Well done! I 100% agree with less filler. Most open-world games don't respect player time. By the way, I'm impressed by how well Witcher 2 still looks!

I hate that narrative disconnect when the story requires urgent attention but the player is free to waste time. Dead Rising 1 and 2 solve this by allowing you to freely explore, but punish you with a bad story ending for not starting the missions in time. Great video!

I think another thing devs can do to prevent open world fatigue is to simply make smaller maps. Gothic 1 and 2 are the reigning champions of this. The maps are small, but densely packed with content. All of it is hand placed, and there’s little repetition like you’d normally see in bigger open worlds.

There’s no cure for open world fatigue. If your open world game makes players fatigued thst just means it’s not good enough. Normal games don’t have this issue.

Open World could be great, if they would make: 1. Smaller maps → With more details and more vertical architecture and landscape. Bigger maps almost always lead to a more generic and therefore empty feeling worlds, which feel soulless, have a lack of detail and a lack of immersion. A more detailed world simply feels more believable, looks mostly more beautiful, is more memorable and is easier to navigate. Most bigger maps need to be filled with stuff, but time in production is always limited, which leads to architecture of towns and landscape that is somewhat flat and boring. 2. Smarter progression systems → Do not give the player the possibility to go everywhere in the open world, at the beginning and do not try to lock stuff behind things like give quests levels or worse, level locks. Choose a more natural approach, make areas way too hard to progress, till later in the game, for example with stronger enemies, which look terrifying and strong, but when you progress in game, you can take them, step by step you will explore more of the game world, because you got better skills, better armor, stronger weapons and more knowledge about the games design and world. That feels rewarding and immersive at the same time. 3. Lesser NPCs, but more memorable NPCs → Do not fill your game world with an immense population, it gives your game less immersion than you will think. At first, it sounds like, that more populated towns, cities etc. are more realistic therefore more immersive, that is not true for computer games, fewer people are easier to do for the studio working on the game, and therefore is more time to make the NPCs more realistic and therefore more memorable and unique, which leads to more immersion, not less. Like often in life, quality beats quantity. ----- And very important too: Open worlds can be great for RPGs, and GTA like games, but can be a very wrong choice for other genres, do not make your Hack n Slash Open World, because these games depend on a steady flow, which can not benefit from an open world. And please, do not force RPG systems on Action games like Assassin's Creed, doesn't fit, never will. Do not throw every genre in Open World, just because people like Open Worlds. People like Star Wars, doesn't mean that it will work if you put your Italian mafia story in a galaxy far, far away. The only 2 games I know which really master all of this, are Gothic 1 and 2. Play them, if you didn't already play them, but be warned, they destroyed many other games for me, and there is nothing really comparable out there. And they are old, like over 20 years old.

Truth. Being a fan of Deus Ex and after playing both Dishonored games this year, I can honestly say that this is the solution. If the game is not like GTA or Fallout, where the open world and the map/exploration are important to the game, just make it semi, hub based, linear, whatever. No need for useless, empty, repetitive and boring open worlds. PS: I think The Evil Within 2 is semi open world from what I know. I have to play it tho.

Metro exodus does this perfectly. That game is a masterpiece

You should check out Yakuza 0 if you're looking for a densely packed "open-world", some call its map more of an "open-district" and if you ever try it out, you'll see why. There's so much to do (side-activities, random encounters and sidequests, etc.) and it lacks the Ubisoft-type crap that is overwhelming. Also the serious but compelling main story and the hilarious side content weirdly complement each other.

I immediately think of the Yakuza series. Small maps that only take about a minute to run across, but they are densely packed with so many activities that it would take you dozens of hours to get 100% completion.

Around the late 2000's/early 2010's I would have been all about the open world. And that's because around that time the genre was probably at its peak, almost every open world game around that time became a classic: GTA 4 and 5, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Skyrim, Batman Arkham City. The Ubisoft formula wasn't the standard yet, all of these games had actual meaningful exploration and side content.

