Poll: Will Open world games dominate the next generation?

[Ironbat92]

With a new console generation on the way, and the sales success of games like Skyrim, Far Cry 3, GTA, and the Assassin's Creed series, It got me thinking, will this become the new norm? It looks to be. We're seeing more and more Open world games being made, from Saints Row 4, Assassin's Creed 4, Grand Theft Auto 5, Watch Dogs, and more. Do you think the same? Do you think Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed will dominate the next console generation? You think CoD will become a thing of the past and well now turn out pitch forks to Assassin's Creed.

 

[shrekfan246]

Ugh, I hope not.

Open world games tend to have too little focus to keep me interested. I prefer something with a well-defined direction and wider areas to explore, preferably with hidden areas and collectibles. Currently, open world games don't really marry the linearity of a story with the actual openness of the world very well, and very few have actually built worlds that felt 'alive' to me.

Besides, I don't think long-running franchises getting new installments is enough to call for a new trend or anything.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

Where's the poll? I hope they won't. I'm almost never in the mood of getting lost in some area dicking around doing quests. It may be interesting if there is a main story going on somewhere that isn't too sporadic to keep one focused on it like GTA.

 

[Sixcess]

I doubt it. I like open world games but they're hard to do, harder to do well, and are at odds with many developers' desperate cravings to be film directors.

I think we'll see more open worlds and sandboxes from indie developers, but I think the big names will continue to mainly focus on heavily scripted and controlled pseudo-movies.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I suspect we'll see more open world games, but I doubt linear games will go away, or even form a minority. Its much harder to build a coherent story with an open world unless you do it like Mass Effect, which I tend to describe as being open in your choice of which linear bit to go to next rather than Bethesda's monstrously open do-whatever worlds.

 

[shrekfan246]

Ugh, I hope not.

Open world games tend to have too little focus to keep me interested. I prefer something with a well-defined direction and wider areas to explore, preferably with hidden areas and collectibles. Currently, open world games don't really marry the linearity of a story with the actual openness of the world very well, and very few have actually built worlds that felt 'alive' to me.

Besides, I don't think long-running franchises getting new installments is enough to call for a new trend or anything.

personally i love open world games but the points you raise are valid. the more linear the game the tighter the story you can weave. AI in open world games for the most part isnt good enough at second glance to make the world feel alive. skyrim for instance looks good on the surface but the npc's are shallow

I would never want them to go away or anything, and I acknowledge that other people prefer open-world games for the freedom in exploration, I just personally don't like how nebulous the context for most of the player's actions tends to be in sandbox games.

The closest I've come to finding a sandbox that did a pretty good job at creating an urgent, compelling narrative and marrying it with a well-populated world was Sleeping Dogs. Sure, the story wasn't really anything to write home about, but it actually placed the forward focus on the story rather than thrusting everything else in your face and saying "Why don't you do this instead?" It still had all of that extra fluff, but the representation of Hong Kong and the framework for the narrative made it very interesting for me. The focus on melee combat instead of primarily third-person shooting was a bonus as well...

I wouldn't mind more games looking at the best parts of both linear and sandbox games, and trying to adopt the same level design philosophy that Deus Ex had back over a decade ago, though.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

I hope that they don't make games like Skyrim.
If they do open world, I have to agree with shrekfan246.

It's never about genre for me, it's about how much the gameplay gets me invested in the game.

 

[fezgod]

As much as I like open-world games, I'm starting to get sick of them because developers are throwing in too much 'work' if that term makes any sense. Take Farcry 3, for instance, I had a great time on my first playthrough for that game. The second time? Not so much, especially because I didn't want to go through all of that tedious hunting all over again.

I think developers need to start finding a better balance between overly scripted glorified quicktime events and unstructured open world games.

 

[Daft Time]

For the question in the title; it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing quite a few more AAA titles opting for a sandbox in the not too distant future. It'll then die out, because many publishers don't understand titles sell well in the long run when they use a tool to great effect, not because they used the tool in the first place.

