Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

About open worlds

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by StealThePixels, Dec 30, 2015.

  1. StealThePixels

    StealThePixels

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2015
    Posts:
    68
    I want to ask what can be considered a true open world game, since this concept is somewhat loose.

    For example the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world states
    But Shen Mue and Fable 1 were considered open world while they had loading screens (with atrocious loading times as well) when you entered another region of the world , and if i remember well there were not many ways to complete an objective, just one way.. while having multiple solutions to the problems is a requirement for open games right?

    Nonethless they gave you the freedom to wander about the world without actually going forward with the main objectives... but if it is enough to be considered an open game... well Mario 64 was too :) You could just walk around a level without collecting the stars
    Maybe the difference is in Fable and Shen Mue and Zelda you can do optional missions and delay the mandatory ones, play poker at bars and other mini-games, while in Mario you had nothing else to do than collecting the stars therefore it is not open?
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2015
    AndrewGrayGames likes this.
  2. Batman_831

    Batman_831

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2014
    Posts:
    106
    Generally speaking, an open world game is one in which the player has no limits (and is based on player's imagination in case it's a sandbox), like minecraft is an open world game. Open world game can have objectives and quests to complete but player is not bound to act upon them, it's upto the player to choose whether to complete those objectives or not, and if yes, then there are multiple ways to seek those objectives.

    Loading screens have no connection with the open world genre, it's upto the designer to choose whether he would like to have loading screen or not. As far as ways to complete objective of an open world game is concerned, afaik there are many ways to complete that main objective, as well as there are many optional quests, but, this is just the traditional way of designing, the game could be designed any way. I would prefer the traditional method though.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2016
  3. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    I'm going to say this is a classic case of wikipedia being written by idiots. Streaming levels (while commonly present in open world games) is not intrinsic to open world games or exclusive to open world games, ergo isn't really a part of open world games.

    At this point open world is a terrible term because it cobbles together about a dozen different concepts that are poorly understood at best. The two biggest ones are probably nonlinear level design and nonlinear progression/game design, and god forbid you try to separate sandbox from it. The only given about the term is that it says something about the structure and connectivity of levels, possibly with the hope that you can explore/traverse these levels however you want sooner rather than later.
     
    Rombie, Martin_H and Teila like this.
  4. jtsmith1287

    jtsmith1287

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2014
    Posts:
    787
    Dragon Age: Inquisition was the threshold of what could be called an open world game. It had very large maps where travel was limitless within that map, but they were still just maps. Skyrim is an example of a true open world game in that the entire world is "open" and available at any time.

    However being an open world by definition alone isn't enough. Just because terrain is available doesn't mean the player is going to go there. A game that has a seamless world with mandatory or optional objectives spanning the entirety is going to be given the open world title, no questions asked.

    But ya, the term is used fairly loosely and should not be used as a genre. It's simply a description. Like, a blue umbrella. Open world RPG, linear RPG, rogue like RPG... they're all still umbrellas.
     
    AndrewGrayGames likes this.
  5. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    My first 'open world' games were metroid prime and zelda ocarina of time. It's just like you said with mario 64, there's an older definition of open world that states you can wander around where ever you want and do whatever you want. Open world in the old definition is the modern "non-linear" game with hubs.

    Deus Ex : human revolution and mario 64 have the same free roam around maps with a main hub design :p
     
  6. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    And that's the problem with the term. Structurally, you can draw parallels to the layouts, but the design goals are almost diametrically opposed to each other. The open levels of Deus Ex are there so that the player can tackle a problem with any number of possible solutions, while Mario 64 uses it to present the player a multitude of problems, yet these problems are almost always limited to a single solution. On that note, Mario 64's model is the same for Zelda and Metroid (well, maybe not the very first Zelda).


    For some history on the subject:
     
    Tomnnn likes this.
  7. StealThePixels

    StealThePixels

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2015
    Posts:
    68
    And that's the point, Deus Ex allows you to find your own solution to a problem (up to a certain limit), because there are many, while in Mario 64 you had not this freedom.
    It is more exciting for players to find their own way to beat the game, although it is far more difficult to implement a design like that.
     
  8. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    I guess that's what I was doing :D

    I prefer mario to deus ex (at least for human revolution). I probably prefer [nintendo title] to [other title] most of the time anyway. They've been rehashing mario forever and it's still fun, they even made the rehash a selling point with that mario maker game!
     
    BrandyStarbrite and Ryiah like this.
  9. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,952
    Plus they continue being enjoyable years after their release. How many games can claim that?
     