My favorite semi-open world example is Hitman. Self-contained levels, each of which is filled with so much detail and so much to explore that they are almost games unto themselves.

Fallout 1 is the best example of how to make a truly open world combined with the urgency of the main quest: the world is open and you can do what you want, but you don't have too much distractions. Everything always reminds you of your main quest, which makes the exploration of the open world very interesting and intense. You always have the thought at the back of your head: "what if this is the wrong way and I'm just wasting my time?" So, the way I see it, if you have an open world, you either A) make a main quest that is NOT urgent and you have time to explore the surrounding world, or B) If your main quest is urgent, the open world cannot have too much distractions and side quests and everything has to be connected to the main quest. That's one thing what bugged me about Fallout 2: you are given the urgency of the main quest, but already in the first town you encounter, you are bombarded with so many side quests that you immediately lose track of the main quest. It's not bad per se, but I does water down the idea of the main quest.

I also liked the approach in Batman Arkham Asylum , it isn't a large open world but gives one ample space and as u get thr upgrades the areas open up much more

In all the commentary I've seen about Elden Ring, nobody mentions what I believe is the most important accomplishment it makes in the open world genre... the world map isn't a giant circle or rectangle! Instead, it's a massive crescent. This might sound weird, but the effect this has in allowing for a sense of direction and linearity despite being unbelievably massive can not be overstated, IMO. The crescent layout allows the game to funnel you in the right direction while still allowing freedom of exploration. It's such a simple thing, but really is what massively sets the game apart from any other open world I've seen. EDIT: For the most part, you start at the bottom of the map and work your way in a clockwise path.

Metro Exodus COMPLETELY changed my mind on open world games. Such a gem, semi-open world games are the future. Less is more.

I love semi-open worlds and open worlds you get to explore rather linearly first time playing until you finish the main story

There is a reason the Rockstar open world works. Is because although they are open world, they are also linear. The game introduces the world at the same time they kept you engaging in the story. In RDR2 you don't know what is about what half of the map is going to present you until they give you reasons to go there. So excentially plays like a semi-open world. Nobody goes to Saint Denis in the very first 2 chapters. Also as the chapters progresses Rockstar makes everything seamesly noticeable the way each chapter and area you are in the game changes it's percussion. New things are unlockable, new characters, new events, less events. They make they world an event that it continues to going on without you being directly affecting it. Reason why RDR2 has yet to be outmatched.

Jedi Survivor is the best example recently

Dark souls 1 has the Best map design propably EVER. I just love everything about Firelink shrine, the Interconnectivity, the shortcuts and elevators, Sens Fortress, the NPCs appearing and disappearing from the main Hub. Its so so well design and wrap together. I was hooked on that game back in 2011 when I first time discovered a shortcut to Firelink shrine with an elevator. It just clicked for me and it became my favorite game ever from that point onwards. Semi-Open Interconnected Worlds have the must fun Exploring and the highest replayability

I think the industry forgot that games were supposed to be fun not huge. They should start making linear games again and not open world.

Xenoblade 1 had GREAT exploration. There were secret areas to find, hard monsters that inhabited the far corners of the map, rare spawn items. And the great music helped as well.

The original Gothic series (and its spiritual successors, Risen, and Archolos) solves the issues of open world really nicely too, although I'm not sure where to categorize it. What is also nice, that there is no rush, no ticking time bomb which miraculously stops ticking while you do side-quests. The game is sort of open world, but there are many areas unavailable until you progress the main story enough.

I think the most obvious answer from a design perspective is to fill the world with meaningful content, but you can also focus the world around a fast placed movement system. The most recent Spiderman games make good use of their world because flying around like Spiderman feels so great.

Hitman: World of Assasination is one such game where there is no fatigue around open world.

The hub system was already present in Ultima Underworld II, more than 30 years ago.

You forgot Pentiment, it's a chapter based zones, semi-open world and linear + open environments. You can talk to every npc in the game and you can decide on what is the background of your character. The story in the game is full of mystery and it is quite intriguing to see what happens on every chapter.

