The open world game is a phenomenon that has seen an enormous surge in popularity in recent years. All manner of games now incorporate exploratory elements, side quests, treasure hunting, as a key gameplay element. So what exactly has given rise to this explosion of exploration?
In the main I would consider it to be down to technology. Designers now have the ability a) to create a large world you can explore, and b) create a large world you actually want to explore. If you are going to have a wide open world, then there needs to be a reason for players to go and look around it. Typically this will be some form of reward, new weapons, secrets, loot, powerups, whatever it may be. This could be the sole purpose of the game, Crackdown is a fine example of this, the only real reason for playing is orb hunting. The story was rubbish, the action not terribly satisfying, what people do is leap about chasing orbs. Alternatively it can be a side quest. This is the approach many games take, such as Prototype, where you collect a range things, noticeably in this instance the back story.
A third approach is to make the exploration semi-integral to the gameplay. Examples of this are the Metroid Prime series, Mario, or the Zelda series, where exploration rewards you with extra life/magic/ammo/items which makes the rest of the game easier but is not necessarily absolutely essential. Fallout 3 is another good example, side quests and exploration will make survival much easier in the long term, and may prove necessary so you have enough cash, experience etc. to prevail.
The sandbox is, rather like the morality system, all about immersion. It gives you the opportunity to put your own stamp on the game by allowing you to do as much or as little as you like. You can spend as much time as you wish exploring every corner and crevice of the map, or simply ignore much of it and crack on with the main story. What it does is give the developer the chance to appeal to a broader range of gamers, from the more instant gratification types to the more patient grind type gamers. Each person in theory can take their own approach at their own speed.
This sense of freedom draws you in, it allows you to express yourself within the game and thus can make you more invested in the process. There are a few different types of open world game, and whilst they all tend to carry the same label, they do very different things. Some of them will be all about the exploration, this is usually RPG type games such as Neverwinter Nights. These games are often played by the more meticulous gamer, people who like to spend hours traveling around on a general search, collecting quests, leveling up, you are looking to get better. Other open world games are the 'sandbox' games, where you are simply presented a world and allowed to do what you want with it, almost make your own fun. I would class things like Mercenaries here, where a player can spend half an hour planting explosives all over a few square blocks of city before setting the whole lot off. Just Cause is another good example, the story missions are there, but mainly it is a case of 'there is a load of islands and cities, here are some guns and vehicles, have fun.' There is no real purpose behind what you do, unlike in an RPG where you are out for quests and levels, you are instead just encouraged to make your own entertainment with the world.
Typically an open world game will be pretty large. You can expect to invest a great many hours into its' completion. After all there is no point creating a vast landscape and then not populating it with anything. This however gives rise to some very difficult issues. First and foremost, how you balance rewards. As I said before, some people will do little to nothing in the way of side quests, others will do them all. Yet you want both players to feel they have developed their character, whether through interactions or simply through better firepower. Gamers want to feel more powerful at the end than they did at the start, your inventory improves, your skill improves, you get feats or abilities to invest in. But a game the size of Mass Effect 2 for example will have a significant difference between the amount of time the story driven gamer spends, and the amount of time the exploration player invests. You do not want to punish the people who do nothing but the essential missions, likewise a player doing everything possible wants to have something to show for it.
Whilst I do like Fallout 3, I felt this was a problem here. I am in the meticulous search everything camp, I like physically walking over every square inch and looking round every corner, if there is a fog of war type effect, I want every bit of it removed from the map. But in Fallout 3, I reached the level cap long before running out of stuff to do, and at that point, I had to decide whether to keep playing or not, simply for its' own sake. Much as I like exploring, I want something out of it. If I spend ten minutes walking to some remote location, I expect there to be a benefit for it. Whilst the level cap was increased in the expansions, again I felt it was not high enough. I recently bought the four big expansions, Broken Steel, Operation Anchorage, Point Lookout, and the Pitt, and reached the higher cap within Broken Steel, which left me with three expansions to look through without leveling up.
So the balance needs to be well struck. Returning as ever to my beloved Zelda, the search for pieces of heart is fun and challenging, and there are enough about that you can find them fairly regularly without being disheartened, the pacing is well done. Fable 2 on the other hand I found the looking round especially tedious, no part of the game was satisfying enough that I wanted to continue. Yahtzee put it best when he summed it up as 'you can, but why would you want to?' This is an open world game where I just gave up after a few hours because I found no reward in trudging back and forth.
