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Nightmare Genie asks you: Every game is open world OR every game is multiplayer
- Thread starter Spring-Loaded
- Start date
My favorite game of all-time (Quake 1) is a game I played almost exclusively in multiplayer and this is still the easiest choice in the world. Forced multiplayer in every game might actually be the one thing to get me to stop playing games.
Meanwhile almost every open world system out there has at least the option to just beeline through the main quest line pretty linearly if you really aren't interested in side quests, world exploration and other activities. And while it's less focused than a standard linear story game, it's still not a great leap. That difference is often largely visual where the smaller scope, "corridor" games have the opportunity for concentrated visual quality, but some open world games also look superb and have the writing quality to match anything.
So I don't really see much of a dilemma here, personally. Easy choice, nightmare genie.
Meanwhile almost every open world system out there has at least the option to just beeline through the main quest line pretty linearly if you really aren't interested in side quests, world exploration and other activities. And while it's less focused than a standard linear story game, it's still not a great leap. That difference is often largely visual where the smaller scope, "corridor" games have the opportunity for concentrated visual quality, but some open world games also look superb and have the writing quality to match anything.
So I don't really see much of a dilemma here, personally. Easy choice, nightmare genie.
Multiplayer since devs can just tack on Leaderboards or something like what the Souls games have that will have little impact on the game. Random player phantoms appearing in Mario? Sure why not.
Open World will always fundamentally change the design.
Open World will always fundamentally change the design.
I have to chose multiplayer, because otherwise there would be no multiplayer games at all. I only play a handful of multiplayer games, and only with friends, but I enjoy them too much to lose that, it's the only way I'll talk to some of my friends.
Unless... Maybe if I can convince all of my friends to play various table top games... Loop hole.
Unless... Maybe if I can convince all of my friends to play various table top games... Loop hole.
Can I kick him in the teeth instead?
...if I absolutely have to, then open world, I guess. But that's the day I go 100% retro.
...if I absolutely have to, then open world, I guess. But that's the day I go 100% retro.
Teabagged from kids or invaded by kids. I guess I'll do board games a whole lot more with some multiplayer.
Both are nightmarish to me, but I'd take open-world and it's not even close. I can't stand any forced-MP games, I play games to chill and explore at my own pace, I don't need other people forcing me to do stuff.
Open world all the way, most of my favorite games are open world. I avoid all multiplayer except the occasional mmo. Cant stand games like COD
99% if the time multiplayer means competitive gameplay. I suck at PVP. Give me a solitary experience every time.
OP
OP
Have you played Sky: Children of the Light? That's a heavily online game but it was really chill and nice. The online interactions involved holding hands while flying and lighting one another's candles.
Yeah, how the heck is this winning
You've basically killed a bunch of genres in favor of one, opposed to just making all of the existing ones worse.
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According to the rules in the OP, if you go MP, it is unavoidable. You must play with (and/or against) other players.
Also playing alone violates the spirit of the question. You're either giving up the "solo experience", or you're giving up non-open world game design.
And they don't seem mutually exclusive from the wording, so I'd go open world. You still get MP games when you want them, and linear games can be adapted to an open world format. Choosing MP means completely giving up the solo gaming experience, which I'm not willing to do.
Open world isn't a genre, Disco Elysium and A Short Hike are both open world
Meanwhile being forced to play with other people would ruin most SP games and even games with optional MP
open world unless you mean strictly ubisoft style open world.
i mean the og legend of zelda and something like hyper light drifter is open worldish in the sense that you can go in any direction at the start. there are small gated areas at times but even regular ow games have gated off areas for certain events. shit like fortnite and minecraft have an open world, they count in my book too
also, you can go to dungeons in ow games and those can be big linear ones so its not like linear game design would absolutely die
i mean the og legend of zelda and something like hyper light drifter is open worldish in the sense that you can go in any direction at the start. there are small gated areas at times but even regular ow games have gated off areas for certain events. shit like fortnite and minecraft have an open world, they count in my book too
also, you can go to dungeons in ow games and those can be big linear ones so its not like linear game design would absolutely die
It is absolutely a genre. Just because it can be used in tandem with others like RPG doesn't mean it's not.