This reminds me of a video by Iron Pineapple where he described dark souls games has a 3-D Metroidvania. I liked the idea because while metroidvanias in a sense are still open world games, the differing design philosophies seem like they would make for smaller, more intense/detailed environments.

This is one of the reasons why Bioshock, or to use an earlier example, Ratchet and Clank, worked so well. The environments were fairly small but so chocked full of detail and storytelling that they all felt bigger than they were.

something i really love in recent years is the rise of semi-open worlds where the story is structured around acts that progress the world and fill it in with various more things to return to, my first recent example would be ghost of tsushima

I think this sub-genre is called open area and a lot of JRPGs (kingdom hearts, tales, YS, etc )use it, that's probably why I love them.

One thing I think tends to get overlooked when talking about open world games is how they can actually make the locations feel smaller than they should be. For example, Night City is an impressively crafted video game city, but the realities of game design and development mean that it's actually tiny compared to any real city. Or the Horizon games, where you can walk from Denver to Eagle Canyon or Las Vegas to Oakland in like 10 minutes. Smaller games that aren't trying to represent such a massive area can more realistically scale the area they do represent. The city of Baldur's Gate feels huge because you only visit portions of it, but the skyboxes and background details make it clear that the area you're in is surrounded by a sprawling city. You may not have as much area to explore, but the verisimilitude of being in a large city is better maintained. The Deus Ex games are similar. Instead of pretending the area you're in is the entirety of Detroit or Prague, the background art makes you feel like you're in just a part of a huge city.

Great video, Metro Exodus was an absolute masterpiece imo, it combines several open-world levels with linear ones and it works really well. After you finish a big open world one, you get kind of a break and enjoy a more linear level which then leaves you craving more of that immersive gameplay.

My favorite semi-open world is MGS3. For the most part, it’s still a dungeon crawler, but with plenty of side paths with cool hidden bonuses and stuff

as the OpenWorldAddict, my favorite open world games are actually metroidvania style games (whether 2-d or 3-d), cause they start you off with either a small area or a linear area that is too much to overwhelm you, but as you unlock new stuff and new abilities, you slowly unlock more of the world to explore. I think that is the cure for open world fatigue. It could called metroidvania or slowly expanding or unfolding open world. One thing i love about these style of games is that you can really develop a lot of familiarity with one specific area before starting to explore and wander around other areas.

I really like all of the Arkham Games and how they handle open world. It’s because of Asylum and City specifically that I coined the phrase “Open area” games. Which is basically what you’re talking about.

people often complain about empty open-world, but I think they can work if they are big and if they are made for travel. It's hard to explain, but I enjoy simply going through the open world in DayZ with friends. It feels like you are on a forever road-trip and you sort of are, there are zero activities outside the ones you create for yourself and it's a lot of fun.

dude you've perfectly articulated what semi-open worlds are

Well said. I also think the future would be brightest with more semi-open worlds. Gives the benefit of exploration without redundancy. A lot of the best games ever seem to ride that fine line

I like chapter based games like in Witcher 2- I wish we had more fleshed out versions of these types of semi-open worlds

Nice video. Story over volume is always a good choice. The older bioware rpg's really had me tied to the screen (Dragon Age, Neverwinter nights 1, BG.)

Great video. To the point, and brilliantly.... no filler!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice also rewards exploration really well because if you go out of your way, you can actually find power-ups and loot that helps a whole lot with the main quest.

Love this video, especially that you called out specific styles like the hub. I love any game in that style, especially when the hub area has something new to find or do each time you return from one of the spokes with a new ability. A similar style I love, exemplified in early 3D action games like Devil May Cry 1, Devil May Cry 3, and Ninja Gaiden 1, combine the hub with explicit levels that begin and end at certain moments. The level-based design keeps you moving forward on a track, limiting where you can explore and when, and that can help a lot with reducing the fatigue that comes with a game where you have so much to explore that it becomes overwhelming.

