I’m sure there was a moment in everyone’s life when, having left your home, you suddenly suddenly realized that you were starting to miss a lot about it, even if it’s just a metaphor. Although modern technologies have stepped far forward, many things that we thought were definitely bad turned out to be not so repulsive: multiple gameplay restrictions, deprivations and the inability to do as you wanted are certainly gaming conventions from which the gaming industry strives in every possible way to move as far as possible, but isn’t there something nostalgic, warm and sometimes even good in all of this?? Are modern trends really a sufficient argument to completely abstract from the gaming past??
An open world is, first of all, freedom, and to give it, sometimes you can even do without the usual visual component. Today, of course, this is unlikely to work.
Perhaps this will be a discovery for some, but just 10 years ago the open world in games was such a fascinating phenomenon that in itself it was enough to sell the game. Even despite the fact that it first appeared in games more than 30 years ago, when even a PC was not yet a mandatory attribute of every family, due to its demanding nature, complexity of implementation and incredible cost, not every studio decided to take it on until recently. It could primarily be found among representatives of the genre RPG and sandboxes by type GTA, Of which only… parts of the series became successful GTA, but the guys from Rockstar everything was always different from people.
However, time passed, technology developed, power grew, and the needs of the audience became more and more categorical, and then the moment came when every respectable game suddenly decided that it needed an open world, even if it would be a little less useful than hats in Team Fortress. Yes, whatever, even if its presence remains beyond the bounds of logic and is taped to the side with electrical tape, and the implementation will be somewhere at the level of Polish shooters, the rule is “if you want to play in the major leagues, then look up to the best“made it clear what we will not be able to get rid of in the coming years. And I can even roughly name the starting point after which it all began – this is 2007, exit Assassin’s Creed.
Surely not many people are familiar with this amazing game. During times Ultima the almost limitless world was so amazing that the plot was simply not that important. And there was also a shuttle!
Don’t get me wrong, the open world, as I already said, existed long before the arrival of guys in robes and even before graphics appeared in games as such: at first they were text quests, later there was a series Ultima, trading simulators, Fallout and only then more famous GTA, Gothic, series The Elder Scrolls and many others. Games in which the concept of "Open World”, often much older than those who now play them, but if before this such experience could be called “narrowly focused"among genres, then after the arrival of killers in cloaks, this gameplay element began to increasingly disappear"native shores». And as you might guess, the reasons for this were:
In the series Final Fantasy Quite a lot of time passed before the player entered the open world, which is why it was perceived as a real reward and was desired. Thus, it was possible to kill two birds with one stone – without distractions, tell a great story and maintain the spirit of exploration.
Firstly, for game timing, the improvement of such parts of games as LVL design, interface, comfort player, and the goal of the game changed from "tear your ass apart" to "please you", which is why many came to the conclusion that you need to pay for something that will last a little longer than a couple of evenings. At the same time, the open world made it possible to stretch even the shortest story onto a 40-hour globe.
Secondly, the possibilities have changed, which makes the creation and optimization of these worlds less of a crazy idea than it used to be. While creating a grandiose, well-researched and staged story could have taken much more effort and money, the freedom given to the player seemed to be in itself an excuse for a superficial attitude towards certain elements.
And thirdly, people like to pay for meaningless pastime. No matter how crazy it may sound, most gamers get indecently excited at the sight of a huge map with a lot of “interesting places». Thus, we can again say that the very presence of "Open World"already pays for the purchase of the game, otherwise I simply don’t know how to explain the regular releases of games like Just Cause 3, Mad Max and the like, provided that they are sold.
Games that combine the spirit of the series GTA and all-encompassing destruction have always been popular, but have never been particularly successful.
But let’s be honest and admit that in some games the open world works, and in others it doesn’t. In some stories he helps tell that very story, and in others he completely blurs it. In some places it is interesting and allows the player to spend many hours just exploring it, but in others it only serves to annoyingly stretch out the game time. So what features should it have? Open World, to be considered successful?
Let’s take a look at a recent hit, as an example, from a famous game designer, who, like Nolan, is considered synonymous with the concept of genius – the latest creation Hideo Kojima within the walls Konami Metal Gear Solid 5. It is the 5th part that the majority considers the most “peculiar» from the entire series about special agents with snake call signs. There are countless reasons for this, from “played too hard", to tight deadlines and studio bosses sabotaging their own project, but let’s talk about what exactly is.
Definitely the 5th part of the series is not exemplary in all its senses, but the idea itself and the ambition of the project clearly deserve praise.
