We don't even have to look at recent games for this. Just look at Daggerfall. It still holds the record for the largest map in gaming, yet is utterly emtpy.

Designing a game is much like designing a sex toy. Sure, you could make one the size of Ireland but that's way too big and unfocussed to be fun. Instead make one with a clear beginning and end, give it interesting shapes and turns, make it wider and more narrow at certain points and allow players to experiment while giving a focussed core experience. Because that way your users are in for a way better ride.

Do you think developers know that in order to claim defamation, the "defaming" statements have to be... you know... false?

If a sandbox is empty, isn't it just a box?

Little did Jim know Todd Howard was creating a game that 4 times the size of fallout 4 with 16 times the lack of content.

Size doesn't matter, it's all about the animation of the ocean.

The Witcher 3: Now THATS how you do an open world.

"Lego brick style procedural generation".... Not really. Because Legos actually fit together nicely.

We could definetelly use more linear story based games.

I will never forget the time when I spoke to a hunter in early-game Witcher 3 who, upon being pressed, told me he was gay, and that his noble-born boyfriend, Fabian, had committed suicide when the facts of their relationship were revealed to the public, only later to find Fabian's actual mausoleum (proven by the epitaph), and a wraith wandering around it. No further context needed. The grave wasn't even a quest location. It was just there, another expertly crafted detail in the giant mural that is the Witcher universe.

"Content" is my absolute least favorite word in the industry. So many people are tricked by it and throw it around like it holds weight when in truth it's so often the word that describes empty games that just happen to be big. Unfortunately so many people are suckers for that.

I think the problem isn't about how big or small, open or linear a game world is. In my view, the problem is that too many developers chase trends instead of deciding what model would suit their own game best. I too am growing somewhat weary of vast, empty open worlds, but that doesn't mean I want to see the next two years filled with linear corridors. A game like Half Life may well have been hurt by being open world, but a different game like Just Cause greatly benefits from it. And that's my point, each game should take into account the kind of story it's trying to tell, its mechanics, and decide whether it can accomplish its goals better as an open world or linear game--as opposed to making generalized, sweeping judgements on one mode or the other.

What's next? Capcom making an open world Resident Evil game? (This is a joke, please don't give Capcom ideas)

Open world games are when I stopped finishing games. I wish we could get back to more linear games, so I can finish the damn things instead of quit 100 hours in without touching the main story 'cause I got so burned out on the sidequesting gameplay due to being a completionist. Maybe that's just my problem.. I want to experience everything in one playthrough, and I can in linear games, but open world games are stuffed full of padding that it just grinds you out to the point of boredom. Too bad I never feel satisfied if I don't complete and explore everything.

That wasn't Thunderbirds in the cut away! IT WAS STINGRAY! How could you!? Or was that Chips fault?

6:55 Joseph Anderson characterized his time with No Man's Sky by saying it was like he'd never left his starting solar system, but merely had that system rearranged slightly hundreds of times. That's the end result of so much 'content-focused' design over substance.

One of the best games to mention here will be Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. People who played it surely know why the game is so good, but for those who don't: Bloodlines is a Role Playing Game(And by that i mean an Old School 3D RPG) but instead of giant, often empty Open World we see in almost every single triple A game these days, Bloodlines offered Open World zones which were fairly small, but also filled with content that was interesting and actually mattered. In that game every single location was in some way important and at no point in the game you will find yourself in a location that serves absolutely no purpose. Some places were there for the main story while others were there for side quests which were actual side quests and none of that Travel there and Kill all the enemies BS(cough Fallout 4 cough) Today so called "RPGs" give us truly giant worlds i agree, but majority of the map is covered with nothing but forests, deserts, mountains etc. The only Modern Games that actually managed to give us massive worlds with meaningful content within them are Witcher and TES(Morrowind and Oblivion) series. In all other games open world serves mostly as a filler to make the game look bigger than it actually is.

People have been calling me an idiot for years when I told them, that linearity is an actual selling point to me. Linearity doesn't necessarily deprive you of choice. And even if it does: The most memorable moments to me were always in a very linear game. Even in GTA San Andreas, the game shuts off the "open-worldness" when telling important parts of the plot, like the grandiose Ending. The best part of the game was that it was fairly linear whilst making you feel free in your actions and how to progress the story. Happy belated Birthday, Jim!

