Worse trend: 7th gen linear games or 8th gen open world games?

[BrawlMan]

I am sure someone else has pointed this out, but they are plenty of other linear games that came out during 7th generation that weren't COD clones or Gears clones. There were plenty of racing games, before they started petering our before end of the generation, God of War clones (by extension DMC clones), and let's not forget all of the XBLA/PSN/Wiiware games going for 2.5d or 2d gameplay for the most part. The only reason we remember the COD/Gears clones so much was because of the over saturated market, just like this gen. Though the Japanese developers going through their dork age and trying to copy the Western market verbatim in either tone or story wasn't helping either. Hell, aside from COD4, I went out of the way to not play games that played follow-the-leader to that genre of FPS or TPS. The only exceptions were the Ghost Reccon games (which are way more tactical), Vanquish, and Bulletstorm. The latter that punishes you for using too much cover and is all about speed. And the second latter which can be described as Mad World if it were an FPS.

I know I got tired of the open world formula by the time of Sains Row 2 and GTA IV. So this generation wasn't doing me any favor with that either. I did what I did best, play games that interest me. Which is what I've usually done any way. If you're sick and tired of either of these genres, there are plenty of different games to pick and play. What I like about this generation is most of the Japanese developers have gotten act together and making games that cater to their audience instead of "broadening the appeal", though Capcom still has little bit of it in them. Then you have games that realized, "oh, my FPS doesn't have to look like dog shit brown/gunmetal grey, and a two/three weapon". Like I said before, there is plenty of different games to play. Sony and Nintendo at least no how to give variety for their first party and third party games.

On a side note, people seem to forget the industry doesn't learn its lesson 90% of the time. Look at all the Fortnite/PUBG clones that came out the past 2 years. Very few were a commercial and success, and once again, the market got over saturated.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Says who? I quite like it when a game charges you with getting important item X from base Y to extraction zone Z, and leaving it up to you how that gets done. And nothing accommodates player choice as well as a good sandbox. I say 'good', because as you've pointed out there are many quite rubbish ones out there. But exploration and traversing can be done in a compelling way, and that's a job all sandboxes are supposed to perform. Hell, the first Driver and Crazy Taxi were nothing but the traversing, and they were smash hits. Just because some handle that aspect poorly, doesn't mean none of them do it well period.

And lets face it, something like Shadow of the Colossus would have been garbage if you just selected each Colossi from a menu and just got spawned into the arena right in front of it each time.

I said when the core mechanic is traveling, it usually works. Most games don't lend themselves to open world coupled with barely any dev knows how to execute an open world game. Linear naturally gives focus to the game with most games these days lack pretty heavily. An EA or Activision or Ubisoft would never make a game like Shadow of the Colossus because there would just not be enough for the gamer to do even though adding stuff to the game would only make it worse.

 

[sXeth]

And lets face it, something like Shadow of the Colossus would have been garbage if you just selected each Colossi from a menu and just got spawned into the arena right in front of it each time.

SotC is to my recollection (admittedly I've only played it 1 and a half times or so), a fairly sequenced experience though.

Linear isn't exclusively Cutscene-Fight-Cutscene-Fight-Cutscene-Fight. Lots of linear stuff has had atmospheric levels and such.

As someone mentioned with HZD, there's a carefully laid out sequence of fighting one Watcher, two Watchers, two Watches and a Scrapper, etc. the game is designed with a linear sequence in mind, but then just pasted into an open world.

You get a similar case with Zelda, and to my recollection, SotC. Barring a few occasions where you can go to one of a pair, but you still need to complete both to get to the next one. Everythings meant to go in a sequence, so having access to stuff outside the sequence is just kind of fluff, or at worst might spoil or disrupt the presentation and gameplay curve.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I like linear story driven games that respect my time, so to me the open world bloat of 8th gen is far more annoying.