Elden Ring finally clicked for me, and boy, I'm totally addicted to that crack now

The thing I love about these games is traveling around the world and have memories of quests/missions tied to places that you can visit later- spider man ps4 was really cool there- „oh, that’s where I fought the kingpin!- or - hey that’s where I I fought electro!“

I think ghost of tsushima, rather having a somewhat repetitive side quests, The whole side content IS related to the main quest; Jin has to enslave his people, narrowing mongols controlled areas, Worshiping shrines (a spiritual motivation), taking hot baths... Etc, all helping him to weakening his enemy while taking sometime to rethink his acts & next move, improving the feeling that the side quests are main quest related in non forced way... One of the best experiences I've ever had.

Man, while I am a big fan of longform analysis, it is good to watch some high quality, straight-to-the-point content. Hope your channel grow to great heights!

I was never fatigued with Elden Ring or Red Dead. My two favorite all time games for sure.

Great video! I've noticed that some of the later Assassin's Creed games (notably Odyssey and Valhalla) have taken more of a hub/chapter approach to open-worlds. While you can technically explore everywhere, it encourages you to move to a certain area and do a collection of missions in that area, before returning to your hub and selecting the next area. Makes it feel more manageable.

I HATE REPLAYING OPEN WORLD GAMES!

I played all 3 "new" tomb raider games in a row, and Rise of the Tomb Raider just hit that perfect sweet spot, i felt myself excited to explore every nook and cranny of each "level" whereas with something like AC:Odyssey i just wanted it to be over by the end lol

I think the main problem with open world design is scale. Studios create these massive open worlds with what feels like nothing in them, if instead they decreased the scale and therefore increased the density, much of the problem would fade. Then there's the second problem of repetitive content, because it's not feasible to fill in an entire massive open world with unique content, it'd take too much time and money. I'll always hark back to Skyrim when talking about how to do an open world right, that game had stuff shoved away everywhere, so much so that many people never even completed the main quest because they got too sidetracked by things they ran across. The only problem that Skyrim had in regards to open world design was that too many dungeons used the same enemies and design, even if almost all of them offered something unique or interesting. Then there's the Witcher 3, which is the best example of how to do open world curated content right. The game may not have stuff around every corner like Skyrim, but it does have a massive amount of interesting and curated content, most notably the monster hunts. Another thing that helped this game was knowing that you were expected to frequent villages for quests instead of just wandering around actually looking for something, people hate on quest markers and what not, but tbh it cuts down on needless tedium which is needed in an open world. The Witcher 3 IMO is the single best open world RPG ever created and it is not even close, I really wish more games took inspiration from it's open world content systems. I find semi open worlds are the best middle ground for curated content if you cannot reign in your ambitions to a reasonable scope, I feel Elden ring would of massively benefited from a semi open world instead of a full open world as it's open world is just honestly too big and the best parts of that game are the Legacy Dungeons anyways. They could of still had their awe inspiring backdrops without such massive area's if they simply did a semi open world. There's also multiple ways you could do a semi open world, You could have multiple heavily story focused area's with smaller open world area's connecting them. You could have multiple areas you could travel to that are wildly different with unique backdrops filled with curated content, like The Outer Worlds and Witcher 2. You could have an open world that has sections blocked off and are unlocked in a certain order, like GTA San Andreas. And so on. Also to note, because open world game often just massively inflate game time. I'd also much rather a game that is replayable, compared to a game that's so long I move onto something else from boredom. One of my favorite games is Wrath of The Righteous, but that game is far, far too long for the massive amount of replayability it has. I'd of much preferred if a game like that was 40 hours long instead of 100+ so I could go back through with different build and make different choices more.

I hadn't thought about it before, but Mankind Divided really was a departure from the previous Deus Ex games in that aspect. The earlier titles were definitely chapter-based, but MD is a hub and spoke design as you said. I hope hope hope Eidos Montreal eventually returns to working on the series. Maybe they could try a version that is more like connected zones.

