Why The Best Open World Is A (slightly) Closed World
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2022
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Open World games have been in a bit of a rut for years now, ever since Far Cry 3 set the tone for the genre more than a decade ago, every single open world game has been held prisoner by a single feature: Towers. The bane of exploration-lovers everywhere. Or are they?
The Architect has seen a fair share of towers, and they're starting to doubt whether towers really are at fault for bad open worlds after all - hell, even Elden Ring has them, and that game has a great world! After saddling up and exploring the worlds of Hyrule, The Mojave and now the Lands Between, finally the secret of good world design is within grasp... It's just inside this innocent looking chest, I swear...
You Saw:
Halo Infinite - 2021
Batman Arkham Knight -2015
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 2017
Far Cry 5 - 2018
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - 2011
Breath of the Wild - 2017
Cybperpunk 2077 - 2020
Assasins Creed Valhalla - 2020
Assasins Creed Odyssey - 2018
Spiderman PS4 - 2018
Shadow of War - 2017
Infamous: Second Son -- 2014
Genshin Impact - 2020
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 2011
Elden Ring - 2022
Metro Exodus - 2019
Fallout 4 - 2015
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion - 2006
Fallout 3 - 2008
Sea of Thieves - 2018
Far Cry 3 - 2012
Hyperbolica - 2022
Tunic - 2022
Batman Arkham City - 2011
Sable - 2021
Fallout: New Vegas - 2010
World of Warcraft - 2004
Far Cry 6 - 2021 - Hry
Aaaahhh.... Crumbled One.... You've come seeking yonder keep... aahaha!... T'would be foolish to not avail yourself of my wares before venturing within... no? Hmmm? www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Oho! Forgive me, I was lost in thought pondering this most troublesome riddle... Hmmm....How could once the grand kingdom of Twittonia have fallen so low? Hrmm....Perhaps... could it be? The forbidden ancient pyromancies of the Hot Take...? Perhaps the answers lieth further beneath... twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Are we going to talk about accessibility? My first soulslike and I did not find any clue of the "annoying" difficulty I had come to think was synonymous with these games. It's challenging, but much more than that, it is rewarding.
Don't even get me started on exploration. Hours spent wandering around Stormveil castle, climbing rooftops and clearing heavily guarded areas.
the problem with not fully locking the player to go a certain way is I always choose the unrealistically hard path which usually has little to no reward. EX I worked so hard to traverse zelda:botw snowy bit but I got nothing for my hard work and many attempts
No man’s sky isn’t a open world it’s a open world’s game so it’s goals are very different than regular open world games.
Fight me now
You missed the icing on the cake: Elden Ring WANTS you to go places you shouldn't. It rewards you for doing it every time. What's the closest obtainable loot in Caelid? The best staff in the game for the first 60% of the game that explicitly falls off later, and a spell that will carry the early game paired with it. An amazing katana that's guarded by much weaker little prawns if you're brave or sneaky enough to get past the adult demon prawns outside its ruin. Rare and valuable smithing stones just lying there dead easy, no boss, no struggle, just free stuff (and an exploding bug as a practical joke). A memory stone to just jump in and get. Maybe the best evasive ash of war in the game if you're willing to do a little cheese to get rid of the Night's Cavalry with poison, and three spots they had to have known were exploitable for early level grinding.
Ironically, hidden behind the rotting hellscape is the "easy mode" option of Elden Ring. Morrowind basically did the same thing, hiding absurdly strong stuff you could get easily early on if you were determined and resourceful enough, and that's a kind of retro I can get behind.
Me returning to Sellia crystal mines at level 98 with a +17 weapon.
Miners, "Who are you?"
Me, "Vengeance"
I returned just yesterday while grinding for malenia, that was therapeutic
I totally forgot I never killed that boss. Back to Elden Ring.
@@Ceece20 good luck man, she's tough
@@big_sis_moon I’m 121 now lol 😂
It's funny cause the item you get from there is terrible
To add to BotW's design comments. So I was one of the weird players who upon seeing the Rito Devine beast flying in the distance, immediately wanted to check that out. So I actually managed to make it all the way to Rito Village and complete the divine beast and everything there before even going to Kakariko village the first time. But when I did that, I started hearing rumors from NPCs that there is a guy who can expand your inventory near that village. And basically the game recognized that I had veered way off of the intended path, and started doing things that none of my friends saw, because they figured people like me would do this so they made sure to give me reminders to go do the start of the main story lol.
Nice!
I was one of the players who, knowing where I would find them, immediately went for the Gerudo Desert. And Adam is entirely right. The game made it gruelingly clear that I was not supposed to be here. Wolf packs that one shot killed me, strangely colored moblins, friggin lizzard folks with ranged attacks. I was so outmatched, the only thing that kept me there was the fascination of exploring an area I was not supposed to. I noticed the mountains and tried to climb them. Soon the walls grew too steep for my stamina. So I collected stamina food to eat while climbing and making it up one more plateau. But after that I encountered freezing temperatur that outright killed me in mere moments. And all that just pushed me on. I never wanted to explore a space more urgently than in this moment. Seeing my first wizzrobe and taking it's magic ice wand felt like unearthing mystical powers not ment for me. Exploring a mountain range that in any other game might be empty but here acted as an impromptu dungeon with multiple levels and secrets to uncover is easily the most memoral moment of my dozens of hours in the game. When I was out of food and energy and weapons I discovered the Gerudo Tower and managed to glide down to it. And from there down to Gerudo City... where I could not enter XD
It was an amazing trip. Sadly the rest of the game was not nearly as immersive. Doing the camel first got me Urbosa's Fury which trivialised much of the combat. And having bested THAT adventure, no other area was quite up to the challenge. It all felt tame and save. It felt like I was supposed to be there. I do not like Dark Souls games at all. But I do enjoy taking low level charactes into high level areas. And nothing else felt quite that demanding. I like being in spaces I'm not supposed to be in.
Take that as an anecdote for the power that Breath of the Wild has. I tried other open world games and none had me experience anything like that.
Yeah I did this exact thing, but got my ass handed to me
I ended up finishing Vah Naboris and Vah Medoh before finding out you could expand your inventory.
Then again, the first place I walked to was somehow north of Zora's Domain, clearly ignoring every attempt the game made to steer me onto the right path. I tend to get stubborn and try every option available to me before going where I think the game wants me to..
I beat Ganon before any of the divine beasts on my first playthrough lol. I'm pretty sure the desert was the first place I went though. Going against the grain is much more fun to me in games like this. I don't think I even talked to Impa until I'd unlocked half the map
Botw is a truly amazing open world game with out a doubt I've spent an insane amount of hours in the world of Hyrules calamity and it never got old to me. Elden ring has captivated me in a similar fashion if not even more so I'm a huge souls fan and this game has been the most exciting and phenomenal game world to explore through that I've possibly ever seen. Elden ring is quickly becoming my favorite open world game of all time next to something like red dead redemption 2 and botw :D.
Open worlds are not an excuse to ignore level design, something a lot of series have gotten complacent in. In fact, the nuanced way you still employ skillful level design in something that's still technically so open makes it something devs have to pay even more attention to, not less!
That's my reaction to every Unreal Engine showcase where they demonstrate these shockingly realistic landscapes that really do look like fully captured jungles, mountains, swamps etc.
I don't want to walk through a random fucking chunk of jungle for hours, I want to play a video game that makes me *feel* like I'm exploring a dense, dangerous jungle. BotW nailed it, the hills are designed to obscure your view as much as possible and slowly reveal points of interest one by one as you crest the top, usually starting with the most important to guide you then adding more options to explore on your way to your original goal. It feels like a natural enough landscape, but it's very specifically designed as a video game map to help you have fun
I was about to post this exact comment. The reason Elden Ring is such a wonderful experience, is because it COMBINES the wonder of discovery that you get with the open world, with the tight, purposeful, and directional level design of a 3D dungeon crawler when you arrive at those special locations like Raya Lucaria and Leyndell. You have to give the player a payoff for arriving at the major locations, and exploring a “closed off level” is the perfect way to do that.
I think AC Odyssey did this pretty well, like even just a house or a fort has a clear yet sensible design that allows for multiple ways of tackling whatever objectives are inside.
Yes bro open world games need to be cared by devs more we need a giant map which seems it never AND NEVER ENDS
The way Elden ring reveals it's map is also masterful in my opinion. When I teleported to Caelid I thought it was an end game area at first and was like, "Huh... It's not very large." And then I got to the lake, and the plateau, and underground... Each new area enlarging the map and feeling like the region itself is a discovery.
Honestly I'd say the map is a bit too big. Not a bad problem to have. But it would be better if it was 3/4the size. Plus some of the back tracking is annoying. But it's a brilliant game.
@@Scottx125Productions back tracking? you can fast travel in this game and sites of graces are everywhere lol
I think i said at least 4 times during the game "ok, surely now i can see roughly how big the final map is gonna be" only to have my expectations blown out of the water with yet another teleport or lift to a distant land.
This. They implemented this so brilliantly. Like some games will just show you the full size of the map and just gray out the areas you haven't been to yet. So that from the beginning you already have a rough idea of the full size of the map. But not Elden Ring. Elden Ring scales the size of the view plus uncovers the grayed out parts at the same time while you explore more areas. Which makes you be surprised over and over again to how big this whole thing actually is. It's a perpetual feeling of "Wait there's more?!" over tens of hours of gameplay.
@@voynich7119 hundreds of hours*
but yeah
think i had an "wait, it goes even furter?!" moment about every 30 hours of gameplay.
I noticed when it comes to open worlds, I prefer more tightly-knit maps where everything has purpose, there's too many open worlds that feel too big and stretched out with not much to marvel at untill you get to the obligatory activity point, more often than not I find this in more smaller and more contianed maps, but I don't think open world itself is bad, just hard to make the maps as a whole feel meaningful
Like the outer worlds?
Have you played Ashes: Afterglow? It's got a couple open worlds in it that are very tightly knit.
I actually haven't, this is the first time I've heard the name actually
That's the main reason why I dislike open world missions while adoring missions like this in But Fables:
What do you prefer?
A. 500 missions of get 50 bones/20 rocks/kill 10 mamuts/talk to Mr. Goldstein/follow me.
B. 50 unique missions where you do specific things those develop characters, teach you mechanics, makes you discover parts of the world you ignored, give you unique bosses with their own optional character development, new actually useful craftable items, a new playable character, and more.
