Poll: Open World or Linear?

[King of Asgaard]

Whatever works well with the game.
I can't imagine Fallout 3 or Skyrim without an open world, but on the flip side, I can't imagine Kingdom Hearts having an open world (pun intended).

 

[Strelok]

I like both, but I generally prefer open (S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Far Cry 3, Saint's Row 2 & 3, etc.) I also like the partly open style, or smoke and mirrors open world like in Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, The Darkness, but really it dos not matter, if the story is interesting I don't care either way.

 

[Treblaine]

I do understand that a GOOD open world is so hard to do right I fully accept that many many games might have linear progression just for the sake of balance.

For example, limiting areas you can go in GTA to one island, then another.

But part of the problem there is it kind of forces you to play the missions you don't even like, it becomes busy-work in your free leisure time to get to parts of the islands you really should have access to.

But I think this is better done by persuasion than by force. So you CAN go into an area where your character hasn't levelled up enough, or where the difficulty curve would be too steep, but you'd have to have crazy good skill to go there and access beyond is basically just there for the "suicidal learners" and the speed-runners.

I'm increasingly coming to realise how much blame games like the Half Life series have to take for the current state of FPS games we have today. It was so good in 2004, but now I see it legitimised the idea of rail-roaded linear storytelling. Still, it did it about as well as it could by frequently mixing things up and having such good pacing and so many other elements of linear FPS game storytelling that other games are only just catching up with.

But still, it was one long corridor. A wide and brilliantly scripted corridor, but it was. To give Half Life 2 credit it hardly rail-roaded you, there were plenty of opportunities for detours like racing along in a hovercraft and noticing a derelict building. Could easily just motor on by, but you can just stop and take a look around.

I can accept that for Left 4 Dead, they tried to have a labyrinth and everyone just got lost. But for a single-player... makes me wonder what they are spending so much time with for the next Half Life.

I'd be really disappointed if it was just another long linear game.

 

[VitorRammstein]

I really think open world games entertain me more.

The exploring fascinates me and i love playing a game at my own pace !

But i think we need a bit of everything. My favorite franchise is Mass Effect and we all know how linear those games (especially the last 2) are.

Although i think both genres are needed i will vote on "Open World" because it just gives me more joy to find things at my own pace!

 

[42Weasels]

Either is fine with me, though I have one problem with open world.
In an open world, some things that should have a sense of urgency about them (ie major plot points in the main story) don't, because while the npcs will tell you that you need to hurry to do something, it doesn't really matter. An example of this is in Oblivion when dealing with the vampire-hunter in Bruma. You are told you need to hurry to find Person X in a cave before he can get away, but I ended up getting side-tracked (big suprise in an Elder Scrolls game, right?) and didn't get around to it until a month later, which ended up ruining the quest for me. It just wasn't the same knowing he'd been sitting there for a full month idly.

I feel like sometimes, even in an open world game like Skyrim, you need to have some parts where the game shoehorns you into finishing some things until the action slows down. For instance, and given that its the end of the game it's sort of a poor example, the battle at Hoover Dam in Fallout New Vegas. Once you commit, you can't back out (and fortunately the game warns you of this), and the events get played to completion.

 

[Weealzabob]

I honestly could go either way.

I would like every game to be open world, with tight gameplay, a strong well paced core narrative, and plenty of side quests. But alas, wanting the world will just leave you disappointed.

So long as the linear games do what they do well, and open world games have decent gameplay and are open. I won't be complaining.

 

[Oinodaemon]

Um...I think they both have their place. I mean, Psychonauts is awesome in its linearity, but Skyrim is awesome in its openness. When you use open world, you run the risk of either devaluing the main plot, or making the plot too heavy of a focus. Here are examples. In Skyrim, I cared less about defeating Alduin than I cared about the Dark Brotherhood plot. The main plot was less heavily emphasized, imo, in order to allow us to feel free to do as we choose. In Twilight Princess, we had a big, open world, but the main plot (for a long time) had me, at least, so caught up in rescuing those kids from my village that I hardly took the time to look around or explore.

Sorry, I ramble...The worst, imo, are games that look open world, but are actually linear, ie, the Fable series. Fable 1 was a pretty fun game, I still play it now and again. Then Fable 2 introduced that stupid glowing carrot on a stick function, and I realized how tight and squeezed together the maps really were.

Okay, I'm done now, for reals.

 

[thejackyl]

I would say a Hybrid like Dark Souls or Metroid. There is a real sense of progression when you open a shortcut in either of these games, or finish an area. Plus the amount of exploration. Plus instead of copy-pasting the same field every 10 feet you have environments that were designed for the player to explore, and not just be traveled through.

 

[lord.jeff]

I enjoy both but if I'm gonna pick one I'm gonna say linear, a lot of open world games get tedious as they force you to revisit missions givers over and over again I eventually get tired of driving down the same street a dozen times, however in linear each level is fresh and the difficulty curve tends to be a lot better done.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Open world, cause I grew up with it's beginnings:

Bwahahahah! Beginnings? No no no no no no. Try over a decade earlier than those back in the early 80's. Elite in '84 for example, perhaps one of the most influential open world games from that era. If I may give a piece of friendly advice, I'd suggest editing your initial post because you're just gonna get called out on that again and again.

OT: Open world games are much more preferable to linear games in my view. There's just no substitute for letting the player invent and tell their own story, nevermind how much more replay value there is in a game that unfolds differently every time.

 

[BartyMae]

Open world does not guarantee non-linearity, nor vice versa. I typically like semi-open world games - large areas with lots of stuff in it, but not truly open world, (think Shadow of Chernobyl vs. Oblivion - I prefer S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s approach).