    AndrewGrayGames likes this.
  10. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    Open world is pretty straight forward in its definition. A world implies a setting where the player can play the game. Open implies that the player can choose to visit any part of it at any time. That's about all there is to it.

    The confusion appears because there are so many shades of openworldness. It's a float, rather then a bool.

    You have games like Skyrim that are highly open, and yet the player is somewhat constrained by his level. You have games like Diablo 2, the world is somewhat open, the player can visit any of the regions of the act they are in, especially if they have already visited them. And yet the level/experience system makes the typical path through the game approximately linear. Then you have games like Halo. There is pretty much no reason to revisit an area. And there is no way to visit an area in advance. The game is for all intents and purposes linear.

    So consider openworldness as a spectrum. The appropriate question is not "Is this game open world?" The question is "How open is this game?"
     
  11. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    Very few :)

    I think it's because nintendo tries to make new things. Occasionally getting new IP, like splatoon, but usually inventing new types of games to play. Mario's been around forever, but look how many kinds of games he's in.

    I'm also disappointed there is no super mario sunshine 2. I'd get a new nintendo console for that alone! I've already done that. I got a 3ds a few months ago just so I could play monster hunter. They've got some valuable IP for sure. Sorta wish they'd put monster hunter on a bigger device though...
     
  12. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    But is it a level design term or a game design term? Is it an open world when the levels are highly interconnected? But what if the game railroads the player for the first 95% of the game? Is it an open world if the player can travel to any place, but all the levels are structured in a line?

    The real problem with the term is that it's main usage by people today is intended to mean not linear. If you find a game that has the appearance of being non linear (i.e. anything that isn't a hyper linear corridor shooter or FF XIII, pick your poison), I am willing to bet a beer (okay, I picked the poison) that I can find someone who thinks it's open world or at least talks about it having open world elements.

    The term ends up being nothing but fluff. It implies a thousand things to a hundred people, yet none of them would ever be able to agree concretely about what is actually open world.
     
  13. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    Most of the time it means whatever the marketers want it to ;)

    You've kind of demonstrated my point in saying that many people can point to open world elements in many games. There is a spectrum of openworldness out there.

    Defining something by its opposite is also perfectly valid. Defining open world as something that is not linear works pretty well too.

    Trying to pin down a more exact definition of open world is pretty useless. Its a very broad, high level concept. The term covers a wide variety of things, much like fantasy in fiction.
     
  14. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    I said that :D
     
    BrandyStarbrite likes this.
  15. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    Ergo using the term is useless. It's a term that needs to be discarded, so that instead, people can actually use the dozen concrete concepts that are weakly globbed together under the umbrella of open world.

    As it stands, it's not even a spectrum. Depending on which concepts a person subjectively think constitutes open world, just about any game could be put anywhere. Any attempt at objectifying it is almost always an exercise in drilling down to grab one of the concrete concepts, like player freedom or level connectivity or world simulation, and using that to plot things on a spectrum.
     
    Tomnnn likes this.
  16. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    You can see this issue right now on steam if you search for games with the open world tag.
     
  17. TheSniperFan

    TheSniperFan

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2013
    Posts:
    712
    That's not correct.
    You're confusing "open-world", which is a type of level-design, with "sandbox", which is a genre.
    The whole "game is one in which the player has no limits and is based on player's imagination" is the description of the sandbox genre. Sandbox games are typically open-world, but not necessarily. Take Garry's Mod for example. The levels range from completely open to strictly linear.
    Open-world games also aren't always sandboxes. An example for a linear game with open-world level-design would be Mafia 2.

    When you said that the loading screens are irrelevant, you were pretty much spot-on. Whether a game has loading screens or not comes down to the specific implementation. Open-world or not is a game-design question. Loading screens or level streaming is a technical one. The first 3d GTA games had loading screens because doing seamless level streaming with that amount of data simply wasn't going to happen on the PS2.

    @StealThePixels :
    I'm going to try to explain this on a theoretical level.
    Have a look at the following graph I found on Google:


    Imagine each node representing a place in the game's world.
    If the player is in a specific location, there's always only a finite number of places he can go. This is strictly linear level design in a nutshell for you. The key is that the developer controls the flow of the game, the progression through its world, very tightly.
    For open-world games, you cannot draw such a graph. After leaving the vault in Fallout 3, the player doesn't have to go to Megaton. It's up to the player. Standing at a specific location, there's a virtually infinite amount of places he can go. The difference is that the developer controls the flow only very loosely.

    The short version is that in strictly linear games, the developers controls where the player goes next, while in open-world ones, the player himself does.


