hour campaign you can play 10 times is infinitely better than a 60 hour campaign that gets boring after 10 or so hours. Games dont need to be longer and bigger, they should be more focused and polished.
Arkham Asylum was a shining example of that concept. You can finish the game in a single night, just like Batman does in the game. The best of the series.
My dissatisfaction with open-world games is that the sense of a vast world has diminished. I'm not talking about the actual size of the map you can walk on. For example, in the old Final Fantasy series, you could literally travel around the world. There were bustling cities, idyllic countryside, snowy regions to the north, perpetual summer towns, and vast deserts. However, in FF15, the area you can freely explore is essentially just one region of the continent. There are only a few towns. In this case, I would have preferred the feeling of traveling around the world, even in a closed setting. Thinking about it, FF13 seems to have tried to balance the breadth of the world with the quality of graphics. FF16, by limiting the world's stage and dividing the map into several sections, seems to be trying to find a solution, reflecting the series' history and its trial and error.
This is probably in place of the far cry 6 review cuz renn ain't playing that shit after 5 and new dawn, also web of shadows being mentioned in a video always makes me happy
5 was good though. Better than 4. "Eagle! Eagle!", got old pretty fast
@@juliusfucik4011 5 fucking sucked(aside from Joseph and the endings) and 4's map was awful, it did have some cool features though.
Dude, you hooked me when you whipped out the green portrait from your pocket, but when you laid down with your green screen and just kept going, you sold me. You're a creator I wanna see more from. Good stuff, just subbed
This video had some the most of amusing use of "Green Screen" that I've ever seen. Especially that dumpster one. Overall great video, Renn with 2 N's. 👍
*IHOP ROOF*
Im so surprised no one has said it but the editing is so cool and different from other people. It's so nice!
HAHA I LOVED THE DUMPSTER TRANSITIONS AT 6:00
Idk man I find the horse riding on rdr2 to be one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in gaming for a while
hell yeeee
I hate this video because a ton of people took away from this that open world games as a genre sucks, when that is far from the case. Just because a few bad open world games exist, does not mean the entire model is bad. I would much rather play a game where I'm given choices than a linear borefest. The tradeoffs to allow for open world are worth it; the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
"Wow, what a cool thing t-to d-have and service -s GOOD" made me absolutely cackle like a green witch
My attention span on TH-cam is abysmal. However, I sat here watched all 21 min of ur video; needless to say you put in more work and effort in this one video than EA has in all their games. You my friend, just earned a sub😤👍🙌
First time viewer here and this video was great! So creative and kept a great upbeat energy throughout the video while maintaining balance with the more analytical parts.
I feel the same way about a lot of these games and I hope there's more refinement in open world games that come out in the future, especially in next gen games, so we avoid games feeling like shiny to-do lists. I've seen The Outer Wilds mentioned but also check out The Pathless for another 'open world' game that doesn't feel like it wastes your time.
The age old curse of linear games: nothing to replay.
The age old curse of open-world games: nothing worth replaying.
You instantly get a thumbs up just for that title.
I'm so tired of open world games, all because game length is what's used to put a price on a product.
I miss good linear games that had a beginning and an end, and lacked absurd filler side quests.
Ok boomer
The quality of your comedy is honestly S tier. I could watch you review anything I mildly give a shit about 😂
As I finished typing this, I scroll up to continue watching and this man immediately green screens a fucking dumpster with a game over it 😭☠️☠️☠️
Really glad you brought up pacing and padding as an issue with open world games. I love the Yakuza series for example but the pacing can really grind to a halt in some entries with the amount of side activities there are, and it ain't helped by the fact that they're sometimes yearly releases at that.
And you aren't wrong with how some games are badly stretched out either, there almost always reaches a point where its tempting to drop them or just rush through the story missions to get it off your backlog and never replay it again.
None of that stuff is required in Yakuza though. There's only a handful of them throughout the series that activate on their own, you have to actually look for most of them. And they don't really give you anything other than XP, which the main missions give you way the hell more XP so you can just play the main story if you want. You can straight ignore them.
That feels like a problem with the gamer themselves. Unless the game forces you into playing side activities to progress through the story, it is your fault for letting the activities distract you.
I think you’re kinda wrong about that because a lot of open world games are are some of the best games I’ve ever played like BOTW or Skyrim or Elden ring
I think rdr2 is one of the best open world games simply because of its immense world as well as the writing and the characters
Unlucky john can't swim and that post story cool area is restrictive. Would be nice if you could take the boats and go on vacation for example for completion of your pokedex
@@i.r.4378 yeah, too bad nobody taught John how to swim
Control and Metro Exodus are the perfect semi-open world games that have just the right amount of everything. Great story, enjoyable gameplay, good optional quests, and perfect game length.
