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Xeno X, GTAV, Sunset Overdrive are leading examples of great open world design.
- Thread starter Warxard
- Start date
That's really it, except in X there's only one town/city/hub area.
Black Mantis
Member
GTAV and SO have fantastic worlds to play in, so I'll definitely check out Xeno X.
That's why for the sake of justifying Sunset Overdrive's inclusion into the OP I focused strictly on discussing the actual building layout and platform design of Sunset Overdrive and not the actual content. Everything is designed for the sake of a core gameplay mechanic--the core mechanic being the traversal system. Everything is laid out in SO so that it's perfectly capable of wall running, bouncing or grinding off of.
I think, if you create an entire open world and design it entirely around a gameplay than that open world game is a far outlier from the rest and a good example of what open world games should do. Unless you can think of any other open world game designed entirely around the gameplay mechanics instead of the quest design.
I feel most open world games don't utilize the open worldness of a open world. They follow a strict linear structure. GTA, AC, far cry, witcher 3 all of them
This is how most missions work in GTA or in other open world games
Blow up this truck or kill this monster
Looks like you didn't
Restart and do it all over again.
MGS 5 is the only game that I can think of that utilizes the open area of an open world game, there are not many fail states, there are other ways to deal with your mistakes.
Most open world exists only for immersion, they don't complement the gameplay in any way. The only freedom I get in those games are which side missions should I pick first. core gameplay have been very limiting in all open world games.
This is how most missions work in GTA or in other open world games
Blow up this truck or kill this monster
Looks like you didn't
Restart and do it all over again.
MGS 5 is the only game that I can think of that utilizes the open area of an open world game, there are not many fail states, there are other ways to deal with your mistakes.
Most open world exists only for immersion, they don't complement the gameplay in any way. The only freedom I get in those games are which side missions should I pick first. core gameplay have been very limiting in all open world games.
I guess he meant more the level design of the open world, with lots of different ways to get to the same place and each has different things along the way.
X is really a different game than the original, both on world design and quest design.
This right here is mostly the reason why I chose Sunset!
GTA V features the most impressive contemporary open world to date with an astounding amount of detail and variety, but I was extremely disappointed in terms of structured side content. Beyond wandering around sightseeing, there is very little to do. Side activities are mostly mundane novelties like tennis, golf, etc. Collectibles, which used to result in meaningful unlockables in earlier games, are now pointless.
Admiring the details of the world and just causing havoc aren't enough for me. Give me compelling things to do.
Admiring the details of the world and just causing havoc aren't enough for me. Give me compelling things to do.
This is the exact problem that i had with GTA V. There's no denying that it's a fantastic world and place to explore....if you like exploring for the mere sake of exploring.
The game doesn't really give you much reasons beyond your own curiosity to explore the world from corner to corner.
This is why, amongst other reasons, i enjoyed my time more much with something like watch dogs over GTA V even though in most respects, GTA V is the better game.
paragonpro
Banned
I love sunset over drive, but its world, apart from the aesthetics and movement options were hardly the most compelling, large part in due to a lack of secrets or well hidden areas to discover. Gta v excels at this, as does the witcher 3. i would even through rise of the tomb raider up there, even though its more open hubs than open world.
paragonpro
Banned
Good point, MGS V used its open world to compliment its "all aproaches" gameplay sublimeley
In my opinion MGSV has one of the most useless open worlds out there. It literally adds nothing. They could accomplish exactly what you said by making each base a smaller map. Connecting everything on the over world map did nothing but ruin immersion for me.
Why fight the urge to play some of the best games of this generation? If you can afford it then do it. It is a great system.
RespectThySole
Member
I completely agree. MGSV's open world was terrible. It was a complete chore to traverse(partly due to the incredibly restrictive mountains), barren, lacked variety and interesting side quests. The open world added nothing. The game would've been much better off with a plethora of interesting and varied GZ-style hub levels.
ebullientprism
Member
Dying light is super underrated. Both in terms of open level design (which is fantastic) and the immersive-ness of the world (especially because of the day/night cycle). Its the only game I have played that really nails the "Zombie Apocalypse in a big open world" setting. Just wish the writing was a little better but as far as gameplay and design is concerned its goddamn fantastic.
Yep.
it's also a lock for GOTY
To be fair, open world in MGS 5 is optional, you can play it like ground zeroes.
I agree to an extent, open world could have been more dynamic like convoys carrying important items like weapons, prisoners, blue print etc and some random events like fight between rebels and Russians. Right now, open world unlike missions feel like a backdrop then a active open world, but i still love doing 4-5 missions in a row while exploring the open world.
MGS 5 is not the best when it comes to open world but its definitely the best when it comes to freedom.
Yeah, I thought the Witcher 3 was the best open-world game design I've ever played. The combat gameplay and somewhat ropey main story let things down a bit, but the actual experience of enjoying the open world? Peerless.
I also loved GTA V to bits. They provide very different experiences. MGSV was the big open-world failure for me this year.
What about it did you find dull? I found it endlessly fascinating. So often you'd come across something whereby you could derive a narrative merely from the setting. You'd stumble upon a beach with a lot of scuttled ships and think 'Hmm... either a reef here or piracy' and then look around and find a note from some dude captured by pirates, and no matter what you were doing you'd be interrupted by the pure interest of your new discovery.
