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What are examples of games with "living breathing worlds"

rhandino

Banned
Xenoblade Chronicles for me! Every NPC has their own schedules and well defined personalities that also can change and evolve during the game and the events that happen around them... also I loved how you can track them and their relationships in the in-game Affinity Chart:

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You can see how each NPC is connected to everyone and the best part is that your actions changes how they see each other (Sometimes you make a sidequest to make their relationship stronger, you can break them or make them see other people in a different light.)

Also... the world itself is literally breathing so yeah... =P
 

Drinkel

Member
Mount and Blade is quite impressive in this regard. I mean you can basically end up spending your first weeks in captivity while wars and battles play out in different parts of the world without you.
 
RDR and Witcher 3 for me. The spaces in those games feel lived in, like they were designed for the NPCs as opposed to the player.

The GTA games have never felt this way to me. Or rather, then do for half of the time. But the rest of the time the condensedness of world shatters the illusion, and I'm reminded this is all just a virtual playground.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
Might & magic 6 sort of, people just roam around but shops and transports have different opening and closing days and times, certain events happen only a certain day of the year at a certain time(the circus for example is in a different place depending on the season), fruits and enemies respaws after a certain time and so on.
 
Since TitS FC and Radiata Stories have been mentioned, I'll go with Digan no Maseki instead.

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This PC-88/-98 CRPG, released first in 1988, takes place on the wandering Ringworld-like planet GDLeen, which your character, a husband desperate to find a remedy for his wife's mysterious disease, travels to with little hope of returning home. For a game of its vintage there's a shit-ton of choices & consequences you can trigger in a playthrough, all included to make your character that much more vulnerable but also more alive. NPCs do their day-jobs, muggers try and mug you in alleyways, hotels in each town have unique music and residents, and you can ask a wide variety of questions in conversation by selecting verbs and nouns. This is all rather static as the game's memory constraints demand, but it goes farther than any Japanese RPG of the era I can think of. In fact this game sets up the world for a series of sci-fantasy light novels also taking place in GDLeen, as well as video games related to the world (like Witches of Barbatus and the GDLeen SFC game).

At the top of this page you can read (with some translation) the kinds of things you can do as a player with NPCs in this game.
 
This is partly why Afrika is one of my favorites, though it may not exactly fit the bill. Animals wander, browse, drink, etc with or without you. The only thing I want to see in the sequel
that will never be made
is carnivorous behavior happening on an unscripted basis. Driving out into the wild and actually not knowing what you could find would be great.
 

Falchion

Member
Sleeping Dogs felt alive to me. Hong Kong was awesome and sections of the city like the market are so busy with vendors and random shoppers that it was incredibly immersive.
 

Nightbird

Member
What'd he do?

spoilers, no?

The first was mentioned, not the second. There is a difference in Xenoblade Chronicles (1 which has been out for years), and Xenoblade Chronicles X (2 not released US side anyhow). I don't get what he was trying to stop.


Even if it was released a while ago it's still one of the bigger Spoilers for that Game, and it's not even what OP meant. So it was really not needed.
 
how can people be that fricken sensitive to spoilers? shit's in the intro cutscene to a years old game ffs

it's like crying because that red dead redemption gif above TOTALLY spoils that it's a western

like seriously wtf
 
In a rather literal sense the world lives and breathes in Xenoblade.

Could you not?

Hahaha!!

Morrowind stands alone...

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A warm welcome to you, sera.

Nerevar Rising - Jeremy Soule

I wouldn't say Morrowind does anything particularly different than the other entries in that series though that particular location is by far my favorite.

My answer would be The Witcher games. Even the first game was just dripping with atmosphere. Really felt like a place that you could reach out and touch.
 

DOWN

Banned
People don't seem to truly appreciate how many hundreds of unique alleyways, NPCs hanging out on balconies, and unique objects and buildings with unique signs and graffiti there are in Grand Theft Auto V.
 
People don't seem to truly appreciate how many hundreds of unique alleyways, NPCs hanging out on balconies, and unique objects and buildings with unique signs and graffiti there are in Grand Theft Auto V.

This is VERY accurate. The amount of little things that they put in their games that they have no reason to other than pride in their work is astonishing. Rockstar have always been the ones to beat in open world detail.
 

MCN

Banned
First post wins

As much as I love GTA V, Red Dead Redemption is Rockstar's greatest achievement IMO. It's not just being able to watch a town wake up, go about their jobs, closing up shop at night, going to the salon, and then to sleep.

It's the ecosystem, as a hawk snatches up a rabbit you were about to shoot.

It's the storm clouds rumbling on the horizon, and seeing the storm coming closer before it's starts pouring.

It's the little details like puddles forming after a storm and slowing drying up or the people playing fetch with their dogs

My favorite open world and the most immersive IMO

Red Dead Redemption is more than a game. It is a masterpiece, a work of art. It is a time and place full of people and wildlife going about their business, all condensed into a 12cm piece of plastic.

I fucking love Red Dead Redemption.
 

Nightbird

Member
how can people be that fricken sensitive to spoilers? shit's in the intro cutscene to a years old game ffs

it's like crying because that red dead redemption gif above TOTALLY spoils that it's a western

like seriously wtf


I suggest that you go watch that intro again because
it was clearly stated that Bionis and Mechonis are dead and not "living and breathing". This is something happening later in the Game with Zanza's revival.

But yeah, this is totally the same with showing that Red Dead Redemption is a Western. Totally.
 

MCN

Banned
I suggest that you go watch that intro again because
it was clearly stated that Bionis and Mechonis are dead and not "living and breathing". This is something happening later in the Game with Zanza's revival.

But yeah, this is totally the same with showing that Red Dead Redemption is a Western. Totally.

The game is five years old. The statute of limitations for spoilers is past. If you cared that much, you'd have played it by now.
 

Raven77

Member
Red Dead Redemption is simply staggering. I still dream about this game. I think back about the first time my stallion raced across the plains while thunderheads grew in the distance to eventually build into an incredible lightning storm. Trying to find shelter I found my way through the darkness into a dimly lit settlement. Amazing.
 
The soldak software games (Din's Curse and Drox Operative in particular) are pretty good at this as are games like Space Rangers 2/HD (which was previously mentioned).

None of these are graphically impressive, but in all cases the AI will continue to go around completing their own objectives / amassing power, fighting with other NPCs, etc. if you leave them alone.

I think they are all worth checking out, the worlds feel pretty "alive" in all of them.
 

GRW810

Member
GTA 5 surely. Loading up San Andreas felt like you were stepping into an actual (if bizarre) world. So much detail in every single nook and cranny. People living lives. It was a joy to experience.
 
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