Physiocrat
Member
I keep reading the terms linear, wide-linear and open-world but I am unsure as to exactly what they mean.
Linear makes the most sense to refer to side scrolling 2D games. like Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive, but even that wasn't entirely linear in that you had some options to decide on which route to take through the level.
On the other hand in what are generally considered open world games, you have missions that can only be completed in a limited or possibly only one way.
Another way of looking at linear vs open-world is whether you can return to the same location time and time again however say in the first Witcher game there are locations you cannot return to but it is not an obvious linear game - would this make the Witcher wide linear?,
So my question is what aspects of game play can be considered on the linear vs open-world spectrum? My guess is that there are many different axes which is why it is difficult in some cases to class a game as open world or linear. Further is the open world vs linear really a question of how much choice you have as a player over various aspects of the game? Or is there more to it than that?
Linear makes the most sense to refer to side scrolling 2D games. like Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive, but even that wasn't entirely linear in that you had some options to decide on which route to take through the level.
On the other hand in what are generally considered open world games, you have missions that can only be completed in a limited or possibly only one way.
Another way of looking at linear vs open-world is whether you can return to the same location time and time again however say in the first Witcher game there are locations you cannot return to but it is not an obvious linear game - would this make the Witcher wide linear?,
So my question is what aspects of game play can be considered on the linear vs open-world spectrum? My guess is that there are many different axes which is why it is difficult in some cases to class a game as open world or linear. Further is the open world vs linear really a question of how much choice you have as a player over various aspects of the game? Or is there more to it than that?