And it's not like open world mechanics wouldn't ruin most SP games either. Like, how would forcing open world mechanics not immediately erase basically every 2D indie game?
You could take any game that would be the least thing applicable to open world and make it so anyway. It really just involves creating a large world and then having the character go around to different areas.
You could do that with Tetris and just have a player-controlled tetromino just hopping around getting into tetris fights.
I can see multiplayer being much more exciting and interesting space to play in than everything being open world.
Seeing multiplayer work in games like Death Stranding and Forza show that having extra people in your world is not always a detriment and in many cases is barely noticeable, and in most cases adds to the experience without you even realising it.
Seeing multiplayer work in games like Death Stranding and Forza show that having extra people in your world is not always a detriment and in many cases is barely noticeable, and in most cases adds to the experience without you even realising it.
Multiplayer. Way more multiplayer games I like. I like 3 open world games, 4 if we are counting Shadow of Chernobyl as one.
Every other open world game is straight up mediocre.
Every other open world game is straight up mediocre.
"Open World" is technically a very broad category that can encompass many other things (and can still allow for multiplayer), so I guess that.
In any case, I think those two options being presented as "nightmare choices" says a lot about the demographic of these forums =P.
In any case, I think those two options being presented as "nightmare choices" says a lot about the demographic of these forums =P.
This feels like it's a cheat that's against the spirit of the question. That's not an open world game, that's a really large level select screen/lobby system.
As someone else mentioned, you could similarly cheat by adding in a a basic ghost system, leader boards, or Dark Souls message system and call it asynchronus multiplayer.
OW is generally my favorite approach to game and world design, so that'd be more like a dream come true than a nightmare lol. Every game being linear and more or less on rails would be the real nightmare for me, and probably make me quit the hobby altogether.
I mean I'm 100% in favor in favor of the idea of making every game ever have co-op support even if the game isn't balanced around it or even if it doesn't make story sense for there to be a second player. Like you could just make the second player an exact copy of the first player just in a different color shirt and I'd be fine with that. But I dunno how I'd feel about the concept of having all games be multiplayer ONLY. If I was playing a story heavy game, I'd probably want to be playing through with the same person all the way through, meaning I'd have to schedule time with that specific person every time I wanted to play the game.
Dark Souls if it was mandatory multiplayer would certainly fall in line with this question. But you can play it offline.
And it's no cheat. What are we defining open world as? My view is that no genre is necessarily blocked out because you can envision an open world framework for any of them, from 3-match games to sudoku.
Yes, but the multiplayer is mandatory. So with a game such as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, it wouldn't even be playable without a second player. It makes redundant all single-player games with optional co-op as the co-op portion is no longer optional. As someone who pretty much always plays solo, a lot of games are now off the table. I'd be forced into the open-world selection.
Forced multiplayer / no solo experience = I quit gaming permanently.
Guess it's open-world forever.
Guess it's open-world forever.
Just imagining not being able to play God of War (2018) or God of War: Raganarok solo because a second player has to be Artreus 😩
Can I still crit path those open world games in a reasonable amount of time? Even if it takes 100 hours, I guess I'd still rather have that. Haven't played MP anything since Overwatch, Rocket League, and Dead by Daylight back in 2015/6... and I didn't play any of those for very long.
There are so many amazing multiplayer games. Only a few Open World games that worked for me and even then I get burned out on them. Do better Nightmare Genie.
Also multiplayer games can do what something like FFXIV does where there's still a focus on the story. Maybe we'd just see a lot better MMO content.
Also multiplayer games can do what something like FFXIV does where there's still a focus on the story. Maybe we'd just see a lot better MMO content.
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