I think I’m done with open world games

[BFG10K]

So in Skyrim I’ve only completed the content in Riverwood/Whiterun plus the Dawnguard/Companion factions, and I still have heaps of random open side-quests in my journal. To say nothing of the 90% content still waiting elsewhere in the game.

But here’s the kicker: I’ve already spent 100 hours, yet not even scratched the surface. I love Bethesda games, but this is the first one that made me say "this thing is just too big, and I've had enough".

In general I’m also noticing a distinct trend of bigger landmasses being inserted into open world games in an effort to usurp past efforts, making them ever-expanding behemoths. I don't play MMOs for the main reason that I'm not interested in devoting months/years of my life constantly playing the same game. Unfortunately open world games are basically becoming single player MMOs.

Now, one can argue “just play the main quest” or similar, but you’ll miss out on the guts of the game, not to mention finishing up with a weak character. There’s also a deeper problem if I have to self-prune content everywhere, akin to a music album where I’m constantly skipping songs.

In contrast I’ve also just finished replaying Rage. It still feels open world even though it’s more hub-semi-open. But in 30 hours I’ve experienced virtually everything the game has to offer and explored every nook and cranny, coming away feeling completely satisfied. In essence it has far better bang-for-buck for my time. And I can cross the map in a vehicle in about 45 seconds, proving I don’t need a continental landmass to experience freedom.

So I think I’m done with open world games. If I want a non-linear experience I’ll play semi-open games like Rage. These games give more freedom over linear games while still retaining focus, manageable content, and not requiring obscene time.

 

[XavierMace]

and not requiring obscene time.

That's kinda why most people play open world games. They want more than the 30-50 hours you get out of regular RPG's. That's kinda like saying I want to drive across the country to see the sights, but I only want to spend a day doing it.

 

[alcoholbob]

Skyrim was the biggest open world RPG of its time, and since it's release in 2011 it's certainly driven the open world genre to larger as several RPGs have come out that have dwarfed Skyrim in size. However none of them you can actually get "lost" in like you can in Skyrim.

The reason for that is uniquely a Bethesda thing. Their main quests and characters tend to be paper thin so you find it hard to focus on any one thing since nothing grabs you, so you start losing track of your goals and just start multi-tasking and not focusing on anything. It makes Skyrim seem bigger than it is since nothing is actually that interesting and it's just a big sand box of equally amusing (and irrelevant to the world-state or greater plot).

A good comparison is the Witcher 3, which is several times larger than Skyrim. However each quest that you pick up is interesting enough for you to focus on to it's conclusion without getting distracted, so you don't feel overwhelmed with quests (even though there are more quests and more areas than Skyrim), and with more unique areas and less reusing of assets than Skyrim everything seems more unique, so it piques your interest more--it's the sameness of Skyrim and it's rampant overuse of assets which also contributes to a perception of ballooning the game's size as your eyes start glazing over since you have to make more of an effort to mentally to catalog and separate only slightly dissimilar areas.

 

[sandorski]

As long as there are interesting side stories I rather prefer an Open World game that can take 100's of hours to 100%.

 

[norseamd]

Skyrim was the biggest open world RPG of its time, and since it's release in 2011 it's certainly driven the open world genre to larger as several RPGs have come out that have dwarfed Skyrim in size. However none of them you can actually get "lost" in like you can in Skyrim.

The reason for that is uniquely a Bethesda thing. Their main quests and characters tend to be paper thin so you find it hard to focus on any one thing since nothing grabs you, so you start losing track of your goals and just start multi-tasking and not focusing on anything. It makes Skyrim seem bigger than it is since nothing is actually that interesting and it's just a big sand box of equally amusing (and irrelevant to the world-state or greater plot).

A good comparison is the Witcher 3, which is several times larger than Skyrim. However each quest that you pick up is interesting enough for you to focus on to it's conclusion without getting distracted, so you don't feel overwhelmed with quests (even though there are more quests and more areas than Skyrim), and with more unique areas and less reusing of assets than Skyrim everything seems more unique, so it piques your interest more--it's the sameness of Skyrim and it's rampant overuse of assets which also contributes to a perception of ballooning the game's size as your eyes start glazing over since you have to make more of an effort to mentally to catalog and separate only slightly dissimilar areas.

"of its time"

Thats not really saying much, considering Daggerfall had a playable world of over 88,745 square miles.