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

I like what games like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past did best, myself. For FFVI, the World of Balance is almost completely linear, as is the first part of the World of Ruin. But once you get the airship, the map is wide open and you can go anywhere and do any number of interesting things (including go straight to the final dungeon, though you'd almost certainly get your ass handed to you if you went there right away).

Chrono Trigger does pretty much exactly the same thing. At some point you can go straight to the final boss, or you can explore an incredibly open world and do a number of sidequests, with hints given to you by the old man at the End of Time.

The Legend of Zelda is a bit different. The dungeons are numbered and on your map, so it's always clear where you're "supposed" to go next, but there are plenty of rewards available for just exploring the world, and sometimes you *need* to explore the world in order to get to the next dungeon. Furthermore, if you get stuck on one dungeon, you can skip it, keep playing the game, and maybe eventually find an item that will let you solve the previous dungeon, albeit perhaps not in the way the designers intended. For instance, on my first playthrough I just couldn't solve the fifth dungeon in the Dark World. I needed a block to hold down a switch, and there was no block in sight. So after messing around for some number of hours, I give up, go to dungeon six, and what's the treasure of that dungeon? A wand that makes blocks to hold down switches! So I can then go back to dungeon five and beat it. It wasn't until probably my third or fourth playthrough that I figured out how to solve the level five puzzle without going on to level six -- for the longest time I thought that my way was the only way to do it.

So that's what I usually like best. Call them semi-open world games, if you will.

 

[Doom972]

I love the hub-based style of Deus Ex - You move in a linear way between hubs, in which you have freedom within the limits of that hub.

I think that it is the best of both worlds, as it gives much freedom to the players while being able to tell a story.

 

[CriticalMiss]

I much prefer Open worlds, I hope one day someone will make a totally open world game though. One where, if you play your cards right, you could accidentally (or intentionally) kill off the boss right at the start but still carry on with the game or at least with some aspects. Imagine a Batman game where you could take out a villain before he gets the chance to pull off his big heist, then his sidekick attemps it anyway later on! Obviously you'd need some clever writing to allow for some characters to be beaten prematurely but still allow major events to occur, maybe even to trigger other events (like jailbreaks) that return the status quo and increase the difficulty later.

On a less ambitious scale, Hitman Blood Money had pretty good level design that allowed you to kill in different ways. That was a good game in my books but could have done with larger levels, Absolution seemed a bit more linear but had the larger levels that I wanted so it was like they just swapped one for other.

Games like Skyrim are good too, even if it is just for the exploration. There are only so many hours you can put in to walking down the same corridors, so having miles upon miles of open land to roam around in even without anything particularly interesting every step is great.

 

[Treblaine]

One where, if you play your cards right, you could accidentally (or intentionally) kill off the boss right at the start

I know it's a linear game but ever played MGS3? Particularly how you can defeat The End.

Spoiler: minor spoiler on a little easter egg

 

[CriticalMiss]

One where, if you play your cards right, you could accidentally (or intentionally) kill off the boss right at the start

I know it's a linear game but ever played MGS3? Particularly how you can defeat The End.

Spoiler: minor spoiler on a little easter egg

I knew you could beat him in 'non-obvious' ways but not like that, and it is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Being non-linear shouldn't be restricted to the physical layout of the game or a few minor changes in the dialogue. Although in the MGS3 example you're really cutting out some content later on, which is only really good for speed runs.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

So Escapists, which one do you like better and, if possible, why?
Being the horrid and dastardly OP that I am, I will provide a response later on in a post not used for introducing a poll.

Either can be fun. Although the real issue tends to be what kind of game it is.

Xenogears is still my Best Game Ever. It doesn't get much more linear than that.

Then again, I also loved Just Cause 2 because I could do whatever. I'm having a great time with Dishonored for the same reason.

I have noticed, however, that I tend to skim the plot more the more open the world is. I barely paid any attention to the story in Skyrim because what I wanted to do was wander around, fight Giants and Dragons, and loot dungeons. Likewise in Just Cause 2 - who needs missions? I wanted to explore the island and steal airplanes.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

 

[jackinmydaniels]

I don't mind it when a game is linear, but I always enjoy having a wide open world to explore much more than not having it.

 

[Treblaine]

One where, if you play your cards right, you could accidentally (or intentionally) kill off the boss right at the start

I know it's a linear game but ever played MGS3? Particularly how you can defeat The End.

Spoiler: minor spoiler on a little easter egg

I knew you could beat him in 'non-obvious' ways but not like that, and it is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Being non-linear shouldn't be restricted to the physical layout of the game or a few minor changes in the dialogue. Although in the MGS3 example you're really cutting out some content later on, which is only really good for speed runs.

It's also good for subsequent playthroughs because... sorry but that duel with The End was ONE HELL OF A DUEL. I could take any of the other bosses on again, but that's a challenge I'm oft to skip.

It's almost too good, he could have been a final boss.

And that's the thing, throughout the game it was very VERY linear (with minimal backtracking) but that section wasn't. It was a huge big area of the jungle with no clear "entrance and exit". You actually had to consult your map, not just keep ploughing north. It was a refreshing break from convention with a real challenge, god damn, it's one of my top 10 tense moments in gaming going against that old geezer, and I loved that I had to defeat him not by being a better sniper, but by being a better stealth infiltrator. Stalking him and coming up behind him, then robbing him of his special camo MUAAH HA HA HA!!

Except when he sneaked up behind me...

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