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Yes. Many. Stop playing Ubisoft checklist simulators.
AAA needs a bit of a reset and it looks like that’s what’s happening now.
The Witcher 3. Linear as hell story, super fun open world. It was literally gwent simulator for me by the time I finished that game.
Minecraft made a bajillion dollars.
Yes? Completing objectives in the order I feel like at the time can absolutely be a better experience than a forced sequence of objectives that are misaligned with how I feel at the moment.
I dont think Minecraft would do too well being linear.
Minecraft: Story Mode was actually pretty popular. It was basically a story-rich RPG set in a Minecraft world.
Maybe, but it was nowhere near as popular as plain Minecraft. The sales numbers alone can attest to that, plus the fact there hasn’t been a sequel should be all the proof you need to say that a linear minecraft wouldn’t do too well.
Dragon quest builders is like linear / story mode Minecraft. And there’s Dragon quest builders 2. I’ve never played dragon quest but I freakin love builders. For me it’s far less stressful than Minecraft because I’m not having to be creative to figure out what i want to do. There’s a story line that I can choose to participate in, and I can creatively build whatever I want alongside the tasks and quests. Best of both worlds.
Also blockheads was like a 2D knockoff of Minecraft (so physicality linear. No plot) I loved it so much, and if you kept going right you’d eventually hit the equator, the south pole, the equator, the north pole and then your original spawn point again. It was amazing
Most people who played both probably have an order of magnitude more playtime in Minecraft, though.
You could say a whole new dimension?
It would be nice with some kind of linear quest in minecraft.
However if they were procedurally generated, I’d lose interest. That’s just another layer of grinding.
Open world =/= giant map
Take resident evil games, Control, Batman. Some larger maps than others, but the key is open. Most of the map or level is available to you to explore how you like, with a linear story guiding you through as well, and then progression opens smaller locked areas and new levels.
Had to explain this to a friend when I called the original Deus Ex titles “open world” games. (It’s technically semi-open world but, meh, nuances)
It’s 100% Open World I’d argue. It was just ahead of it’s time
Generally, good open world games have a lot more emergent content - situations that emerge from the interaction of agents and simple mechanics (in the style of how simple rules create complex outcomes in the “Game of Life”) - whilst good linear games have highly curated set-pieces scenarios which were created by level designers directly.
For an example of the former, imagine you’re running around the Game World looking for a special kind of plant to create a potion that you need. You come across a battle between bears and a bandit group. When they die their drops are free for the taking and both groups are too high level for you to take on your own. None of this was setup to happen when you crossed some trigger line, it literally just happened because those the entities in those groups are part of enemy “factions” and the patrol route of one group (a route which might itself be procedural rather than fixed) passed near enough the position of the encampment of the other.
This kind of thing randomly happen is just not something you get in linear games which are generally just set-pieces and even the ability to pull on group of high level enemies to another group has to be designed in (mainly by making the restricted game area big enough for it in that section and placing the groups in the right places).
This is also why in a linear game if you die and restart you get the same fights in the same places you had before up to the place were you died unless that section of the game was designed with enough alternate paths of mechanics (say, hide mechanics) that you can go around and avoid certain fights.
Emergent content is also why Multiplayer can be a lot of fun, though in this case the “agent” whose interactions can give rise to all sorts of situations are other players.
Emergent content is what I liked about loading a ton of Skyrim mods. Too bad it was also crashy as hell.
I’d like to start a new game but since I’m Linux only these days it makes it harder.
Oh hell yes.
I’m playing Horizon Zero Dawn Complete (it includes the DLC) and as soon as I got to Daytower, I ran into a guy named Ohtur who mentioned The Cut… I pivoted and headed up there and by sneaking around everything with higher stats than I had, (which was almost everything) I managed to find resources that got me a wickedly powerful weapon. Game changer. Literally.
Getting to any part of the map and find it’s hidden goodies is amazing.
I pretty much always prefer open world, or at least something interconnected like a Metroidvania. Linear makes me feel like my back is against the wall.
You missed a collectable 4 missions ago? I guess I’ll see you in New Game+
I like a game world that’s just fun to be in even when I’m not advancing the story. Taking a break to explore is awesome, and much easier in an open world.
Spider-Man for the PS4 had fast travel via subway, by why would you miss out on web-slinging your way from one end of Manhattan to the other?
This is what witcher 3 did best imo.
It’s open world, and it feels large… But it’s not actually that large when you think about it.
And the side areas are so rich and dense that you can do quests from a random hub, some that chain on for quite a while… And then realise this whole time that you haven’t actually done any of the main story.