I'm there with you, I loved what they did, breaking it into large sections with quite a lot of freedom to wander and get into extra stuff, but it also wasn't MUST do. There's always a linear track to jump onto, or off of, whenever you feel like it. The places aren't too big to overstay their welcome and it winds up being a pretty 'free' experience with a full story to carry through it.
This is why the Metros are some of my all-time favorites. I haven’t gotten to Control yet.
Exodus was great because it struck the perfect balance between linearity and openness imo.
though i agree with some of your points , in my humble opinion open worlds are the best video game genre , and I'm talking about good open worlds like most rockstar and bethesda titles and cdprojektred's the witcher 3 .
the crazy amount of content , incredible world building , different interesting mechanics , branching , big or small sotries depending on the quests , meeting different characters throughout the world and seeing how your choices affect the world around you and the characters around you is what sets apart open world games is why i love them . in fallout new vegas you can literally kill everyone and every choice is going to affect what's going to happen in the end . in the witcher 3 there are side quests that feel like campaigns of their own and also affect the ending and the characters .
you'll still get to use your gear and all the cool stuff you unlocked in the main story after finishing it in side quests and around the world rather than losing all of that after the game is over unless the game has a new game plus option .
the amount of incredible memories gta vice city san Andreas , gta 4 , gta 5 , the 3d elder scrolls ( specially skyrim ) , fallout 3 , new vegas and the witcher 3 ( with its 2 amazing dlcs blood and wine and heart of stone ) gave me are memories i will remember and cherish for a life time !
edit : forgot to mention red dead Redemption 1 and 2
You have an opinion very similar to a friend of mines. He absolutely loves witcher and elder scrolls.
Sadly I can't seem to get into open world games. (not the big ones anyway) I've tried skyrim, witcher 1, 2 and 3, dead island, fallout 3, days gone, horizon zero dawn and many others. They all bore me and I genuinely think it's because their rewards are never worth it to me. That, and I strongly believe that if you fast travel in a game then the open world has failed to justify its inclusion.
But I have liked a few of them. (Most of them rockstar's games because their stories are so intriguing) But a few others were outerwilds, batman arkham city and patholgic 2, but those hardly feel like a typical open world game to me.
Like, Lol! I WISH I could like witcher 3. I've started that game three separate times and have yet to finish it. SHOW ME YOUR WAYS! LET ME LIKE WITCHER 3 PLS
I typically have the opposite opinion of open world games. Soo much boring crap that isn't worth, the world feels soo small because it feels like a playground without anything fun or worthwhile in them. The combat is often soo garbage I just go back to playing custom mappacks of doom 2. The layout in those are themselves are like works of abstract art. secrets and surprise encounters nested within large halls, domes,simple mazes, spires and arenas connected by smaller paths leading to the next relevant destination in some instances. Other times they have smaller arenas, confined spaces, trap boxes that have paths that lead to larger central zones that generally are chaotic as all hell to get through simply because the number of enemies around. in all of this there are also a variety of ways resources are hidden around or guarded by obstacles through out the area with signs ranging from subtle tells like distant sounds of platforms moving, suspect floors,walls, layout sections that seem like they could be blocking something, valuable objects openly visible but with a hidden trigger required to access them, the possible mechanisms that can count as triggers, a few of triggers themselves being easy to spot while the main prize and more well hidden and guarded triggers tucked away elsewhere. Prizes with obvious paths but tricky traversal and awkward sections making them a challenge to reach, sometimes even these are hidden in plain sight. combine this with varied enemies and partially abstract architecture with hints of more concrete structure logic and you have the core template for shooters possible in custom doom and quake maps.
. Very few open world games have any sense of danger throughout the experience since the combat is almost guaranteed to sucks, the layout most definitely sucks, the activities usually suck and the stories typically also suck. No sense of urgency, risk, or worthwhile reward as everything is just given to you or told to you upfront with no sense of mystery to it.
Nah
Whitelight doing the outro really caught me off guard 😅
You forgot one major problem that most open world games have, ludonarrative dissonance, so many games suffer from that. For example The Witcher 3, you MUST save Ciri as soon as possible but you can do whatever the fuck you want if you are in the open world, you can spend 20 hours in a row playing gwent and there is no consequence, so the story loses its impact and sense of urgence. Another example is Fallout 4, the MC wants to know what happened with his son asap but you, the player, can play every single fucking sidequest and forget about the main story completely.
You think that's bad, play Yakuza 0. Witcher 3 was more "We should check this out" than "We have to do this immediately."