Open world games were great when there was only one new interesting release every 3 months and you were in high school with loads of free time. Or you had limited money and could only buy one game. Now games come out a dozen a week and steam sales mean they are cheaper than beer. Ain't nobody got time for that!

I feel the Yakuza series is one that does open-world right. Yes, the narrative does suffer from you being able to ignore it on a whim, but: 1. There are millions of things to do beside the story. Beating up punks, arcade games, dating hostesses, pursuing sidequests, etc. 2. The open worlds are not too big, but at the same time, feel lively.

MGSV:TPP is particularly guilty of this.

Like people pushing for Bioshock to be open world... I want to punch them.

This idea was taken to absurd levels in Fallout 4 - if you want to have a main story arc in a sandbox game, don't make it a search for a missing son!

well said Also you missed out on saying something like: "Sandboxes are fun and have their place, but nobody wants to be stuck in a fucking desert"

I'm hoping Subnautica pulls this "large open world" aspect off well. Currently, my massive fear of the ocean is enough to make the "emptiness" in that game terrifying for me. Especially when a reaper leviathan suddenly starts hunting you.

More quality linear games would be really nice. Y'know more great stuff like Uncharted, The last of us and Vanquish? GIVE ME THAT SHIT!!! I finished The Last Guardian recently and really enjoyed it. It took me about 8 hours and that was 8 hours of gorgeous looking, tightly constructed level design. Not every game has to be a 30-50 hour open world where you do the same shit over and over again in order to tick stuff off a list.

"This industry is forgetting how linearity benefits a good story" Well said!

this is why the Souls series has taken off so well. It's a good mix between an open world and a linear one.

Horizon Zero Dawn is freaking massive open world to explore on foot, but I don't hate exploring it, because the quests and collectibles come with little stories to tell. For example, there are twelve "vantage points" that you have to find, with each vantage point telling part of the story of an Indian-American's life in the 2060s. He started out as a rough teenager who was addicted to drugs and chafed with his stepfather, and whose mother had been sacrificing a lot for his sake. Eventually (some time after his mother's death due to complications from an industrial accident), he found his passion in engineering, and... well, the story goes from there and I haven't completed it, but the point is I'M ACTUALLY INTERESTED in reading to the end! Sure, there are some quests I think might be a hassle (like completing all the hunting trials), but I don't feel like I'm on autopilot doing any of these things. That's what an open-world game is SUPPOSED to be like for the player. You should WANT to explore the map, not be FORCED to explore and repeat tasks just to get some arbitrary completion percentage.

12 years! That's how long it's been since this topic was first brought up in a big public forum. That's when World of Warcraft came out, with its massive world that would literally take hours to run through (unheard of before, unless you had played the Elder Scrolls sequels up until Morrowind). But the game was so empty that they even named the biggest area "Barrens". Few and far between were quest givers, who would all give one of two quests: Go here, kill that or Go here, collect that. So many people complained about it that Blizzard was near to pulling the plug on the whole concept. Sales figures weren't as high as they expected, a surprisingly high number of those who did buy it stopped paying the subscription fee within 2 months. They had to implement a 30-day minimum subscription to even play the game to make up for the money they spent in development. Then they fixed it, somewhat, and people started playing it again. It became the most played game in the world before Minecraft came and took that title away. And here we are, 12 years later, and AAA publishers do what they do best: Look at what games have been popular and try to extract the one element that made it good and is also rather easy to implement. "They like big open worlds? Let's make all our games big open worlds. They like first person shooters? Let's make all our games first person shooters. They like fast-paced combat with little to no intelligence? Let's make all our games have fast-paced combat with little to no intelligence. They like climbing high places, look at the view and then jump off? Let's make all our games have high places to climb, where they can look at the view and then jump off. They like unlockable super-human abilities? Let's give all our protagonists unlockable super-human abilities." And that's how you end up with a hundred 60$ titles that are basically clones of each other. They forgot to look at WHY those elements were interesting to the player, and skip right to the content. It's the same mindset that AAA film publishers have, where they try to find the one element people like. "People liked Psycho? What did it have? Oh, that one jumpscare that's so iconic now. Let's push 150 jumpscares into our film!" BOOM: Every single horror flick since 1997.

This is why I don't really bother celebrating New Years. Nothing much seems to change from year to year.

Man, those riddler trophies in Batman : Arkham City... No point at all.