    Strictly linear and open-world level-design somewhat behave like two opposites on a linear scale, in that they're the two extremes. Some people seem to think that open-world is better than strictly linear, which I think is bullshit.
    Both have their weaknesses and, due to their extreme nature, quite big ones at that.
    I don't think I need to explain the weaknesses of strictly linear games. The implications of giving the player practically no choices in a medium that is supposed to be interactive should be quite obvious.

    Open-world games have two big problems.
    Firstly, the levels have very little detail on a small scale. On a large scale Witcher 3 and GTA 5 look detailed. But as soon as you take a closer look, you'll notice that the vast majority of buildings are only there to take up space so the world doesn't look empty. This makes open-world level-design a bad choice for genres that require highly detailed levels on a small scale (e.g. stealth).
    The second huge weakness is that their stories suffer greatly. I just finished Witcher 3 and even that game had a fairly bad story, when held up to more linear games with good writing. The thing is that you cannot possibly convey a sense of urgency. Sure, you might tell the player that he has to hurry because some big catastrophe is near, but let's be real: That catastrophe is going to wait for as long as the player wants to run through the mountains picking flowers. In open-world games, you cannot pace the story.

    So obviously one of the most retarded things you could do, is pumping massive amounts of time and money into a story-focused open-world stealth game. :D


    Personally, I find the level-design philosophies that are neither fully open-world nor strictly linear the most interesting.
    A completely linear succession of places that, in and of themselves, are fairly open and allow a decent amount of approaches is a personal favorite. Notable games would be the first Deus Ex, SystemShock 2, Thief 1 and 2 and Crysis.
    My personal #1 has got to be the 3d metroidvania as seen in Dark Souls. 11/10 in terms of level-design; I instantly fell in love with it. Highly recommend everyone to check this game out, if you have a console or a controller for your PC. The areas are linear, but they're highly interconnected with shortcuts and - most importantly of all - are in one seamless world. The world is fairly big, but feels gigantic due to the vertical element that your typical open-world game simply doesn't have.
     
    StealThePixels, Batman_831 and Kiwasi like this.
  18. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    Tomnnn likes this.
  19. Batman_831

    Batman_831

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2014
    Posts:
    106
    H'm, I think you're right. I had minecraft in my mind and I wrote it upon that. Gotta fix it. "No limits" parts apply to all open world games to a satisfactory extent, though. Even a linear level design could have this concept if multiple levels are linked or chained together forming a complex and large map and where some of the levels are irrelevant to the main quest.
     
  20. StealThePixels

    StealThePixels

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2015
    Posts:
    68
    I have a PS3 and i wanna try that game.
    Do i need to play the prequel Demon's Souls to understand the Dark Souls' story end fully enjoy the game ?
     
  21. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    The best ps3 game available is dragon's dogma. It's soooo good that it was ported to pc just a few weeks ago. And it topped the twitch.tv game category for a while when ever people streamed it.
     
    GarBenjamin likes this.
  22. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    The lore of Dark Souls is its own separate thing. Not that that will make it easier to understand the ending which
    kind of requires you to discover the whole secret subplot of the game.
     
  23. TheSniperFan

    TheSniperFan

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2013
    Posts:
    712
    No, I haven't played Demon's Souls yet either.
    Only go with the PS3 version, if you don't have a decent PC. Blighttown (an area of DS) is notorious for causing the consoles to crap themselves.
    I've seen it go down to 15 fps on the PS3. It must be a nightmare getting through there like that. Don't forget that DS hardly could be any further away from being classified as a casual game. One thing it's known for is being hard.
     
  24. Tomnnn

    Tomnnn

    Joined:
    May 23, 2013
    Posts:
    4,148
    Maybe the framerate is part of the difficulty.
     
  25. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2013
    Posts:
    16,860
    I'd hazard a guess that more then half of players don't make the ending.
     
  26. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    I wouldn't be surprised if it's not any worse than most games though.
     
  27. LMan

    LMan

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2013
    Posts:
    493
    MGSV?

    I mean I guess MGS isn't all stealth, you can play the game without being very stealthy at all, and I guess that's part of the open world charm. But you can totally graph progression in a non-linear game, just in terms of from this chunk of the world to that chunk of the world rather than from this level to the next. Or In terms of story missions, or in terms of skills unlocked, ect.

    There's a ton of clever ways of doing story in a non-linear fashion-

    Far Cry restricted it's story bits to the intro and outro moments of missions and let the player's actions define the middles. The systems they set in place make each engagement have a natural pacing curve all on it's own. You run/drive/swim/fly to the location, you stealthily approach and make your plan for engaging the obstacles before you. You choose your moment and strike! intense gunplay ensues! Animals attack! Reinforcements arrive! After a minute, You gain the upper hand, and hunt down the last few enemies, finally standing victorious. The game congratulates you with a bit of cinematics, maybe a bit of story, and it's off to the next thing.