But we have a completely standard situation when the innovative ideological component does not fit well with those aspects that the target audience expects from a given project. Game series of the genre steals-action and so a little on their own, and now try to name among them those whose actions fully unfold in the open world? Isn’t it so simple??
In my head Hideo The idea of an open world has been around for a long time (ever since part 3), but its implementation had to be postponed due to many factors. Given this, it is not at all difficult to understand why, when we finally got around to bringing the paper to life, such a huge number of conventions, assumptions appeared in it, and also why it was so far from what the fans expected.
But let’s return to history – this is what the beginning of one of the most famous “open World” series of our time looked like.
Having chased, as they say, two birds with one stone, Kojima found only two chairs:
The first part of the players were disappointed with how the MGS 5 Compared to its predecessors, the number of productions decreased, the number of interesting and unique tasks was reduced to almost 0, and the plot was simply spread out across the vastness of open locations.
The other part was disappointed with the world itself – it was empty (although in general this is quite normal for Afghanistan). That is, it is unlikely that much time could be spent studying it, because there was really nothing to study there. There was nowhere to go but markers and nothing to do except complete pre-selected tasks.
Thus, the idea of giving a new experience in the genre Steals-action and series Metal Gear Solid mired in its own ambition, remaining only a very attractive idea, not sharpened, not polished, not brought to mind and not determined for what audience it was intended, but it’s a pity. At the same time, when the game returns to its usual channels, and the plot again takes the main role, the open spaces are reduced to well-thought-out locations, it becomes clear that the hands that created this series are still in the same place.
Speaking about the most famous representatives, https://vegasnightcasino.co.uk/ it is difficult not to mention the assassin brotherhood – these guys largely influenced not only the appearance of the open world, but also the gaming industry as a whole. You can treat them differently, but that’s what the facts are, just to be.
But let’s take a look at other representatives of today’s Open World, about which we can say that they are the main culprits of what the open world looks like today. And speaking of the culprits, I really believe that it is Ubisoft stands behind most of those essential features without which no game in this category can exist today.
As has already been said, starting with the series about the Assassins, there has been a fashion for many things without which it is difficult to imagine a modern product in this category: towers, dozens of similar tasks marked with the same similar markers and endless races from one point to another, in order to obtain 100% in the graph of similar actions. Is it worth hating them for this?? It seems to me – no. If they hadn’t done this, someone else would definitely have done it, especially considering that everything was going approximately in this direction long before the appearance of the main flagship Ubisoft. They simply became the first who began to combine all this competently and managed to adapt it to an intuitive and addictive gameplay.
However, let’s return to our topic. Even though the first part Assassin’s Creed suffered from monotony, emptiness and banal lack of focus, it was so breakthrough and sold so well that the second part was destined to appear on the shelves. And although the first game can be called very successful, the second one needed a lot more than just multiplying all the good things – it needed to become several times better and, considering how many games in this series have already been released, we can confidently say that it succeeded.
This is what freedom looked like in 2007. The ability to not only go wherever you want, but also climb onto any object was mind-blowing, it’s a pity that the rest was pretty boring.
In a series about assassins, it’s generally funny to see how a really good game comes out in one. Strict frameworks and requirements to release new adventures every year clearly affected such a complex and painstaking element as the open world. Series Assassin’s Creed became a hostage to her own rules and her own success – the need for such a quick exit forced the developers to make 2 assumptions as a rule:
By increasing the spaces, we need to be less and less scrupulous about their development, as well as densely populate them with monotonous markers and pay less attention to new mechanics; at best, add them as mini-games. It is probably this conveyor within a conveyor that makes people the most angry, receiving, instead of high-quality and interesting content, more monotonous and meaningless actions that stretch out time and distract from the story, which at the same time only becomes more secondary.
Just for comparison: let’s guess which of these cards looks more congested.
Now let’s take a look at what will happen if the game is not made by the same guys who created the generally accepted features of the modern "Open World", and someone less experienced, but filled with a righteous desire to imitate in everything and, as it seems to him, at the same time improving the already balanced formula. Greetings – Mad Max.
Speaking of overloaded maps… I don’t condemn at all when developers want to make a game based not so much on the plot, but on multiple tasks facing the player. But shouldn’t they be at least diverse in this case??
I’ll say right away that I don’t think the game turned out bad. The idea of crossing developments Assassin’s Creed and unrestrained Carmageddon was in the air so clearly that it’s even surprising how much time passed before the game was born. Frankly, I can’t even say what could make it better in technical terms: it contains truly adrenaline-pumping chases through the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia, multiple body kits for the car, combining which you can turn your jalopy into a real knight rider, an impressive arsenal of weapons, and as a cherry on the cake – the game was released right next to the premiere of the film, but there is one “BUT” from which all these details remain only secondary. I’m talking about tedious implementation!