I'm saddened that FFXV fell into this category.The open world to the scale they made was a mistake. It should have had at least 4 or 5 playable areas: Lucis outskirts, a bigger Altissia, an explorable Tenebrae, a Niflheim area that wasn't just a dungeon, and a better Insomnia for example. 8:05 Jim, there's actually a video of Sean Murray being asked what's at the center and replying "I don't know, maybe the giant head of Peter Molyneux. You'll have to wait and see." I shit you fucking not.

Even though I immensely enjoyed The Witcher 3, I preferred the approach that The Witcher 2 had to the world. That is, medium sized open areas and you move from one open area to another as you progress the story in a linear fashion. Same thing with the Deus Ex games, KOTOR games and a few others. A satisfying approach in my eyes is also like Thief 1 and 2 or the Hitman games, in which you progress through levels, but each level is big, is interesting to explore, and offers a lot of ways to complete your objectives.

It's annoying how games are just using open-worlds everywhere. Some examples of some amazing games that weren't open world are: Bioshock Doom(the new and original) Dead Space Hotline Miami Serious Sam Half-life 1 & 2 Tomb Raider(all of them) Mirrors Edge Hitman(most of them) Dishonored These all in my opinion the best games that are linear with no open world that give the feeling of being free to do as you please, most of these accomplish it through allowing various playstyles and others just give enough space in each area for you to explore and give the feeling of it being open.

I like the way Tomb Raider (the reboot) and it's sequel did it. A well paced linear main story line that sometimes opens up to give the player some freedom to explore / survive / do side quests.

That's why I liked the world in Deus Ex: Human Revolution so much. It had a very good balance between freedom to walk around and linear, atmospheric storytelling. The areas were large enough to do some crazy stuff and explore a bit, but small enough to never be too far away from the next mission goal or stray too far from the main storyline.

Shadow of Mordor had an interesting approach to this. It had the open world, collect-a-thon, recycled sidequest thing going on that sells so well, but the Nemesis system gave it a bit more of a punch. It allowed the repetitive bits to become a backdrop while something legitimately interesting and unique played out. You could be off fetchquesting when that one fucker decided to interrupt. It helped with the "the world is ending, but I'ma go collect soda pop tabs" thing a bit too because it made it seem that time and failure actually mattered, even if they didn't really.

divide square miles by number of quest types to find out how good a game is.

The problem with HUGE Open Worlds is that I have to walk across them. I walked across the map in Daggerfall and wasted 69 hours of my life :)

Habby Birthday

It's not about the size, it's what you do with it.

Happy Birthday JIM FUCKING STERLING SON!

Reminds me of when my buddies and I started coming up with our own campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons. In order to outdo the scale of Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time they all too place "on a planet twice the size of Jupiter". Eventually though we realized you could get a lot more out of one small town on the borderlands next to castle with deep dark catacombs hidden beneath the lower floors than you could out of entire nations or celestial planes.

When I think of my favorite open world games, you know what I think of? Mario 64. Resident evil 2 and remake. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Yes, also GTA San Andreas, but for the most part, I'll take even a Dead Rising (not 3!) over another Ubisoft "sandbox", because these games take the time for you to actually understand the world you're in. To this day, I have occasional flashbacks to various scenes and locations in RE2 and Metal Gear Solid, because they were open, in that you were free to go in whatever direction you like, and there were good reasons to explore, and they weren't always perfectly linear (okay, those two were pretty close), but the world was contained to a place small enough to actually understand where you were at any given moment, and more importantly, what that might actually mean. Mario 64 is the most perfectly pure version of this. It's the exact opposite philosophy of the "AAA Sandbox". There's very little "content", depending on your definition of that word, but there's a pure joy in how you control the character, and how that character interacts with it's world. You learn that game virtually back to front trying to unlock all of it's secrets, and you do it with no progression other than hats, stars, and your own slow, increasing familiarity with the world. Every step forward is an actual step forward, not some RPG light mechanic or currency or piece of dialogue, but just forward motion to the next lot of challenges, and occasionally some new ways to deal with them. The point? Bring back the mansion! The Castle! Something big enough that you feel like you're constantly exploring, but small enough that you can easily get around, and actually give a shit about where you are at any moment. Imagine how fantastic a new Mario 64 could be? Just a few updates, a couple more long term incentives for explorations, and just one really, fucking big castle to explore. Also, screw mirrors edge, Prince of Persia, and Assassin's Creed. Mario 64 is the original parkour game, and it's still by far the best. How that basic concept hasn't been turned into a more mature title is beyond me. Can you imagine a Tony Hawks style game with a Mario 64 style mechanic? I would just give them all my money and play that till I died.

