Have Open World Games Peaked?
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2024
- In this video, we're taking a look at the open world game genre, looking back at it's origins and evolution to try and figure out if open world games have peaked?
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How I wish more open world games would go is like the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series where the world isn't massive sprawling nothingness for 500000sqkm but a small district in Tokyo and it's so much more fun.
Smaller open worlds are definitely the way because they can actually fill them with interesting content rather than fetch quests.
Yeah, I'm currently through my third Yakuza game -Judgment- and even though it's still Kamurocho, it's so much fun to discover. Keeping the same base world but still finding new ways to make it fun and fresh is such a hard thing to do, and the guys at RGG make it seem effortless
Exploring Kamurocho across the different games never gets old either. There is always something new or unique to discover.
An often forgotten about game in the early 3D open world genre was Body Harvest on the N64.
Made by DMA Design, you can see it laid the ground work for their later 3D GTA titles. It plays a bit janky these days, but well worth a mention I'd say.
Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley to me were great N64 games. Body Harvest was more the open world and led to GTA but it had great ideas.
Besides Silicon Valley's more different abilities, particular scale levels to reach a goal/food chain logic gameplay.
Silicon Valley made Biomutant look bland with how it uses the animals. Gas immunity in Biomutant is cool but the animals are more pathetic then any 5-6th gen platformers that offer so many good abilities for the animals. Retro gaming having better ideas, more out of the box ideas not formulas and characters stuck to those pathetic formulas then anything interesting to use them for.
I wish they gave them flight/swimming not only vehicles and 4 legs sprinting animations. Why not classes/traits of flight/swimming for the animals making exploration more fun, or quests more accessible/less accessible but keep the vehicles so the game is still 100%able/accessible still but just more suitable in another ability.
Sigh and that's just like how in racing games I know yep I can use these parts, these cars, this and that to get through their career modes in challenge run ways.
Nowadays games are so formulaic and followed one big one and drop their unique ideas it's hilarious so we got the more appealing but basic games then the exciting idea ones and only few bring them back, put a spin on them, or come up with something new not oh how shiny but basic they are, how realistic bleh.
What happened to gaming and it's blandness sigh..
Hunter on Amiga made years before Body Harvest were the first open world 3D game i played, then Daggerfall i think before Body Harvest existed. Body Harvest did of paw the way for GTA as you say.
Please do a remake Rockstar i beg of you!
I actually think Tears of the Kingdom was TOO open which was actually hurting the story progression. All the flashback scenes spread around the world made you spoiler yourself. For example one of the late story cutscenes was right next to the Rito village which is the first location the game wants you lead to
Probably would have been better if the Tears each revealed a cutscene in order, rather than each cutscene being attached to a Tear like in BOTW. With BOTW, it worked because it was all backstory, uncovering *your* forgotten history piece by piece, many of which often didn't correlate. So if you got them out of order (as you often would), you would wonder "how did we get to that point" rather than trying to solve it.
For that matter, same could have been done with the Sage cutscenes, with each starting where the other left off. Would have had to make 16 different cutscenes, but it could have worked.
Plus it just narratively made a lot more sense in BOTW. Recovering from memory loss IRL works in a somewhat similar way, and I was surprised to see Zelda of all games represent that so well. @@shiftfire4511
After watching a couple of the flashback scenes i wound up just finding all of them, skipping the scene when it started, and then just watching all of them at once when i got all of them. The first game didnt really matter which one you found when but it was pretty clear in Tears early on that the order was going to be a little more important. What they probably shouldve done was just make it so when you found a scene it loaded them up in order automatically regardless of which one you found where instead of having the scenes tied to specific areas
I do think the story aspect in Zelda has taken a hit with the open world and voice acting. Not saying the voice acting or story is bad, but I think you're limited with how detailed you can be when the same dialogue is said by the first 4 sages. Even down to the, "what?!.... demon king?"
I remember seeing the trailer and thinking that maybe as we would progress, the story would be given to us. However, it was just slightly different than BOTW.
@@shiftfire4511im agree with your idea.
But, it so basic idea (no offense to you my friend) that make me wonder why nintendo reject that idea?
Mafia didn't try to capitalize on the success of GTA as they were being developed simultaneously. Mafia was released later which is to be understood considering how much advanced that game is compared to GTA 3.
The problem is that they've become too common. The same thing happened to the FPS genre in the 2007-2013 era, and sports games before that.