Let’s be honest, interesting places are always good, but what to do with games where the whole point is only to explore them? That is, to understand the problem better: to move forward you need to capture zones in each of which there are several objects, which, as a result, need to be destroyed so that the influence of the enemy in this zone weakens and only after which you are allowed to proceed to the next stage. And so dozens, dozens and dozens of times.
I don’t know what the developers were proud of when they talked about the incredible scope of their game, because in fact it is absolutely empty. All tasks are of the same type in more than two-thirds of cases and cause boredom already on the fifth repetition. Talk about some unique events, an incredibly fascinating plot or amazingly staged scenes… no, seriously? We have over 50 map markers here, have fun. Mafia 3 I thought so too and here’s what her sales are!
Here you can list all the complaints for a long time, but if instead of an open world the game consisted more of plot inserts and missions, then you see… it wouldn’t be so… bad.
And it seems to me that this leads us to another problem, these very markers. Again, don’t get it wrong, the very presence of target designators or zones where you need to arrive and where you need to do something is the game design experience that was gained over many years of trial and error, there are no complaints about it as such. But don’t you sometimes think that games have begun to lose the very meaning of an open world because of this??
Of course, I admit that if you go out today Gothic, in which the only thing they will tell you is that your goal is somewhere in the South, half the players will leave without understanding what they need to do. Many will not like that they are not led by the hand, that the tasks are sometimes too confusing and God forbid any of them are formulated incorrectly, but markers, in my opinion, should be intended exclusively for important places.
Lately everything has become absurd. For each item there is a map, for each task there is a target designator, and for each secret a detailed route is drawn and for a separate currency you will also be given a navigator to it. Only often these markers hide only a couple of chests under them. Can’t say it was worth it. Imagine if in Skyrim each chest would be marked on the game map.
Skyrim is first and foremost an adventure, a journey, and then a game about the dragonborn. In it, even without unnecessary markers, you want to explore the world, knowing that interesting things are hidden behind almost every hill.
If this hasn’t given you pause yet, consider this: how this approach has affected two key aspects of open-world games—the player’s desire for exploration and the developer’s desire for elaboration?
In the same Mad Max you won’t find a single interesting place in the wasteland outside the designated zones, and all because why try if the players don’t really explore this empty world? To put it simply, why work out every piece of the landscape, create many small scenes, mini-plots, hide secrets, if you can do everything the same, but with much less effort? Isn’t this the same case when space begins to be used solely to stretch out the timing??
Modern players often either have too little time, or have already come to terms with the fact that everything interesting must be indicated somehow, so for the most part they don’t even try to study the world, leaving this activity to those geeks who love Easter eggs. "Anything interesting should be marked"and this, frankly speaking, is a rather alarming position. Again, I’ll emphasize that we have an open world here. It was created to immerse us in its history, tell us about events and let us experience this very world, from the now popular ecosystem to its deepest secrets, but how is this possible if we spend all our research only to overcome the shortest distance between the two closest points?
Here we go GTA made so meticulously that you just want to walk the streets in it, do the most routine things, because it is in such moments that you notice how alive you managed to make its world.
And note, I have never touched on the most common problem with the open world – the eternal lack of budget, strength, people, as well as too much ambition, from which the project falls into crisis and everything that is done in it after turns into a routine and uninitiative activity.
What can be ultimately learned from all of the above?? It seems to me that behind good intentions there was again a path that turned somewhere wrong. It is quite obvious that as opportunities grow, more and more developers want to grab onto them, often without even realizing why they are doing this, and even if they do know, they do not necessarily understand how to implement it correctly.
Every year, making games on an ever-increasing scale and being led by what is often not the most discerning audience, developers don’t even notice how they are depriving this “openness” of at least some attractiveness. More and more regularly, these types of games completely forget what they want to be focused on and what they are about at all, slipping into grind, farming and moving away most from an attractive and entertaining world, which should not be a fashionable thing, but a place where you want to return again.
Yes, of course, everything explodes here, and the player is allowed to move in any direction and on any plane. But how long can such “freedom” keep the player engaged in the gameplay??
In fact, sometimes it’s even better if, as I said at the very beginning, this world doesn’t exist at all: does the series get any worse? Splinter Cell, if, unlike M.G.S does not strive for the open world? Is it possible to imagine masterpieces like this? The Last of Us, if only they weren’t so focused on the story itself? What’s up, often I’d rather review it in company Until Dawn, rather than monotonously opening chest after chest in the hope that something will change.