There's a game that came out during CvD a few years ago called "Book of Travels" they wanted to innovate the MMO into a TMO (Tiny Multiplayer Online). I would say it is like a hub and spoke model meets a chapter based zones. Only the chapter based zones are more like they are still building the world and opening it up in sections called chapters. They made each area small but it each area is unique and detailed. The narrative and quests are more found by talking with NPC's in town and following the rumors you hear from various NPC's you encounter. It's rare that you will be told "Go here and do this." It's more like: "We're going to be so rich! We gotta get to the pass before our hideout is found" "Shut you you idiot! Do you want someone to hear you!?" That's how you hear about quests and places to go explore. It's very well made. It's still in early access and they keep updating it but it's a very pleasant experience. I highly recommend. You can find "Book of Travel's on Steam. Trailer: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/atR0pdSc29vRmJs.html

I remember for years when I wouldnt understand when people said the size is overwhelming then I started playing games like baldurs and deus ex where you get the freedom like a open world game but you get this feeling of wanting to explore everything in your small map/zone your in before you progress to the next

Great video. I’ve been looking for content talking about things like this with the way games have become today.

Cool that from soft covered almost all of these in souls games: Dark souls 1 had interconnected zones Dark souls 2 was a Hub type Dark souls 3 was more linear with open env. Elden ring is open world

I love games that have hub worlds and those hub worlds branch into levels, i love it so much. like in dishonored and deus ex.

the game enderal probably has my favorite open world design of any game i have ever played

I adore Fable and Fable 2 world design. Not too big yet so interesting to explore locations each with it's own individuality

Witcher games mentioned, let's go! I loved the maps in all 3 Witcher games and think they handled the worlds well.

Over time, I've come to appreciate open area (that's what I call 'em) games over open world games. These areas, while small, still provide a sense of exploration and discovery while not overstaying their welcome.

I think another way to design FULL open world games, or at least play them in a way that brings back the magic, is to go where your curiosity drives you. See a landmark, head that way and see what's going on there. Curious about a forest, head into it and explore it. Thought you noticed something and want to change your route to venture in a new direction, why not? When I was playing Forza Horizon 4, going from event to event, as the game instructed, made the open world feel like an inconvenience or background noise. But then I thought "screw the mission", and just drove in a direction I felt like. Through the fields, down a stream, high up a steep hill, around towns, all as if the roads never existed. Open World was fun and had a purpose now. This is how I played Fallout 4, where instead of following the objectives or quests it guided me to do, I just let my curiosity and wonder take the wheel. It was so much fun! It's also how I play Starfield. So far, I can't say the story in Starfield is any good, which I expected honestly. But when I landed on my first planet, did the outpost, and it told me to go back to my ship, I decided "Why not venture out and enjoy the sights?", and I ended up coming across a fight between factions with a large ship, killed everyone, and I suddenly got my own massive second ship in the tutorial planet! And when I got to New Atlantis, I ignored my objective of meeting the group I came to see, and talked to people in shops and stuff, and ended up exploring a BUNCH of the city and meeting tons of people. It's moments like these, and the combat, that bring back the Fallout 4 fun I had before. And it's my curiosity and adventuring that made open world games feel new again.

*Smaller Worlds. More Content. Unpredictability. Actual Replay Value* 👌

Honestly Ubisoft is the first company that comes in mind when it comes to empty open world games. Ex-employee from Ubisoft said he felt like a factory worker, doing the same thing every year

One of my favourite open-world games is actually Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Obviously it has all the elements of the "Ubisoft design" in it, but I found the overall package very satisfying and, most importantly, it made sense narratively for it to be open-world. The conspiracy that you have to uncover promotes free-roaming exploration. I remember exploring a random cave and stumbling on one of the targets totally by accident! And all the side-content felt like it contributed to meaningful progression. Attacking forts or outposts would not only improve the war score (often necessary to expose a conspirator) but you would pick up resources, loot, and even crew members. This leveled you up, and made you more capable of taking on tougher tasks, which in turn lead to better loot and rewards. It might be a bit cyclical, but it all felt very natural, well-paced, and rewarding. The mercenary system was also a great feature and one I was sad to see not implemented in the follow up. All in all, it was one of the best examples of an open-world game taking advantage of being open-world.