It's games like Doom that inject the raw purity of gaming right into your veins that are the best games. Just give me something to enjoy and give it to me *now*. Don't make me drive 5 miles in a stolen car so I can talk to a person to initiate a quest and then make me drive another 5 miles to reach the "mission objective" where I can actually finally start playing the game I paid for.

Why has no one brought up phantom pains empty open world?

Linear can be very beautiful. I just finished The Last Guardian, which is 110% linear and it is the most emotional experience I've ever had in a game, it is so amazing

I have not even watched the full episode but I already fully agree with you.

The prime example to me is Batman: Arkham Asylum - while there was some freedom, you still basically played a linear story, and it was GREAT. Then Arkham City, started losing interest. Then the world got bigger and bigger and less and less content, til. Arkham Knight, where I completely lose interest. The Predator missions were easier than anything because the missions were no longer CRAFTED. In the first Arkham title, the Predator missions were a challenge. In Arkham Knight, they became annoying easy side missions, leading to a confrontation with Deathstroke that was a .... tank mission. Wonderful. I despised Dragon Age: Inquisition (and by the way, I was a huge fan of DA:O and to a lesser extent DA2.) I shudder about Mass Effect Andromeda because I'm worried about the same dilution of story. While ME and ME2 gave you an open world, you still had some linearity. Hell, great storywriting saved the first game from its open world, cookie-cutter worlds that were just palette swaps, basically.

Open world is a old worn out concept for games. I'm all about open gameplay levels like Dishonored. Besides after spending 100 + hours in Elite Dangerous I find these "open world " regurgitations kinda amusing. "Oh your game has a huge map ehh ? well I got the whole Milky Way to explore so what else you got ? " PS Am I the only one who thought the driving in Half Life 2 was utterly crigney ? No hands on the steering wheel bothered me so much , the steering wheel turns by itself. Probably just me the game was very good aside from that one little thing.

I still think Rockstar's Bully is close to perfect open-world game. The map wasn't big and had a lot of content.

This is why i enjoyed Final Fantasy X. Maybe it was extremely linear but it never lost focus on the story.

What I like about Jim Sterling is that he seems sincere in his values yet he tries to entertain with ridiculous stuff however he does not forget that its just for show. He is honest about his dislike of some of his fans tastes, yet he understands very well why people watch him. His persona seems genuine not some artificial superficial good guy or whatever the current trend may be. Most importantly though he seems to stick to his opinions no matter what others may think. Like with zelda, that comment that talked about how most critics now vote above 9 and anything below 7 is shit reeally fucking gets to me. I hate that. I never trust reviews of anything, no restaurants or products, i always substract at least 1 point from the score in my mind. A 9 must be fucking brilliant and only a handful of games in history should ever get a 10. IGN can suck a dick. I highly recommend Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's series "Zero Punctuation", he has very similar values and opinions as Jim Sterling (Review scores, AAA problems, repetitive games and much more)

i think morrowind has the best example of an open world, it's smaller than most, but hand-made, things are far enough to explore but close enough to avoid long walks, there's a lot of difference in culture and races wich are all pretty relatable to the player. even the dungeons are unique where sometimes there are entire blocked off sections that can be reached with certain items or spells, in wich you discover the dungeon is atleast twice as big without re-using too much cookie cutter assets. this was one of the weaker points of oblivion and skyrim.

Man, DA: Inquisition was one of the worst offenders. Who needs structure or pacing in an RPG when you can ride off into the boring ass desert to fight the same bandits and demons, collect the same crafting ingredients, and generally just waste your time? There were certainly stretches of those enormous maps with interesting things in them, but usually they had no indication they were important, no quest would reference them, and it just made me sad to think that people tried to make the game world seem alive even though it was a huge slog.

This is what I'm most worried about with *_Breath of the Wild!_* It will no doubt have fun stuff to do, but will it be thinly spread or will it have a lot of repetitive content? It should at least have amazing unique locales to make the roaming exploration worthwhile.

Spot on Jim fucking sterling son . I hate how recent focus has been the size of their open worlds rather then their focus on whether or not that world is filled with diverse and interesting things, just repeated assets and boring mechanics in that massive world that just make it a bore-fest

What about Yakuza? The same city is in every game (usually with an additional city) and they keep building from there with each game adding something new to do.