Open worlds then are either a means of drawing you into the realm, or of simply letting you do what you want. Even if you do nothing but main quests in fallout 3, the fact the wasteland is there gives you a real feeling of scale and atmosphere, it is just fun to walk around even if you don't want to go hunting stuff. Even better than that is STALKER, which also gives you a large world to explore, but conveys the desolation far better, you really feel like you are in a wasteland, rather than a videogame wasteland. It feels very realistic and engrossing, you can really picture your own responses. If not about immersion and role playing, open worlds are about you going nuts, often with large guns and high explosives. I lived with guys at uni who spent hours on Mercenaries blowing up all manner of stuff, but it is not my thing, I couldn't get into Crackdown, GTA, or any of those where you simply cause mayhem and run around for the sake of it. Many people do find hours of fun in them however and they are as valid a game format as any other, certainly so long as it is not done in order to avoid having to provide the game purpose. If it is going to be a sandbox game, it needs to be well built, the systems need to function as you would expect them to and it needs enough controls, moves, means etc. in place to really give you the chance to do what you want to do.
I think we will continue to see an expansion in the number of open world games in future, and I think we will see more crossovers of genres like Mass Effect (part open world, part shooter, part RPG) and the like. Open world need not be just one large map, it could be any game with places to explore. Scale is very important to give you a feeling of the universe the developers have created, larger maps make events feel larger, and can be fun to traverse as well if done right (something the original Just Cause failed at, but the sequel did far better), larger maps can also add to the strategy involved. One of the best features of Farcry, whilst not exactly sandbox, was the size of jungle which allowed you to ambush enemies, pick off stragglers in patrols etc. without such events being heavily scripted. Open worlds can add an awful lot to games, and make a real break from strictly linear events, though each has a place within gaming.
- Captain Ash, world's greatest explorer
In the main I would consider it to be down to technology. Designers now have the ability a) to create a large world you can explore, and b) create a large world you actually want to explore. If you are going to have a wide open world, then there needs to be a reason for players to go and look around it. Typically this will be some form of reward, new weapons, secrets, loot, powerups, whatever it may be. This could be the sole purpose of the game, Crackdown is a fine example of this, the only real reason for playing is orb hunting. The story was rubbish, the action not terribly satisfying, what people do is leap about chasing orbs. Alternatively it can be a side quest. This is the approach many games take, such as Prototype, where you collect a range things, noticeably in this instance the back story.
- streets to explore, buildings to climb
A third approach is to make the exploration semi-integral to the gameplay. Examples of this are the Metroid Prime series, Mario, or the Zelda series, where exploration rewards you with extra life/magic/ammo/items which makes the rest of the game easier but is not necessarily absolutely essential. Fallout 3 is another good example, side quests and exploration will make survival much easier in the long term, and may prove necessary so you have enough cash, experience etc. to prevail.
- you don't have to find every star, but many
The sandbox is, rather like the morality system, all about immersion. It gives you the opportunity to put your own stamp on the game by allowing you to do as much or as little as you like. You can spend as much time as you wish exploring every corner and crevice of the map, or simply ignore much of it and crack on with the main story. What it does is give the developer the chance to appeal to a broader range of gamers, from the more instant gratification types to the more patient grind type gamers. Each person in theory can take their own approach at their own speed.
This sense of freedom draws you in, it allows you to express yourself within the game and thus can make you more invested in the process. There are a few different types of open world game, and whilst they all tend to carry the same label, they do very different things. Some of them will be all about the exploration, this is usually RPG type games such as Neverwinter Nights. These games are often played by the more meticulous gamer, people who like to spend hours traveling around on a general search, collecting quests, leveling up, you are looking to get better. Other open world games are the 'sandbox' games, where you are simply presented a world and allowed to do what you want with it, almost make your own fun. I would class things like Mercenaries here, where a player can spend half an hour planting explosives all over a few square blocks of city before setting the whole lot off. Just Cause is another good example, the story missions are there, but mainly it is a case of 'there is a load of islands and cities, here are some guns and vehicles, have fun.' There is no real purpose behind what you do, unlike in an RPG where you are out for quests and levels, you are instead just encouraged to make your own entertainment with the world.
- blow stuff up
Typically an open world game will be pretty large. You can expect to invest a great many hours into its' completion. After all there is no point creating a vast landscape and then not populating it with anything. This however gives rise to some very difficult issues. First and foremost, how you balance rewards. As I said before, some people will do little to nothing in the way of side quests, others will do them all. Yet you want both players to feel they have developed their character, whether through interactions or simply through better firepower. Gamers want to feel more powerful at the end than they did at the start, your inventory improves, your skill improves, you get feats or abilities to invest in. But a game the size of Mass Effect 2 for example will have a significant difference between the amount of time the story driven gamer spends, and the amount of time the exploration player invests. You do not want to punish the people who do nothing but the essential missions, likewise a player doing everything possible wants to have something to show for it.