Y0 had you on the run from the entire Yakuza, streets are unsafe, people are getting murdered, a dangerous conspiracy, an enthralling mystery around a patch of land, you're watching girls in bikinis wrestle, teaching a woman to be a dominatrix in front of kids, and racing toy cars.
Man, I need to play Y0 again, what a legend of a game.
I'm level 60 in fallout 4 on survival mode and I've barely advanced the main story at all
What would you modify the horse galloping is RDR2 in order to make it "satisfying"? It's a horse not a Lambo
I've found myself playing a lot more linear games as of late. I've gained an appreciate for games I used to say "eh, whatever." to. JRPGs, replaying old pokemon games and visiting new ones, Resident Evil 2 remake, Fire Emblem, Control, and others haven take over my playtime, where I used to play a lot of Fallout, Skyrim, Cod/Battlefield (multiplayer), Assassin's Creed, and other open world titles.
You mentioned that some times people play, not because they're having fun with the game, but because they're hooked on reward and progression. Warframe does that to you, and that's why it's difficult to stop palying. Games Space Engineers, Satisfactory, Cities skylines, Fallout New Vegas or Mass Effect don't seem to do that, which is very nice.
Open world can be redundant, but most of today's "linear" game experiences are so dumbed down and restrictive, and, sometimes, repetitive, i just can't don't get even more bored with them. To me, the better option tends to be games that set between both worlds, like imeersive sims or RPGs with hubs, like Mass Effect.
Deus Ex HR & MD come to mind
@@JoeCool90 theyre dog caca
This explains why I haven't been able to finish most open world games. Some of the most memorable games to me were linear. For example, Soma and Hellblade were powerful emotional experiences to me that no open world game has ever managed to beat. It's a shame that gamers often see linear games as lesser in terms of content (and not full price worthy). In addition, funny enough, I often find linear games more replayable than open world because they feel more meaningful and less time wasting.
This makes me even more glad that Stalker: Anomaly exists.
Yeah, it was basically glued together by the community from the previous games, the engine and AI was fixed and polished, plus you can always install mods, but it tends to be far better expiriance than most stuff currently availible on the market, even when Stalker commits it's own sins- basic quests, AI still can bug out, some mechanics are tidious.
I haven't played a "true" open world game since Skyrim because I have absolutely no interest in them, in fact hearing that a game is "open world" is now an immediate turnoff for me. To me, open world games are about doing menial tasks with repetitive and easy combat while you wait for cool stuff to maybe sometimes happen. The overarching narrative holds no weight when you can delay an "urgent" situation indefinitely by doing side quests for 3 days.
On the other hand, there is nothing like a finely crafted linear game, even if it's only 6 hours long. I'd rather spend 6 hours completely engaged with properly balanced combat and a well developed story than 50 hours wandering around aimlessly where nothing can challenge me. I think that the idea of people feeling "shorted" by a game that isn't sufficiently long has really damaged the industry. It is of course true to a certain degree, but way too many people will turn their brains off once you tell them a 10 hour game costs $60. Most 50 hour open world games only boil down to about that much actual enjoyable gameplay anyway.
The amount of effort renn spends is impressive!
White light on a renn video???? My favorite video essay guy appearing on another one of my most liked channels??? That’s awesome man! Time to go rewatch his catalogue 😂
I recently got back into gaming after about 7 years - I honestly expected major advances in gameplay in that time but so far feel like I can’t differentiate a game released this year to one from 10 years ago. Some even seem worse, like COD franchise! Maybe I expect too much.
Ya right now games are actually moving backwards. I just focus on my backlog now until something actually good releases.
bro. im trying to start filming stuff, and holy shit.
the way you find ways to do anything with nothing is amazing.
the time you laid down with the green screen. pulling that one out from your short leg. the trashcans.
your thought process and problem solving skills are just so abstract, quick, and improv friendly(yes and)
if for some reason you come to the carolinas hit up your boy i will deff intern with a cam. i gotta see a day on your set XD
like the way you drove forward, looking backwards at traversal draws attention to the upcoming transition. but its also funny on its own
Rockstar's games are my favorite types of open world games. They never feel boring and repetitive to me, I'm always in the mood to replay them. I think they nail the genre the best.
I also liked Bethesda games until Skyrim. They have really nice worlds with an interesting lore, but they are always janky and age like milk from day one and the dungeons and caves are repetitive.