The problem with this is that many devs, publishers, and customers really latch onto the whole "massive open world!!!" thing
A small but well crafted open world is going to get ignored by the vast majority of people compared a huge empty world
That Caelid moment really made me fall deeply in love with Elden Ring. Feeling a tiny "victory" from running away like a coward then stepping out and finding... That. I knew there'd be a poison swamp at some point, its a From Soft game, of course there's a poison swamp. But being thrust right into it was the cruellest joke the developers have pulled thus far.
Truly terrifying.
Edit: Getting a few comments like "fast travel out!" And, yeah totally valid. But I also WANT to see where this chest has taken me.
When I found it my gaze was immediately drawn to selia because I was so amazed by “wtf a new area?”, I just stopped and turned around the camera so I didn’t even notice the swamp until I fled away from selia.
You think that is a bad poison swamp? Jokes on you, Elden Ring has TWO poison swamps, and the second one is larger, poisons you faster, and has Torrent disabled. I mean, From Soft has consistency I'll give them that.
@@notapplicable292 That's true! And a poison castle.
The funny thing about that trap is that I had seen a bunch of CZcamsrs hit it, and completely forgot about it.
I had so many souls! I had to sneak and recover them twice before I figured out how to escape the mine. Lol
Miyazaki: I heard you hate poison swamps, so we put poison swamps in your poison swamp, so you can die while you die!
To elaborate on the way Breath of the Wild really goads you into doing the elephant first: It's not so much that it's close to Karariko Village, but your "natural" path through the game will take you straight into its questline. Once you reach Kakariko Village, you will be told to go to Hateno Village to the east. You can amble your way there any way you prefer without stumbling into any other major parts of the story - the whole southeast quadrant of the map is devoid of stuff related to main quests. But in Hateno, you will be told to go north to Akkala to see another NPC, so unless you specifically seek out something else to do, that's where your next goal will be.
So you head north, but will quickly run into the problem of the Zora River. Its steep northern banks are impossible to climb since it rains all the time in Zora's Domain before you do the elephant quest. The same goes for the other mountains around Zora's Domain. Going around Zora's Domain is not much of an option either, unless you feel like braving the aptly named Death Mountain. Effectively, you can't go to Akkala without following the Zora River downstream to the Lanayru Wetlands. These wetlands are crawling with friendly NPCs urging you to start the elephant quest line. You really can't miss them.
Also, the way north is fairly long, and the Akkala region is a dangerous place for the early-mid-game. At the same time, the main quest is not given with any sort of urgency. It's more like a "That guy up in Akkala might have some important info, you should visit him someday" than a "head there immediately!" You know you have options to - and you probably should - do other stuff first. And the elephant quest line feels kinda urgent. So when you inevitably stumble into the elephant quest line along the way, you feel totally fine taking a break from the main story.
It's really clever. They essentially tell you to go someplace you don't need to be, then ambush you with a great distraction. You _can_ do the game in any order, but ...
Speaking of open worlds I think the “open world” design of the Yakuza series is also very interesting, it’s a very small world, literally a couple of cities usually, but the stuff is so packed in that it feels like a real place, and you start to remember street names and being able to navigate somewhere based on just a vague mention of where it is.
a couple of cities? that sounds huge
@@bpansky It's only about a few streets per city. You can look it up if you want images, but there's probably under 10 named streets per city. You can sprint from one corner of the map to the other and it would take maybe 5 minutes. Assuming you get into no fights, but that's very difficult.
Yakuza is a gem, sure the series are overly reliant on reusing assets due to budget. But they did it masterfully
@@fatezero8662 I agree, they manage to make the reuse of assets a positive feature rather than a negative one.
@@fatezero8662personally I think that reusing assets is entirely neutral. How it’s done matters much more than whether or not it’s done
This was a great expansion on the comment Yahtzee made about how Japanese open world devs are less afraid than western devs of players "missing" content in the game. Like how there's a bajillion minigames and side content in the Yakuza games but you can beat the main story while doing almost none of it. You could probably even get the platinum trophy without truly seeing everything a Yakuza game has to offer. I think thats a part of what makes them great "open world" games: That they let you see as much or as little of it as you want instead of trying to TELL you how to experience it.
To be honest, even though the game got a lot of hate for not meeting the hype, I also found this to be true for FFXV.
The open world was full of interesting things to find if you explored enough and engaged with the systems.
In the end, I started using Chocobos more than the car because there was always something nearby I’d want to check out.
Not a perfect game but the world was very interesting to me.
@@Kintaku final fantasy 15 was very guilty of under using incredible areas
@@Bennieboy918 I mean I can see why you’d feel that way, but there were a lot of secret items in places and dungeons behind corridors that made exploring feel worthwhile to me.
Again, by no means perfect, it just hit the right beats for me personally.
The opportunity to miss things is one of the things that really makes the world feel truly open.
If all the content is handed to you on a silver platter, it feels like you're just on a guided tour rather than being in a living, breathing world.
Fallout 3 was a lot less afraid of players missing content than New Vegas. The exploration in 3 is much more your own, and you're not as much led by the nose through quests and strong-armed by tough enemies to take the "right" path.
The teleport chest to Caelid was just amazing. It also helped to give me a nice head start for my sorcerer; ended up exploring a bit after leaving the mine and would you look at that: the cave is right next to Sellia, City of _Sorcery._ Which immediately connected the Caelid region to sorcery in my mind so I started exploring every nook and cranny of the region, super-powered enemies be damned. By the time I returned to Limgrave and ran into the dragon for the first time I had already barely managed to kill a much tougher one (the one with scarlet rot) in Caelid and poor Agheel got completely demolished by all the goodies I had found by then lol.
I agree, I love the teleporters early game. They give the player the option of powering up and adjusting the difficulty by their decisions. Not some silly setting. And man, going back to some of those areas after a power up just feels GREAT
@@MonteBond8 exactly
the whole world is sorcery connected. liurnia of the lakes has way more for sorcerers than caelid.
My favorite thing about elden ring's open world is that it nothing feels like a check list. There are caves, mini dungeons, forts, and lots of other stuff everywhere. But you don't HAVE to do it. There's no checklist requiring 5 caves before the next power up. Or kill x number of open world bosses to unlock x ability. You can do, or not do as many things as you like. And every challenge you take on rewards something. I might be useful to you, or might not but you're gonna get something. So if you want to speed run to the final boss you can do that as long as you've got the skill to beat it. Or you can spend hundreds of hours exploring, going on adventures, finding incredible locations and enemies, and getting stronger. The choice is yours. Most open worlds aren't confident enough to let their players make that choice.
And thats exactly what i felt playing rdr2... Forget the missions, explore the world and do whatever it is you want.. best feeling ever... But i also liked rdr2 because not everything is a reward, the game world is designed to rip you off, i love that
"There's no checklist requiring 5 caves before the next power up." no but you do have to do things to get runes which you use to power up "Or kill x number of open world bosses to unlock x ability." Yeah you have to kill X boss to get X ability or weapon or whatever "You can do, or not do as many things as you like." no other open world game forces you do explore all its content to finish the game. thats why its called optional content.
Imagine spending hundreds of hours and millions of dollars on making a game just so some jackass can spend $60 to skip 99% of it. I get why players like this, but from the perspective of someone making the game, it seems literally insane. Why waste money and time on making something that not everyone is going to see, and then charge $60 for it? If I spend $60, you better give me everything you got.
except for the smithing stone
caves
@@girthicusmaximus you don't have to. you can go the slow and easy route and farm runes early game, ignore the dungeons and find weapons and gear in the travelling caravans, or farm weapons and gear from enemies. fight the open world bosses you find in any order, or avoid them. the only thing you "have" to do if you want to progress the main story is kill certain bosses, like Margit, Godfrey, Morgot and Radahn. there are even great weapons, spells and incantations to buy from NPCs or just find out in the wild.
This video made me realize I've been playing new vegas "wrong" all these years. I didn't know there was a quest to find benny. I've *always* gone straight for new vegas and just ran/walked/snuck past the deathclaws. Some runs I didn't even seem them and just walked right up to new vegas. I always thought that the whole point of the "find benny" quest was that it was a joke and he was right there in nv.
My first play through of new Vegas I entered the strip for the first time at level 40, I didn’t even care about Benny anymore I was so immersed
bruh
Huh. You take the Deathclaw route? I always took the Cazador route... mostly to get Chance's Knife. There is never a New Vegas playthrough where I don't immediately go to get Chance's Knife at the start. That little blade is OP as hell.
Nice fake story
Nah couldn't go through that route, too many bugs, too many deathclaws
The way elden ring utilized the map is great.
The picture of the map is so detailed.
I will look at natural landmarks like the shape of rocks, or what could possibly be a structure and set my way points to go there. Usually it is something interesting.
Also there are some useful features which are never given explicit map markers in the UI, but have recognisable symbols on the drawn map - like the places with a set of stone coffins, which always have a bunch of rune items in them.
There's a definite tiering to the locations in Elden Ring - caves and evergaols have an explicit marker both drawn and then in the UI once discovered, buildings are obvious on the map (slightly less so for shacks), but not always apparent what kind they are (e.g. church vs ruin). The large broken marble ruin things are big and obvious on the drawn map, but generally not actually a relevant place (but very useful for getting your bearings, and occasionally will have a nearby NPC encounter or enemy camp). And then catacombs are generally not visible at all on the drawn map, and will be a surprise when you find them (with maybe a bit of guidance from one of the statues which are more obvious when wandering the world).
Similarly when exploring - minor erdtrees can be seen from across the map, churches are generally pretty obvious (and both have good rewards that make them worth seeking out), and watchtowers are scattered about, but some features like evergaols are entirely flat to the ground, and features like sites of grace and erdtree saplings are indicated by light which can be easily shielded in some terrain. Plus sound cues for scarabs and those giant bell turtles - and that's just what I have seen before going past Stormveil (all of the above is either in Limgrave or the Peninsula)
It gives a whole range of exploration options, ranging from "Oh, hey, that looks interesting lets go check it out" to "Oh hey that message saying to check here was really helpful" to just stumbling across a doorway and then finding yourself with a mini dungeon as a reward, that you know will have something neat as loot at the bottom. Plus the locations have just enough theming to let you pick what kind of result you want from your exploration without feeling too samey - want a boss fight with minimal faff? Go to the evergaol. Want some simple encounters with some kind of reward down the stairs underneath? Go to the ruins. Want a mini dungeon with a boss (or just to tag the grace so you can come back later for it)? Go to the cave on the map, or the catacombs the statue pointed you towards earlier. Even the poison swamps are obvious on the map, so you can prepare the tools you'll need to deal with them.
And then get murdered by some jackass on a horse or some wolves falling from the sky before you get there.
