To start off, this is not a thread about "What Death Stranding can teach Breath of the Wild" reactionary thread, so if that's what the title makes you think, you're wrong. This is a thread about something that, despite how vastly different these games are, both do extraordinarily well and I hope they set trends in this area.
To start off, Open World games have had a problem with their worlds not feeling interactive enough, or mainly serving as window dressing for immersion as you go to the next waypoint. Or some ultimately accounting for arenas where you fight enemies. Horizon: Zero Dawn was like this for me, which is why I dropped the game without completing it. The environments didn't entice me to explore or provide obstacles to me themselves. They just served as big areas to fight enemies. Even Kojima's previous game, Metal Gear Solid V often fell victim to this. While once you got to a camp, the possibilities and depth of gameplay was off the charts, the test of the world is just dead with collectibles to scoop up on your ride to the next camp.
However, Death Stranding and Breath of the Wild both feel extremely deliberate in going all in to make their vast worlds themselves an integral part of their gameplay. Every aspect of their worlds seems to be placed exactly where it is to entice curiosity or provide different approaches to gameplay. However, they do this in very different ways
Breath of the Wild is all about enticing exploration and giving the player freedom to make their own adventures. Different paths were made to allow for different journeys and experiences for everyone.
Aonuma explained at the GDC in 2017 that the team paid extra care to this aspect of the game, they'd have tons of people play it, mark down areas that they didn't go, and then revise the map in order to put more points of interest in the less visited areas. Using a system of "triangles" that could either be travelled around or climbed on top of in order to see what's behind there.
add to this the plentifully discussed freedom that Link is granted with the game's physics system, which allows for interaction with the environment on a much higher scale than most open world games. Often times, this is used to add a puzzle element to traverse the game's world. Cutting down trees to make a bridge, using cryonis to climb up waterfalls, making an updraft by shooting grass with a flame arrow etc.
Death Stranding, on the other hand, finds it's entire meat in the journey. Terrain is not designed to entice exploration, but goes fully in the direction of "everything is a hazard that you need to overcome." Every bit of terrain has an impact on how you go about planning your routes.
Do you take a route across a deep river where you need to bring or find metals to build a bridge, do you climb up a steep slope and bring tons of ladders and find the right spots to place them? Do you have a big, flat field that you could walk on foot but it would take so long that you'd risk damaging cargo and bring a vehicle with some spare generators? Often times the game puts multiple different types of terrain in the path to the next destination, adding a whole new depth to the planning.
The tools the game is constantly giving you all have strengths and weaknesses to different types of terrain. Bridges will save your life in rivers but won't be too useful on mountains, climbing anchors won't be too useful if you're trying to get UP somewhere.
Death Stranding is unique in that it's not an open world game that aims to entice exploration at all. Every aspect of the world is placed where it is in order to provide the player a challenge to overcome. Even the game's enemies such as BTs and MULEs I would say are more environmental hazards to overcome instead of supposed to be a dose of combat.
Overall though, despite their different approaches, I hope BOTW and Death Stranding set trends and that we get more open worlds that are true design marvels in the future. Worlds that give the player freedom, but feel intricately designed to make ensure that they are having memorable, eventful and challenging journeys as you immerse yourself in them. Both these games were made by teams who showed masterclass in level design when creating more linear games, and that knack for it transitioned into Open World. There are plenty of other teams that can do th
To start off, Open World games have had a problem with their worlds not feeling interactive enough, or mainly serving as window dressing for immersion as you go to the next waypoint. Or some ultimately accounting for arenas where you fight enemies. Horizon: Zero Dawn was like this for me, which is why I dropped the game without completing it. The environments didn't entice me to explore or provide obstacles to me themselves. They just served as big areas to fight enemies. Even Kojima's previous game, Metal Gear Solid V often fell victim to this. While once you got to a camp, the possibilities and depth of gameplay was off the charts, the test of the world is just dead with collectibles to scoop up on your ride to the next camp.
However, Death Stranding and Breath of the Wild both feel extremely deliberate in going all in to make their vast worlds themselves an integral part of their gameplay. Every aspect of their worlds seems to be placed exactly where it is to entice curiosity or provide different approaches to gameplay. However, they do this in very different ways
Aonuma explained at the GDC in 2017 that the team paid extra care to this aspect of the game, they'd have tons of people play it, mark down areas that they didn't go, and then revise the map in order to put more points of interest in the less visited areas. Using a system of "triangles" that could either be travelled around or climbed on top of in order to see what's behind there.
add to this the plentifully discussed freedom that Link is granted with the game's physics system, which allows for interaction with the environment on a much higher scale than most open world games. Often times, this is used to add a puzzle element to traverse the game's world. Cutting down trees to make a bridge, using cryonis to climb up waterfalls, making an updraft by shooting grass with a flame arrow etc.
Death Stranding, on the other hand, finds it's entire meat in the journey. Terrain is not designed to entice exploration, but goes fully in the direction of "everything is a hazard that you need to overcome." Every bit of terrain has an impact on how you go about planning your routes.
Do you take a route across a deep river where you need to bring or find metals to build a bridge, do you climb up a steep slope and bring tons of ladders and find the right spots to place them? Do you have a big, flat field that you could walk on foot but it would take so long that you'd risk damaging cargo and bring a vehicle with some spare generators? Often times the game puts multiple different types of terrain in the path to the next destination, adding a whole new depth to the planning.
The tools the game is constantly giving you all have strengths and weaknesses to different types of terrain. Bridges will save your life in rivers but won't be too useful on mountains, climbing anchors won't be too useful if you're trying to get UP somewhere.
Death Stranding is unique in that it's not an open world game that aims to entice exploration at all. Every aspect of the world is placed where it is in order to provide the player a challenge to overcome. Even the game's enemies such as BTs and MULEs I would say are more environmental hazards to overcome instead of supposed to be a dose of combat.
Overall though, despite their different approaches, I hope BOTW and Death Stranding set trends and that we get more open worlds that are true design marvels in the future. Worlds that give the player freedom, but feel intricately designed to make ensure that they are having memorable, eventful and challenging journeys as you immerse yourself in them. Both these games were made by teams who showed masterclass in level design when creating more linear games, and that knack for it transitioned into Open World. There are plenty of other teams that can do th