I was excited to learn more about certain monsters in the bestiary, what oils and elements they were weak to etc.
Elden Ring did it very well.
I’ll have to agree with this statement.
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Unhappy with this status quo, the city council of Liurnia under mayor Boggart reached out to me.
In cooperation with the “Multifunctional Anti-Gravity Intelligent Carriages” research team at the Academy of Raya Lucaria, we have developed plans for a fleet of self-driving, hovering vehicles which will provide a convenient and reliable way of commute around the wetlands, with the central station soon joining the GoldRoad network.
Totally free of charge and non-invasive to the habitat of all local swamp life, this project will be realized by the FIERY GIANT Construction & Regenerative Energy Crucible Technologies LLC.
Death Stranding / Elden Ring cross over?
count me in.
I’ll try to bribe Kojima with exclusive Malenia
feetfoot pics, understood!(The research on limb replacement at the Stormveil Medical Center is currently halted following an investigation into ethical concerns regarding the origin of grafting materials, during which a serious breach of the hygiene protocol caused by the decomposing body of a dead demigod that recently lost its immortality was discovered in the building complex’s basement facilities. Our department of divine biohazard containment is scrambling to minimize the ecological damage, describing phenomena like crabs suddenly turning goth or swamp lobsters gathering around a death metal festival music stage.
As soon as these issues are addressed, research is bound to continue and treatments will be approved for the social healthcare program.)
eh, too many repeated bosses
Open world plus mods. Ever heard of Skyrim?
Being able to fuck around can be fun. A linear Elder Scrolls (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim) would be boring
GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 (yes), New Vegas. Elden Ring. Subnautica.
Try making San Andreas linear and you would instantly destroy one of the best games ever made.
On the other hand later GTAs didn’t embrace the open worlds for which the series is known. Once you start a mission the games turn extremely linear without giving the player options.
Very true! I remember in GTA3, some missions could be done in different ways, if you already knew what would happen.
OTOH, just drifting along the map and running into a total stranger who feels perfectly safe in trusting you to escort his daughter or something is kinda meh.
I like open-world, but procedural anything, not so much.
The problem is not “open world” but “the ubisoft game”. New region, find watchtower, reveal map, do 1 quest, attack enemy camp, liberate area, new area, find watchtower, …
Most open worlds are also just way to big. GTA San Andreas felt huge but is tiny compared to V. And it was better for it. Modern open worlds never have a hub. A place that you actually build a relationship with and see change over the course of the game. Its always: area completed, next!
I love a good hub, especially when it actually changes and grows
Yeah San Andreas was the open world game I was thinking of too, with the expanding of your crime syndicate. It’s pretty much the only game I’ve played that implements an open world properly and I’ve been chasing that since then. Fallout 4 maybe, but building settlements or forts didn’t have real impact. Diablo IV is way too driven to rush through and get to the endgame.
I think you really need to design it to be more of a simulation game that reacts to player actions and with a story inserted, not as a “feature” to check off. And a distinct goal or win condition for playing the open world.
If every place/area only serves one purpose then the game should be linear. Some of my favourite games are the old Gothic and Gothic 2 RPGs. They are open world, but tiny compared to modern RPGs. They dont have “areas” with a set difficulty that you can complete and then move on, instead the map is like a skeleton of fairly save roads and settlements and the further you go away from the roads the harder it gets. So you see the whole map in the first chapter but have explored very little of it. You always return to the same areas and they feel like home. And every chapter of the story adds new enemies, quests and events to all areas of the game. All of it is hand picked. No “radient quests” to trick you into going to an completed dungeon again, no random encounters on the roads to make travel through the world feel less empty…
IMO, they have the best open worlds I have ever seen. The studios follow up open world games (Gothic 3, elex 1&2) fell flat because they tried to be huge as well and felt empty as a result.
Working with constraints does actually produce gems. Fallout, farcry, GTA, skyrim just throw billions of dollars at a project to make it huge. But everything there is is just a set piece to be looked at once and be discarded …
Gothic does sound awesome especially with the Gothic 1 Remake.
I’m not sure that it’s *better*, but it’s hilarious when you go off and do all the side quests and end up completely over powered by the time you get round to the main quest and just beat the shit out of the main bad guy without realizing that they’re important.
Big bad: “so you have finally come to meet your doo-”
Competitionist: *drops bag of loot on boss, crushing all his bones*
That’s why you scale the enemies to the players armour and level!