Thank you. I said this about FPS for years
Almost every 7th gen shooter was a COD 4 clone😂
Most open world games just have you going to closed up missions instead of selecting them from a menu.
I wish for real dynamic open worlds with you shaping it and more than just triggers that slightly change the environment or enemy placements.
no, you can't want that!
that would require effort...
I remember visiting a friend of mine who’s mum got him everything. That was when I experience Burnout Paradise. Loved that open world. Was really interesting how large it felt despite being able to zoom across it so quickly. Great world design will do that. Looking at GTA:San Andreas with the fog lifted really shows how tiny that map in vs how large it felt. Great video Flandrew! Really liked your thought processes!
I remember when GTAV came out and people said GTA San Andreas was bigger, when it's just... provably not. It goes to show how important art design and presentation really is in games. I imagine Silent Hill looks hilariously tiny if you remove the fog.
@@TheSuckoShowSan Andreas was incredibly designed, when looking at the map recently, I noticed how the roads were twisting in ways that made you drive for longer, without really going far in any directon! But it made you feel like you drove forever and thus like the map and cities were huge!
I remember playing burnout paradise when I was a kid in 2012. I would always let the main menu song play because I loved it haha.
@@TheSuckoShow I mean if you want to get technical V is set in a portion of the map that San Andreas is set in, albeit with a lot more detail. San Andreas is a whole state, V is Los Santos and surrounding area only. they're both great at what they do though!
The entire gaming industry has peaked. There is massive competency crisis in terms of talent and all the money that goes into making games is spent on the graphics and not gameplay systems, because normies only care about graphics.
Yes unless you are a company based in Eastern Europe those countries make great games
Correct. Imagine if every company treated devs well and put AAA effort into games with retro or non HD graphics as well as nice looking ones. Greed kills every industry unfortunately
tf is this incel argument lol "normies" are not the picky ones about graphics, they are playing stardew valley and Fifa on ps4. The ones who love graphics are actual core gamers that lose their minds if an enemy in halo infinite looks bad in a pre launch showcase. The crisis is not one of competency and talent, it must be clear to you that "talent" is there and abundant in the industry if you're not an actual moron. The crisis is one of rampant monetization and profit maxxing, games now are services, they have to be online and have to be long lasting, they can't be creative and new because new and interesting is not a safe bet when you can just pump out another assassins creed. The fault is on the suits, not on the actual devs
@@Dingus888 The best games ever were made under crunch. Great art requires passion not 8 year dev cycles.
Well said. In some ways I feel like something similar is happening to the movie industry, in the sense that original new stories that are compelling and well written are few and far between compared to the plethora of boring, derivative superhero blockbusters or another sequel prequel or threequel
I think semi open world games are the true peak. God of War showed me how sometimes a smaller liner game is actually far superior if done properly.
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gow is not a open world my guy
Personally I am so sick of Open World games being a glorified checklist and being hand held on where to go. From constant arrows/markers on where the next mission/quest is, to the protagonist always pointing out every little thing and constantly annoying us to continue the story (what sane person would talk to themselves that much?!). My ideal direction would be a game enticing me to explore.
Elden Ring was the recent game for me and immediately sucked me in and I was constantly going off the main path trying to find new things and areas, I even find modern games no longer included hidden areas, or locked areas in lower level missions to entice you to come back once you collected a specific item or skill.
its all a copy and paste mechanic with open world being nothing more than collectibles and the same 2-3 side missions spewed all over the map as a checklist, but with an emphasis on story now. Once I complete these games there's no enticement or reason to replay it. These games are so open yet you're constricted or tunnel visioned into a specific way of completing it.
ubisoft ruined it by making it check listy. more games like Outward would be awesome but thats niche and no big producer wants that.
its easier to make cheklist game with sidequests then a world that has evolivng systems that would be cpu bound, i think this gen wil try new things tho ,power has increased to allow it
Tears of the kingdom is better than elden ring. Elden Ring limits your freedom. You cannot even swim in that game. it's just open world dark souls 1
@@frogglen6350who needs swimming in souls games anyways? It would be kinda dumb to see a character in full armor with weapons and a shield swimming.
@@arclight7892
Yeah. Swimming in full armor makes no sense in this video game where you ride on a goat horse that can jump hundreds of ft high
Open worlds have absolutely peaked with rdr2 and botw, sure there are other incredible games that have come out since like elden ring or death stranding (particularly games that did something interesting) but nothing that has completely changed the way we think about open worlds.
