Why The Best Open World Is A (slightly) Closed World

Comments · 2.5K

• AR

  @ArchitectofGames · 4 years ago · pinned

  Aaaahhh.... Crumbled One.... You&apos;ve come seeking yonder keep... aahaha!... T&apos;would be foolish to not avail yourself of my wares before venturing within... no? Hmmm? <a href="https://www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames">https://www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames</a><br>Oho! Forgive me, I was lost in thought pondering this most troublesome riddle... Hmmm....How could once the grand kingdom of Twittonia have fallen so low? Hrmm....Perhaps... could it be? The forbidden ancient pyromancies of the Hot Take...? Perhaps the answers lieth further beneath... <a href="https://twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot">https://twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot</a>

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• DR

  @draxxilion5957 · 4 years ago

  Me returning to Sellia crystal mines at level 98 with a +17 weapon.<br>Miners, &quot;Who are you?&quot;<br>Me, &quot;Vengeance&quot;

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• BL

  @BlazeMakesGames · 4 years ago

  To add to BotW&apos;s design comments. So I was one of the weird players who upon seeing the Rito Devine beast flying in the distance, immediately wanted to check that out. So I actually managed to make it all the way to Rito Village and complete the divine beast and everything there before even going to Kakariko village the first time. But when I did that, I started hearing rumors from NPCs that there is a guy who can expand your inventory near that village. And basically the game recognized that I had veered way off of the intended path, and started doing things that none of my friends saw, because they figured people like me would do this so they made sure to give me reminders to go do the start of the main story lol.

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• ET

  @ethanalspencer7294 · 4 years ago

  Open worlds are not an excuse to ignore level design, something a lot of series have gotten complacent in. In fact, the nuanced way you still employ skillful level design in something that&apos;s still technically so open makes it something devs have to pay even more attention to, not less!

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• JU

  @justinjacobs1501 · 4 years ago

  The way Elden ring reveals it&apos;s map is also masterful in my opinion. When I teleported to Caelid I thought it was an end game area at first and was like, &quot;Huh... It&apos;s not very large.&quot; And then I got to the lake, and the plateau, and underground... Each new area enlarging the map and feeling like the region itself is a discovery.

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• MA

  @mauricehopes9105 · 4 years ago

  My favorite thing about elden ring&apos;s open world is that it nothing feels like a check list. There are caves, mini dungeons, forts, and lots of other stuff everywhere. &nbsp;But you don&apos;t HAVE to do it. &nbsp;There&apos;s no checklist requiring 5 caves before the next power up. Or kill x number of open world bosses to unlock x ability. &nbsp;You can do, or not do as many things as you like. &nbsp;And every challenge you take on rewards something. I might be useful to you, or might not but you&apos;re gonna get something. &nbsp;So if you want to speed run to the final boss you can do that as long as you&apos;ve got the skill to beat it. &nbsp;Or you can spend hundreds of hours exploring, going on adventures, finding incredible locations and enemies, and getting stronger. &nbsp;The choice is yours. &nbsp;Most open worlds aren&apos;t confident enough to let their players make that choice.

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• AR

  @aran4241 · 4 years ago

  I noticed when it comes to open worlds, I prefer &nbsp;more tightly-knit maps where everything has purpose, &nbsp;there&apos;s too many open worlds that feel too big and stretched out with not much to marvel at untill you get to the obligatory &nbsp; activity point, &nbsp;more often than not I find this in more smaller and more contianed maps, but I don&apos;t think open world itself &nbsp;is bad, just hard to make the maps as a whole feel meaningful

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• RI

  @richarddakazo2878 · 4 years ago (edited)

  This was a great expansion on the comment Yahtzee made about how Japanese open world devs are less afraid than western devs of players &quot;missing&quot; content in the game. Like how there&apos;s a bajillion minigames and side content in the Yakuza games but you can beat the main story while doing almost none of it. You could probably even get the platinum trophy without truly seeing everything a Yakuza game has to offer. I think thats a part of what makes them great &quot;open world&quot; games: That they let you see as much or as little of it as you want instead of trying to TELL you how to experience it.

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• SH

  @ShaunCloudSwain · 4 years ago (edited)

  That Caelid moment really made me fall deeply in love with Elden Ring. Feeling a tiny &quot;victory&quot; from running away like a coward then stepping out and finding... That. I knew there&apos;d be a poison swamp at some point, its a From Soft game, of course there&apos;s a poison swamp. But being thrust right into it was the cruellest joke the developers have pulled thus far.<br><br>Truly terrifying.<br><br>Edit: Getting a few comments like &quot;fast travel out!&quot; And, yeah totally valid. But I also WANT to see where this chest has taken me.

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• VE

  @VerboseSparrow · 4 years ago

  This video made me realize I&apos;ve been playing new vegas &quot;wrong&quot; all these years. I didn&apos;t know there was a quest to find benny. I&apos;ve <b>always</b> gone straight for new vegas and just ran/walked/snuck past the deathclaws. Some runs I didn&apos;t even seem them and just walked right up to new vegas. I always thought that the whole point of the &quot;find benny&quot; quest was that it was a joke and he was right there in nv.

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• CO

  @Codraroll · 4 years ago

  To elaborate on the way Breath of the Wild really goads you into doing the elephant first: It&apos;s not so much that it&apos;s close to Karariko Village, but your &quot;natural&quot; path through the game will take you straight into its questline. Once you reach Kakariko Village, you will be told to go to Hateno Village to the east. You can amble your way there any way you prefer without stumbling into any other major parts of the story - the whole southeast quadrant of the map is devoid of stuff related to main quests. But in Hateno, you will be told to go north to Akkala to see another NPC, so unless you specifically seek out something else to do, that&apos;s where your next goal will be.<br><br>So you head north, but will quickly run into the problem of the Zora River. Its steep northern banks are impossible to climb since it rains all the time in Zora&apos;s Domain before you do the elephant quest. The same goes for the other mountains around Zora&apos;s Domain. Going around Zora&apos;s Domain is not much of an option either, unless you feel like braving the aptly named Death Mountain. Effectively, you can&apos;t go to Akkala without following the Zora River downstream to the Lanayru Wetlands. These wetlands are crawling with friendly NPCs urging you to start the elephant quest line. You really can&apos;t miss them.<br><br>Also, the way north is fairly long, and the Akkala region is a dangerous place for the early-mid-game. At the same time, the main quest is not given with any sort of urgency. It&apos;s more like a &quot;That guy up in Akkala might have some important info, you should visit him someday&quot; than a &quot;head there immediately!&quot; You know you have options to - and you probably should - do other stuff first. And the elephant quest line feels kinda urgent. So when you inevitably stumble into the elephant quest line along the way, you feel totally fine taking a break from the main story.<br><br>It&apos;s really clever. They essentially tell you to go someplace you don&apos;t need to be, then ambush you with a great distraction. You <i>can</i> do the game in any order, but ...

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• CO

  @CoffeeFresh_ · 4 years ago

  The way elden ring utilized the map is great. <br>The picture of the map is so detailed.<br> I will look at natural landmarks like the shape of rocks, or what could possibly be a structure and set my way points to go there. Usually it is something interesting.

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