Ubisoft open worlds are the types that you should take notes about how NOT to do an open world. They are the perfect example of mediocrity. The main and side missions and are often indistinguishable. The map is absolutely full of grindy, repetitive stuff and thousands of collectibles. Every side activity is repetitive and there's hundreds of them. When you simply open the map screen in an Ubisoft game and see all that shit you already feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
Probably why I enjoy ac 2-4 far cry 3-4 era games they made because despite being open world they can be 100 percented around 30 hours the issue is that ubisoft have stayed similar in that way but they have just gotten longer causing odyssey being a game that should be around 29 hours like ac 2 or brotherhood but they take around 100 hours they had repetitiveness but it seemed just enough where you go I'm good now but you are basically done with the ga e so it's easy to complete
Breath of the Wild did open world design the best imo. Just make a big ass world and let the player explore it with no restraints.
But I feel like we can do even better than Breath of the Wild.
- Towers are a little too similar to each other.
- Fast travel needs more limitations
- A different map system in general might be better. Instead of having the player climb towers, have them be able to find maps of the world, throughout said world. Or better yet, have them create their own.
- Allowing the player to obtain great tools one by one instead of giving it to them all at the start, so that the player has more things to look forward to.
- Sometimes, less is more. Breath of the Wild reuses a lot of assets for its shrines and stables, making things feel kind of generic sometimes. Maybe if there were less of certain structures, they could put more effort into the things they do have in making them unique, detailed, and special.
- Weapon durability needs to at least be reconsidered.
- Giving more impactful rewards might be more pleasing to players.
These are just some ideas. If I really wanted to go more in-depth, I'd spend an hour or more discussing how open worlds can create a compelling....*open* ***world.***
Can't believe you didn't mention Dying Light as example of good traversal, the parkour in that game is so fun
Rage 2 is a great example of a game with awesome mechanics and abilities that would have been absolutely awesome in a linear game with traditionally designed levels, but was relegated to the realm of monotony and tedium by forcing it to be open world for no good reason. As a result most combat encounters are your typical open world dreck
Is funny how you say open world games prioritize quantity over quality and yet praise Breath of the wild who recycles so much of its content
K . You're still wrong but k
Minecraft ,the stalker series and metro exodus are the only open world games I have any respect for.
@@necrosteel5013 those are absolute bangers
Not really. The 4 divine beasts all have different main quests and bosses and all the shrines and koroks are optional besides the and there are 91 unique shrines to play. don’t know how that recycles content
I just got into this generation of gaming with a PS5. Honestly, I'd take a 8-14 linear experience with good story over one with a 40+ hr open world any day. I just can't bring myself to complete a myriad of side quests when I just want to know the story. Nier Automata might be one of the only open world-styled games I don't mind playing because I love the environments and music so much and they really resonate with me.
I totally agree with you. Except with the Nier Automata shout out. I found that game to be boring after the first chapter.
Story based games like Uncharted will always be superior.
@@Morgue12free I can totally understand that. I didn't find the gameplay extremely riveting tbh. It's somewhat mindless and repetitive. But it's one of those games I like to just relax too and be immersed in the world, music, and environments from time to time. I also liked the story touching on existentialism and found that to be an interesting aspect to the story.
Uncharted 4
Breath of the Wild is one of the few open world games where I’m constantly excited to explore and find new things, the whole world is so deliberate and interesting with secrets everywhere. Personally the shrines get annoying as some of them are kinda repetitive, but I still enjoyed doing them out of necessity to upgrade health and stamina. The whole game is so well designed to make every area distinct with its own culture, weapons, plants, etc. Truly a one of a kind game in my mind as open world games are plagued with a problem that can only be described as “wide as an ocean, but as deep as a puddle.” They through you in a world so large they they couldn’t possibly make every corner of it important or interesting and therefore pointless.
I got extremely bored exploring BOTW. Really wished it had been more linear.
that’s because it’s zelda and your brain goes yay zelda. it makes all the same mistakes as the rest, lest of all the ubisoft towers.
@@Slop_Dogg I mean it was my first Zelda game and I think it’s the second best game I’ve ever played. Something just feels so natural and open about the exploration like no other game. Have you ever tried it?
@@Slop_Dogg I'm not saying it doesn't share the flaws of any open world game, it just feels like more time was spent making sure areas had something to offer instead of making the game open world for the sake of it
@@Yodalemos the game gives you multiple main linear quests in the adventure log. all the exploring you don’t really have to do and that’s the best part
I love the Sims 1 music in the background of your videos! XD
Pretty good transitions, as well. I don't agree that open world games are bad, but a pretty good video overall.
Most of the games criticized here had me really hyped to play them. Then I did, and for hours it was fine, but then came a sudden realization that I was just wasting my time, that the game was just nothingness. The latest one I tried was Farcry 5. What a chore.
