Open World Fatigue

[Key-Glyph]

Wow, what an awesome article.

I particularly appreciated the bit about "lundonarrative dissonance," the term for when gameplay forces you to do things that don't fit with the game's story or the characters' motivations. This is something that breaks my immersion hardcore when it happens in story-heavy titles, so it was neat to see someone else bring it up as an issue.

[Jmustang1968]

The trick to not having fatigue is to not play so many, or be more selective in your game choices. Obviosuly you will have you range in quality of open world games.

Now, when saying open world, do we mean just non-linearity, or sandbox games?

As an rpg fan, I have loved the ability to explore whil also having a narrative to follow. Games like Fallouts, Wasteland, Baldur's Gate series, some JRPGs, and MMOs (I played WoW a lot) I think generally do it well. Gives you a sense of exploration while also having some degree of story or atleast checkpoints.

I've never been a big fan of sandbox games or the GTAs really. They would be fun for a day or 2, then Id get tired of them.

[marurun]

I particularly appreciated the bit about "lundonarrative dissonance,"

You should watch some of Errant Signal's videos on YouTube if you've any interest in more recent games. He has really latched onto ideas like that and applies them pretty well.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I like the article. I also understand open world fatigue.

I find, overall, is having the right amount of open. As an example, Bully does wonderfully in its workings. Haven't played Shenmue, but it sounds like it does extremely well. I also enjoy games such as Witcher 2, where, while you have free reign over the area, you are still limited to a smaller, more concise map.

I feel like there is too much focus on having a large, pretty to look at map, and not enough focus on making a decent or respectably sized map properly filled with things to do. Skyrim is full of things to do, and has a huge map- yet, IMO, the things you can do basically boil down to run here, kill this, get this item, go back. There are quite a few other things to do, of course, but they all aid in doing the former.

GTA V would be, methinks, a good example of a giant map that is pointlessly large. To fill out the story, and have all the needed elements, the game map could have been 1/2 the size, and done just as admirable of a job. Car travel and use is quite obviously a large part of the game, but if I have to drive 20 minutes to get somewhere in a video-game, it rubs me the wrong way at times. On the contrary, while I haven't played it, I see myself highly enjoying Mad Max, simply because I have enough investment in the series to look past the faults, and the fact that the size of the map is literally meant to be filler to give more driving room, and is filled with little except what is important to gameplay/story.

Of course, I'm rambling. My main point is that it feels like we keep getting giant, less detailed worlds, when we need smaller, much more detailed worlds.

[Reprise]

Of course, I'm rambling. My main point is that it feels like we keep getting giant, less detailed worlds, when we need smaller, much more detailed worlds.

This is exactly how I feel too.

[corn619]

I've only played a few to completion, but Red Dead Revolver and Fallout 3 have been the only sandbox games that have really sucked me in. The rest....eh I could take them or leave'em. For me, the world and story has to be extremely interesting and different for me to stay on point. I just recently tried The Witcher III solely due to all the acclaim it's gotten in the media, but so far and 10 hours in I'm not really impressed sadly. I'm going to give it another 10 before I make my final assessment though.

[Xeogred]

I've been saying this on the board for the last year. Recently mentioned it as well, since I seriously cannot get into Arkham City at all and I absolutely loved Asylum.
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 3#p1009523

Open world game design is utterly lazy in my eyes. It's just like dumping a bucket of paint and hoping it works, with no real intricacy or a good general flow of coherence whatsoever.

- Lighting Returns had many problems but this was one of them.
- I've been done with AssCreed since Brotherhood. No thanks.
- Looks like I'm done with Batman, despite loving the story/cutscene portions.
- I enjoyed hitting up Infamous 1-2 over the last year or two, since I'm still playing catch up on PS3 stuff. But it was still somewhat of a slog, and I don't know if I'll bother with the PS4 one.
- Shadow of Mordor looks like the most boring game ever.

I was a huge fan of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas on the PS2. This thing was newer back then and really cool. Now? I bought GTA5 with my PS4 last holiday and although I beat it... it was like the most empty feeling I've ever felt going through a game. I was even laughing after awhile because I could easily argue at least 60% or more of the game is aimlessly driving around. I'm usually one that loves to replay stuff, but I don't see myself ever touching this one ever again. The formula has been so abused and overused, I just can't even put into words how apathetic this game made me feel.