@@DumbMuscle also if you see a spot that looks like a hole in the map? There's probably a mine there
Disagree.
It's a map that gets magically expanded when you interact with certain thingamajigs, you can put sundry markers on it some of which magically appear in the real world, but somehow the character is too much of an idiot to map his surroundings himself
@@ohauss you map what you find interesting, you have full control, the game wont tell you "hey! this is interesting! go there!" because the game doesnt know what you find interesting
@@DumbMuscle Elden Ring's map is a masterclass of how to actually make an artful map without actually telling you that they actually have interesting details to look.
Your first glimpse to it is an obnoxious watercolor map with a bunch of decorations in some corners. The more you explore and get more map pieces, the more you notice a pattern.
Some of the more obvious ones are the octagonal shapes that will most likely be towers when you go there, or wall-segments hiding a dungeon or two, or natural cliff faces having a not-insignificant chance of hiding a cave.
You can actually throw a waypoint and at the very least, expect to find something interesting.
That New Vegas map blew my fucking mind. This is literally the path I took, I didn't even realize I was "supposed" to go that way. Genius game design.
Same
I jumped past all the death claws when I was 13 all the way to vegas LOL
When I played BOTW I didn’t even know you could expand your inventory, I went the whole game with base inventory and it wasn’t until I finished the game and looked up some CZcams videos of the game I saw people with just massive inventories, I really appreciate how I could do anything I wanted in that game. Even if that meant accidentally missing out on a bigger inventory
Running around Caelid in my underpants with a big stick was a ….. humbling experience to be sure. Really sets the the whole, “nearly everyone and everything wants to kill me” tone, yep.
Also made my very first message there, it was something like, “ I want to go home” lol 😂
Caelid is the moment I fell in love with the game. I was enjoying the starter area of Limgrave, but after a while got used to the lush scenery and fairly normal knight-type mobs. Suddenly getting thrown into a red hellscape straight out of Dante's nightmares had my mouth open in fear and awe; going from the relatively friendly in appearance Limgrave to the "you REALLY shouldn't be here" Caelid was incredible. Despite that, I loved the environment and it's unsettling vibe so much I decided to explore, and was rewarded with some high level sorcery gear that carried me all the way to the endgame! Honestly, best gaming experience I've had since outer wilds
Exactly. One thing I noticed is how my feelings towards Limgrave changed throughout the game. At first it was a fairly challenging area, bursting with things to discover and things to frighten me alike. I cleared almost everything there was to do in it, then progressed to the other areas, and somewhere around Caelid I started seeing messages of people saying "I want to go home", and realized I also felt the same way. But what is home in Elden Ring? The Roundtable Hold? No, that had its fair share of challenges and conspiracies waiting to sprawl upon me. Home, for me at least, was Limgrave. I then realized that what once was a landscape full of terrifying discovery and adventure felt warm with its common soldiers, trolls going about, and lush green color scheme. I didn't even feel like killing anything from there at all, as no enemy of that area was a meaningful threat anymore. After beating Malenia and some other terrifying challenges of the lategame, I would warp to Agheel Lake North and just stroll around the fields for a while. The peak of that sentiment was when I had killed just about every boss besides the final set, and was just wandering around close to the Third Church of Marika, not wanting the game to end. Then without taking any particular direction I ended up on a small beach close to the Mistwood, nearing sunset time. I didn't realize I needed to see that vista at that moment, but I did, and decided to sit there admiring the waves breaking on the shore. I really do love this game.
@@Erick-tv8oq I felt the exact same way. Limgrave felt like home. When I got kidnapped and thrown into Sellia Crystal Tunnel, all those messages saying ''I want to go home'' were literally all of our thoughts.
I hated Caelid, the dogs and birds... !
Man I'm hella strong now and I can literally one shot almost everyone except the bosses and the tanky enemies but I'm still afraid to go to caelid.
Mmmmmmmmm Outer Wilds and Elden Ring. Cultured
The only entry I disagree with being mentioned is No Man's Sky
And that's because I view it in the same vein as I view Space Engineers and Minecraft. They're procedural open worlds, not hand-crafted experiences.
Otherwise I whole-heartedly agree with everything else you said
Yeah but even Minecraft worlds feels interesting. I played no mans sky and is was empty, boring amd uninteresting. I know tjey added more stuff since then, so I probably need to pay it a visit, but alas it lost all my interest so I doubt I will ever try it again
Space Engineers has absolutely no systems in place for encouraging interesting or meaningful play and building beyond "slap block on ship *somewhere* and make sure you have enough of them'
@@crunchybones2528 first of all, i disagree. Second of all, what does that have to do with the point i was making?
he said that while yes, no mans sky shouldn't be compared to a hand crafted open world like the ones Adam listed, the landscapes it generates still pale on regards to the other worlds of the same genre, and i agree with him.
@@Kurumi_Kazuha No Man's Sky is a game about exploration, it's empty if you think it's empty.
It's why this video above is so nonsensical, it is treating Elden Ring as some sort of godlike design, when it's just a preference for some.
I certainly didn't like what I saw, the only fun and interesting part of watching that Elden Ring livestream I watched, was the streamer, because I like him.
You can ask me what I think about No Man's Sky and miss the point.
Point is that it's a preference. You think it's empty, it is objectively not empty, but you think it is.
You feel there is no point.
I think there's no point in Elden Ring either.
The video above completely misses that whole thing and treats it as a competition and that you can somehow win in a battle of preference.
You can't objectively win preference, it's nonsensical.
No, I don't want every game to be Elden Ring, I don't want any game to be Elden Ring. Open world game should not service the player, they should just be worlds that exist and you take part in some of that world some amount of time.
The type of person that will actually like worlds in open-world games are the type of person that travels to another country because it's interesting.
To me doing that is pointless because it's just going to be more of the same. There'll be humans, some non-humans probably, some buildings and other crap. All the crap I can get back home without spending money.
I don't degrade others for liking travel, I think it's pointless and am completely aware others find some type of meaningful difference.
This video however, treats one as a winner that others should strive to be. Completely unaware and degrading the other type because it SUCKS.
Sorry for repeating some things, oops.
Just Cause 2 was a golden for me, even though the storyline is pretty basic and the activities are kinda repeating, the map was so diverse and packed with action that it beat the need of story. This is a great example of a carefully crafted game where gameplay far beats the story, and not many games were able to do that, not even the successors of this game.
Concerning Elden Ring's "trap", Miyazaki had already kind of done the same thing in bloodborne where, if you got killed by the sack carrying mfers you'd respawn in yahargul hidden village which was, at least when it happened to me, way overleveled. Whole thing felt really cool and is one of my most vivid memories from the game!
First time I played New Vegas (also the first time I played a Fallout game) I just went straight to New Vegas because I thought that was where I was supposed to go. Kept dying and slow stealthing my way there, but the hardest part was the Deathclaw that I was able to use all those workers near by to help kill as the deathclaw attacked them.
thats such a cool story. it makes me want to punch the air all excited thinking that a game makes it possible for someone to sheer force of will power through something the developers didn't intend, but entirely accounted for. i never in a million years would have thought to go that way the first time i played it, died once and just kept it moving the opposite direction.
i need to play new vegas again after i beat elden ring.
This was my exact same experience. After a lot of dying I managed to kill the first couple of deathclaws and to sneak past quarry junction. I was shocked when I realized I could follow the easy route around, in my second playthrough. Which I only discovered after getting annihilated by the cazadores
Lol.
2nd playthrough I just ran and stayed to the right after passing Quarry Junction.
@@rpemulis I spent like 2 hours trying to kil the first Tree Sentinel even though it was quite obvious the devs wanted me to ignore it for a while. That design philosophy really elevates the game for me
@@LuisSoto-fw3if I was a lvl 1 wretch having never played a souls game. I took one look at the Tree Sentinel and noped away to go far to the left
Speaking of 'closed' open worlds, shoutout to Monster Hunter: World. They're technically just arenas, but they're big enough and have vertical elements that make you get absolutely lost in them, and you seem to find something new in each one every time you visit.
Exploration of open (semi) worlds should have faith in our hunter/gatherer brains. That we will notice/remember things of interest. Peak our natural curiousity, the need to discover/claim things ourselves. The pride a child has when they have found a shiny rock. Being relentless in trying to get what we want.
The game also has a pretty large variety of methods of travel, especially once you learn the maps more, take the Coral Highlands for example, there is at least three distinct ways to the highest point in the map, you can simply climb up there or if you've taken the time to unlock it and bring it with you, glide up there using the air collum and finally there are the wedge beetles that if you know where they are and how to use them can cut the climbing time in at least half
One my favourite "open worlds" is actually in Yakuza. The cities dont seem very large but every corner and every street is packed with content. Its awesome to walk by the same place several times just passing through and activate a new side story / notice something new.
100% agreed, the Yakuza games are waaaay more open-world than they seem at first glance and there's so much cool stuff to find
Arkham City is another good example. You can fly from one end of the map to the other in 5 minutes, but its world is much better than other maps 20 times larger than it.
Looking back at that chest trap I'm amazed at how determined I was to fully explore that cave. Obviously didn't work out that way and I like many others ran out after many many hours/attempts lol.
Ended up exploring the rest of Caelid, but man that was an experience I'll never forget. Not to often devs troll you and don't give a damn if you know you're being trolled!
I actually think the world in cyberpunk is pretty good. But the game design really lets it down. I can navigate it pretty easily but there is no reason to, you just move from close map marker to close map marker and no reason or way to interact with the city as a city or make the player feel like a mercenary. It makes the city feel like a theme park. If they had removed the map markers and made you contact your fixers to then get a job this would have gone a long way to making the world feel like a world
Yeah. I always liked just driving around and exploring. And it was exciting when I would get a call from a fixer, which led me into an area full of people who would kill me in one or two shots. I feel he was kinda unfair to CP2077 in this video honestly. It definitely has a lot of stuff on the map and it's easy to follow quest markers, but the world is not nearly as bland as presented here.
Yeah, it's not the world itself. It's that the management and publishers decided to release it before it was ready.
I don't know if it's a bug or a feature but, you can't recieve call for mercenary contracts while driving close by of the contract zone. The map is far too big to wandering it on foot, (specially the outside of Night City). Meaning the best way to complete all contract is to do just like you say: By going from marker to marker. If just that was corrected it would be very nice. I have no reason to remember the places, of the town if there's no reason to.
I had fun exploring the world.
Finding an abandoned drive-in or hopping into some rich person's backyard because I can.
I just wish they had handled other things better.