    Most AAA games are copying entire chapters from Far Cry at this point- I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Far Cry elements in the next Legend of Zelda. (Ring the bell at each of the 10 hyrulian bell towers to reveal more of the world!)

    Far cry also delivers exposition through the radio, and always when the player is just in transition from one thing to the next. Much better than sticking a monologue in the middle of an action game. GTA did something similar with the cell phone.

    Non linear design still has lots of linear-ness to it, Just split into separate sections. In Fallout and Skyrim, each quest is still a linear sequence of actions with a beginning, middle, end, the player is just allowed more points at which he can exit/return to the quest without consequence. There is a natural impetus to follow through with a quest as it's probably the most interesting thing going on at the moment for the player. His alternative is another stretch of traversal to the next thing. Unless the next thing is more interesting or more necessary, odds are he's going to stick around for the quest. That's slightly changed if the next step in the quest IS traversal to another place, in which case the game is practically inviting the player to go do something else at this point. If faced with a choice between a better experience and a lesser one, I think the player will probably choose the better one.

    Speaking to pacing on a broad scale, the developer can implement hard gating to certain parts of the game until the player has done at least xyz, or implement soft gating like making some parts of the game really difficult for a player who doesn't posses the right gear or isn't at a high enough level or whatever.

    The problem with urgency is really the same with any game- even in linear games I can hang out as long as I want if there isn't a real visible timer ticking down the seconds. The only difference is that in non-linear games I can go do something else in that time, which is more destructive to urgency certainly. But if I really want to create urgency, the same tools used in linear games work. Timers, explosions that hurt, things chasing you, the floor caving in, ect.
     
    TheSniperFan likes this.
  28. TheSniperFan

    TheSniperFan

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2013
    Posts:
    712
    It's on my todo list, so I don't want to rule out that MGSV might have been the game to finally merge stealth-games with open-world environments in a meaningful way.
    After all, it was released 15 years after Thief 2 has shown what a stealth game should be like.

    You aren't wrong, but that wasn't what I was talking about.
    Let's go back to those graphs.
    Sure, you can draw them, but they don't give you much valuable information due to being filled with uncertainties.
    As a developer, you simply cannot predict what the player is going to do, unless you restrict him to a small set of options, period.
    This presents the developers of open-world games with a huge problem: The game has to go on, regardless of what the player did or didn't do.
    The results can be seen in modern open-world games, where you have tons of choices but few - almost none, to be more precise - actually matter.
    The sheer number of potential things the player could do make this literally impossible (and I mean "literally literally", not "basically literally") to do more than:
    • giving you a different ending, which results in changing like 1% of the game
    • having few characters react in slightly(!) different ways

    Which doesn't the fact that the developer still doesn't know what will happen inside those areas. Or do you think you can tell me what I did in each area of the Witcher 3? You could tell me what I did until the point where the first quest ended at which point I was free do do whatever I wanted.

    That's not a good comparison for a simple reason.
    What you're basically saying is that the player can break the pacing of a linear game, by stopping to play it. Because that's what you're doing when the game tells you to go to destination x and you just go "Nope" and stay wherever you just are.
    With open world games it's different in that you are encouraged to break the pacing of the story. I finished the Witcher 3 not all that long ago. If you want the best main-story-experience, you'd have to skip like 75% of the game's content.

    Those are merely set-pieces. You cannot fill a 40+ game with nonstop timers, explosions, chases, etc.
    Well, you could, but you really shouldn't.
     
  29. LMan

    LMan

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2013
    Posts:
    493
    While you cannot predict the actions of a player in specificity, I disagree that you can't make any meaningful predictions about their decisions. You can break open world experiences down into early, mid and end game, After the beginning of Witcher 3, you probably did one of the first things you were told you could do. After you did that, the next thing you did was probably heavily influenced by where you were at the time, and what options were being presented to you at that moment. That's another pacing element- the developer is in control of when and how you get information on what you can do. Places you spend a lot of time in, in early game, are not the same as places you spend a lot of time in, in late game. Quests you are exposed to at the beginning of the game are different from quests you are exposed to near the end. There is clearly a pattern going on there.