7:19 Also following in the footsteps of Spore: Galactic Adventures, which did the procedurally-generated universe thing even as just the base game, long before No Man's Sky but Galactic Adventures took that a step further by letting you explore each planet.
Your videos are so pro! Love each one of them! Congrats!
I think this is your best video, Andrew. I love all your game version comparisons and the nostalgia they all come with, But that style applied to a topic like this just lends itself for a nice "show don't tell" journey that I really enjoyed. I would love something like this about metroidvanias, 2d platformers.. Or really anything else you want lol. Keep it up! 😁👏🏽
I think we are at a point where we need all sorts of fresh and exciting new takes on the open world genre. I think now that the technology is starting to get good enough that more indie teams can make open world games, indie titles like Outer Wilds, Alba, Eastshade, A Short Hike, The Pathless, etc... are offering exciting new takes on what an open world can even be.
I think there is probably all sorts of new ways you can make an open world feel interesting and unique again, just that AAA has largely gotten too complacent and somebody needs to come shake things up again. I want a future with smaller more handcrafted open worlds where you develop an intimate attachment and knowledge of the space you travel through personally.
Personally, Outer Wilds blew my mind, it had such a refreshingly unique take on open worlds overall. I also am really enthusiastic about the idea of linear sorta open zone kinda games. It's not a true open world, but I remember loving those open city areas in Stray where you play as a cat. All the filler stuff was removed, checklists, skill trees, crafting, XP points, upgrades, etc... They cut the fat out and just made this very immersive game where you play as a cat and the environments were incredibly rich and detailed. I think more small scale open world games that feel big since maybe you play as an animal would be neat too.
The biggest problem with open worlds is making use of the space the players are given. It doesn't matter if your world is the biggest ever made with gorgeous environments, if there's nothing to do players will lose interest.
You should have talked about the Yakuza series. They are "technically" open world games. Smaller open world maps, but very densly packed.
Actually gaming in general has peaked. Every game now has to be bigger and longer and include everything with the best graphics possible in the least amount of time possible. We are now plagued with boring buggy games that takes year to actually get to a playable state. Games need to be back to being fun in the first place. No need for a complicated 100h story or the best possible graphics. Nintendo are pretty much the only company still doing fun games.
Most of those games drag on for wayyy to long. Take the assassins creed Valhalla for example
Nah, thats some bullshit. Games have always tried to be bigger and better than before. The argument that games are worse today is total bullshit. All you have to do is look at credible developers and indie devs to find great games. There have been shitty buggy games since the 80s (Thats why the market crashed before nintendo revived it). The difference between today, and before, is that a lot of people grew up and lose that same sense of magic that games had before. Without games themselves actually chaning all the much conceptually.
@@thomasw9286 especially this year there have been some amazing AAA games as well as indie. Imagine saying games are shitty nowadays when we have had the best year of the past 15 years
No mention of Daggerfall or Might and Magic is notable
I'm not sure. But I really like Red Dead 2 and Botw open world. Witcher 3s open world is ok
Honestly they should scale back the size of a place and make it feel “real” in a sense. Like take a game that takes place in a city, make it to where every building is enterable, but obviously just like real life there will be consequences to every action.
Make it to where you will see certain npcs just live their life, they go back to the same house and have a routine.
I personally think open world games have just been doing things they think will sell instead of taking risk and trying to do different things then the competition.
If they went with the size of vice city's map that is very possible maybe even underwater.
I still feel like San Andreas is too big for an idea like that same goes for 3
New video idea; Has Flandrew peaked? Youre killing it with these videos
I would have "Limited Open World" games where it wont take too long to get to point A to B. Where collectables, and upgrades are reasonably accessible, no need for a fast travel system at all. Either get on a Horse, a Broom Stick, a Bicycle, Vehicle, Boat, Plane, Helicopter and go from there. (In a way it will feel like an open world because you would lack fast travel.) Its about the Journey, not the Destination. (In this case, short cuts). Have rest stops to sleep at nights with a sort of curfew that when it gets too late like 11-12am game time, you must find a rest stop and sleep.
Road to 100k!!! Lets rock this Flandrew!! (Sorry I didnt watch this earlier, I got busy)
Yes. Open world games don't need to get any bigger or more detailed. It's better to be compact and full of life than wide and hollow.