 

[laggyteabag]

Well, if you are looking at the worst examples of each:

Im playing through 2011's Homefront right now (clearing out my backlog), and I don't think that a lot of people remember just how bad linear games used to be. Want to open a door? Better wait for your squad mate to come over and bash it in for you. Want to climb a ladder? Can't just walk up to it and climb - not only is it a scripted button prompt, but you need to wait for squadmate 1 and 2 to climb first for... reasons. Managed to slip past the squad leader? Thats a shame - have to wait for them to catch up at their slow, slow pace.

As for open world games, though - the bad ones are just big open spaces, with little justification for it - filled with copy/paste side missions that play more like mini-games than actual sidequests. Want some more world building that isnt integral to the main plot? Thats a shame - go hunt down this tiger, but this time the tiger is white - oh, and you can only use a shotgun for some reason. Make sure you climb that tower to see the world map. Oh, and no need to actually explore the world - feel free to just fast travel everywhere.

At least the bad linear games are over, sooner.


As for which I prefer, given good examples of both - I prefer linear games. I find that open world games tend to struggle with pacing quite a bit. The main plot is always some big event that is super important for either your character or the world, but because the mechanics encourage side-quests for gear/levels/story, you are constantly sidetracked doing random quests for strangers, leaving the main plot alone.

 

[Squilookle]

I'll grant that it's easier not to screw up a linear game than a sandbox, but making your game linear brings no guarantee that it's going to be any good. At least in a sandbox, if the story sucks you can go off the rails and find your own fun with the physics and vehicles. This pretty much single-handedly saved the first Just Cause. But with linear, the bad story is forcefed down your throat, having to listen to all the awful dialogue, yawn at all the set-pieces that took months to make but wear out their welcome on the second viewing, and the game treating you as if you care about these one dimensional characters and causing just as much narrative dissonance as sandboxes can do. A game not allowing a player to exercise their imagination is a far bigger sin than having sparse ground with nothing to engage the player in it, I reckon.

 

[CaitSeith]

Well, if you are looking at the worst examples of each:

Im playing through 2011's Homefront right now (clearing out my backlog), and I don't think that a lot of people remember just how bad linear games used to be. Want to open a door? Better wait for your squad mate to come over and bash it in for you. Want to climb a ladder? Can't just walk up to it and climb - not only is it a scripted button prompt, but you need to wait for squadmate 1 and 2 to climb first for... reasons. Managed to slip past the squad leader? Thats a shame - have to wait for them to catch up at their slow, slow pace.

As for open world games, though - the bad ones are just big open spaces, with little justification for it - filled with copy/paste side missions that play more like mini-games than actual sidequests. Want some more world building that isnt integral to the main plot? Thats a shame - go hunt down this tiger, but this time the tiger is white - oh, and you can only use a shotgun for some reason. Make sure you climb that tower to see the world map. Oh, and no need to actually explore the world - feel free to just fast travel everywhere.

At least the bad linear games are over, sooner.


As for which I prefer, given good examples of both - I prefer linear games. I find that open world games tend to struggle with pacing quite a bit. The main plot is always some big event that is super important for either your character or the world, but because the mechanics encourage side-quests for gear/levels/story, you are constantly sidetracked doing random quests for strangers, leaving the main plot alone.

I just prefer good games, period. Linear or not, why to waste ANY amount of time in a bad game in the first place?

 

[Mad World]

I like open-world games, but a video that I saw a few months ago discussed having a smaller world - that was still open - that contained more than the bigger open-world games. The video focused on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It made some really good points. It talked about how Mankind Divided focused a lot on verticality, something that more open-world games should do. The world of Grand Theft Auto V looks awesome, but how many of the buildings can you go inside of? An extremely small percentage. If I'm correct, Cyberpunk 2077 is going to also focus on verticality, so that's a big reason as to why I'm very excited for it. Witcher 3 allowed you go to into many buildings, so I would't throw it into the same doghouse as Grand Theft Auto (haven't played Kingdom Come, though). The problem is that buildings (unless they were giant castles) weren't that interesting in that (made-up) time period; they were just shitty, shack-like buildings. Cyberpunk, though, takes place in the future. And I already like the aesthetic a lot based on the gameplay footage.