Open worlds

Often huge and filled with attractive scenery and not much else, open worlds are extremely popular in the video game industry right now, forgoing the loading screens and invisible walls of old and offering a "non-linear" experience towards travel towards and fulfilment of objectives...and, some may argue, thereby artificially extending the life of the game as you spend hours wandering through the spacious surroundings, doing things that in no way contribute towards progression - something that, despite the freedom the game offers, is still a necessity in the design, making them little different from more restricted "linear" titles unless they don't have an end goal in a traditional sense.

Do you enjoy open world games? Do you find that they offer a less restricted gaming experience that you can immerse yourself in more readily, or do you find the need to explore and spaced-out nature of the meaningful content in the game a tiresome experience? Have you ever played an open world game where you felt that perhaps it may have benefited from being "more linear", or played a game that practically begged for an open world? Are there any series you would like to see embrace a more open world in the future?

Dawn said:

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like i feel the ultimate definition of open world is like world of warcraft.


imo though, i like open world for when you just wanna mess around and goof off, but i like a story to it, and some games do that, and do that well, some dont do it well, i will admit. thats just me though

Open worlds must be populated, its as simple as that. Games like The Witcher 3 execute this perfectly, with a balance between wilderness and civilization, however some game companies have decided that bigger is better at the cost of this balance. See games like Just Cause 3: the game is unbelievably large, yet stunningly barren.

The bigger the world, the more it must be filled with genuinely interesting attractions and features, the ratio should not lean too much either way.

It depends on the kind of open world. I think the concerns mentioned so far in this thread mainly apply to open world games that don't really need to be open worlds, ie. they are essentially linear games with an overarching story, plot and a main quest of some sort, but they want to add this open world aspect in to make it seem like there's more to do. These can fall flat when advertised as an open world and they haven't actually fleshed out the world, and they may be better off cutting that aspect of the game out entirely.

However, I personally really enjoy open world sandbox games, and often these are not very populated or lively (although it certainly never hurts to add more NPCs to interact with or mobs and creatures to games like these), yet they are still lots of fun because it is the aspects of exploration, building and being able to put your own creations into the world that are the main appeal of these games. Unlike the previous sort of open world games, the open world aspect is essential and makes the game.

I honestly feel like not every game needs to have an "open world" to be good, but I can see the perspective because BotW and Super Mario Odyssey definitely helped make the idea popular.

That said though, I don't feel that strongly whether a game is open world or not. if it does, that's nice, and it doesn't, there's more factors than simply open-worldness that I consider before deciding if a game enjoyable for me.

I like open world games, but not everything has to have one. Sandbox worlds are the most fun to me as you can shape it to your own desire.

However I tend to play games that have no need for an open world.

I love me some open world games! Except it has to meet a few criteria; it can't be just an empty wasteland. I wanna see side quests, things to do, etc.
Also to satisfy my weird hobby for taking cool screenshots, it has to have lots of beautiful areas.
I wanna say RDR2 did a good job at that but I never played it, I only watched someone play it lol
the MMORPG Mabinogi has some pretty spaces to it too

y'all i can't even drive straight down the street without getting lost so it's gonna be a no for me dawg

I love open world games my favorite is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Grand Theft Auto are my favorite open world games to this date.

I love open world sandboxes for the freedom players are given, provided the world actually has content. This is why my favourite open world games are Yakuza and Horizon Zero Dawn - the former only encompasses a single city district, yet offers a lot of activities. The latter has several collectables and random encounters for Aloy to find in between settlements.
Fast Travel is the most important element of open world games imo. RDR2 is pretty yes, but FT only being available from camp makes travelling large distances a slog imo. Fortunately the trains and wagons mitigate the travel time.

Dawn said:

Do you enjoy open world games? Do you find that they offer a less restricted gaming experience that you can immerse yourself in more readily, or do you find the need to explore and spaced-out nature of the meaningful content in the game a tiresome experience? Have you ever played an open world game where you felt that perhaps it may have benefited from being "more linear", or played a game that practically begged for an open world? Are there any series you would like to see embrace a more open world in the future?

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(Thank goodness for auto-correct; this post is taking me a while to type because I just came from a night of drinking and karaoke.)

I do enjoy open world games. It's the biggest draw that GTA had and BotW has for me, which is why I played the former and plan to play the latter. Sometimes the sheer amount of things to do can be daunting, but I'm not really the completionist type so it doesn't really bother me when open world games do their thing. As long as the game can convey where I have to go next, and not get me lost like some of the older Final Fantasy games, then I accept the game as it is with no real want for them to be more linear. Some games that are too linear I do wish were more open like Pokémon and the later FF games.

I love open world, especially when it's done well. BOTW did a good job with it and I'm looking forward to Witcher 3.