...... HEY! remember Banjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Undertale? Remember what was fun about them? Big open worlds IN DIVIDED LEVELS! You went to one big map to explore a whole new theme, new enemies, new puzzles and new things to explore instead of one giant empty city of nothing. I have had more fun on gm_flatgrass in Garry's Mod than I have had in Far Cry 2, 3 and 4. I had even MORE fucking fun in the Garry's Mod mod Elevator Source. And all you did was ride an elevator to different floors and watched what happened and nothing else. That was more fun for some reason cause it was varied, gave something new every time and just like Undertale played with what you are familiar with. In Undertale it poked fun at regular rpg tropes and made running away a solution to beating the boss. In Elevator Source instead of the doors opening and showing a new floor, the elevators floor broke and you fell down a long hole down into the elevator again or the walls, floor and ceiling randomly floated away. Open Sandbox games don't spice things up by making helicopters try and crash into you. They also made the main game varied by making you use the same weapons and gameplay in new interesting way all the time like a point and click game making you think of new ways to progress. Another big great thing they did was being ORIGINAL and UNIQUE as they didn't LOOK ANYTHING like anything else. Conker was an adult themed platformer that looked like a childish adventure game. They also felt differently and played differently. Same with all 3d platformers from N64 and ps2

Its ironic that AAA developers keep failing at open world games when the best open world game has already been made by and indie dev studio: Minecraft.

you know what did massive locations right? Hitman. Instead of open world, it's a handful of huge, distinct locations built so every area in them can be interesting depending on what shirt you're wearing.

1. Invest millions of dollars into an advanced video game AI simulation. 2. Attach it to the game's lore and world. 3. Make it matter for gameplay, replayability and modding. 4. Add some classic content and story elements. 5. Make it moddable, 6. ??? 7. Congrats, you have STALKER and you solved all issues of open world design.

I think what's happened is that games went from 'stories' to 'linear' and we got bored. Then came the big open worlds and it was so fresh we all loved it. So companies, over indulged on it until it became a business normality. Now, years later, we're bored of open worlds, and most of us are craving to be told a damn good story. To be told where to go because we know when we get there, there'll be something interesting to do, that has a point. Think about it; how long has it been since it's been normal to be able to actually COMPLETE a game? with an ending cutscene, a credits screen and all. Perhaps the future, is combining the two. Perhaps by then we'll realise we already have that here in the real world and just stop it with the games xD

"Tons of missions that have a load of structure and writing put into them" >video showing Skyrim A hue~

Happy birthday Jim, I'm glad they let you out of that metal hospital.

10:38 - 12:26 THIS is what I think ultimately damaged FFXV more than anything else. I still love Final Fantasy XV and I had a lot of fun with it, even with the open-world aspect, but the story definitely suffered from it. There are so many characters that are left as a confused mess and plot-points that go nowhere and the threat of the Niflheim empire seems so minuscule. I know FFXV's open world approach was more than likely a direct response to FFXIII's criticisms of "linearity," but honestly I think going full-on open world was overkill.

Three days after this video went up, details of the next Assassins Creed were leaked...featuring a map THREE TIMES BIGGER THAN BLACK FLAG. Also, it's set in Egypt so a lot of that THREE TIMES BIGGER THAN BLACK FLAG is going to literally be a featureless desert. Jim Sterling is a fucking prophet.

What's with terrible game developers and homophobia? They go hand and hand Edit: Apparently its only Dream Games

It´s not about the size, it´s how you use it.

Did someone say MGSV: The Phantom Content?

**Plays Breath of the Wild while watching the video** Wait a minute ...

Oh the irony that now in 2021 we aren’t even getting content it’s now all About the experience and the service and engagement. AAA GAMES went from taking away story and worldbuilding to have blank sandboxes of bland content then made that bland content so Grundy and annoying to hide progression behind a paywall I Miss when what we were complaining about was having bland content instead of having to complain they even bland content is being pushed behind a paywall to Boost engagement. Video games were a mistake.

He also accused you of wearing a top hat, when clearly you're wearing a bowler. Sue him, Jim! Such slander cannot be tolerated!

In defense of the Assassin's Creed games; the story campaigns (for most of them) as well as the enjoyment of assassinating enemies and vanishing straight after with the action chases and all that, did make them worth playing despite the shitty side quest content they had.