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="446">7:26</a> there's a minor error where "God of War (2021)" pops up when the game shown is Resident Evil Village.

I will always stand by that open world is not a bad genre by itself, and can make for some absolutely incredible experiences, but it is an extremely easy one to mess up and I feel like this is why it has a stigma in many online spaces. However I will always stand by semi-open world often being king for the formula, with the Xenoblade games having some of my favorite exploration in an RPG. It allows you to get more creative with the world design, as you don’t have to worry about making everything completely cohesive, which usually leads to dull landscapes. I’d argue even Elden Ring takes more influence from a semi-open world rather than being like an Ubisoft open world, as it feels divided by area rather than being this huge map where you can go anywhere at any time.

Jedi survivor is a good example of the hub, also ff16 is a great semi open

I like the second category the most. TLOU2, U4 and the new tomb raiders are perfection.

As long as the filler is optional I'm cool with that.

Felt like elden ring open world worked bc there was always something to discover and when there wasnt, there was something cool or beautiful to see because it was well crafted. Lots of open world games dont utilize the empty space enough which leads me to be bored.

batman arkham series is a perfect example of a semi-open world plus excelent side quests

I'm so sick and tired of sidequest ot content marked on the mini map. What I like about the minimap on Elden ring is that the map itself is detailed and makes you wonder whats that/there. It makes you want to drop your own markers on the map to get to somewhere. Then, without you realizing if yhere's anything worth while, there is and you'll find armour, weapons and enemies/ bosses to fight. The world landmarks also looks interesting and makes you go 'woahhh, whats there'

Playing FF7 Rebirth currently. It’s a very neat split between linear adventure and modern open world style, switching back and forth between them as you progress. Each open world section is a new region with a distinct feel. I’m still not a fan of the “busywork laundry list” style of open world that it uses for those sections, but the general ebb and flow between the two modes is nice. It avoids the feeling of wading around in an indistinct mush of gameplay that that kind of game so often fall into. It also makes the story much more engaging when it leads you to new locations that you couldn’t just wander to, as opposed to the story being a sort of scavenger hunt around an open world.

I'm a big fan of the open worlds in Gothic 1 and 2. The world is small and compact, with rugged terrain that creates interesting paths and shortcuts. You can technically go (almost) anywhere from the start, but progress is gated by very tough enemies at chokepoints, which creates a nice feeling of danger and mystery as you venture further. The main quest is divided into chapters, and with each chapter the state of the world changes. So they can write side quests that match and connect with whatever is happening in the overarching plot at the moment, and simply become unavailable when it progresses.

Totally agree, Darksiders also did this pretty well

All of my favorite games are open world. Horizon zero dawn, AC origins, skyrim, NMS and nier: automata. They all allow the freedom to do things at any time. They all allow the devs to craft playable art pieces, even if it's empty. I don't understand the fatigue mindset, if you're looking for something to do, just explore. LOOK at the world, don't treat like a location of events. Imo that's why I dislike linear games. It just feels like you're confined to one path and one path only. Can't stray, cant explore, you just play the story and toss the game out. That's it.

Great video! Playing Tomb Raider 2013 now.

Would definitely 100% recommend the Metro series. One of the most immersive series without adding too much stuff like having to eat and sleep. Also gotta love CDPR ❤️

Another method is to keep the physical space wide open but make the central quest restrained by time. If the storyline tells you that the princess is being held hostage and you choose to spend your time collecting rare objects on the margins of the map then consequences start to happen and eventually the princess dies because you didn't take the plot seriously. You're free to have multiple and various playthroughs with many play styles, but what you dont have is unlimited time.