I DO think there is some differences between something like the GTA formula and the Bethesda stuff though. Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim are pretty cool in my book. BUT, the fatigue definitely hits hard after awhile and usually comes out of nowhere. Does anyone really 100% these games? I'd find that hard to believe. For me I have a blast for a few weeks if it's that good then bam, the brick wall comes at me like a train wreck and I really how boring it is and can't go on anymore. It's a strange, weightless experience after awhile. I'm excited for Fallout 4, but already expecting it will be another case of this. Even though I do always finish up the main quest line when I started feeling the boringness seep through, I never really feel like I truly beat these games. And I don't like that.

On the flip side, I do think MGS5 The Phantom Pain dodged the bullet. If there are any fans here who also suffer from sandbox fatigue but did enjoy TPP too, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this as well. TPP's world was split up into I think ~3 main maps, that were all very large. The game also had some currency items to pickup, but ... the game was not loaded with worthless collectibles, or 20 quests around each corner. Instead it was mission structured while you have a separate main base like a hub world, then the helicopter for choosing missions. I thought the formula worked really well and would hope that other devs take notes, because I'm sure the sandbox laziness is bound to continue.

"Our game is THIS BIG with THIS MANY HOURS OF CONTENT" is basically an immediate turnoff for me thesedays. Quality over quantity please. Western RPG's are royally guilty of this. I can't think of one that I've 100%'d.

Right underneath sandbox/open world game design is basically Metroidvania styled games that are perfection to me.
- Deus Ex Human Revolution
- Dishonored
- New Thief (even if it does have its issues, its world / level design was great)
- Souls / Bloodborne
etc

These games are dramatically 100x more satisfying than the open world stuff mentioned above. Not even for a narrative sense, but gameplay as well. Going from point A to point B, covering some actual ground delving further into the games world, now that's progress and rewarding. Linear level design is all based on intention, detail, and planning. Everything that goes into crafting these finely tuned experiences the devs want you to have, this all just doesn't happen in open world stuff.

Blah, I'm even bored talking about this.

[Exhuminator]

Quality over quantity please.

That sums up my thoughts on the issue quite succinctly.

A well crafted huge world full of interesting things to see, and engaging things to do, is amazing. But in my experience with open world games, that is the rarity not the norm. Big for the sake of big is just plain boring. "Open world" does need to stop being a bullet point in common game design.

[Cronozilla]

I think the GTA games do a really good job with making the overall world very interesting to exist in. GTA5 was enormous so you could fly jets and that introduces a lot of opportunities if you enjoy playing in that type of sandbox.

In terms of narrative, I can't even think of a game that benefits from being open world. And I don't think it's something that can really be achieved yet. Procedural narrative is not a simple problem. I think the best you could hope for there is some kind of universal lore that the player has to work to piece together.

However, I think most fatigue sets in when open world is over sold (Assassin's Creed) or it serves absolutely no purpose (Tomb Raider reboot)

I don't think there is any greater offender who abuses open world than UbiSoft, currently. They make their games open world, just so they take longer to play. They liter them with grating side missions that happen ad-nausea. Sometimes it might work out OK, like the newer Far Cry games, but most of the time it's more like The Crew or Assassin's Creed and it's just irritating and frustrating to be behind so many false walls to progression.

You can't just expand the size of Peach's Castle in Mario 64 and call it open world and act like it's a revolution. It's not.

A truly open ended game would be amazing. That's why No Man's Sky looks so interesting. I think in that scenario, a linear story does nothing but put the game in an inaccurate scope leaving players disappointed and even frustrated while they battle with two systems colliding with one another (Narrative and Gameplay). So, maybe those types of games would work better without them, or with some hypothetical narrative agent that builds the story dynamically (something I've thought a lot about when studying AI in Computer Science, to note)

Saying a game is "open world" in and of it self means absolutely nothing to me. It's like saying you can stick to cover in a third person shooty-shoot, or you can jump in a platformer. It's in the handling of the open world implementation where things get sticky.
I don't find open world games as grating to the process, since if they're made well, the side nonsense is completely ignorable, and going through main mission to main mission in something like Arkham City or Knight or GTA5 is extremely satisfying. I don't, personally, have that road block. It's only when all the time wasting is forced upon you that I start to have a problem.

[TSTR]

Quality over quantity please.

That sums up my thoughts on the issue quite succinctly.

A well crafted huge world full of interesting things to see, and engaging things to do, is amazing. But in my experience with open world games, that is the rarity not the norm. Big for the sake of big is just plain boring. "Open world" does need to stop being a bullet point in common game design.

a fuckin men