Skyrim is a winning RPG formula. Small diverse world with tons of depth and every mechanic is simple but meaningful.
@@fungunsun1 Idk, with starfield, i feel like its safe to say that the skyrim formula is fairly outdated. Imo.
RDR2 is my favourite open world game
Elden Ring and botw/totk are also great in different ways
I don't think open world games have peaked. There's alot more ways in which they can evolve.
They need add actual intractability with the world .
I would love to see an open world game where there's dynamic destruction.
And you could have something like watch dogs 2 where you can mess around with the npcs in numerous ways
Or make it feel more lived in like RDR2
I'm excited to see what Milkstar does with GTA VI
Still haven't had many open world games with next level destruction and destructibility. Imagine if Spiderman 2 on ps5 was like hulk ultimate destruction and you could flatten buildings or a city block : D
I think open area is a good way to make a game as well like Dragon Age 3 you get multiple more hand crafted big areas with a good feeling/theme
Another amazing video.
I still remember how we all were hyped about gta3 when it came out. And passing cheat codes just so we can wreck more havoc
I think the “bigger is better” mentality is hitting its peak. Maps will hopefully get smaller and more detailed. As much as I can appreciate a large, open world, we all immediately do whatever it takes to unlock “fast travel” when available. Don’t pretend like you don’t.
We’re also starting to see the reduction in mindless collectibles and pointless side quests that create bloated play times. When a “treasure map” is a purchasable bit of DLC (I’m looking at you Forza Horizon) I think it’s safe to say we’ve gone too far with requiring players to find or destroy hundreds of things just to give some purpose to the open world.
I may be in the minority but I’d rather play in a small, detailed filled open world with a 30 hour campaign than a bloated and empty world with 100 hours of meaningless fetch quests.
I think 2 things can improve. NPCs with ai like behaviour, their reaction, emotions etc. And AI generated lore, stories, campaigns, they remember your character if you did something bad to them then some of them will plan to teach your character a lesson etc. This should be in a game like GTA.
AI def should be the next evolution in gaming.
I mean elden ring proved that fresh air could still be breathed into a relatively stagnant concept.
GTA SA was absolutely insane
Kid me was blown away
It had so many features that its successors removed
even for the traditional urban or rpg open world games, you can make them very fun with mechanics like super powers and tethering hook type things. i.e. make them a giant sandbox and give fun toys to play with.
Just Cause 2,3 and 4 says hello.
The Ultima series was the first major open world I've played where you had people who walked around town on a schedule (Ultima 4).
One of the problems open worlds have is filling them.
I definitely think the Red Deads get the balance about right in terms of each area feeling unique - but they can just feel a bit empty outside of environmental storytelling, and there's mostly no real reason to go hunting to create clothes. That bear in RDR2 did frighten the life out of me though.
Ghost of Tsushima's map was pretty good too, though the gameplay loop was very Ubisoftesque, and the map marked everything of interest if you'd get anywhere close.
LET PLAYERS FIND THINGS.
RDR2 is great in activites plus there is loads of.things to find But they use Empty space well to make it feel more real same With Kingdom come, Side quests, enccounters, activites, World building They did a great job with it compared to most games. But yeah filling open worlds is tough to full is bad and not full like Rage 2 is bad really tough to pull off and really subjective.
Rage 2 really empty
Man, I wish you brought up SimCopter and Midtown Madness.
SimCopter was released in 1996 and is a sandbox flight sim set in a 3D open-world city! It uses cities made in SimCity 2000 and you can import your own! You can't drive a car, you can only pilot helicopters - but you can get out of your helicopter and walk around. There's multiple helis you can buy, including an Apache Helicopter you can destroy the city with. There's even in-game radio with 5 stations, complete with fictional DJ's and commercials.
Again, this game was released in 1996, five whole years before GTA 3! It could've started the open-world game trend back in the mid-90's, if it wasn't for how obviously rushed its development was and the infamous Easter egg...
Midtown Madness was released in 1999. It's much less of a sandbox game, but still set in a 3D open-world Chicago. There are multiple missions you can pick from the menu but you can also pick the Cruise mode and freely drive around Chicago. Either drive around slowly and peacefully or drive like a maniac, running over everything while getting chased by the cops. Rockstar bought out the developers, Angel Studios and rebranded them to Rockstar San Diego. The engine used for Midtown Madness 1 and 2 would be reused and improved upon in the Midnight Club series and later on evolved into the RAGE engine.