This applied most when I went out to the island in the middle of the lake at the very start of the game. When a quest brought me right back there it was fascinating to see the differences between what had happened out there and what I had imagined had happened.
PetriP-TNT
Member
I agree with OP on Witcher 3 open world. I was running around and I saw the roofs of houses of Novigrad. I gasped because the backdrop was beautiful. Then I realized that I can actually go there and gasped again. But I never did go there, because there wasn't anything or interesting there. Surely there were some really locales and interesting places here and there, but most of it only exists for the billion collectibles out there or the trivial side quests.
Compare that to something like GTAV: it could suffer from the same issues but somehow it doesn't: Every place feels unique and the world feels like it's a real world, instead of being monster encounter 1, cave 1, cave 2, cave 3 and so on.
MGSV has the best open world as gameplay element, but mostly because it has brilliant gameplay anyway.
Compare that to something like GTAV: it could suffer from the same issues but somehow it doesn't: Every place feels unique and the world feels like it's a real world, instead of being monster encounter 1, cave 1, cave 2, cave 3 and so on.
MGSV has the best open world as gameplay element, but mostly because it has brilliant gameplay anyway.
StarStabbedMoon
Member
The design of the X seems to be the same sort of concept as the original. It was mentioned in previous interviews that the first Xenoblade was somewhat of a "prototype."
The side-questing has been overhauled and improved, but I don't consider that a fundamental change, just an enhancement. Open worlds with potential don't need to be reinvented, it just needed to be improved.
Witcher 3 is an incredible open world RPG but the gameplay is getting repetitive, I just want to finish it and move on right now. Combat lacks variety and stop being fun after a while, also there are lack of weapon variety, moves and special attacks. Unlike souls series combat is not tactical, it dissolves into you dodging to your right/left and hitting the enemy couple of times[playing on death march btw], oils and all other item don't seem to have a huge impact on the gameplayas well. Combat is fine but i can see why lot of people lost interest after few hours. Open world is what keeping me playing the game, not the story, not the gameplay, definitely not the characters .
I had fun with MGS 5 even after 160 hours because of core gameplay and mission structure.
Still amazed that so many people like Witcher 3's open world so much. It's impressive on a technical level, but that's about it. There's no fun in exploring when the only thing you'll find is more generic looking small villages, patches of woods, and caves, and the gear rewards you find are unnecessary since the combat is mostly a joke.
StarStabbedMoon
Member
I won't be too surprised if it becomes more highly regarded here, Xenoblade in a way is more for the west than Japan. Some of the import impressions found the large open world, heavy customization, online play, or less focus on story to be jarring, but those are all features that are extremely widespread in western games. When the first Xenoblade came out in Europe, what happened with the critical reaction was very similar. The biggest praise it got was how it diverged from JRPGs rather than genre conventions.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
Kinda stopped reading at that "The Witcher 3 is dull" part. Don't get me wrong--the overly realistic medieval look is boring all hell aesthetically, but you can see the work that went into crafting it and the actual monsters look cool, as well as the writing being A+-tier.
Xenoblade comparatively runs the risk of being a beautiful game with weak writing and that's worrisome. PLUS there's only one city and that's always disgusting.
Xenoblade comparatively runs the risk of being a beautiful game with weak writing and that's worrisome. PLUS there's only one city and that's always disgusting.
Earthpainting
Member
One thing I can say about GTA5, Witcher 3, Xenoblade X, MGS5 and even FF15 Episode Duscae, is that their worlds feel hand-made, with various grades of success. A lot of open world games come off as they were mostly procedurally generated, and then dressed up. Whether they actually are or aren't is ultimately irrelevant, because the end result is the same. Seeing a bunch of games that feel like they are hand-crafted is a pretty positive development either way.
Yeah I might be do it. It's a time thing for me. I have issues carving out time to play games I want to on ps4 and xbox, so adding another system just seems like a bad decision. But now that my daughter is creeping up on 2 years of age, I've been thinking about getting a wii U for her to enjoy when she gets older.
However, what most people miss, is that "one city" in X is basically half a continent in size and is packed with people and places. It's more like 5 cities in one.
So yes, it's "one city" but you could spend half the game exploring just New Los Angeles.
Also, the writing definitely isn't weak. It's just not as big of a focus as the other Xeno games, but it's still in that style and top notch.
You think Xenoblade X is better than The Witcher????? Have you played any quests yet????? They're really generic fetch quests.
The Bloody Baron quest line in The Witcher is more emotional than the entirety of X. The Doppler play is funnier than the entirety of X. Random one-off side characters are more charming and have more personality than any X character.
The characters in X are like Barbie dolls. Excuses to run around in an offline MMO world. I miss the companionship that I had with Xenoblade's amazing characters. It just feels like Monolith dropped a lot of the story for the sake of the open gameplay, and it sucks.
The Bloody Baron quest line in The Witcher is more emotional than the entirety of X. The Doppler play is funnier than the entirety of X. Random one-off side characters are more charming and have more personality than any X character.
The characters in X are like Barbie dolls. Excuses to run around in an offline MMO world. I miss the companionship that I had with Xenoblade's amazing characters. It just feels like Monolith dropped a lot of the story for the sake of the open gameplay, and it sucks.