Oddly enough, according to popular opinion, and with all willingness to fight the horde trying to crucify me, I have to include Zelta BOTW in that list. I gave that overrated garbage three strikes. The last time I tried it managed to engage me for 15 hours before I got sick of its vapid nonsense topped with filler. I'm most definitely done with open world unless there's something different to it.
I heard from a friend that Fenix or whatever from Ubi has a lot of humor in its story. Thing is, if there's a company guilty of making standardized, bland, boring open world games, it would be them, so to say I'm wary of that recommendation is a huge understatement.
Wow finally someone with the same opinion about BOTW. I miss linear zelda and posted this on reddit and I was crucified
I like TES and Fallout a lot, and one of the main reasons I didnt like BOTW was because the world was so big with so little between encounters. If a game is open world it needs to fill that world with oddities, trinkets, and challenges or quests and have a state of flow from one section to the next.
@@florianz8922 "I miss linear zelda and posted this on reddit and I was crucified"
Zelda has always been an open-world game. Link to the Past. Twilight Princess. Majora's Mask. Ocarina of Time. They are all open world. I think the reason they don't feel like it is because it didn't have all the filler.
@@minutemansam1214 2D games do open world really well because they are way more densely packed with obstacles, enemies, puzzles and interactions. 3D games feel way slower to move through and the map is designed with bulk rather than density.
Same man I'm trying witcher 3 right now and just getting bored of it,so much useless horse riding and for what a bunch of filler events and weapons that i sell anyways
Open world kind of kills replayability for me. I keep wanting to go back to Spiderman or Ghost of Tsushima since their PS5 updates but then I remember all the trivial side activities and scavenging I had to do.
Or I can do New Game Plus and trivialize all the challenge. Unless it's an RPG where I can build a unique new character, I don't enjoy any progression system that requires busy work to get.
It's something I really appreciated about Red Dead Redemption 2. Yes there's a lot of things you can do on the side to upgrade (but not only did it make sense for the setting of the game) but you also could beat the game with any set of guns and your basic abilities.
So replaying I can engage with the side content if I want to or not. I don't need to worry about it from a mechanical standpoint.
The main progression should just be given out with the story, and side stuff should be additional for your own enjoyment to get, not a requirement.
I struggle to remember any major mountian in Skyrim where you have nothing on top. Usualy it is some chest, or some ruins or another point of interest. Bethesda makes the best open worlds in games, and it is honestly pretty weird how bad most non-bethesda open world games are.
P.s. While GTA V is better in traversal, its open world is pretty empty, and mostly serves as a decoration. In Skyrim, each 30 seconds of walking you find some dungeon, or enemy camp or some loot etc.
i see where your coming from but in the end it really comes down to preference, one of the reasons why skyrim is my favorite game is walking around for hours finding shit. Something that someone else can find arguably boring but for me its just so fucking fun.
It's honestly kinda funny how these games are turning into clones of each other. All of them have a sub par story, The Mission structure is copy and paste and they go overboard on the progression.
The problem with linear games are I'm not trying to watch a movie or buy into a story that I just don't care about. I'm trying to play a video game and I feel like linear games focus too much on emotional plays or cutscenes that force the direction regardless of what I want
So you prefer a less structure strict dense RPG game?
And i dont wanna spend my free time on boring open world games with boring side quest that i dont give a shit about.
@@metalhead7319 That's why they're called side quests. They're optional
@@kingmula2😂😂😂. The mouths on those types smh.
Hey Renn! I know you probably won’t see this, just wanted to say I’m surprised you’re only at like 170k subs. These videos are amazing. Your humor makes me genuinely laugh. I love it a lot more than the older VO gameplay videos, but I know these take a lot longer to script and shoot. Seeing your take on “gaming concepts” (like open world, p2w) is refreshing, and imo I like them better than focusing on a single game. Can’t wait to see you hit 1m subs
Also i can tell you spent years on /v/
If you wanna talk about traversal in open world games, you have to talk about Days Gone. The motorbike physics and upgrade system make traversal so much fun and engaging. In terms of content, there's so much to do from Hordes and nests to bounties and Nero checkpoints. All that content in a relatively small map on top of an excellent story, it's the most underrated game in my opinion. I bring it up as often as I can lol. It gets a bad name because its a zombie game, but its a dam good zombie game. If you're reading this and you haven't played it, please do!
I loved it, couldnt stop playing, we need Days Gone 2
Nah man more horses that's what the kids want 😒
i do think your assuming open world games and games with curated experiences have the same goal
to me open world games are generally supposed to be more about that progression high