I’m not talking about all games, again – the very desire to get rid of boundaries is very commendable, but is it necessary to focus so much on this? Perhaps this is just a guess, if Mafia 3 there was more of a “story-based” Mafia, as was done with its predecessors and less of an open world, then it would have turned out better? Although much shorter.
For me, the most interesting approach to this situation was found in the series Souls. On the one hand, we have before us a truly large and virtually seamless world, where the decision of where to go rests entirely on our shoulders, but at the same time, this is just an illusion, behind which lies well-thought-out, memorable and logically interspersed locations. Perhaps it’s not always worth trying to allow the player as much as possible – sometimes it would be even more correct to limit him, but do it as elegantly and unnoticeably as possible.
Dark Souls is, to put it mildly, a phenomenon. She did a lot that many could not, and others did not dare. She also managed to do something else – create that illusion of freedom in which we believe.
Therefore, in the end, I would like to name a few points that would be a generalization, a kind of summary of what has been said about when an open world is really needed:
1) An open world is needed when it helps tell the story. This approach is often found in RPG games that many have trampled to holes. IN The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim the world exists to create the player’s adventures and, in some cases, reflect their choices. It works exactly the same way Gothic 3 – it depends only on the player what this world will be like, the world of orcs or whether people will be able to return to their homes.
2) When an open world is needed to implement mechanics – this is a rather specific point, which includes the previously mentioned Metal Gear Solid 5. Although some were unhappy with it, most of the reason for this is not that it is bad in itself, but that it is not at the level that was expected of it. To realize such a complex idea is a truly impressive undertaking, the implementation of which, unfortunately, was not flawless.
This also includes sandbox games, such as GTA, Just Cause, Mad Max and others. The essence of this point is that the open world here does not stretch out the gameplay or blur the story. Here this world is the same set of mechanics, thanks to which we can distinguish the series Splinter Cell from the series Hitman, something that complements and reveals the idea, and does not contradict it.
3) How important is the plot component in the game?. This is a very important question, ignoring which often results.. Mafia 3. Again, the main storyline is the same Skyrim – this is by no means the main thing the game is focused on, how often it is played in order to wander around the world, complete secondary tasks and encounter many funny, memorable situations. The open world greatly blurs the focus of the story, which is why most projects are more likely to go into the red than benefit from its presence.
If the game primarily wants to give the player a story, then it would probably be better to concentrate on it than to hope that after ten hours of wandering through forests and mountains the player will remember what he forgot here?
4) What will the open world be filled with?. Let me return again to the concept “Open World"- its task is to give the player freedom and convince him that everything around him is alive, everything around him is worthy of his study, and does not only serve to connect separately located points on the map. What is the use of this freedom if it consists only of the ability to move?? It may be fun, of course, but it’s hardly necessary.
5) Last. Is it possible to realize this world?. Deadly Premonition took a lot of chances. In fact, its goal was to present the idea of freedom within the framework of a provincial town, filled with its own intrigues, stories, legends and… ordinary life. However, we all probably know how unworkable this project appeared to the public.
But this is not the only thing that applies here when I talked about Mad Max – I also meant that his problem belongs to this category. It’s not enough to just make a world, it’s not enough to just put icons on it – you need to be able to breathe life into it. Side quests, ecosystems that developers are increasingly trying to create, random events, companions – all this is something without which these worlds are not worth a penny. This once again proves why such painstakingly crafted and memorable games as GTA V, why did he become a phenomenon The Witcher 3, why has he been alive for so many years? S.T.A.L.K.E.R, which contains the beginnings of this openness, and also why such projects, cobbled together on the knee, the names of which you probably won’t remember even without a search engine, go into oblivion.
Who, if not the Witcher, proved that for a great game it’s not enough just to make a big world?? This world still needs to be populated, spruced up, stories, myths, intrigue and a bit of charisma added.
And although ambition and fashion will give rise to many more games that will also disappear unknown into nowhere, I still have several questions that I cannot yet find an answer to. Can trying to join something fashionable really push away the desire to make just a good game?? Why is it so difficult to understand what is most important in the game and direct all efforts to express it as much as possible?? Why, instead of trying to make a small but pleasant and memorable game that will be replayed twice, three times, is it worth making another project that will drive another nail into the attractiveness of the open world??
I believe that sooner or later unambiguous answers can be given to these questions, and I hope even more that these answers will be correct. See you soon..