 

[KeithTalent]

I'm with you OP. I played a bunch of Skyrim and feel like I have gotten nowhere. Started playing some Fallout 3 and while I enjoyed the entire opening sequence, once I got out into the wastelands it became a complete snooze and I had no idea where to go. Dragon Age Inquisition got boring too; I've lost track of what I'm even doing in that game. I need to remember this and just skip these games in the future, no matter how much people rave about them. I just find them tedious.

KT

 

[BSim500]

Depends on the game and gameplay. Personally I love the Elder scrolls stuff from Morrowind to Skyrim, would probably like Witcher 3 if I didn't dislike the combat style of the whole Witcher series / general "consoley" controls of W3, but I cannot stand the fake "open-ness" of Ubisoft's endless "Tower Climbing Simulators" or the "fake length" of Dragon Age Inquisition's "sidequest spam" both of which to me are far more mindless grind than Elder Scrolls fetch quests. The other "pull" of Elder Scrolls games is of course modding. Once you get a properly tweaked enhanced weather & lighting mods setup, you'll often wander around just for the eye-candy.

If it's done right a 100-200hr open-world game can work well. I know what you mean though, and personally I prefer the "sweet spot" middle-ground hybrid's like Dragon Age Origins or Neverwinter Nights where the game is moved forward in chapters / acts to keep the main plot moving, but you have complete freedom of progression within each chapter. A game doesn't have to be fully open world to eliminate the "railroad" claustrophobic feel of a "6ft wide" pure linear crawler. As for "best" length, NWN & DAO were as long as they needed to be to fit the main plot at 60-80hrs or so. Some other games try and pad things out for the sake of triple digit gameplay number chasing and end up coming across as empty shells built to a "grind formula".

 

[rivethead]

Completely agree OP. I silently roll my eyes at the people who blast games as "on-rails" or "linear". As long as the story is good and the action fun, I don't mind being led down the path. In fact, really good on-rails games give you multiple ways to go down the path.

On the surface, Skyrim appears to be the perfect game for me. I love RPGs, action, and the fantasy genre. But I won't play it. I'm very obsessive about completing quests and I know that attempting to complete all the side quests will just make the game a long, long slog that I'll burn out on.

 

[pontifex]

I don't think I've ever finished an open world game. I always get bored with it and quit. Most Of the stories seems dull ot just there to give you some kind of end goal and that's it.

Its funny, lile in fallout 4 you are trying to save your son but i keep getting distracted by side quests, building stuff, exploring, etc. And forget about the main quest. There's nothing compelling to make you continue it. Then 20 years later (in game) you finally find your son and it makes the story moot.

The other thing is they keep making the worlds bigger bigger but then just fill it with fluff or stupid repetitive crap like the far cry games.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

So in Skyrim I’ve only completed the content in Riverwood/Whiterun plus the Dawnguard/Companion factions, and I still have heaps of random open side-quests in my journal. To say nothing of the 90% content still waiting elsewhere in the game.

But here’s the kicker: I’ve already spent 100 hours, yet not even scratched the surface. I love Bethesda games, but this is the first one that made me say "this thing is just too big, and I've had enough".

Not sure what you're doing if you're 100 hours in and you still have a lot to do, I pretty much 100% Skyrim on my first play through, accepting all trivial side quests and dutifully doing them all, mostly before the main mission. I think my playthrough was about 80-100 hours. Just use fast travel, do whatever it takes to get competent at combat and you can blow through the dungeons quite fast.

I think it's just the right amount of content, I couldn't handle terribly much more but at the same time it has that satisfying grind and feeling of progression to it. Still all our tolerances for that will differ which is why so much of the content is optional side quests you can chose to do or ignore, if you want the meat of the game then follow the main story, complete it and then do as much of the side quests as you're happy to do.

I often get the feeling that what people mean is that they're compelled to do everything and if they can't reasonable do it all then it's too much content, that's your own internal mental quirk you have to deal with in private and not inflict on the rest of us

 

[Punter]

I had a lot of fun just wandering through Skyrim doing interesting things as I found them with no particular goal set. I never cared about doing all the quests because I never really wanted the game to end.