When i played, i just turned off quest markers. Also, you can run into random scenarios at any time, like on one playthrough a guys nuts exploded early on. In another, i watched the same guy run out of a building screaming about his junk, and i went up to him and found out "quest". I think it does try to do what's being said, but isn't the best at it. You can shoot him and help him end it, or get him to the e.r., or just watch him run until the explosion. And i had stuff like that happen everywhere in the game, not too much but not too little. I especially liked just walking around and seeing the places and layouts. I did wish i could have gone into a loooooot more buildings.
not gonna lie the caelid teleport trap was probably the most effective moment in any game ever made to hook me up. i've played way too much dark souls and obviously I was gonna play elden ring a fuckton either way, but holy shit geeting a sneak peek at a later area with giant spore thingies and a swamp of this game's equivalent of toxic was so insane, it made me look forward to get stronger and be able to explore that area better
There is a pretty classic design paradigm, I'm not sure if it has a name, but the old Zelda games used to use it a lot. The idea being you will encounter locations you aren't yet ready to deal with yet, or you can only handle part of them, and you will need to come back later to fully experience them. I've always liked this because it means a couple of things 1) Every location isn't just the same thing (which they are in so many open worlds) and 2) Each location isn't just a throw away thing, but something you will quite likely experience multiple times from different view points, letting the location essentially evolve with you.
I dunno I find a lot of weird stuff wandering around in Cyberpunk 2077. The game doesn't explain any of the stuff you find but there are details everywhere. Also open world gameplay is highly rewarding in that game. I always end up with really good gear in my inventory that I'm like wait when did I pick that up. Perhaps this is something they improved since launch since the first time I played I felt pretty railroaded into the story.
I actually started running from point to point instead of driving (so long as they’re
I love the Cyber-noodle design of night city actually. Makes for possibly the most convincing city in any game I've played so far. I can't remember the last open world where I've barely ever used the fast travel system. It's not a place that was built to be particularly convenient, but seriously, try navigating an actual metropolis without a map and I'm pretty sure you'd get hopelessly lost in there as well.
It's really great agreed. I think this was a case of Cyberpunk = bad
I'm on my second playthrough of cyberpunk and I've never in my life replayed a game. Cyberpunk makes it worth it to explore because not only do you find beautiful strange scenery you also stumble upon a myriads of side quests, loot, dead bodies and npcs trying to survive night city.
Best of all, unlike in Elden Ring you can choose not to engage in violence if you don't feel like it.
Cyberpunk has a magnificent open world - the best I’ve experienced. This guy is jumping on the lazy bandwagon.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention Outer Wilds! I think that it perfectly follows the principles that you mentioned - the game _kind of_ tells you where to go, but you just know that you don't have to follow the orders and you'll find fun (or the opposite of fun, yes Anglerfish I'm looking at you) everywhere.
Outer Wilds is closer to metroidvania than open world game. It is technically "open" in the sense that you can go anywhere, but in reality you're not going to because you don't know how, because you haven't gotten any of the upgrades (which take the form of information about the game's physics and interaction rules) that let you proceed far into the areas.
@@icedragon769 damn, your point makes sense actually, I never thought about it as metroidvania. But still, I don't remember any game where I would feel this free in exploring. You might be "blocked" from certain places, but it doesn't stop you from trying (if you are stupid like me and are trying to brute-force your way in places believing that you can do it), or, alternatively, giving up on this idea and trying to explore any another place, idk
@@icedragon769 Mm, while I like the idea of Outer Wilds as a 'metroidvania of the mind,' ya know, it's catchy, clever, and describes the way you can't really replay the game in the same way, ever again, I don't think it's right to straight up call it a metroidvania... And it definitely fits into what he talked about, where your relationship with the world changes and morphs as you gain _confidence_ and understanding-for instance, near the beginning of my playthrough, I would get CHILLS every time I saw the Quantum Moon, the thing terrified me for some inexplicable reason... but eventually, after learning all the rules, and hearing Solanum (It was a recording left on the ship, I can't remember if it was her, specifically) talk about how she used to think this thing was malicious, but how she now knows it bears no ill will, it is as the rest of the universe is... (terrible misquoting going on there, no doubt) ya know, it was a real turning point for me and how I thought about this strange little moon. My thoughts were always shifting and dynamic about a lot of places.
I agree that OW is a metroidvania, but we're missing the original point that it does funnel you into doing certain things first. For example, I think most players will visit the Attlerock right away. The Attlerock has smoke that you can easily see in the tutorial. The signal scope will easily pick up the whistling since the moon is so close by.
In general, seeing each of the pilots is like the "tower" of each planet. They're easy to find, and will tell you some of the neat places to go.
If they are like me and really wanted to check out Dark Bramble first, they're given a very good reason not to go back.
He didn't mention Outer Wilds because rule #1 is that we don't talk about Outer Wilds. 😂
Morrowind is fantastic in this way as well. It's one of the oldest open world style games, but it nailed so much so quickly. Many ways of traversing the world, including levitate and jump effects that let you blitz across the map like a fighter jet once you get the hang of them, a difficult world full comprised mainly of fixed, non-leveled enemies that you CAN overcome with enough game knowledge, and random unique goodies sprinkled across a map drowning in places to explore. Very early in the main quest a character basically says "you should really try some other stuff around here before diving into the plot. Go explore." The mantra should be "freedom... with resistance." Morrowind aces that standard.
Non levelled enemies? Damn, sounds like a great game in its day. I heard it got remade by fans in the Skyrim engine.
The reason why games like horizon, assassin's creed, far cry, ghost of tsushima and so on have become lackluster is because the devs are too insecure to leave any room for the player to truly experience the game the way they want to experience it. They kinda force you to check points of interest out because the devs themselves think it's important/cool. This is where games like botw and elden ring outshine their competition by a landslide.
no
@@Emmet_Bryan uh yeah, by far
@@adewan Elden Ring wants you to experience the game the devs intended.
Actually, it's a crutch to hide just how little content there actually is. You run around doing those chores but it's just an artificial way to drag out the time spent playing instead of spending dev/design time providing engaging gameplay
@@ZealothPL there are no chores. there's only the main questline and side questlines. it's your choice to run around or just rush through the game. it's always been this way in these games and since so far everyone's been appreciating it, there's no need to change the mechanics as it's already the pinnacle of the action rpg genre.
I also loved in legends arceus as you did quests in the town more and more pokemon would start to become people's companions. it made me feel like I was actually changing things in the world
A fun experience I had was when I started The Division 2. A friend gave it to me, so I started playing, and I loved how the game basically tells you « reclaim the city », drops the main mission and let me go into the world. As I explored destroyed Washington, some points of interest only showed up when I was really close to the thing, and some really high level zones on the south and west of the starting zone pushed me to go east, where the early plot happened. The fact that there was no towers to reveal the points of interest, and you needed to explore to find stuff to do. This lack of support really felt like you were alone, in a world gone back in the past. I wish they had kept this philosophy for the whole game though, since I stopped playing when they introduced the bases that reveals the icons.
*sorry for the long text.
What kind of games are you playing that made you feel Division 2 was good? Most game are like this, only exception i can think of right now is the whole Ubisoft, bcz they are the ones who are making you climb towers to reveal icons (mainly Assassins Creed)
@@rogoznicafc9672 never said it was good, I stopped playing after like two hours and never touched it again, I just enjoyed that early exploration.
@@helghast_7203 I can see why you’d feel that way. I didn’t finish Division 2. The map felt a little TOO big for the movement speed.
Conversely though, I LOVED the first game. New York was a more familiar place to me and there was a mystery to the origin of the virus.
It wasn’t perfect, but the familiar environment and mystery gave incentive to explore the map and figure out what happened.
Some areas were level gated but you could still go there and try your luck/skill. That game’s story was a bit short but it had a lot of charm to its open world and lore.
@@Kintaku same here, actually.
Yeah the open world of division two was my favourite part of the game.
4:54 - Hyperbolica! I love that you snuck in a clip of that :). Really warps your mind. How big or small *is* the main hub? Hard to say, the non-euclidean space really throws off your sense of scale.
THANK YOU! This is the first “ER is greast” video i find that delivers worthwhile insights. Challenge and no guidance are impressive as in that they stuck with it - but the true magic here is (as in most Souls games tbh) the world/level design and environmental storytelling. Sightlines, verticality and landmarks are just so well used. Great point about the anecdote!
As a metal fan really enjoyed the open world of brutal legend. They did a good job of making unique side quests but did have a lot of repeat objectives too.
I like how in Yakuza, kamurocho feels like a character in the series. One where you see it grow, change and evolve over the years/games. One of the first thing I do in any yakuza game is to just run around town and see what has/haven't changed. And I especially how they play with this sense of familiarity in yakuza 4 and 5. In 4, you start the game playing as Akiyama, a brand new character. However, since he is from kamurocho, you feel a connection to him almost instantly. Contrast that to 5, where the game begins with kiryu, the series protagonist, being in Nagasugai. somewhere that we've never been to before. Which makes the player questions what happened to kiryu for him to end up in this place.
You grow such a sense of connection to kamurocho throughout the series. I remember loading up yakuza 7 for the first time, and despite it being a whole new cast of characters, I fel instantly connected because I already new the streets. A character would tell me to go somewhere, and I wouldn't even have to look at my map. I knew exactly where I was supposed to go. Then by the time you get kicked out of kamurocho, the connection with the city has helped you form connections with the new protagonist.
I love finding the differences in Kamurocho, one of the earliest things was seeing the shopping district/empty lot in Y0 become the Millennium Tower in all the other games. Other changes I enjoyed or seeing the evolution of West Park to Kamurocho Hills, as well as Little Asia being a safe haven for Chinese and other Asians, hidden behind a bunch of alleyways, turning into a huge open area in Y6.
Also just finding some familiar places brings back some good memories, like seeing the Cabaret Grand in Sotenbori reminds me of the moment I got introduced to Majima, Or simply walking by Serena and Stardust and all the things that happened there.
And sometimes I stumble by "Be My Baby" in later games and get PTSD flashbacks from Kiwami 2
Open world games that don't just give you quest markers but instead encourage you to explore for yourself? Good stuff. How much less interesting would it have been in BotW if as soon as you climbed the nearby tower, you got an objective telling you to free Naydra, compared to wandering Hyrule when the weather clears up JUST enough for you to see a strange glimmer of purple at the peak of Mt. Lanayru in the distance, leaving you to wonder "What was that?" only to climb up of your own accord and see one of the dragons you've noticed flying around here and there, covered in Malice and curled around the spring at the mountain's summit? If that had just been a quest marker on a map, I wouldn't be able to remember climbing around the mountains near the promenade, poking around for shrines and Koroks, and looking up to see that purple light way up there. I wouldn't be able to remember getting halfway up the mountain and going "Oh shit, I think that's one of the dragons." There'd be no accomplishment, nothing memorable about discovering that for myself. Because if it was a quest marker, I wouldn't have. Maybe the encounter itself would still be memorable, but the journey to get there? That makes all the difference.