There was also a Midtown Madness 3, but that was developed by a different studio for Microsoft.
What I'd really like to see is a truly DYNAMIC open world. Scale down the map to something smaller than what they've been doing, perhaps a space station, or an island, or a city block that has been cut off from the rest of the city. Make that smaller open world react permanently to every single thing the player does. If you talk to someone, they remember, if you break a piece of the environment, it stays broken. And also have it changing over time so that the NPCs are also changing and the environment evolves even if the player DOESN'T interact, making it important where and when you spend your time in the game.
imagine you break something and then come back a few in game days later to see NPCs trying to fix it. I also agree about the living worlds. I'm getting kind of tired of playing these games feeling like the only person in the world who actually acts on anything, it really feeds main character syndrome too lol
@@K.C-2049 And I think, usually, these worlds have a certain illusion of being living and reactive by having a handful of more reactive elements. And when you first start playing them it's very immersive, but once you kind of get a picture of the whole world in your mind in the mid to end game and really learn how to traverse and exploit things to your advantage, the more the artifice of the world becomes apparent, and at least for me, I lose that initial immersion.
And I think the trend in open world games has been to make them wider without getting much deeper.
very nice video and very nice overview! But... why do you upload gaming content at 24 fps..?
Definately not peaked IMO, but the current one's have to ditch many things that have become tiresome, or were always boring. We also need far less of them. I still want to play games but there's far too many expecting far too much of my time. Something not just open world games are guilty of...I crave game like Shedders revenge, or even Mario Wonder, because I know they are only going to take up a couple of weekends, not most of my year. Games with a massive rush of fun in a short space of time with no grind or busy work.
Now you need to do a video on if FPS' have peaked or not! I feel like that whole genre peaked back with MW2, BF4, and Halo 3 and ever since there's been a few great games that push the formula, but just about every game is following fornites example these days. Not to mention how many AAA FPS that have just completely tanked in the past few years(looking at you 2042...)
Lmao doom eternal is absolutely the peak fps game
Bad Company 2 and MW2 will remain my favourite FPS games of all time. I’ve never had that much fun on a game since
Titanfall 2, Doom (2016), and Doom Eternal were great
BF1 was the last good AAA fps :(
Ultrakill:
I don't think open worlds have peaked, but I do think new games that push the genre forward are dwindling in number. This trend will make the few great new open world games that much more special.
I always have found myself preferring open world games. I love the freedom of just going anywhere I please. Of course, it's certainly preferable to also have a world filled with interesting things to do and explore because, otherwise, why bother?
I think you missed Gothic. Open world before e.g. GTA
Open World games will get a new revolution over the next generaton (i.e. playstation 6) in terms of depth. You will get fully integrated dynamic economies. So if farmers make a bumper harvest it could have the effect of reducing food price in the market, in another part of the world. While if bandits burned down the crops it could do the opposite. Also A.I. advances will have great implications for intelligent npcs, which would build on the advances seen in chatgpt. So they can hold conversations while remaining in character. Ask a medieval fantasy peasant about nuclear physics and they won't know what you're talking about. Ask them about how to grow the best peas, and they will open up gleefully about it.
i don't think ideas ever really peak, but the talent and resources behind them limit their potential, also i think an artist can peak if they get stuck in a rut or just get too old for the job
12:07 Nintendo only owns one third of The Pokemon Company. That responsibility falls on Game Freak and Creatures Inc just as much as it does Nintendo.
Hunter on AMIGA from 1991 were perhaps the first open world game i ever played, ignoring (Elite 1985). 5 years later the giant Daggerfall game released, then Body Harvest on N64. Open World games probably reached it's peak, as most of them isn't fun anymore. It's probably better if they scale down games again. Smaller area and higher quality content. Flight Simulator having whole planet makes sense so i exclude that one as everyone wants to fly over their own home. ;)
Thanks for including "Hunter" from 1991 in the video. I'm sure others have missed that legendary game because it were released on AMIGA And Atari ST only.
It seems like most companies think we want every game to have gigantic open worlds. No! We want open worlds packed full of interesting things to do. But if a game doesn't need to be open world, don't make it open world
I hate when people say, a video game has peaked, nothing can top it, its impossible... few tears later, a game tops it.