Honestly I really don’t like that in most open world games, mostly cause enemy levels tend to make it feel like I’m just as powerful at lvl 1 as at lvl 40. Bethesda games post Morrowind are particularly bad about this IMO, not to say you can’t have leveled shit just don’t do it to all the enemies, do it like NV where some enemies are leveled but most are flat preset levels.
Sorry, was being sarcastic.
It sucks when you get an item and do 10,000 damage, but now your enemies all have 50,000 HP, especially when it’s the same old enemies just stronger.
At least in Skyrim you start seeing new enemies later on, but sometimes it’s just fun to wreck some bandits as the Dragonborn.
I hate it too, but I don’t think it was that bad in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Mostly just Oblivion that dropped the ball on this.
Nah it was also pretty miserable in Fallout 4, though in that particular case it was moreso due to issues of bullet sponges rather than damage dealt. But Fallout 4 is also probably the worst of the 3D games IMO, especially when it comes to enemy health.
Worse than Fallout 76?
Unironically yes, the leveled areas in 76 are quite a bit easier to deal with. Also I really fucken hate the settlement system.
Fair, the settlement system is annoying. I also hate everything about MMOs, though, and IMO it’s diametrically opposed to everything that made Bethesda games good. And that’s before we get into how much of a mess the release was …
I disagree. I hate when games do this, particularly open world ones. The point of going to find loot and stuff is that it benefits you. If there is no benefit then the game shouldn’t give you the option. Those games should be linear, because they’re trying to make a linear experience out of something non-linear.
If I’m struggling, I want to be able to leave and come back stronger. Even if I wasn’t, I want to come back and feel that I’ve gained power with the time I spent. If I don’t, I know I’m wasting my time.
That’s what Elden Ring really did well imo. The game sort of guides you towards Margit at the start, but he completely destroys newcomers, which causes them to explore the map more and discover more content in the intro areas. By the time they’ve done most of the interesting stuff in the first couple areas and go back to Margit, he’s far more balanced to fight. Still not a pushover but far more reasonable to fight and no longer frustrating.
Yep, and, if you’re paying attention and thoroughly exploring, you can actually go around the castle and totally avoid him. You can get incredibly strong before fighting him. It makes you feel like you’re actually progressing.
I’ve only skipped him once because Stormveil Castle is an excellent dungeon but it’s cool I have the option if I want to.
Yeah, it shouldn’t be skipped, but it’s cool that it can be. It’s good for challenge runs, or bjngo.
I’d love to do ER bingo sometime. Looks like a lot of fun.
That’s so fucking lazy by the gamedesigner, and takes away all the fun too IMO.
Yes! It helps if it is clear the bad guy has been doing things as well. (Aren’t there a few games where the bad guy moves locations with this, so if one is really fast, they can catch them rather weak.)
Imagine scaling enemies by actual player skill needed to defeat them, instead of just ‘my number more big than your number’.
Breath of the wild and jet island were able to create this feeling of curiosity where I’d go “huh, that think in the distance looks cool, let’s check it out!” and then, as I was checking it out, it turned out it is relevant to story and progression and also very cool.
You must described the very reason why I don’t like BotW/TotK. They don’t feel like Zelda. They feel like a Bethesda/Obsidian game where you just wander around bumping into things, except Nintendo doesn’t do it nearly as well.
I say either go all in on the open world concept, and have proper RPG mechanics, or don’t do it at all. Don’t half ass it or I’m just reminded of Ubisoft titles. That’s what the modern Zelda games feel like, fucking Ubisoft titles. Big, empty worlds, with nothing to do. Shrines instead of proper dungeons, and no fun to be found in between except wander forever and pick up flimsy weapons that break after a dozen hits. The games barely even have a plot. That’s not Zelda to me. I want more games like Wind Waker, Majora’s Mask, and Minish Cap, not more boring open world BS.
The only Zelda game I ever really played was A Link to the Past on SNES back in the 90s. 3D Zelda (and Mario for that matter) just never felt right to me, despite all I’ve heard about how good some of the games are.
I bounced off breath of the wild but got hooked with tears of the kingdom. I didn’t finish it though, similar to my experience with wind waker. They all felt like Zelda, just expanded.
If I stuck to the story it would probably be closer to the original experience.
I agree with you on BotW - but you’re wrong about TotK being empty with nothing to do.
I had that curiosity with OoT.
BoRW I just don’t seem to have the patience for. Yes it’s nice to have so much exploration, and it’s nice to have open ended combat.
Maybe if it was one of my first Zelda’s I’d love it. But I would have liked the more traditional dungeon crawling versus the dozens of small shrines.