I think Sniper Elite (4 and 5 mainly) can be included as well. Each level is a small sandbox on it's own, you can tackle the main objectives and the side ones in however order you want. Although the levels can feel empty at times, despite some of them being absolutely gorgeous (Spy Academy in 5) there's not much going on in the maps besides the enemy npcs and your objectives. The developer of this series isn't really a hugely successful one so I don't play their games with too much expectations anyway besides having a fun gameplay.

I was having this exact same discussion on a subreddit a few days ago about how open world design has become exhausting and tedious and how semi-open worlds can offer so much more value beyond being just visual spectacle. Studios need to realise that bigger doesn't automatically mean better if what you're offering is just large empty spaces that offer little to do and hinder the narrative of the game due to the longer more open maps. A good example of this is between the world design between the base Elden ring world of the lands between and that of the DLC world of the land of shadows having almost the same kind of world design that made the original Dark souls so good. tl;dr we want quality, not just quantity.

My game will definitely be interconnected zones. Huge thanks for helping me decide!

I think my favorite variation is linear + open environments (though they could very well be linear only), games like A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem, all Uncharted games (though mostly 4 and Lost Legacy have the open environments aspect), TLOU 1 and 2 or the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy are some of my most favorite games of all time.

The total conversion mod „Archolos“ for gothic 2 had the outcome of the main story be changed significantly if you spend to much time on side quest instead of following the main story. Great concept. VR exclusive „Asgards Wrath 2“ did handle semi open world extremly well as well I also really liked Assassins Creed Nexus, best AC game imo. It has all the fun AC gameplay but removed all the bloat inbetween by having set smaller worlds and putting you right in these instead of requiring you to travel from interesting points for many minutes yourself

The other solution is to make an open world, and just do it really well. Gothic 1 and especially 2 did a fantastic job here. Devs just suck at it. Somehow the big mods for Gothic 2 like Legend of Ahssun and Archolos just magically do it fucking perfectly anyway. Moral of the story, the fewer market researchers the publisher has, the better the game becomes.

*I completely disagree with this idea that large open worlds are a problem. There is nothing at all wrong with large and expansive open worlds. Even ones which people say are "empty"* *Cramming a whole bunch of activities into every square inch of a game world, where the player has something to see and do every 3 seconds doesn't make for a believable world, it makes for a clowns theme park. You cannot drive home a sense of immersion in a crammed world with something to see and do every where you go* *Smaller semi-open worlds can be great, but large expansive fully open worlds can also be great. Its all in the execution. People are not complaining about the REAL problem they have with open world games, which is the check-list style hand-holding, mini-map nonsense that doesn't allow for any sense of mystery or true exploration* *Another problem is opening up the entire world to the player too early, simple things such as skill gating the player using tougher enemies or areas where the player needs certain items or upgrades would make for a better open world. its all about the game design*

10seconds into the video, still about to watch the video. If you want to see open world done right try Gothic 1 or 2 or the mod relased like 4 years ago "Chronicles of Myrtana". Those are the best games out there as far as open world design goes.