Yeah the industry has probably, but that wont stop them from getting better
bruh the TOTK system is literally just gmod tho
I absolutely loved Final Fantasy XV. I'm playing new game+ at the moment. It has both relaxing and exciting parts and is very pretty. One of my fav PS4 Games
This video really should be titled "Have Console Open World Games Peaked" as it completely leaves out the pc exclusive open world games (gothic, morrowind, magic carpet, operation flashpoint, etc.)
I'm literally into any other open world game than GTA. I don't know why people have such a vendetta against linear games.
What is the game shown for only a second at 9:26? Edit: it's shown again at 9:42 for another 2 or 3 seconds.
Mafia 1 on PC released less than a year after GTA3, did they make the game in less than a year or were they working on something similar already before GTA3
The problem with open world games is that they have a story... So they treat the game like a linear singelplayer game set in an open world instead of it accully beeing an open world where u create ur own story/journey.
I loved Red Faction Guerilla.
It encouraged destruction with actual destruction and the story was what it needed to be.
I'd love to see a sandbox game taking place on a habitable space station or generation ship to the stars.
You'd have obvious but understandable limits that would leave room for other innovations.
I think with how AI is advancing we will be able to implement it into the games to make truly never ending, unique experiences. A game where no matter what you do or who you kill etc the AI can change the story and things happening to adjust accordingly.
It will probably be better than what current modern devs could do lol
imagine thinking a program will ever create something beyond rearranged existing material
@@nosuchperson5578 thats why you put tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of material. But seeing what chatgbt can do theres no reason to think in a few years it wont be able to create quests from scratch.
@@lukehyre1383 keep dreaming lol
@@nosuchperson5578 I mean keep dreaming because bethesda probably wont put the much into a game sure, but not because it isnt possible.
I would LOVE a fully open world, but with a great moveset.
Like Mario Odyssey, but every kingdom is connected with each other (with nice transitions, of course).
Great and helpful video. 👍
So open world Sunshine. But with power ups.
But you Should go look up open world Mario 64
I'm starting to see some indie horror games having semi open world maps, and it makes me really happy. For me it's the start of a hope in relation of the introduction of new creative ideas to the genre. Let's go indie debelopers.
You forgot about the sains row games
For me, the ones that do best "Open World" is the Yakuza saga, its city is small but full of minigames and extremely interesting substories
I discovered Burnout Paradise just a couple years ago. I have yet to find a racing game with such an intriguing free roam. They decided to add collectibles like you would normally find in a platformer, and it makes exploration that much more fun.
The world has to have things that are consequential for you to find within it. That's why BOTW works so well.
Quantic Dream's first game Omikron also has an open world where you could enter most of the buildings and interact with the environment. It also lets you kill the civilians.
May I respectfully ask how old are you? That's such a striking voice tone
BOTW pushed the bar for Environment interaction, RDR2 pushed the bar Living Breathing Worlds, NPC interaction, Horse Riding and Detail. Kingdom come pushed the Bar for RPG quest design. Witcher 3 pushed by for having loads of story driven Side quests Which were better then its main story. Games like GTA6, Kingdom come2, Witcher 4 have alot potentialm There is alot open Worlds can do making Worlds more reactive to what you do im them is the next big step i think.
From what I seen Fable 3 is still peak npc interact. Even if it's limited repeated dialog.
Saints row had you grabbing NPC in their first game and it took Rockstar how long? Putting NPCs on the back of your horse? You can put NPCs in the truck of any car in sleeping dogs. And with the dlc it allowed you to hand cuff anyone by grabbing them or tracking them
Oh sorry but Rockstar are dumb when it comes too adding and removing things. GTA 4 picking up trash having cops arrest NPCs. Both removed in 5
Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn came after 2016 and they are both some of my favorite open world games ever.
The real problem is that open world games have almost become the industry standard for singleplayer games, so the over abundance of them creates formulaic stagnation. I think that we're seeing less linear/polished games due to the price hike of games. Devs don't want people to complain that the game is 'too short' for the money, so they fill it with open world padding.
Xenoblade does a great job of continually pushing the RPG open-world genre. Every game is better than the last when it comes to exploration and world design. Makes sense why Nintendo utilized the Xenoblade devs to help create the open-world in BOTW and TOTK.