- hot bisexual blue aliens for the win
Whilst I do like Fallout 3, I felt this was a problem here. I am in the meticulous search everything camp, I like physically walking over every square inch and looking round every corner, if there is a fog of war type effect, I want every bit of it removed from the map. But in Fallout 3, I reached the level cap long before running out of stuff to do, and at that point, I had to decide whether to keep playing or not, simply for its' own sake. Much as I like exploring, I want something out of it. If I spend ten minutes walking to some remote location, I expect there to be a benefit for it. Whilst the level cap was increased in the expansions, again I felt it was not high enough. I recently bought the four big expansions, Broken Steel, Operation Anchorage, Point Lookout, and the Pitt, and reached the higher cap within Broken Steel, which left me with three expansions to look through without leveling up.
So the balance needs to be well struck. Returning as ever to my beloved Zelda, the search for pieces of heart is fun and challenging, and there are enough about that you can find them fairly regularly without being disheartened, the pacing is well done. Fable 2 on the other hand I found the looking round especially tedious, no part of the game was satisfying enough that I wanted to continue. Yahtzee put it best when he summed it up as 'you can, but why would you want to?' This is an open world game where I just gave up after a few hours because I found no reward in trudging back and forth.
- two more pieces...
Open worlds then are either a means of drawing you into the realm, or of simply letting you do what you want. Even if you do nothing but main quests in fallout 3, the fact the wasteland is there gives you a real feeling of scale and atmosphere, it is just fun to walk around even if you don't want to go hunting stuff. Even better than that is STALKER, which also gives you a large world to explore, but conveys the desolation far better, you really feel like you are in a wasteland, rather than a videogame wasteland. It feels very realistic and engrossing, you can really picture your own responses. If not about immersion and role playing, open worlds are about you going nuts, often with large guns and high explosives. I lived with guys at uni who spent hours on Mercenaries blowing up all manner of stuff, but it is not my thing, I couldn't get into Crackdown, GTA, or any of those where you simply cause mayhem and run around for the sake of it. Many people do find hours of fun in them however and they are as valid a game format as any other, certainly so long as it is not done in order to avoid having to provide the game purpose. If it is going to be a sandbox game, it needs to be well built, the systems need to function as you would expect them to and it needs enough controls, moves, means etc. in place to really give you the chance to do what you want to do.
- hostile environment
I think we will continue to see an expansion in the number of open world games in future, and I think we will see more crossovers of genres like Mass Effect (part open world, part shooter, part RPG) and the like. Open world need not be just one large map, it could be any game with places to explore. Scale is very important to give you a feeling of the universe the developers have created, larger maps make events feel larger, and can be fun to traverse as well if done right (something the original Just Cause failed at, but the sequel did far better), larger maps can also add to the strategy involved. One of the best features of Farcry, whilst not exactly sandbox, was the size of jungle which allowed you to ambush enemies, pick off stragglers in patrols etc. without such events being heavily scripted. Open worlds can add an awful lot to games, and make a real break from strictly linear events, though each has a place within gaming.
Nice blog. Sorry it took me so long to read it. Been rather busy lately. I still think Fallout is fun to explore after you reach the level cap. I have a fun time getting into the different side stories, hunting down bobbleheads, nuka cola quantoms, special weapons and the super mutant behemoths. The problem for me is the bland atmosphere in Fallout, which is why I always go back to Oblivion.
ReplyDeleteI like the occasional game like Prototype but as it's just running around and blowing stuff up it never manages to keep my attention long enough to beat the game. There's just not that much else to do.
In regards to what you were saying about making the person who just goes through the main storyline feel as powerful as the explorer. I think Bethesda did a good job with how the world around you progresses at the same pace in which you progress with your level. While you'll never have the awesome equipment as someone who explores you will always be a force to be reckoned with in your world. Now that I think about it, they probably put the level cap at 20 for those who just wanted to do the storyline as well.
I didn't get into Oblivion, I found it all too shallow for many of the extra stuff, and being an assassin type character made the main story missions pretty much impossible
ReplyDeleteI liked Prototype, I found the combat sufficiently varied, and the general movements to be fun enough to keep going, plus I liked the story too
Yeah, I never bothered with the assassin considering if you have to take on more than one person at a time you're pretty much screwed. Prototype was fun and the story was kinda interesting, I made it to the part where you used the giant tank at least
ReplyDelete