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God of War Director Reveals Why The Game Wasn't Open World: "We Couldn't Have Competed"
- Thread starter Deleted member 249
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In the context of what I was responding to, those are the next big open world games. I don't think Bethesda will fix TES combat because they don't think it is broken. Ubi has been tinkering with gameplay, open world environments and taking cues from all the other top open world developers. Plus, we aren't getting another Rockstar game anytime soon. Hence why I think others will beat them to the punch.
Personally I love FPS games, so if CDPR nails the controls/gunplay for Cyberpunk 2077 then they will have a winner on their hands because next to Bethesda and Rockstar they create the most compelling worlds to explore.
That said, I don't think either fits GoW. Personally I just can't see GoW as a true open world game.
The "metroidvania" aspect was what I loved about GoW. Upgrading and finding gear to unlock new areas. But it definitely feel empty, besides the obvious boat rides where nothing happens except listening to Mimir's talk the world also feels extremely empty when you revisit an old area.
Ever since Super Metroid devs has tried to solve this feeling of emptiness by having enemies respawning, but the bosses are gone and I really can't remember a single game where I didn't feel a sigh starting to build up when being forced to go back to an earlier area. :/
The whole genre honestly need to new thinking imo, some randomeness, enemies roaming through the whole world instead of just the same small area, new enemies popping up by a surprise, even bosses, difficulty increasing every time you revisit an area. Stuff like that.
Devs should realize that they've failed when gamers go "woohoo!" when unlocking the fast travel functionality. :P
Um wasn't GoW a kind of Open World? A Dishonored/small section/Metroidvania open world?
Not a true open world, more like a sectioned open world but you could go anywhere. vs previous titles.
I think this is unfair. You might not like the aesthetic of the Ubi open world games, but too big for their own good? No way.
For example, AC Origins is huge and I know it has empty areas but they fit the world. You don't expect the Great Desert to be full of NPCs but it had enough content to make it all believable.
They don't feel empty to me. They have the best-realized worlds and a lot of history attached if you don't care.
A disclaimer though, I am only speaking here for the 2 recent AC games which I thought were great and improvements for them.
Not a true open world, more like a sectioned open world but you could go anywhere. vs previous titles.
I think this is unfair. You might not like the aesthetic of the Ubi open world games, but too big for their own good? No way.
For example, AC Origins is huge and I know it has empty areas but they fit the world. You don't expect the Great Desert to be full of NPCs but it had enough content to make it all believable.
They don't feel empty to me. They have the best-realized worlds and a lot of history attached if you don't care.
A disclaimer though, I am only speaking here for the 2 recent AC games which I thought were great and improvements for them.
I think they made the best decision honestly. it felt open world enough to have a large sense of scale to the world around you but also focused to keep things moving along. I appreciated that quite a bit and I hope they continue to use this formula for the next one.
Oh I see.
Why is he trying to come up for a new term for a type of game that has existed forever now? That threw me off. Wide linear?
He is talking about 3D Metroidvania or sectioned Open World which we've had a few for a while.
It was absolutely great the way it was, in my opinion.
I really like the "wide linear" solution.
I really like the "wide linear" solution.
You can't go anywhere you want in GoW. Oh hey there is something on top of those rocks or behind those trees, let's see if I can climb up this way, nope you can't climb those rocks or trees, you have to find a predefined path, solve a puzzle or fight before getting it. For the most part there is only one right solution. In that sense GoW is not an open world game. Not even a small scale open world. It is very much a Metroidvania or Souls game.
Edit: I don't want to sound down on GoW it is my favorite PS4 game this gen, slightly ahead of BB.
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Yeah that's true. And I can't see Rockstar walking away from the weight-realism at this point when they've invested so much time and money adding all those tiny animations for the most random stuff just to get things realistic. We can always hope but tightness doesn't seem like a natural evolution of what they're doing.
I don't like FPS games except for Elder Scrolls. But I agree on the last bit about the world. I think the world can feel empty but the cities are amazing in TW3, nobody does cities better than them.
Yeah I know what you mean, but people said the same thing about Zelda but they showed that it could be done.
I honestly thought GoW felt almost like an open-world game, just old school in structure with "corridors" like Super Metroid or SOTN rather than a big completely open map like in BOTW. But the idea that a big man like Kratos can't walk over a small cliff or some rubble but has to find the exact spot to reach an "unreachable" area is hilarious at this point... BOTW has spoiled me. And it's the same everywhere these days. Just last night I had Arthur standing like a moron not knowing what to do in front of a knee-high fence in RDR2... Had to walk through the "door" of the fence to get to the other side... :P
I found the world pretty boring to move/sail through for the most part. Even when things do open up a bit more and you have the tools to unlock various barriers it's not like the world is brimming with tons of meaningful, rewarding, awesome things to see, do, or learn. Side quests especially are the same fetchy BS that litter open world games.
Jumping to Dark Souls: Remastered afterwards really highlights a lot those issues, as its a wide-linear structure offers an incredible sense of exploration and discovery that rivals most open world game. Night and day compared to GoW.
Jumping to Dark Souls: Remastered afterwards really highlights a lot those issues, as its a wide-linear structure offers an incredible sense of exploration and discovery that rivals most open world game. Night and day compared to GoW.
Maybe so, but I think Ubisoft need to show that they can populate a big world in a meaningful way without those huge empty spaces, maybe they did choose the desert for a reason?
RDR2 is honestly too packed with life though, Rockstar clearly exaggerated things to get rid of the emptiness complaints. I live on the country side and I certainly don't see wild life every 10 meters when I walk outside the door :P I like that people are going on with their lives doing their own things though and even if you're just standing completely still somewhere you have this feeling that something will happen any second now. Stand still in other games and literally nothing at all will happen, well maybe the console will power off eventually lol ;)
That would certainly be interesting. I would really like them to consider zones about the sizes of FFXII's. That was the perfect size.
I have to admit, I wonder what those open worlds games made as "wide linear" would be like? Eg RDR2, AC:O etc
I'm glad you said this.
I remember that all too well. Anything open-world got me hyped after GTA3. I mean, I loved Pirates! Gold and its open world, but GTA3 opened the floodgates. It was like, "Oh man, True Crime: Streets of LA!" "Oh man, The Getaway!" "Oh sweet, they added it into Jak 2!"
I still love open world as long as the game is good, though. But I think I like how developers such as Santa Monica and From Software have explored other ways of creating a world that's more open than an Uncharted (nothing wrong with being more linear like that) but not quite as huge as a Horizon or Witcher.
I'm terrible with the Norse names, so bear with me, but I actually quite liked the volcanic arena one and the mist one. The mist world was just fun to figure out, led to some great new armor, and were a lot of fun to fully complete. And the arena one reminds me of a lot of those challenges from the old one.
Though don't get me wrong: I'd have loved more areas like Veithurgard. I do like that I felt Odin's presence throughout the entire game, both from the ravens and from being locked out of certain realms. But I'm totally down with more places like Veithurgard.
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