That's the main way BotW did towers right. Sure, they give you a map, but it's an empty map. The quest markers you place yourself. And actual quests you get from talking to NPCs.
Memories of Morrowind still haunt me, in a good way.
The major flaw there, was that descriptions were way off so often, that at some point I had a guide open in the background all the time.
I mean, if it says "northwest of the village" I can forgive anywhere between just off north and just off west - but it should not be located south.
Smae as elden ring, no bullshit that we have seen 10 years ago
Yeah Naydra really surprised me! I actually interacted with both the other dragons beforehand and so I had been wondering for a while where the third was, but I did the mountain pretty late. What really stuck with me was hearing the music in that area - its the dragon music, but different, dissonant. I had no idea what that meant, but upon seeing the corrupted Naydra when I finally reached the top, it made perfect sense.
If I remember right, I didn't even do that. I wanted to go to vah ruta, so I stuck my waypoint there and started walking. I saw a big mountain in the way, and kept walking. And climbing. I got close to the top and figured I'd get another little bit of height before gliding down, and BAM big poisoned dragon!
It took me far too long to figure out that I had to literally hold and drop the scale in the water, but that's how I personally found it. Because I stubbornly walk straight over topography to get to my destination.
I think another important thing Elden Ring does is how they handle rewards. Going to places rewards you something that you literally won't find anywhere else. Unlike other open worlds whose rewards are just more of something you already have. Even BoTW suffers this, I stopped doing shrines since I always know I'll get another spirit orb and a disposable weapon. Elden Ring however gave me a talisman that either complemented my current build or allowed me to see another potential build. Sometimes it even gave me a weapon that has a cool unique skill. And all of those I wouldn't have had if I didn't go into their respective dungeons. All these just makes the whole world of Elden Ring worth exploring.
My moment that hooked me into Elden Ring was actually after I stumbled into Caelid. Backtracked, beat Margit but I took the path down the broken bridge and down a boring cliffface passage. Suddenly bursting out into the open and seeing Liurnia of the Lakes and how much more there was to explore an awesome moment
fr, I beat Godfrey right when I thought I had ran out of things to do (since I had explored all of Limgrave and caelid) but when I stepped out of the castle and saw all of Liurnia, I was blown away.
I believe the biggest reason why most people did Vah Ruta first is because it's the only one that interrupts your exploring to ask you to do it.
When I first encountered the Ruta Quest, it was because a Zora stopped me in my tracks and started a cutscene where it asked me to meet Sidon. At first I didn't even realize it was the main quest so I was just like "okay".
You should check out Yahtzee Crowshaw's Extra Punctuation video on Elden Ring's open world. It highlights a major difference between Ubisoft's "we're going to shit a bunch of icons onto your map" open world games and a number of games made by Japanese developers.
The short version is that western open world games are terrified that you might miss content, so they shower you with objective markers and the like, while a lot of Japanese open world games just put fun and interesting stuff in their world with the confidence that, no matter where you go, you'll find something cool.
Interesting, so you took ONE company that makes games and compare them to an entire country's and then you say western open world games.
What's the consistency here? Is it Ubisoft or is it the entire continent of Europe and Americas?
Did you try too hard to adore the Japanese that you forgot what you wrote halfway through?
And to the fun and interesting part..That's to you. I would find nothing fun and interesting about Japanese video games.
Treating entirely subjective aspects as if they're objectively fun and interesting is weird. You like them. You. Don't put some collective in there.
If Japanese video game were so superior, they'd be the only thing on the market. But they aren't, because...They appeal to your type. Not all types. Your type is small, even in the small world of desktop/console gaming.
Elden Ring is an outlier like Cyberpunk 2077.
CP77 is dogshit, but it sure as shit sold well. CDPR lied about stuff, but no amount of lying is going to get them hate like NMS.
Some people shit on one thing doing the same thing as another thing, because they are biased.
In no way is Elden Ring representative of Japanese games. I would never watch a livestream of 99% of Japanese games, because they're all junk.
@@Herkan97 Why are you all around this comment section being mad? Why did you even click this video that was clearly going to present Elden Ring in a positive light if you hate it so much?
@@Herkan97 It seems to me that you have a rage boner against japanese games, rather than the other person having a boner for them. Just saying.
@@Herkan97 Why are you getting all mad for? all he said was that japanese open world game devs tend to be less afraid of having content you can miss (it isnt just elden ring , other japanese open world games have no problem with you missing stuff too) ,
I like the State of Decay method to map discovery :3 Vantage points are usually marked from fairly far away because they tend to be high up and easy to spot, clearly making them a solid spot to scout the area from. From the start, the map is almost bare except for the basic layout of the streets and landmarks of Trumbull Valley (it's like a travel map for tourists), along with the markers for any active quests and nearby vantage points.
Cruise through a neighborhood block and check your map, and you'll see question marks over buildings and locations that look promising to loot for supplies. Enter one, and it'll get a vague symbol marking what you're likely to find within :3 That also varies, because it's not just gas stations that have gas, or military bases that have guns/ammunition! It all feels appropriate, and there's a fair chance to find anything pretty much anywhere :D
It's a good balance of telling you where _something_ is, while making you find more of those potentially rewarding locations for yourself. If you wanna know exactly what's there, you've gotta go and visit it yourself! Leaves some good mystery and also a good idea of where you'd wanna go if you're looking.for something specific.
I kinda wanna see an open world with no quest markers, just a map that you mark yourself and a blank journal that you mark up and sketch in (think of the landmark drawing in RDR2) yourself ;D ...or at least the _option_ to manually document your journey in more games, if you feel that the automatic map/journal is too railroady
This is one of the best videos I've seen in a while! That was an astute observation (not to mention super entertaining to watch too!!)
Your experience with your early-game Elden Ring "teleportation" makes me wish that you'd had the opportunity to try "Outward", a 2019 3rd person, open world RPG by Nine Dots Studio. Their world is really great, broken into 6 overworld maps each with their own distinct feel (plus a host of mostly smaller dungeons). Particularly interesting is their adherence to a landmark-based navigation system -- their in game map does not show your own location, but it does include key landmarks which are visible from afar, allowing a player to determine their own location based on clues from the maps. I loved this mechanic, but it wasn't loved by all, and now mods make its inclusion moot.
Additionally, the game has a set of different scenarios that occur should the player be defeated, rather than forcing (or even allowing) a game reload. Depending on your location and the enemy that struck the final blow, you might end up dragged to a bandit camp and "imprisoned" (with your belongings usually nearby), found left-for-dead by guards from the nearby town, or even rescued and taken to a distant cave by a friendly version of a usual foe. In these instances, the player will often lose some of their basic currency, and a chunk of time (usually 3 in-game days which can be detrimental to certain timed missions) but their belongings are intact and they suffer no lasting physical effects. Oftentimes, these scenarios will transport you across the map, to totally new locations, and part of the game's joy is launching out from these unknown locations for the first time, scanning the horizon for familiar landmarks in order to find your way home.
Thanks for the great content!
Outward is sadly an overlooked game, but it was a open world souls like game before Elden Ring was a thing.
Holy cow I forgot why I loved Outward so much. Definitely satisfies that explorer urge in me.
I was just thinking about this game, but couldn’t remember what it was called. Never played it myself
@@LittleMushroomGuy It's getting a Definitive Edition soon!
@@resrer It does offer a really satisfying blend of open world exploration and battle. It's got its share of jank, but I still really dig it.
After doing the first Tallneck (tower analogue) in Horizon Forbidden West, seeing the fog of war disappear from my map and replaced with a bunch of icons, I decided to skip the rest of them. Going in blind to every part of the map really elevated the sense of discovery and gave the game a bit of a BoTW feel to exploration.
I'd highly recommend doing this if that's your preferred style of exploration.
I think the map is fine, but the quest markers not so much. Like BotW.
This is exactly my thought on HFW as well, although I couldn't articulate it before watching this video. There are just too many markers for everything in HFW. I'm going to try playing with them all turned off and see if I can get back to my love for the series.
yeah you should try to go blind as much as possible. getting to day tower and realising where the game is set was really cool. and i had the same thing finding the dam in the DLC too
This reminded me a lot on how Divinity Original Sin 2 did it. While every single act of the game you get to play is technically open, you’re not immediately guided to where to go, you’re given a general premise of being there and the quests that lead to that are scattered along the place and you gotta find them before those quests give you markers. And even outside of that, the set pieces you get to explore in the meantime are engaging and exploring outside of quests grants you more loot, story and puzzles.
And it also often does this whole thing with nudging the player towards the quests that get you closer to the main objective through explicitly showing you enemy levels and allowing retreat at any time so long as you don’t immediately die.
Watching this video made me realize I have played almost no open world games at all before Elden Ring. The only exception I can think of is Minecraft and Crysis 1 and I'm not sure how much that counts. Was really interesting learning how the tower system works
new vegas my friend
Kingdom come deliverance, the open world is so perfectly created. It has a grounded in reality feeling, but also interesting visuals for the player that wishes to go off the beaten path.
Well, the "world" is literally based on a real area. Seriously, you can just go to google maps and find the locations of the game, and except some empty areas that were removed, it matches the ingame map.
@@igorokinamujika2073 ok?
@@winstonchurchill624 All the places, like the city on hill and monastery for example, are real places.
@@dr.julianbashir9193 yeah, Sasau monastery blew my mind when I saw side by side comparison of in-game to real life
Ghost of Tsushima also did exploration phenomenally. Roads actually lead to interesting locations. The lack of a cluttered HUD also allows for immersion. Since the roads generally have combat encounters, sometimes the player strays off the path, which also leads to interesting areas. Either way, the game was engineered in such a way that allows for natural exploration unless the player decides to set a waypoint. Even then, you still have to figure out how to get to that waypoint.
Thank you for this very informative video man. Totally helps on my dev journey. 🙌🏼
1:43 those are some nice folders you have there
Another good video! A little sad you didn’t mention elden rings player message system. While it is often overrun by trolls and dumb jokes (which are still funny after playing for multiple days worth of time) it’s always been in FromSoft games since the start of souls, but it feels like it’s been recontextualized into something really engaging in this open world. A way to guide the players entirely created by the players
Visions of dog
If only I had a
giant but hole
Why is it always dog?