They also awarded exploration with mini boss battles or an amazing view.
only x is an actual open world game tho. in the numbered games you can't just go anywhere you want.
they are open area games like metro exodus. the story brings you to a new large area, you explore, do side quests and eventually complete the chapter that takes place within that piece of the world to get to the next open area.
Takahashi has some neat interviews out there regarding their design and how x was a compleltly new challange because of it.
@@FrancisYorkMorganFBI I'd say 3 is open enough to fit the genre. 1 and 2 are a bit harder to count, but the scale is close enough imo. Yeah, they're technically "open-zone", but I mean, so is Sonic Frontiers or Witcher 3 for that matter.
At the very least, Future Redeemed is definitely open-world alongside X.
Huge empty "sandboxes" that I don't feel compelled to explore. Starfield is the epitome of this.
Earned a sub
After I got my PS4 in 2014 I made the mistake of playing AC: Black Flag, Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry 4 all back to back which kind of ruined the genre for me. Mind you I think I always just preferred more linear game experiences but playing 3 games that all have very similar mechanics really burned me out. Even when I'm playing one I enjoy like the Spider-Man games I've been known to let out an audible "sigh" whenever more and more new icons appear on the map
I can relate to this so much
I was doing Ezio trilogy back to back
I loved Ac2. I enjoyed Brotherhood. I absolutely dreaded Revelations (although Istanbul as a city is very cool).
The only exception for me is Skyrim. Idk what it is about but I can just sink absolutely hours into it without feeling bored.
Open world games that work without minimap are the only ones i really enjoy.
Shocked you didnt mention Shenmue. It took 3d open world to a new level. Although it did have its flaws, I believe many games took serious notes from that game.
A lot of open world games have too much fluff/filler. I'd like some more linear or semi linear games.
Beyond Good & Evil for example is a game I revisit often and enjoy every time. The first 2 seasons from Telltale's The Walking Dead captivated me so much, I had moments where I cried. I like the older Assassin's Creed games much more, before they filled up with nonsense to make it seem they had a lot of content.
I can't really explain how empty and uninteresting modern games feel.
Many play out very similar. Industry copy pasta recipe.
Maybe soulless is the word I'd use :(
At least there's a gem or 2 to be found once in a while.
I can't say a moment where the genre or even a franchise peaked, but rather one game or another took one element further. Regarding writing, for example, Witcher 3 felt like the most complete and advanced one to date (it's said BG3 has an amazing writing but i havent played it yet), but combatwise, exploration, immersion and several other categories have peaked in other games (or didn't yet). Random events from GTAV were great, but they disappeared. Nemesis system in that lotr game made for great emergent narrative, but it's gone too.
Unfortunately, the Nemesis system has a patent, so no other publishers are allowed to use that in their games.
With Witcher 4 on the horizon I doubt it. I sincerely hope the same love and effort as the 3rd game is put into it and it’s not another cyberpunk at launch situation.
Nothing has topped RDR2 as the most detailed, real feeling, immersive open world for me yet. And it's last gen. I think that says it all for me
Wait till Fromsoftwere makes another open world masterpiece and push the genre to new heights.
I've been loving your content and also appreciate you tackling this topic, but for your video analysis, I think it could've gone deeper into the contemporary problems of open-world game designs by taking into account examples like _Dynasty Warriors 9,_ which was a massive, empty world because it was too ambitious in scope, or conversely _Assassin's Creed_ games like _Odyssey,_ which is a sprawling map of repetitive, formulaic copied-and-pasted activities.
In both cases, quantity has replaced quality. Other Ubisoft games like the _Watch Dogs_ series also suffers from this problem. These are games, which fail to respect player time (especially now that many gamers are adults), epitomize why open-world game design feel like they've gone downhill.
You touched upon the issue a little, but I don't think you fully got to the crux of the issue.
I think your video could have also benefited from comparing these aforementioned newer games with older and smaller open-world games like the first few _Harry Potter_ games since you're so familiar with them. As others have already mentioned, it is worthwhile noting that perhaps open-world games which are smaller in scope so that more attention & resources can be devoted to each individual piece of the map are the better way forward for the genre.
No open world games hasnt peaked we are now going into infinite open world games such as Light no fire and hyper light breaker
The first open world Game I played was Spider-Man 2 on my cousins GameCube back in the Day
The earliest example of an open world game that conveniently wasn't mentioned here is of course Pong from 1972. Sure, technically it's not "open world" per se, as the player is severely limited in just about every aspect one could think of, but it is a game.