 

[KeithTalent]

If it's done right a 100-200hr open-world game can work well. I know what you mean though, and personally I prefer the "sweet spot" middle-ground hybrid's like Dragon Age Origins or Neverwinter Nights where the game is moved forward in chapters / acts to keep the main plot moving, but you have complete freedom of progression within each chapter. A game doesn't have to be fully open world to eliminate the "railroad" claustrophobic feel of a "6ft wide" pure linear crawler. As for "best" length, NWN & DAO were as long as they needed to be to fit the main plot at 60-80hrs or so. Some other games try and pad things out for the sake of triple digit gameplay number chasing and end up coming across as empty shells built to a "grind formula".

Dragon Age: Origins is awesome. Was long, but never felt too grindy, thankfully. I never felt like I was getting bogged down with all kinds of side nonsense like I do in some of the more open-world games.

KT

 

[JujuFish]

I have no problems with the size of open world games, because it's up to the player to decide how much side content to actually do. No one's forcing you to do every little thing.

 

[biostud]

The only open world games I've liked is Borderlands.

I don't want to spend a lot of time running around exploring, but on the other hand I don't want to miss out on anything. So I don't play open world games.

 

[pmv]

They aren't good for anyone with any kind of obsessive or completist tendencies, that's for sure. And they often have weak storylines or repetitive gameplay.

I prefer linear things with a strong storyline, what with being mortal and having limited time for any given activity. I did think the Elder Scrolls games were an impressive creation though. Just too exhausting to actually play.

 

[frowertr]

Im with OP. Ive got about 20 hours into Witcher 3 and Im bored. Its go here and do this or go here and do that. Im just tired of all the walking...

I grew up with FPS games and I dont think Ill ever get tired of jumping into something like that unlike the long drawn put RPGs.

 

[escrow4]

The problem with every Elder Scrolls game is that they are cliched fantasy 101 with every single trope on display combined with rubbish writing. It becomes deathly boring. The same old dragons, the same old dungeons, the same old saving the world again, the same old fetch this, fetch that, the same old curses and spells, the same old factions, the same old same old. Meanwhile in the Witcher you have racism built into the world, filthy characters and a filthy world and even if III dances on a generic 101 plot at the end at least everything else is fresh and different. There is even a quest where you get high and talk with your horse asking why he constantly clips the world and how he constantly follows you around the world magically . . . . never mind the Hansel and Gretel knockoff where the princess decided to hang herself with her own hair and the wolf is a drunk.

 

[KentState]

Not sure how you only do 10% of the game in 100 hours. I was able to experience 90% of the game twice in 140.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Dragon Age: Origins is awesome. Was long, but never felt too grindy, thankfully. I never felt like I was getting bogged down with all kinds of side nonsense like I do in some of the more open-world games.

DA:O was an utterly fantastic and truly awesome game, and the only good one in the series sadly. The main benefit of that game was that the main story was most of the content, it was very well fleshed out with lots of interesting moral dilemmas that cropped up and really tested you.

I have no problems with the size of open world games, because it's up to the player to decide how much side content to actually do. No one's forcing you to do every little thing.

They aren't good for anyone with any kind of obsessive or completist tendencies, that's for sure. And they often have weak storylines or repetitive gameplay.

Both these comments, see my prior post. Basically we're talking more about the mentality of the gamer and their inability to deal with leaving side quests uncomplete, which doesn't have much to do with the size or quality of the game. I'm a firm believer that if you can't enjoy a game because you have some strange mental quirk where you can't leave it incomplete then deal with it yourself

Im with OP. Ive got about 20 hours into Witcher 3 and Im bored. Its go here and do this or go here and do that. Im just tired of all the walking...

I actually (hastily) bought TW3 in the steam sales the other day and played a few hours tonight, after never completing either 1 or 2, in large part due to stupid difficulty curves and general awkwardness of combat. I'm enjoying TW3 so far. One thing that did occur to me though when playing, is just how much of a complex game it really is, if you play with the tutorial turned on you can be 2-3 hours in and still be seeing tutorial screens because the game is just so complex, It did get me wondering about complexity because it's an awful lot for a human to learn just to be able to engage and play a game. But ultimately that depth is going to appeal to some people and not others, pick your poison.

Also you have a horse from the outset which can gallop and allows you to traverse the landscape extremely fast, as well as fast travel to certain spots, so there's really not that much walking, and in fact Geralts sprint is really fast so even on foot parts are very short.