    Pacing in a non-linear design is definitely different. And pacing the game is much different than pacing inside a single quest, but I think largely, it uses traversal as the downbeat. Rather than making a difference in kind to serve as a valley in the interest curve in between two highs, they set the player free to go do something else. When the player triggers the next bit of quest, they've just had to traverse to get back to the quest, so you're still at a good place in the interest curve to climb back up to a high in terms of action.

    I'm having a hard time with your gripe about agency too, What linear design allows the player more influence over the game world that you can't get with a non-linear approach? I always thought that choices should change the experience first and then if it comes up in the ending, that's just whipped cream and a cherry. I made a choice because I wanted that gun over that armor or I wanted that character as a follower, or something that changes my experience right now. Yeah, having a special gun doesn't really change anything in the end, but I did get to play with a special gun, and that changed how I played the game.

    Regarding the urgency thing, you have a point, maybe that wasn't a fair comparison, but I think there's a number of ways to break pacing in a linear story without stopping play. Going back to town and buying more items comes to mind. My point was that that gripe applies to more than just non-linear design. And Majora's mask's THING was a nonstop timer man. It was brilliant. Don't tell me that mechanic of re-living the same 3 days over and over couldn't work in a non-linear design and still produce a natural increase in urgency.

    I don't know, maybe I'm way off and I'll see what you're saying after some thought, but right now I just don't see the same problems with open world design, or at least I don't see the things you mentioned as being unsolvable or systemic to the design itself.
     
  30. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    Which is why the common practice is simply to not care. You get siloed content, like the current gen of Bethesda games where nothing actually interacts, or reacts superficially. In theory this is an issue, but the common practice is purely driven to provide a variety of content in one play space. The notion of limiting the content a player can experience is counter to their goal.

    These are a thousand linear games, with little need for their control over the order, jammed into one.
     
    LMan likes this.
  31. TheSniperFan

    TheSniperFan

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2013
    Posts:
    712
    @LMan & @RockoDyne :
    I'm not trying to say that open-world level-design is inherently inferior or bad. At least, that wasn't my intention. What I'm trying to say is that every type of level-design has its strengths and weaknesses.
    Level-design is a very, very important aspect of your game; Important enough to make or break it. When you choose to make your game open-world, you're limiting your possibility (as a developer) to control how exactly the player is going to play it to some extend. This opens up new possibilities, but also makes some things difficult, if not nearly impossible.

    Like most choices you'll do when developing a game, it's a trade-off. A trade-off where you should evaluate the individual options on a case-by-case basis. Making a game open-world may or may not work in your favor. If you're planning to create a story-driven game (and I mean really, tightly story-driven), you probably shouldn't make it open-world. Not because open-worlds are bad, but because, for what you're trying to do in this particular case, the downsides outweigh the benefits.
    That's not to say that it would be impossible, just that you would make it much harder for yourself.
     
  32. RockoDyne

    RockoDyne

    Joined:
    Apr 10, 2014
    Posts:
    2,234
    The thing is you can't simply say something doesn't work in an open world level. A core aesthetic of stealth games is that they are in effect open ended puzzle games. Maybe the level design takes a hit, making the "puzzles" less interesting, but an open world definitely won't hurt the open ended nature.

    Even something story driven doesn't necessarily clash with an open world. Sure, if the intended story is something long and immutable, then it's probably going to drag on and not use the levels efficiently (and it's probably a crappy game story anyway). This doesn't mean that an open world game can't be entirely narratively driven. Even a text based game could be open world, and it's not impossible for the story to account substantially for the player's actions if there was need to do so.

    The dirty little secret is you don't need to control the player. Trying to force the player into your vision is absolutely the wrong way to go about it, and is ultimately bad design.
     
    LMan likes this.
  33. BornGodsGame

    BornGodsGame

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2014
    Posts:
    587
    The problem is trying to define a term that was created to describe many different things.

    1. No loading screens
    2. No linearity, the player can go from A to C without going through B. There are no physical blocking that prevents the player from moving in any direction on the map.

    In my opinion, Sandbox and Open-World have become useless words to even use for describing a game because 50% of the people who read that word will think it means something it doesn´t. Instead, just describe your game in more detail. Instead of just saying open-world, i say things like ´ and open world game with the freedom to explore the map in any order´. You definitely want to use sandbox and open-world on your website because of search engines, but you also have to realize that many people define it differently, so each time you do use the word, give a brief explaination of the feature of your game that makes it sandbox or open-world
     
  34. BornGodsGame

    BornGodsGame

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2014
    Posts:
    587
    One of the trade-offs I see frequently to make a game open-world is scaling. In order to allow the player to go anywhere, the game will scale enemies so they are always a slight challenge. For me, this totally breaks immersion and progression.