I'm not opposed to empty spaces in games. If I'm enjoying a great long journey through an open world, a sense of scale and vastness can do wonders for my immersion, and it seems like a lot of open world games feel the need to cram eyecatching distractions in just for the purpose of making me watch my 'dismount-from-horse' animation again, followed swiftly by my 'remount-on-horse' animation. I suppose in the end it comes down to the same idea: have an actual directed creative vision that unifies the aesthetic with the mechanics to form a cohesive experience.

Why make a game that's so well crafted that it becomes iconic (Real iconic, not Ubisoft iconic) when you can just sell your games purely on hype culture, brand name, and buzz words? - AAA developer motto

Elder Scrolls games are probably more guilty than any other series of having empty worlds. Other developers look at these games and say "well, we can do that too". And then they do, and everyone criticizes them for problems they more or less imported from Elder Scrolls. You can't complain about empty worlds on the one hand a praise Elder Scrolls on the other. Cardboard NPCs, LEGO brick locations, recycled content... These are the sins of the Elder Scrolls, and until people wake up and realise that and stop buying those games the problem is just going to get worse.

I can't say I've noticed the open world problem. That said I haven't been playing as many of the standard AAA games lately. BF1, a lot of driving games, and then back to the endless old and/or indie games I still haven't got round to finishing. Anyway happy birthday, I got you a like. I'm off to watch some more videos whilst my phone decides to update itself against my wishes as though Microsoft bought out Android. Hurray for technological progress.

The argument of size also spills over into multiplayer where we constantly have players equating the quality of multiplayer with how many players the developers can stuff into it. More players does not always lead to better experience and in many cases it will make it much worse.

Honestly, I find the problem with Skyrim's main plot is that it bothered trying to have one at all. I've always been perfectly content in The Elder Scrolls to run off and collect flowers for potion ingredients, only to randomly stumble into some dungeon and discover a few adventures along the way, or else spend my time playing house or pretty princess dress-up with my followers. I've never really bothered beating any of them, since I didn't see the point. (Why would I want to make the oblivion portals and dragon attacks stop?) Not that games can't have good stories and all, but I don't think games should HAVE to require a linear story at all. All the Sim-whatever games going back to the original SimCity had no scripted linear narrative and definite sandbox games, but what stories they could tell were all of the player's own creation, and related to the mechanics of the game, itself. Games like SimEarth or SimAnt were even more explicitly designed for the purpose of being educational about the subject matters of how the environment and evolution worked, or how ant colonies function, respectively. If you like, consider the game a mystery where understanding the mechanics and their implications are the story being told. Games like Patrician, which is about the rise of the Hanseatic League and the social changes in Europe at the start of the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is a game about building up podunk self-sufficient burgs into metropolises dependent upon global commerce. It's functionally a love letter to free market capitalism, so long as someone keeps the merchants honest. The moral of the story may be debatable, but it's still definitely present in the game. Of course, all of this is to say I totally agree with the main premise of how an empty sandbox is an empty game, but that saying linear storytelling is the ONLY valid method of storytelling, or that sandboxes just make it harder to tell those linear stories that are the only valid way to make games is to go too far.

This is actually one of the reasons why i'm worried about the new zelda. A lot of people are hyped as fuck eventhough we don't know how much actual content there's gonna be. I mean they allready said that there will be only 4 main dungeons, eventhough the dungeons are one of the key thing i personally enjoy about those games. And yes i know there will be those small mini dungeons but that to me just doesn't sound all that great. I guess my point is people shouldn't get too hyped for games that aren't even out yet, even if they happen to be of one of our favorite franchises.

"i hate sand it's coarse and rough and it gets everywhere"

I think comparing Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid 5 is the best way to show that some series are better when they're not open world.

I cannot agree more with the sentiments shown in this video. Honestly Jim, if I wasn't only a mere pauper I'd Patreonize the shit out of you.

Size doesn't matter: It's about how you use it.

