SG Roundtable: Open-Worlds or Multiple, Controlled, Choices (patreon request)

In this Source Gaming Roundtable we were asked by our Ultimate Patron, Mr. JBRPG, about our thoughts around open-world video games, specifically whether we think this approach to game design is better than just having multiple, but controlled, choices, or if the latter allows for a more enjoyable gaming experiece. Or maybe a game needs a bit of both, let’s see what the SG team had to say!

Perhaps this is odd for someone whose two favorite games are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and whose game of last year was Elden Ring, but I don’t care for open worlds. Or rather, I don’t care for or respect what they became. The appeal of this giant space you can experience at your own whim is great, but the genre lost its way years ago. They all became too linear, too controlled, too much like Skinner boxes meant to pump “CONTENT” out like a hose. There was a point when I was playing Assassin’s Creed III and realized it was nothing propped up by a billion uninteresting distractions: race challenges, cinematic platforming, constant gimmicky shakeups that were rarely fun. That’s why Breath was revelatory five years later. It needed its open world, because even if there’s no moral choice system or serious role playing, its vision of constant self-direction (and incredibly tactile sensation) felt almost more in line with immersive sims than your modern open worlders. You needed to feel threatened and empowered by the land.

I suppose the ideal game for me is one in which the act of play and expression is the most important part, but for open world games specifically, I’d recommend any developer focus on specificities. Elden Ring has its FromSoftware combat. The new Zeldas have that excellent movement and a happy lack of restrictions. What you don’t want is a jumble, or something that’s too obviously so. Allow players some degree of choice in how to move the plot along, not just plot points, don’t inundate them with stuff from the start, let them get lost in worlds worth the trip, and for god’s sake clean up your maps.

My first step into open-world gameplay was with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I imagine this was the first for many other people and, like many others, couldn’t wait to see how such an impactful and fun title could influence other franchises that I love. However, since then, I feel that the step to incorporating open-world gameplay or semblances of it has positively affected other games while negatively affecting others. In my experience, this isn’t due to the gameplay itself but rather the drive and incentive the game aims to give the player.

In the case of Breath of the Wild, while I was personally incentivized as it was my second Zelda title and my first open-world/open-air experience, I felt that the expansive land of Hyrule not only had discoveries that captivated my eyes due to its beautiful art-style, but also due to the numerous amount of methods that you could traverse and engage with the world at your own pace. Alternatively, I’m a huge fan of the Pokemon series and yet I found Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s attempt at open-world gameplay to be quite boring. There is an expansive region that I found interesting and there are a multitude of options in how I want the sequence of the story to play out, but that wasn’t enough to keep me interested because, as a Pokemon game, I felt that there was a lack of challenge or encouragement to do the main thing that Pokemon is about – Pokemon battles. With the added choice to battle trainers by making battles, both with Trainers and Wild Pokemon, occur only through direct contact; the amount of challenge and push for growth is diminished.

Yet, Breath of the Wild also allows you to completely avoid enemies or never interact with the Ganon Blights if you have no interest in doing so. However, despite that, the next challenge the game throws at you is the lack of a completed world map and the way to tackle it is by traversing the world and reaching each Sheikah Tower; which will be challenging to unlimitlessly do due to limited stamina, various weather conditions, and surrounding enemies that can attack you from a distance. Pokemon Violet does not challenge you in such a way, rather it simply states you can’t traverse in this way with Miraidon yet, while not necessarily pushing you in the direction of those upgrades.

For me, as of right now, a game could have a big-world and multiple choices or just one. But if there is a lack of incentive for the player to engage with what it’s offering, then neither will matter.

Hey, it’s time for me to complain about open world games again. Open world games have drained all the enthusiasm and passion I once had for video games. Per my name you’d be forgiven for thinking my favorite series is Zelda, but it hasn’t been for six years. I hate open world games. The only open world games I like are in spite of their open worlds. They rob games of providing fun and tailored experiences for the sake of “player freedom”. I do not care. I just want to do something interesting, and if I have to go out of my own way to do something interesting in a game with hundreds of hours of content, I don’t want to play that game. The act of discovery and exploration is only fun if the game makes it fun, which in a climate where every game is the same is hard to pull off.

Now if you’re familiar with previous Roundtables we’ve done, you know that I said I like Genshin Impact. That is because of its characters; because of its cool boss fights; because of the combat. I do not care for the open world when I just want to play the game’s story, which is why I haven’t really returned to it fully since its fourth open world region dropped. Genshin Impact is a game about immersing yourself in the iconography and cultures of the individual nations that are pastiches of ones in real life. That all is really cool. But when I have to collect the five hundredth Seelie or the five hundredth elemental power-up, it loses its grandeur and starts being a chore.