The problem with every Elder Scrolls game is that they are cliched fantasy 101 with every single trope on display combined with rubbish writing. It becomes deathly boring. The same old dragons, the same old dungeons, the same old saving the world again, the same old fetch this, fetch that, the same old curses and spells, the same old factions, the same old same old. Meanwhile in the Witcher you have racism built into the world, filthy characters and a filthy world and even if III dances on a generic 101 plot at the end at least everything else is fresh and different. There is even a quest where you get high and talk with your horse asking why he constantly clips the world and how he constantly follows you around the world magically . . . . never mind the Hansel and Gretel knockoff where the princess decided to hang herself with her own hair and the wolf is a drunk.

It's fantasy for the masses, these games are made for the mainstream and NOT the old D&D gamers from decades ago, they're targeted at basically near incompetent console gamers, I think the enjoyment for me does come from that kind of MMO-style grind and feeling of progression. There's far better RPGs in terms of story, but in terms of immersiveness in an expansive universe and the feeling of progressing from basically a peon to what is basically a god is very compelling to me. That's a "fix" I would have traditionally got from MMOs but gave up some time ago.

The Witcher is very much a mature game and I'm enjoying TW3 so far, I do like uniqueness of the quests, they've manged to avoid fetch quests and protect quests so far, and given each major side quest a decent story/lore and made it complex enough to enjoy and not necessarily be predictable. It's a world very much like the Conan universe, brutal and adult, aimed squarely at a mature audience, which is rare in gaming since developers/publishers like to target as large as audience as possible.

Both games have their place IMO, I enjoy them both, I just hope I get further through TW3 compared to 1 and 2.[/QUOTE]

 

[bystander36]

As far as the poll goes, I don't think it lists the right responses. Open world games are supposed to be too big to complete. They are sort of single player MMO's, with seemingly endless game play and that is supposed to be what they are. In that, many are exactly what they set out to be, and I wouldn't change their size.

That said, I find too many RPG's these days are being developed as open world/sand box games, when I'd prefer a more linear more crafted story line for many. I buy Elder Scrolls games expecting an open world, but when I buy a Dragon Age game, I do not expect it to become an open world game, when the first couple had very detailed well crafted zones and stories.

I feel as if dev's feel we all want open world games all the time. I'd be much happier if both existed, and they didn't try to be all things to gamers.

 

[BFG10K]

Basically we're talking more about the mentality of the gamer and their inability to deal with leaving side quests uncomplete, which doesn't have much to do with the size or quality of the game. I'm a firm believer that if you can't enjoy a game because you have some strange mental quirk where you can't leave it incomplete then deal with it yourself

Nonsense. I’m not talking about OCD “find 1000 trinkets and get a free sticker for the side of your house”. I don’t care about that.

I’m talking about not visiting any city outside Whiterun and not experiencing Thief/Mage/Dark Brotherhood/Daedric quest lines.

That’s not a “strange mental quirk”, that’s a vast percentage of the game. It’s not even Skyrim without it.

I checked and people are routinely putting 200-500 hours with one character and no mods into the game. Again, that’s MMO territory and it's unreasonable.

This isn’t just Bethesda games, Skyrim was just the tipping point that made me realize all open world games have the same problem. Their ever-expanding landmasses directly tie into game length. Fallout 4’s map is bigger than Fallout 3 and Skyrim. The Assassin’s Creed, GTA, and Far Cry games also keep increasing their map sizes.

When you have quests spread out like a shotgun blast over a large landmass, that artificially bloats game time even if you can fast travel. And when traveling, if the game's giving too many new quest lines along the way, the total content gets out of control.

To go back to Skyrim, it would’ve been far better if they cut the landmass to be just one of the holds, like Rift (south-east) for example. One major city, three towns, and about two dozen dungeons/mines/towers/ruins in total, each with a unique look to make them significantly different. Then cut all the side-quests that don't matter and just leave the main quest along with the factions, so the whole game can be fully experienced in 25-30 hours.

 

[KeithTalent]

DA:O was an utterly fantastic and truly awesome game, and the only good one in the series sadly. The main benefit of that game was that the main story was most of the content, it was very well fleshed out with lots of interesting moral dilemmas that cropped up and really tested you.

Yeah definitely one of my all time favourite RPGs. Of course I seem to be the only person who loved Dragon Age 2. It was obviously way more on the rails than the first one, but I loved every minute of it. Inquisition just never really did much for me. I've tried multiple times to get back into it, but unfortunately I just keep getting bored after about 30 minutes.