"When it's less believable than the average Thunderbirds episode." *plays Stingray*

Jim Sterling, While I agree with everything you said about Ubi's open game world and collectible issues, I think they made a huge step in the right direction with WatchDogs 2. There's scouting, which directs you to a particularly good bit of art, mural, scenery, character interaction, etc. and suggests you take a picture there to forward your progress. Littered around the world are pickups for money and research points, and while games like Crackdown and Infamous have obviously done this before, WatchDogs2 attempts to make a puzzle out of at least some of them. You may have to go find a forklift and move things around, or ram a truck through a wall, or use your RC car to drive through an air duct, or your drone to fly above, or any combination of all of those tactics just to get inside to the pickup... not to mention using any of the cameras, hacking "sight", or actual hacking itself. All of the above helps you to actually play more of the game, whether it's to get more money to buy cars and weapons with, or to get more points to buy skills with. There are other types of collectibles that you can find, such as skins for your guns, paint jobs for your cars, unique vehicles, and clothing options, but they're nowhere as in your face as say, the floating music pages from Black Flag. I can barely see them on the map and there's no particular drive to get them, other than the "huh" as I try out something different. Unfortunately, this particular formula won't apply so well to other open world games in Ubi's stable, because the phone, RC car, droid, and hacking is so vital to finding them. But I do hope that they'll apply a similar usefulness in their other games going forward, without overwhelming us like they did in AC Unity.

whoa when did the power rangers fight a boglin?

This is my primary worry with Breath of the Wild. Sure, it has a huge ass map, apparently bigger than the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles, but they couldn't make a complete feeling world in their smallest game, Skyward Sword. Twilight Princess had bugger all in _most of the map,_ and _failed_ to build a cohesive world. Wind Waker _was huge_, given the paltry 1.5 GB, but nobody would have complained had they taken a snooker rack and pushed the islands _much closer_. (And merged a few of the times you visit only once to get one single treasure.) I have a very serious worry that Breath of the Wild will be closer to Ubisoft's open worlds rather than The Witcher's. Nintendo chose to fill some very big boots to fill when I'm not sure they're even out of baby shoes yet. Granted, they came close to making a complete world in Majora's Mask, but that was a pocket dimension with a *_single town_*. But such an interesting world in a snowglobe it was! We don't know of any Hylian holidays. The drought of _actual lore_ in the Legend of Zelda series is amazing for a franchise whose premier predates Dragon Quest. We only have a _vague_ idea of how magic works in Hyrule. Hell, we don't even know what a hylian calendar looks like. You know the thing that most civilizations made pretty early on to keep track of the seasons? TL;DR: *It's a bit silly when Dwarf Fortress has a deeper mythos than a long established franchise.*

Lavish Leviathans! Dibs on that band name!

This is one of the reasons I am strangely fond of the CoD/MW/AW/IW single-player campaigns. Those are linear, yes. They are sometimes pretty short, yes. But they are also amazingly paced, alternating fairly tight tactical gameplay situations, pure action set pieces and (sometimes maybe a wee bit too common) moments where the rug is pulled out under the player and the game shifts gears in an entirely unexpected way. Sure, the story would often make even Tom Clancy blush, but it's just so well presented that it all comes down to a very fun ride.

Deus Ex is about as "sandbox" as I like to get. Gimme multiple optional objectives, and options in ways to complete them. Job done.

This is exactly, what i told Nintendo fanboys, about Xenoblade Chronicles X. It doesn't matter how big, or expansive your open world game is, if it's a lifeless, empty, barren wasteland, with only inane sidequests for you to do, then it's not worth anything. A game like Dark Souls 3, is comparatively smaller, than the other souls games, but it's jam packed with some awesome sidequests, weapons & boss fights out there.

Happy late birthday, Jim Fucking Wild Card Sterling Son!

It is said that only the mightiest of sickos may seek out the headbanging healing powers of the Metal hospital. They asked Lord Jim to stay and be their Metalhead of Manowarriors but he said in a thunderous death growl 'Nay, the world still has need of me!" Thus, he returned to us and to this day fights with a fiery justice against the forces of gaming evil. May Mchale and all those who blaspheme against him be smote to developer Hell. Amen.

That's why I liked xenoblade X. The side missions actually had little stories. There were over 250 of them to boot which added tons of worldbuilding. Some games even like dragon age inquisition you have maybe 2-3 missions for each support character that are a bit meaningful but all the rest are fetch quests slay quests. Inquisition would have benefited by actually being more linear. I actually liked that FFXV was more hub open world with the story told in more linear fashion. Xenoblade X and witcher 3 does sidequest well for open world sandbox, if you are not gonna invest into it like these games better off making more tight linear story with open hubs. Mafia 3 was another game last year that suffered meaningless content beside the main mission.

Happy belated birthday!

Happy birthday you massive mound of English goodness.

Happy Birthday Jim! Looking forward to another year of your videos and reviews!