This is the main reason I’ve fallen out with AAA gaming and console gaming in general. That landscape doesn’t offer the experiences I want out of games anymore, and probably won’t ever again. Open world games are massively successful, and Western game design places player agency up on a golden pedestal, to the point where it is seeping into the game design of every culture. I hate the state that the industry is in, and I’m fatigued.

Once upon a time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was considered an open world game. A game with an overworld that size was a huge achievement back in the day. But today, if you released a game where you can run from one side to the other in 2 or so minutes, you’d be laughed out of the room. I want games like that. A game with an overworld comparable to the size of Ocarina of Time’s Hyrule Field, albeit more densely packed with interesting sights and content, that just leads you to the more interesting parts of the game. I remember Yoko Taro saying he based the overworld of NieR on Ocarina of Time. Maybe he really is the champion we desperately need.

You know, I’m not too big a fan of open worlds either. Elden Ring, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, and Breath of the Wild-era Zelda are great and all, but I think the format tends to miss more often than it hits. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, for instance, is a fantastic game that I’ve tried to immerse myself in multiple times, but my desire to experience as much of a game as possible can’t handle its scope. With that in mind, my preferred style of freedom is obvious: just do what Xenoblade Chronicles does (I haven’t played Xenoblade X yet, but I’m sure it’s great). Take Xenoblade 2’s Uraya, a colossal whale whose insides are filled with secrets, quests, and some of the best scenery I’ve seen in any game. There’s just enough here to make me feel that sense of freedom other games strive to capture, but it never wastes my time with pointless geography or tasks to slog through. The rest of the trilogy’s just like this, giving players this satisfying loop of exploring the world to get stronger, using that strength to progress the story, and progressing the story to explore more of the world. When all three of those things are fun, I think you’ve got nothing short of the perfect video game.

If that praise didn’t make it clear, Xenoblade’s my favorite series, so of course I’m hoping for other games to take a lesson or three from it. And fortunately, that’s looking to be the case with one of my most anticipated games of 2024: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Its world is looking to be massive, but the way it steadily opens up as you continue the main plot is exactly the sort of freedom I welcome in games. I’m not looking for multiple endings or “my own adventure.” Just give me some room for creativity in how I get stronger (what Pokémon or Blades I choose to employ, for instance) and some fun content or discoveries found just off the beaten path, and I’ll be satisfied.

A few of my favorite game franchises have shifted their world design philosophy over time; Jak and Daxter and Ys for example. I could write about how important traversal can be to an open-world title, such as how Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, inFAMOUS Second Son, and the Marvel’s Spider-Man games handle their navigation. Anyone who knows me, though, knows that my favorite games of all time are FromSoftware’s “Soulsborne” lineup.

I was extremely excited for Elden Ring’s release… and just as worried. The greatest aspect of the Souls series is its fantastic level design. Each game has handled the presentation of those levels differently. Demon’s Souls has linear worlds you can tackle in any order. Dark Souls and Dark Souls II have large, interconnected worlds with a central hub. Bloodborne and Dark Souls III have massive areas with branching pathways, but presents those areas in a somewhat linear order of progression. The connective tissue has changed, but each game has a similar level design philosophy. There’s a distinct flavor to FromSoftware’s brand of enemy ambushes, Indiana Jones-esque dungeon traps, and shortcuts leading back to previous areas. While I must say that Dark Souls III and Bloodborne are still my favorites due to their shorter length and ease of replayability, Elden Ring surpassed my expectations in every possible respect. There were no sacrifices made to the game design philosophy I know and love.

Balancing open-world design is a difficult tightrope of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Too much extrinsic motivation, and you suddenly end up with a map full of indicators, and the player is railroaded in a way that defies the purpose of the open environments. Rely too much on intrinsic motivation, and some players will be unwilling to engage with the world out of a lack of purpose. Elden Ring absolutely nails this balance with minimal sacrifices.

Everything is exactly as it was before, only bigger. There’s a map that’s extremely useful, but it never gives anything away. Entering Leyndell or taking the Mistwood elevator down to Siofra are magical experiences that recapture the experience of seeing Anor Londo or Ash Lake for the first time. The world is so intentionally and meticulously designed that random occurrences like the easily missable chest towards the game’s beginning that teleports players to a frightening late-game area became memes and shared experiences among the community.

It’s a difficult bar to follow, but if major open world RPGs continue to borrow from this example, I’m certain that we’ll see new life breathed into this genre.