The cure is a game like Elden Ring or Zelda (breath of the wild OR tears of the kingdom). Don't mark up the map for the player. Let them mark up their own map. Don't create a story element that makes the player feel rushed on some thematic timer either. Reward exploration by providing useful materials and items just about everywhere. Create unique items and rare materials worth seeking out and provide hints to find them (notes left in the world, npcs to talk to, odd looking parts of the map, things you can see visually from vantage points). Provide reasons to go to each part of your world. Mines have lots of materials. Castles have useful named items. Let the player figure out the world. Don't feed it to them like they are a baby. Tell the story more organically. Let them discover, or not, some npc that got lost and is important to the story... but if they don't then it changes the ending. Nothing in the game is really marked as "main quest" or "side quest" (zelda broke this rule but it mostly worked out in their case). Discovering pieces of the map is useful/rewarding. But the key take away is, everything you do in the game helps you towards your goal in various ways. You do what you want, when you want because you decide what you feel is most important in that moment. You might decide that listening to this npc about that castle in the distance is useful. You might not ever see that npc. That's fine too. You might see them and ignore them. You go to that castle and get a unique, gold tipped spear. You dont know how important the castle or spear is. It's not marked as main or side because that's not how this game does things. Later in the game you use that spear against some boss that's especially vulnerable to gold. You recalled seeing some note about that written down that you found in the laboratory. But in some other game that area with the spear might have been marked as a side quest so you decided to ignore it. THAT is WHY. Telling the player something is a main quest or side quest can have an interesting psychological affect. Perhaps it's a habit they picked up while playing Borderlands (save them for the end of the game) or something else. But if nothing is marked that way then the player discovers what is most important on their own. I think Elden Ring should be the new "template". It does all of this essentially. Within this framework we have room for changes. For example, difficulty doesn't need to be the same as Elden Ring. It's fun to overcome it but it's not the only way to make this formula fun. We could add base building elements or other mechanics from all kinds of genres. Zelda gave us the ability to build moving machines to make traveling fun and different. The beauty of the model is that the player does as much or as little of this as they want. Eventually they start to figure out/guess what the main "path" to beat the game is and decide to push towards it more directly so they can shelve the game for the time being or continue exploring until they've had their fill. By contrast. We have the ubisoft assassins creed game. I climb to the top of a marked eagle steeple and suddenly the game map is filled with a hundred tasks that I didn't set for myself. I have little reason to actually explore. I'm more just going to point a, then b, then c, down to z, now to a2, b2, to z2, etc. I didn't organically discover these things on my map so it feels more like a checklist than a game. If an assassins creed game followed the elden ring exploration template I'd be ALL OVER IT.

I feel like metro exodus take on its smei open world storyline was awesome!

Your points are very good and it is very understandable, but i want to add one more type and that is destructive open world environment. In this type players not only just explore the world but they can destroy anything they want to cure their tiredness. Some of the best example are- 1. Mercenaries series 2. Just Cause series 3. Transformers the movie game(First Part) 4. Hulk games, etc.

And that is why, no matter how much I want to, I'll never like Elden Ring as much as I do Dark Souls.

Don't forget that one benefit of the Witcher 2's chapter-based narrative was that there was almost an entirely new game to play through if you picked different branching paths. I've never seen a branching path done so well, and add so much context before.

I always said that HUB-Worlds like the Tomb Raider trilogy, Dragon Age + Mass Effect where in Dragon Age 3 Inquisition there are big maps ..... but they are not that big except of 2 (Hinterlands and the hissing sands).

Good video, if you're interested I would like to give you a few tips on your English pronunciation, being a Dutchy myself. You are super close to perfect pronunciation. All you really need to do is shake some of the hard f's, t's and s's that we use in Dutch all the time. Smooth those out and your English will be *chef's kiss*.

The cure is actually designing fun open worlds and traversal systems. God of War Ragnarok is divided into different maps and a lot of it feels like a chore, because it's mostly filled with stuff to grind or collect and you're either walking or slowly sliding by sled or boat. Spiderman 2 and Hogwarts Legacy have much more traditional open worlds, but the traversal systems feel so good that the map is actually enjoyable, even if Ragnarok does everything else a lot better.

In my opinion BG3 may be the perfect modern example overall given that each section feels large enough with plenty to explore while most (albeit not all) side quests are both optional while also feeling intrinsically tied to the main story and will only help you to complete and make the story feel richer rather than skip. I guess it may be better to call them secondary quests due to the nature of them with the actual amount of side quests feeling relatively small now that I think about it. The fact that most of these secondary quests are tied to a companion and their desires probably helps and may not work as well for a game with no companions.

What about a need for open world games that are dense and actually have something to do. After Elden Ring I need another game where I can explore.

I hate randomly generated quests and terrain so much. If you can't build a world and fill it with things to do, don't bother. Radiant quests, repeatable quests, long grinds to unlock mainstory content, big terrain you have to waste time traversing again and again. It all so tiresome.