Meanwhile GTA6 trailer drops.
Games have to evolve by making the world more immersive in every detail. GTA 6 is hopefully gonna prove this
If they have interesting landscapes and meaningful side quests and stories, then i dont mind open worlds. The problem is, most side quests in this genre are dumb fetch quests and with no meaningful stories to tell.
Make a video of Star Wars Battlefront games.
at least say 'please'
>Soy Wars
Nobody cares about this franchise anymore.
Yes please, especially the original battlefront games
@@aamirrazak3467that's all anyone wants to see. The new ones have less players / support from the community
I swear yesterday was opposite day; Flandrew releasing a deep dive video and Golden Boot releasing essentially a "Comparing every x game" video
But what if you could type your answer in an RPG and AI generates a response creating different experiences. It’s super complex, but if applied properly, it could work.
Really like the yakuza games small open areas packed with ministories, side stories not big and bland open worlds like assasins creed valhalla
2007-2013 was the peak of gaming
nah
I'd say they haven't peaked, there's just way too many examples of low effort Open World games, that an Open World game being good instead of just ok at best seems like a huge bar to set. When really there's still a lot more Open World games can do, by trying to make all the areas memorable and immersive. Instead of just ok there's a few places I kinda remember, but the rest of the world is just generic areas, with no interesting cultures, architecture or people in them.
But a lot of devs seem to not be able to make those things work in open world games, when they have been able to do so in non-open world games, because they can design the area in whatever shape they want, it doesn't have to make sense with other areas in the world if you can't see it all as one world. But in reality there's not really a reason they can't design set pieces in an open world area too. You can have encampments with an interesting layout, they're outside in the world still, but are still designed to make gameplay flow more naturally there. Instead of the open world just making it take longer to traverse areas.
I argue that Crash Bandicoot should attempt another free-roaming/open-world platforming session. I’d love to see a Crash Twinsanity sequel as I feel it’s rushed development only gave us a taste of how Crash could tackle an open world. Crash Mind Over Mutant could have been that game, but it’s main hinderance was sticking with the linear locked-on camera. A Twinsanity sequel/remake/spiritual successor (or whatever Crash 5 could be) would be a puzzle platformer with Crash elements that bring a twist to the traditional formula while retaining what made those original PS1 games worked. Or heck, just revive Jak & Daxter. That was peak to me.
the answer to that is yes and no in some ways they have peaked with the peak starting with GTA V and ending around Red Dead 2 with some others that could be considered there as well. But that because in a lot of ways the open world games now kinda have a template similar like to many Sony first party games having a shared template add to the fact that there have been many eh level games and well there is the reason why it is getting stale but it isnt to the level of the music/band games. Sometimes there will be a game from an old series or just a new series that will do something new and some will become the template and others will be a one and done of just with that series. Some of those series would be like the Red dead games as before redemption one there was Red Dead Revolver which is the forgotten first game of the series and while it is different the ideas there and the theme were translated to this open world style which has worked out well. Mario has looked at it with Mario Odyssey and Bowsers Fury was taking that but a step further same with Zelda with BOTW and its sequel. Pokemon will probably be that way from here on out unless it is a remake though i hope GameFreak extends the cycle as they still are in a cycle as if they are making DS or GBA games still. But i think the issue is if say GTA 6, Witcher 4, and Elder Scrolls 6 come out poorly i think the open world game might need to take a bit of a break like the 2D platformer did for a time there.
Yes. We’ve hit the ceiling with what we can do. Even with GTA6 I have no idea what more Rockstar can really do that we haven’t seen before.
Now game developers should think about accessibility. And I’m a new subscriber and you left out the game kingdom, come deliverance, and also mediaeval open. The world game
A correction. Pokemon went 3d Open World in Legends Arceus. Which is also an actual great game imo.
Single biggest complaint about open world games is when more than 1 quest or side quest directly has you go back into the exact same area more than once. It's one thing to have city hub areas you revisit in order to buy stuff like in Skyrim or Outward... but as much as I love Metal Gear Solid 5 or Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I absolutely hate it when I go to a very specific area to wipe every single human off of the face of the planet with enthusiastic bloodshed, only to have a side quest take me right back to the exact same spot with people strolling along again as though I hadn't just committed a war crime there less than a half hour ago.