I really hope they don't though.

 

[Toxic Sniper]

Nope. The massive success of Call of Duty shows that some non-open world games can still be extremely popular and lucrative cash machines.

I also hope it doesn't; open world is very hard to do well. It often leads to bland, forgettable level design and mechanics based on ubiquity instead of quality. I'm not sure if Metroidvania level design (Dark Souls, Metroid, Shadow Complex) counts as open world, but I prefer that to the majority of the famous open world games I've played.

 

[Windcaler]

For AAA games it might be but it seems like AAA games are beginning to fall in quality these last few years. Also as I understand it open world games like Skyrim and AC are quite expensive to make due to the detail and variety needed. Doubly so when you have graphical fidelity equal to those games. It also creates a greater strain in a systems processing power. If you sacrifice graphics you can make more detailed open worlds similar to arma 2 or the earliest Dragon warrior games but if you want both high graphical fidelity and detailed open worlds it requires a lot of processing power. As is I think games like Skyrim and AC cut major corners to allow those types of games on consoles. Little tricks like narrow FoV, and large weapon models do a lot to not overload the system

That said, I dont think open world games outside of the AAA market are a possibility without sacrificing somewhere. Then theres the fact that its hard to do stories in such games. To get a good story you have to accept some kind of linerity but sometimes when theres a major problem theres also a sense of urgency. That urgency gets lost when you go somewhere away from it. Far cry 3 is a good example when theres the whole "my friends have been kidnapped and I need to save them" urgency but you can wander off on the island to explore, do supply drop missions, clear bases, activate radio towers, and take some time off to go hunting.

 

[Brotha Desmond]

I honestly hope not. Open world, while good in theory usually fails to catch my interest for one of two reasons. They either are to open and I get lost or they just give you a commute between missions. Either way it's a waste of time and isn't fun for me.

 

[Zhukov]

I fuckin' hope not.

Open world games are like linear games, except loaded to the gunwales with forgettable filler content and you have to commute between the interesting bits... if there are any interesting bits... which there usually aren't... because the budget went towards a big, empty, repetitive map, busywork side missions and a ton of dead-eyed interchangeable NPCs with no personality whatsoever.

Please no.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I hope we tread a bit more of the middle ground than last time, because honestly, either extreme isn't to my tastes.
Hell, I can't even remember the last proper "Open World" game I played (unless Terraria counts).

 

[Requia]

Probably. At least for a year or three. Right now open world is pretty seriously hampered by the shitty hardware and software on the Xbox and PS3 (no, not the graphics). But I expect the next gen consoles to have fixed that (they've already added a crapload more memory, if the OSs support using the save file as virtual memory it'll be cemented). Devs will have a field day doing some of the things that have been cut out of existing open world games.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Ugh, I hope not.

Open world games tend to have too little focus to keep me interested. I prefer something with a well-defined direction and wider areas to explore, preferably with hidden areas and collectibles. Currently, open world games don't really marry the linearity of a story with the actual openness of the world very well, and very few have actually built worlds that felt 'alive' to me.

Besides, I don't think long-running franchises getting new installments is enough to call for a new trend or anything.

This is actually what I came here to say. But since it's been said, I don't really have much left...

Compare Arkham Asylum to Arkham City. Yeah. There you go.

 

[Terramax]

Sadly, I think they are here to stay. People seem to be under the illusion that you get more bargain for your buck if you spend 40 hours of a 60 hour game running aimlessly across fields, cities, deserts, or wastelands with little clue as to what you'll be doing, as opposed to a highly focused, intense 10-15hour game with many memorable sequences and replay value.

Devs like it because it means not having to bother with clever level design. It's a match made in shallow heaven.

And for all those who argue 'it adds to the immersion', not a single one of these games is as immersive as Myst IV: Revelations.

 

[Mikeyfell]

It's funny that all I really want from the next generation is a couple of good single player games...

Just a couple... It's not too much to ask right?