Hurricane Drunk

samgamerguy:

What will games be like on the next generation of consoles?

If this past year was any indication, the majority of them will be Open World games.

The Open World genre has been around since the Playstation 2 era. However, while games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and Spiderman 2 were great games, the…

That’s a very interesting observation. But, I think the main focus should be on HOW developers incorporate open worlds into games. I mean, let’s say you can wonder around the world all you please, but you don’t really see much. Yea, maybe you see some of the same generic NPC’s hanging around or some other important characters. But where’s the fun in that? Do you really get to interact with them? Do you get to fight enemies? Or do certain areas contribute to the story?

For example, there’s Kingdoms of Amalure, which had a nice open world but was criticized for not making it seem like you shaped it and its fate. That made it lose its realistic feel. It lost what makes an open world fun, the unique feel to it.

Yes, the future of gaming certainly does lie in open worlds, but only because people have recently been able to go out and interact with those worlds. Be it raising hell in Grand Theft Auto, hearing people’s thanks as a super hero, getting quests from those same people tanking you, or even having people spit on you because you’ve done something that is deplorable, you get to see the results of your actions and enjoy more than the beauty of the world around you.

So, to answer your question, yes. Yes, smaller worlds will be missed. Because what smaller worlds do is allow developers to stick to their main story and what side quests they are comfortable with. I fear that the smaller worlds with great detail and beautiful stories will be left behind for entire virtual galaxies that lack content and originality.