KT

 

[RockinZ28]

Skyrim was the biggest open world RPG of its time, and since it's release in 2011 it's certainly driven the open world genre to larger as several RPGs have come out that have dwarfed Skyrim in size. However none of them you can actually get "lost" in like you can in Skyrim.

The reason for that is uniquely a Bethesda thing. Their main quests and characters tend to be paper thin so you find it hard to focus on any one thing since nothing grabs you, so you start losing track of your goals and just start multi-tasking and not focusing on anything. It makes Skyrim seem bigger than it is since nothing is actually that interesting and it's just a big sand box of equally amusing (and irrelevant to the world-state or greater plot).

A good comparison is the Witcher 3, which is several times larger than Skyrim. However each quest that you pick up is interesting enough for you to focus on to it's conclusion without getting distracted, so you don't feel overwhelmed with quests (even though there are more quests and more areas than Skyrim), and with more unique areas and less reusing of assets than Skyrim everything seems more unique, so it piques your interest more--it's the sameness of Skyrim and it's rampant overuse of assets which also contributes to a perception of ballooning the game's size as your eyes start glazing over since you have to make more of an effort to mentally to catalog and separate only slightly dissimilar areas.

Yea I certainly feel this way. Witcher 3 ruined Bethesda's games. Put 245 hours in to Witcher 3 and the expansions and didn't want it to end, and will start a NG+ as soon as I upgrade my gfx card.

Bought Fallout 4 a month ago, put 56 hours in so far. I'm at the point where I just want it to end, but think I still have a while to go. Their is a shit ton of content, but the quests are so boring and repetitive, all the characters are uninteresting, and the game is still littered with annoying bugs. Was fun for about 30 hours. Also lost interest in Skyrim Remastered after 40 hours.

Hope Bethesda can really up their game for the next TES game. Really need to up their engine to today's standards too.

 

[ControlD]

Yeah definitely one of my all time favourite RPGs. Of course I seem to be the only person who loved Dragon Age 2. It was obviously way more on the rails than the first one, but I loved every minute of it. Inquisition just never really did much for me. I've tried multiple times to get back into it, but unfortunately I just keep getting bored after about 30 minutes.

KT

DA:O is an awesome game, even today. It is close to my favorite RPG of all time. It took me some time to get into Inquisition but overall I did enjoy it once I got a few hours deep. I don't feel a need to replay it however. I could probably fire up a new game of Origins right now and still be happy though.

 

[bystander36]

Nonsense. I’m not talking about OCD “find 1000 trinkets and get a free sticker for the side of your house”. I don’t care about that.

I’m talking about not visiting any city outside Whiterun and not experiencing Thief/Mage/Dark Brotherhood/Daedric quest lines.

That’s not a “strange mental quirk”, that’s a vast percentage of the game. It’s not even Skyrim without it.

I checked and people are routinely putting 200-500 hours with one character and no mods into the game. Again, that’s MMO territory and it's unreasonable.

This isn’t just Bethesda games, Skyrim was just the tipping point that made me realize all open world games have the same problem. Their ever-expanding landmasses directly tie into game length. Fallout 4’s map is bigger than Fallout 3 and Skyrim. The Assassin’s Creed, GTA, and Far Cry games also keep increasing their map sizes.

When you have quests spread out like a shotgun blast over a large landmass, that artificially bloats game time even if you can fast travel. And when traveling, if the game's giving too many new quest lines along the way, the total content gets out of control.

To go back to Skyrim, it would’ve been far better if they cut the landmass to be just one of the holds, like Rift (south-east) for example. One major city, three towns, and about two dozen dungeons/mines/towers/ruins in total, each with a unique look to make them significantly different. Then cut all the side-quests that don't matter and just leave the main quest along with the factions, so the whole game can be fully experienced in 25-30 hours.

That's more of a self control issue. The bigger the landmass, the more quests, but you simply have to decide that not everyone needs help. Stick to the primary quests, unless you need to gain some extra gold or experience to complete them. In Skyrim, I typically make a choice on the primary quest lines I want, and stick to them. If I want to do a little extra, I do, but you do have to treat these ever open worlds differently than standard linear RPG's.

While I like Skyrim and its open world, I also don't like it that most RPG's have decided that they need to be open world. Both types of games should exist, and fill a different niche. I was a bit disappointed when DA:I decided to go open world, but I still enjoyed it. I just ignored most the side quests.