Also makes some of the best environmental storytelling when you see an "ambush left" message with a bunch of votes and a crap ton of blood stains ahead. Only to get ambushed from the right and be like "oh, that's what I get for trusting the floor grafitti"
you don't have the right, O you don't have the right
therefore you don't have the right, O you don't have the right.
The Sinking City, while not open world, has some of the best exploration combined with investigation I have played to date. Using the map and finding out objectives based on clues and searching the map for locations based on tips and hearsay. Just the best.
And for as great as Elden Ring is, it's true strongest exploration point is realizing just how absurdly (almost incomprehensibly) MASSIVE it is.
I could say more, but words cannot do it justice. It's something that has to be discovered by playing the game, and realizing the map does not feel like it ever stops extending.
The fact that they set the game to such a gargantuan scale, while also making it feel so engaging and full, is utterly mind-boggling.
Never met Hestu the entire game (so I never learned to increase bag size) and the elephant was the last divine beast I fought. Considering everything you mentioned I'm surprised I didn't take that route
The moment game tell me that open world is ready to be explored is the moment I drop main quest and start running around and exploring. That's also why I loved Breath of the wild so much. moment when whole map opened was when I stopped following main quest and if I remember correctly I visited Kakuriko village in like hour 15. First guardian for me was in Gerudo town. Thinking about it now, I have more than 60 hours in that game but I only did 2 guardians and never finished it. I had my fun and put it down after 60. Will have to jump for 20 more sometime to finish it.
On the other note I just started Yakuza like a dragon, 24 hours in and I am just half way through 5th act. Loving every minute of it.
Yep, I love exploring in games. Gotta look in every nook and cranny just in case there's something there.
A little reminder that one of the developers of the original Assassin's Creed actually came out and apologized for creating the Towers and encouraged other developers to stop using them. That was years ago... and developers still use them...
Can't believe I sat through all those names at the end, lol..
Your voice is just so naturally funny in the way it builds up so that it always seems like you're building towards a punch-line, even when you're just reading out names 😀
Nice vid btw, really makes me excited to delve into Elden Ring after wrapping up Cyberpunk..
going off metro exodus, the game uses a small-scale open world design for most of its individual levels, and so the devs were able to put something different inside every single building you could see. furthermore, they created levels within levels by creating scripted story segments within some of those buildings which really allowed you to explore the mildly larger structures to a greater extent. i don't really see other devs reiterating on this, but 4a games really proved that you could do open world on a smaller scale while still making it feel vast n packed w content but at the same time not overwhelming to the player. i mean, the stalker series also did this but i just wanted an excuse to say devs should do more open-world level designs.
I think smaller discrete open areas is better than one open world, kind of the Monster Hunter approach. or like Dragon Age Inquisition, although I don't think that game is designed super-well for other reasons. Having these discrete areas makes it easier to steer the player, gives each area a coherent design theme (like, desert, really wet coastline, dense jungle, spooky swamp, etc.), and then you can have a hub area in between visiting these open areas, which establishes a nice gameplay loop. Game Freak wisely jacked this from Monster Hunter for Pokemon Legends Arceus, because the design of the game meant the standard Pokemon game progression wouldn't work. So they went with a tried and true game formula, and it worked out for them. And I think this kind of design is far superior to the huge open world with too many markers. every area is just big enough for you to get a bit lost in, but not so big that you never memorize the terrain.
i personally thought it felt empty, but maybe thats because i came from playing a modded stalker game
There is a small open world game called "A short Hike", it's really nice.
All of my favorite memories/stories from playing Oblivion are random little side things I decided to do on my own, that ended hilariously.
Like the time I ransacked half of the Bruma houses, got caught, killed several guards and escaped the city, only to be confronted on the road a few hours later by a guard on horseback... who graciously dismounted to approach me, giving me the opportunity to hop on and ride away :')
Or the time I tried to hide from a troll in a random peasant's forest home, and it followed me inside... but didn't come back out. Whoops 🤷♀️
Or flipping the Mages' Guid the bird and keeping all the black soul gems for myself, and devoting myself to the ways of necromancy by keeping a schedule of the fancy moon thing and creating new ones at that altar.
Or creating prank spells to f*ck with NPCs. Love the way a group of them run around and flock together after they all get randomly paralyzed for half a second, simultaneously stiffening and falling to the ground 😂 Or spontaneously combusting myself with simultaneous fire damage and healing and running through cities like I'm a harbinger of the endtimes.
Or just any time I find a new way to roleplay. I rekindled such a new enjoyment of the game when I decided to stop just hacking everything with a sword and instead built a new strategy around hiding, summoning creatures to fight for me, and investing in athletics/acrobatics to strategically dodge everything. I built a whole personality and moral code around that character and it was so fresh to play.
And then just... every shenanigan I fell into along the way of trying to complete the whole "pilgrimage" journey actually on foot wearing nothing but robes.
The thing that elden ring really nails that sets it apart in my opinion is texture. What I mean is texture to the landscape, and variation in topography. Hills and cliffs, little ledges, giant boulders or small rocks everywhere, every tree, stone, and bush feels deliberately placed. The changes in elevation, the way the landscape blocks you from going a certain way at times. Everything about it makes it feel real and alive. Where other open worlds just feel like flat plains with assets dotted on top of them, elden ring feels like an actual world. Every single inch of the map was crafted with unbelievable amounts of love and care and it shows. The detail and variation in the terrain is just so interesting and fun to traverse. In red dead redemption 2 it feels like a chore to ride to where you need to go but in elden ring it’s an adventure where you have no idea what might happen or what you might find. It just does such a good job piquing your curiosity and making you want to check every nook and cranny. And everything feels memorable. So many open worlds fall into the trap of everything feeling and looking the same, to go back to rdr2 (I love that game by the way) the landscapes kind of all feel exactly the same and it’s almost impossible to know where you are without a map if you’re not in a city or a place with recognizable landmarks. In elden ring everything feels unique and interesting, whereas in other games it just feels too similar and repetitive
I completely agree and FromSoft are amazing at revealing areas in ways that feel rewarding. Like, we have to either go through Magma Wyrm Makar or find the two halves of the Medallion to use the Grand Lift of Dectus in order to get to the Altus Plateau, but when you reach the Plateau and take in its beauty for the first, you feel you deserve to be there. It's more than just a generic ascent from lowland to highland.... it symbolizes your graduation from lowly Tarnished to bonafide contender for the mantle of Elden Lord.
Its weird how i can remember Elden Ring like places I have visited IRL
Same with Jedi Fallen order
Not having a mini map is a pain at first, but it really does force you to learn the spaces that you're in
Something I realized in Celeste, of all games, is how important a “sense of place” is. Celeste is great and all, but the primary purpose of the game is to complete a play forming challenge and then move on to the next one. There’s a faint semblance of geography, of distinct locations that you can fix in your brain as “oh, that place!” but it’s not really the point. I’m the sort of player who appreciates a location’s identity fixing itself in my mind, and consequently Celeste felt a little like a chore to get through due to the comparative lack of a sense of geographical progression. That’s not the game’s fault at all-just my personal tastes and improper attitudes (built by games like Hollow Knight) seeping in.
If a location in your game doesn’t form an identity tag in the player’s brain (“the scary place” or “oh I’m safe now” or “that one area with that fun puzzle near this other place” or “that room with this particular play forming challenge” then I think it’s harder to care about the world. A sense of place makes every inch of the map feel either like an interesting location that has permanently stuck itself in your brain, or an adjacent area to such a location that serves as a palette cleanser.
Breath of the Wild’s Great Plateau is great at this. There’s the Shrine of Resurrection, the Big Intro Cliff, the path down with the apple trees, then the part with the old man, then the axe, then that forest with the first enemy. Then there’s a crossroads where you can go a few different areas, a pond with a small ledge, and some buildings with some dudes, or a cliff with a Boulder, so on and so forth. It’s not that these areas are particularly interesting in their own right, but they have such an important association in my mental map that each of them becomes an important place. It’s the same way that a tree near your home goes from being just a tree to a landmark that means something to you. It’s something the Souls games have been doing forever-there’s no such thing as “just a staircase.” It’s “that one ambush that made you react in this one unforgettable way.” The repetition of dying a bunch helps. Strategy solidifies them in the mind.
I don’t know, I just think it’s really interesting. Absolutely my favorite element of exploration. These aren’t just places. They’re PLACES. And they mean something to you, if only subconsciously.
Celeste is great at giving it's levels a distinct personality, vibe and such, but yeah, it never tries to hide that they're _levels._ Abstractions of Madeline's climb. Oshiro's Hotel, eg, isn't built to be a real space at all, it's a series of platforming challenges and an attempt to give you insight into Oshiro's mind. I hope you still enjoyed the game, though! It's really a modern classic. 😙👌
And YEAH. My god. Undead Burg will be burned into my brain until the day I die. I can't guarantee I'll remember _everything_ about that game's full map (though I currently do remember it really well), but everything between the start of the game and the bell gargoyles is just... it's here to stay. From has always been great at making spaces super memorable, even in the much maligned DS2. One may not like the game, might not even have finished it, but if I ask to imagine Majula, I'll bet whatever is on their brains is extremely close to correct.
@@pedroscoponi4905 Oh, absolutely about Celeste! It's not what the game is trying to do at all, and its intent--to be a very good and very hard platformer--is executed brilliantly. It's not really my kind of game, so the fact that I'm as fond of it as I am says a lot. Just a matter of some of my preexisting preferences bleeding through lol.
Yes, yes, YES! It's not just the repetition. It's the thought you have to put into every last inch of the map just to survive. Every space becomes assigned with an emotion, strategy, or some other association, and that makes them all matter.
I think it's unfair to compare a 2d platformer to a 3d open world. They're 2 different genres of games with the only links being that they have humans and monsters and that there is/are mountains.
It's like comparing this video here to an annoying orange video
@@randomperson9732 it can be a fair comparison - celeste as the OP mentioned has very different design goals and as such they note, that this is not a mark against the game, but just and introduction as to how they realized something due to that aspect being absent
on the other hand if you compare something like hollow knight which is also a 2D game that does platforming with open world games, the comparison becomes much more useful, since there (also as the OP mentions) the places ARE places and it is built as a world you navigate and where you build a connection to it... no one will forget the time when they finally managed to get out of deepnest (and the horror when realizing they may have to go back in) after falling into the pit - yes THAT pit
the genre or presentation isnt necessarily important for a comparison to be useful - whats important is that the aspects you are comparing are relevant to the argument you are trying to make and that they are kept in perspective
or to use the old saying : comparing apples to oranges is perfectly fine, so long as there is a point to it... if your takeaway is that apples are not oranges, the comparison is useless - but if you are comparing them to figure out what food to take on a hike - its perfectly valid to do so, as the qualities (or lack there of) of either might highlight what set of criteria are important to find the best travel food to pack and might lead you to other options you had not considered
as always: context is important
In BotW, I think the "Big Intro Cliff" is one of the big disappointments of the game. Or rather, the cutscene. Just because it's a cutscene. You don't walk over there to check out the lands yourself. You get to view a scene of Link doing that without your control. It's very comparable to the lookout point in Fallout 3 just after the intro vault, but there you have to actually walk over there yourself and check the world out. Much, much better.
The funny thing is, even on my elden ring playtrhough, knowing that chest existed, i still passed through all the messages on the ground and opened it...
i dodged the chest by rolling before the smoke hits me and avoiding them till later in the game, only to return there later which was cool.
"we need more caves" was my thought while watching the whole video. it was saticfying to hear you say it at the end.
I just played skyrim for the first time this week; I can confirm that I indeed went to bleak falls straight after Riverwood - but it was cause the merchant had a side quest there.
.
I honestly didn't even see it there the first time; which may or may not be caused by the 1500+ mods I have installed.
A lot of mods for the first play through?
@@bernardoblanchetramirez6032 Yes, I wasn't a fan of Skyrim combat when it came out so I never got motivated to play it. Currently using nolvus mod pack and it makes the fights so much more engaging, properly animated in 3rd person and adds depth to a lot of gameplay elements- visual improvements and added content aside.
I've been told that I should atleast play vanilla first, but personally; just like minecraft- I never would've played the game without the mods.
Yeah I'm not too sure about the bleak falls point he makes- I didn't even know you could see it from the tutorial area. I followed the main quest there.
@@finbees how'd you guys not see Bleak Falls? it's so in your face with the archways on the mountain, which you're drawn to by the dragon flying toward it.
@@jackmayor3574 probably because i was busy jumping up and down and picking flowers on the side of the road. I dont know dude, I have played countless hours of skyrim but I didnt notice that until he said it happens in the video.
I think its telling to listen to the developers who are upset bout Elden Ring's success. The Horizon Forbidden West dev who is upset that their carefully-crafted approach to UX was thrown aside and people are loving the game despite it's absence, and the other angry children developers who agreed with him completely missed the f'ing point. It's the quality of ER's open world concept that makes it great. It's bringing in people who hate minimalist UX and people who hate soulslike games and boss fights *because* the open world is so compelling.
Nothing stops these devs from creating their own response to this: start with a world that's as good as ER and *then* add whatever UX you think it needs. They've been treating the open world like it's a *substitute* for good game design and are now shown up for their laziness.
The upshot is that when there is enough fun things to do, the UX matters a hell of a lot less than they think it does.
Nah they will tell what is good or not and the customer VILL like it
Pardon my ignorance. What is UX?
@@mogar2813 User Experience, think of it like User Interface+. It's all the little things of that concept, put together. Not just how the UI looks and feels, but how many button presses it takes to navigate, how the UI is impacted and impacts the game world, that sort of thing.
Also, I haven't heard of this beef the HFW devs or others have with Elden Ring's success? I'd like some elaboration on that.
@@donbionicle I'm sure it's probably just a dev making a playful jab on twitter
@@donbionicle one dev from HFW said something about elden ring's score proves people don't care about good quest design and the like and all the elden ring fans took it as if the guy killed someone's mom, I haven't played neither game but Fromsoftware has always had a problem with quest design and.... well most design around questlines and dlcs and the like in my opinion, doesn't make the souls games bad but is a real criticism.
Yeah, in the first half of the video, I found myself comparing it constantly with my beloved old (semi)open world - Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Specifically, the Great Eastern Sea segment.
Even in this old GBA JRPG, they used multiple of the mentioned principles really damn well. And, yes, there is the Tundaria Tower.
heh similar reaction for me, though i compared it to gothic =)
It's a shame Dark Dawn didn't really feel like it was opening up until the game was over.
And it doesn't seem like they're continuing it.
Los Age was definitely the peak for Golden Sun. :/
Outcast has one of the best open worlds in existence. No quest markers, but you could ask any NPC for directions and places were described in your quest log which meant just finding a place had a sense of achievement.
i'm really glad this video had sable at least vaguely mentioned through background footage because it's one of my favourite open world games
I assumed that the wormies were there to signify the location of an evergaol, since they're flat on the ground and might be hard to find otherwise.
The Caelid tunnel treasure teleport is my favorite part of the game hands down, especially with all the messages of "I want to go home".
Unfortunately it also made me too strong for the earlier areas because I kept bashing my head against Caelid.
I've retreated from so many areas in that game.
The only thing I insisted on bashing my head against was Margaret, and only because they weren't very hard.
Didn't find that teleport treasure until today, when I've already been there and I'm at level 70
@@kamikeserpentail3778 No worry there are few more that will send you straight to endgame area.
Unfortunately, that's the one thing elden ring fails at where it normally would be amazing for: underestimating just how utterly masochistic the playerbase can be.
I can tell you not one, but FIVE different areas/enemies in just limgrave and surroundings (including the cealid chest of course) that are there to blatantly tell the player "this is for when you did much more of limgrave, so don't worry, come back later" yet nearly everyone just kept bashing their had against it.
Siofra and the tree sentinel being probably the best examples as they are both too strong for a new player yet also something nearly everyone stubbornly does as soon as they find them(sometimes due to thinking that that's the general balance of the gane, forgetting that the tutorial "boss" was supposed to be a regular medium enemy not a trash mob)
I was really hoping you’d mention Ghost of Tsushima. It along with Elden Ring made me fall back in love with open world games. They way player exploration is emphasized with so many things pulling your attention without even pulling up a map is so satisfying
In all honesty is kinda mid, the world itself is cool but the side content isn’t great
I'm of the complete opposite opnion I felt that Tsushima did not facilitate exploration at all instead feeling like I was being shown a slie reel of content.
The only time in the game I thought "I wonder if there is something interesting here" was with the mountain where you learn to light your sword, meanwhile I had that thought several times in Elden ring because I could see distinct land features far away and on the map that made me think there might be interesting stuff there.
When I got there I also had to look around for caves, chests, graces etc.. while in Ghost when you arrive you already know where all the interesting parts are because the map directs you to them, there is no exploration in finding them you don't seek them out in the landscape or work out their location from hints in a map.
They had a good thing going with the wind acting as a compass and animals acting as a means to take players to side content, but didn't have the courage to stick to it and still relied upon sign posting content and removing the exploration experience.
If they were afraid of so many players misssing out in exploration, then they should have used better visual deisgn, using the map like elden ring's with small features that hint at notable points or within the game world by creating more visual clarity so players can recognize interesting features from far away.
Great video! Well done
Hey now, NMS has really improved over the years, and while it isn't the peak of open world exploration, it certainly isn't bad now.
@@GoblinUrNuts Imagine the version you played, except there are no buildable structures, you can't own a massive freighter, there's no ability to shoot your way through the terrain, and there's almost nothing to actually do lol. The original release of that game was literally just "fix your ship, collect resources and money so you can buy a new ship/upgrade your current ship, and follow this storyline that we haven't even completed development on that will lead you to literally repeating the same tasks over and over and over and over again".
The games still pretty mediocre but man it was such a travesty when it released. Almost nothing they promised was actually in the game, it was actually kind of hilarious how badly they screwed us over.
There will be a bunch of unnecessarily difficult open world games 2 years from now because of developers not understanding FromSoft difficulty
Fromsoft themself dont understand the difficulty anymore. Yay for delays specifically to fuck up people with muscle memory from previous games
wait crap you're right - elden ring was a mistake
yeah just like after dark soul's success it spawned a bunch of shit imitators a year or 2 like lords of the fallen lovingly called clunk souls because the devs thought dark souls is all about looking like a drunkard waddling around with a weapon pretending to fight.
@@placeholdername2270 man what are you talking about? the weakest hollows from ds1 had huge delays for attacks
@@ehrtdaz7186 I think that in ds1 there were more frames to parry/dodge/etc between the windup and attack. In elden ring it feels like its all delay, and then like 5 frames beforegetting hit
Elden Ring was probably the first open world game I explored every inch of because the game doesn’t tell me what to do and vaguely tells you where to go. I wish I could erase my memory and have my first play through again
I like open world games like Skyrim, and one of the reasons is using the freedom of choice to either just explore or decide for myself what the next best step could be. These days when I play Skyrim, I put off the main quest until I’ve explored and beefed up my character.
I get confused by people talking about Elden Ring as the open world Soulsbourne because I thought Soulsbourne games were open world. I guess I've always considered Metroidvanias as open world, just, you know, *good* open worlds.
Just like a good Metroidvania doesn't need quest markers because the world is designed piece by piece to attract your attention to stuff you need to remember, a good open world will do the same. Which is why there are so many bad open worlds. Making a world that size which you can navigate by interesting landmarks requires you to build the world out of interesting stuff. Which is *hard*. You can't do it by having a paintbrush tool with "mountain" and "field" and "lava" brush settings. You have to actually design it piece by piece, which could take forever if your goal is just to boast the square miles covered by your map.
Thinking like this makes me appreciate why the "ressurgence" of the Metroidvania happened: It is the cheaper (different from lazy mind you) way to provide exploration, discovery and freedom in comparison to "open worlds". Any world that was conceived with the intention you will explore it will always amaze those who do so.
A metroidvania tends to have much harder "locks" and much more explicit "keys" to unlock them. The keys are also usually ordered into a fairly strict and linear sequence. In an open world game you're typically only limited/guided by your (lack of) ability as a player and any kind of linear sequence is much more of a suggestion. That said, I think Souls games are somewhere inbetween. They're not as restrictive as metroidvanias, because most of the "locks" are combat encounters that you could theoretically defeat with a freshly made character, but you also can't just fight the Moon Presence the first time you go to the Hunter's Dream, unlike Ganon in BotW.
@@Salsmachev that very much depends on the metroidvania game in question - the hard locked linear sequence often can just involve the initial "tutorial" bits before it opens up more - and things locked behind powerups can often also be bypassed with creative use of enemies or mechanics
i very much agree that metroidvanias are a facet of open world games and honestly... if you think about it - the way darksouls is structured is very much metroidvania in style:
the catacombs are essentially locked behind having access to divine weapons to permanently killing skeletons
the giants tomb to having light
sens fortress requires you to ring the bells
the sewers are literally locked with a key
just as a few examples
and all the locations are incredibly interconnected once you have "unlocked" them - which is what metroidvanias do with powerups as well
and while they arent really the same in the kind of gameplay they offer - they share quite a few core design principles... which is probably why they appeal in a similar way to explorers
the main mistake, in my opinion, that the big open world devs these days made was that they built their open world without guidance in mind... and as a fix for that they added explicit giant "go here" signs everywhere... when you have built a gridmaze of a town where everything looks the same... you can either plaster signs onto everything to make clear what it is and where it is... or just get lost repeatedly... if you want something you can intuitively navigate... you need to design for that from the start...once youve built it...its too late
Only dark souls 2 can be called an open world since you can go everywhere. But even dark souls 2 is linear.
Another thing about the towers in breath of the wild. While it does unlock the map for the area it doesn’t unlock the quest markers or even name all important locations right away. You must travel to the temple, horse stables , great fairies, and other goodies before they appear on the overworks map.
It encourages you to actually look around, mark interesting features yourself, and then use the map if you get lost on the way. The tutorial even teaches you how to find and mark temples. It’s a much more engaging way to do it than giving the player 20 locations at once.
My biggest problem with open worlds tends to be choice paralysis. I see 50 options in front of me, and I don't know which of them to start with, because I want to do them all, but I don't want to miss anything or have to do painful backtracking later after my first choice ended with me being miles away. I end up doing these really unfun zig-zags across the map, usually with a wiki or something open, manually keeping track of everywhere to go.
Closed worlds for me, thanks. The extra bit of procedurally generated terrain doesn't make up for it to me.
After escaping I really loved getting traped in the Crystal Tunnel of Caelid. Since I choose to be a mage for my first playthrough and there weren't really any spells or magic staffs, I was super happy finding the Rock Sling and the Meteoroid staff (or what it's called). With that I managed to get into the late Game without having to bother with upgrading until I found a decent enough magic scaling Melee weapon and an actual late game staff. What a great time I had!
15:40 cheered me up an unreasonable amount, well done 👏
In terms of learning FO:NV, Cazadores become quite manageable once you VATS off their wings! They still act as a bottleneck to direct the player to the scenic route, but they're a good enemy because they make the player FEEL like they're learning!
This is the best video I've seen from you. Great!
One thing that also makes the Elden Ring world so fun to explore is that it presents itself as a puzzle. Cool locations are full of choke points, dead ends, locked doors, etc., which force you to think and explore quite a bit to get to the locations you want to reach. Figuring out how to get somewhere can in and of itself feel like an achievement.
Ok one thing, there is lots of thing wrong with cyberpunk but it’s map ain’t it. Best city map to date for me
His spaghetti map comment was 100% true. It was not designed to be a city, but a game with city elements added around to try and be more interesting. It is a very pretty backdrop though.
Cyberpunk city looks nice, but theres no point in exploring. No reason to go anywhere besides quest points really. The game wouldve been twice as good if they simply made you drive to fixers to take missions instead of this weird texting system that was a total bust
If I can't ask Judy for nudes what's the point of texting
One open-world map I've particularly enjoyed is that of Satisfactory. The map itself, with its various biomes and landscapes is very pretty, and simple intrinsic motivation to find cool-looking areas is a strong drive to look around.
But there are many other ways the game pushes you to explore. Collectibles such as power slugs or hard drives, organic resources like mycelium and food, better resource nodes to upscale factory size, new resources for game progression, and even good terrain for new factories.
Exploration progress is kept in check with hazards like gas, hostile creatures, and challenging terrain, but all of which can be easily overcome with enough concrete and can be dealt with much easier after unlocking certain items.
But the reason I've had so much fun exploring Satisfactory is because of the complete lack of explicit direction. I decide when it's worth searching for more resources, I decide when I need a good location for a new factory, I decide when to get more power slugs and hard drives, and I decide whether the obstacles are enough to stop me or whether I want to simply make a skybridge over it all.
After exploring a bit and reading the wiki, I was initially a little disappointed to find out that apart from late-game resource nodes there is nothing of explicitly higher quality to be found - only larger quantities of slugs and hard drives. But I think that actually helps place more emphasis on focusing on the map itself - both for its amazing visuals and also for finding good factory locations.
I found it to be interesting at times but for the most part it was not spectacular.
Maybe partly because it was a chore to build a ramps to go up places, and that ability negated a chunk of the need to care for the world.
walking through Sellia made the hair on my neck stand up. Loved every second of it.
seriously impressive analysis here, nice one friend
yknow when it comes to open world games and quests and exploration i like the approach that world based immersive sims like prey takes, each quest is unique and carefully designed by the developers and you often have to go out of your way to find each one, and its very simple to navigate without the need of downloading a map from a security terminal
I've been interested in these game dev concepts and followed the challenges and solutions that are made in the process, so here's how I'd summarise a chunk of it, primarily focused on world design:
1. World can be as large as it needs to be, but needs to be designed for exploration, heterogeneity, the best exploitation of key game mechanics, story progression, and keeping with the game's unique design ambience. Think pockets of thematic storytelling woven into the game's sprawling map, with story elements (quest items, NPCs) scattered everywhere else, which reminds the player enough about where and when they have and should go to explore without distracting or cluttering the gameplay.
2. Keep the inventory as tight and streamlined as it needs to be; why should half of all the items you can find be the same duplicates with other names, unless it has mechanical sense? Tie them to how it helps players get around the map, where using them has its boon and bane. What about player builds?
3. Item buffs and gameplay mechanics should try not to be overtly complicated but complements each of the respective elements baked into the game. Have verticality; jump, directional jump, and directional jump + active executable movesets (one to overcome obstacles, one to boost offence, etc) should be the only controls necessary. It's supposed to be enjoyable, not another button mashing wombo combo mob sweeper simulator 9000.
4. Each pocket of the map's design should try to incorporate varying degrees of difficulty that scales with universal players progression, ala metroidvanias. Using the previous examplefor verticality; what form of map exploration can the player unlock? Reverse exploration with lock picking? Double jumps to gain access of new routes? Grappling hooks that tie in with a particular attribute? The sky's the limit.
5. Remember when games used to have a reason why the map is limited, even when it tries to be as open as it could? Tie that back to the story, or mechanics, or in a way that makes players think what-ifs that challenges how they play the game (go out to sea to find an alternative route into a water themed dungeon). If innovation isn't enough, there's always reverse engineering.
One good idea I’ve seen in games with big open worlds, is the option to switch off the ‘quest guidance help icons’. You can go any where and have fun exploring and doing side quests and missions and when you finally decide to carry on with the main quest you just go to the journal and click on it to put up the map guidance etc. Simple right? Just remove all the ‘help’ and go wherever. Assuming the game designers and game writers did a really good job, exploring however we like, won’t ruin the game experience or story. As AG showed, it’s not so easy to do. 😅 Great video! 👍 Thank you. Stay safe. ❤️
5:48 An example i really like of this good design is Subnautica. Underwater, you can't really see too far. So you go up to the surface and still, it is mostly vast ocean. There are only 3 landmarks: The crashed ship, and the two islands. There is no map. You just kinda try to remember where everything is based on triangulating with these landmarks. Later in the game you can then create your own waypoints to make it easier to return to areas of interest, but at the beginning it is just by running into the fun stuff, not necessarily knowing where it is.
Fable 2 did it Right. Early game elden ring felt like a spiritual successor.
I found fable 2’s world to be bland empty and lifeless, weirdly enough I was far more engrossed with the first game. Elden ring is closer to the elder scrolls and Zelda, except it’s similar to older Zelda’s as much as botw.
@@caravaneerkhed Closer to Elder Scrolls? You're really stretching on that one. Early Zelda, sure, but Elden Rings is no where close to Elder Scrolls.
@@bitsamui5104 literally used the same philosophy for map design and discovery as Skyrim and botw. So it is in fact like elder scrolls in terms of open world structure. Same with botw.
While I agree with the overall point, I think Elden Ring specifically runs into a problem with FromSoft's reputation as a developer of hard games.
The game gently pushes you towards Margit, who for most players and especially first time players is really, really tough boss if you go there by a more or less direct route. Now in most open world games a tough enemy easily translates to "maybe explore elsewhere and come back later" but FromSoft has a reputation with making hard games, so the sudden difficulty spike of tough enemies to the inexperienced player can easily translate to "guess this were the real game begins and why people say it's difficult" and completely fail the intended effect.
The first Dark Souls had a similar issue with the Graveyard in Firelink and the Catacombs after it. Due to the architecture of Firelink you're lead to the graveyard were you're dropkicked by Skeletons that don't even look that threatening (until you unearth the giant). Skeletons are a pretty standard type enemy in most games compounding the issue of making the player feel like they're just not enough of a Gamer (tm) to continue in Dark Souls because the training wheels are off now that you left the Asylum.
That's a pretty big generalization. I saw Margit and turned back as intended, myself. I still got dropkicked by the skeletons as you mentioned, but that's because when I spawned into Firelink I was more focused on the items on the well than the giant obvious path right in front of me and just plain didn't see it.
I definitely made that mistake during DS1. It is definitely a point of attrition Elden Ring might have with people who haven't played these games before. I think just the fact that the map _is_ so open will lead people to more easily drop a challenge they're out of their depth for and go somewhere else, but yeah... To be honest, this whole "hardcore" reputation so many in the community push foward is so silly, so detrimental. Most From games aren't generally "Contra-Hard" unless you want them to be, and that aspect is hardly the best thing about them.
@@pedroscoponi4905 Fr, most of the "hardest" enemies in a from soft game usually mean you just aren't quite well equipped enough to properly deal with them and can be ran past in most cases.
I think Tree Sentinel and Agheel teach you to run away pretty effectively
Really? I thought Dark Souls 1 effectively guided you towards the undead burg, both because it was visible as "up there" when you're told to ring the bell tower, and because the enemies you encountered, while tough, were actually manageable unlike the skeletons.
The most fun I ever had playing an Assassin's Creed game was when I turned off the HUD. When the HUD was on, I found myself looking at it more than the actual environment, so enemies and objectives were just points on a map and markers to move away from or towards. When I removed the HUD, I had to actually use stealth, plan my route, take notice of enemies, and climb to vantage points to navigate. I still opened the pause menu to check the map when I got lost, but since I couldn't move and check the map at the same time it was a lot more purposeful. The game was significantly more enjoyable. 100% recommend this style of play to anyone who's playing the AC games.
I actually really liked how the districts in Cyberpunk 2077 all felt distinct and varied from each other.