One of the growing trends in the games industry over the last 10 years is that of impressive worlds. Many games’ marketing campaigns boast open worlds that offer hundreds upon hundreds of hours of exploration, grand adventures across several locations and the chance to complete all kinds of heroic quests and missions. They promise to transport us to new places that are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
It’s why Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky made headlines when it was announced back in 2014. The game’s procedural generation meant that 18 quintillion planets were possible and it would take players 584 billion years to see them all. That’s a stupendous figure but the prospect was tantalizing enough.
How Open-World Tech Has Improved
The fact that No Man’s Sky was able to boast such a lofty figure is down to the significant improvements in world-building technology that have been made in the last decade. Other spectacularly large open world games include PUBG Corp’s battle royale shooter, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which has a world of 39.7km² and action adventure game Just Cause 3, which has a map of 1036km².
It’s not just the size that matters, though. Making a humongous game means very little these days if a) it solely consists of blurry lumps of dirt or b) there is very little to do within it. For example, one familiar criticism of open-world games is that they are chock full of so-called “fetch quests” which are middling quests that get players to fetch a certain number of items. These objectives aren’t riveting and exist as busywork; players want rich and interesting lore, fascinating interactions with characters and meaningful missions.
How Important Are Open-World Maps?
Certainly, open-world maps are a big selling point but given the time and resources they require to develop and the different audiences that games appeal to (not everyone has time to explore an open-world), they won’t fit every title. It’s quite possible to transport players to a new location or even time period without an open-world and you need only look at the Vegas experience offered by William Hill. Despite these slots not featuring an open-world of any kind, they are able to transport players to a virtual version of the strip, with jackpots and reel symbols making players feel as though they are making winning big at the circus (Wild Circus) or having fun in Ancient Egypt (Ancient Script).
This is event apparent elsewhere in games. Dungeons & Dragons isn’t technically a video game and yet its millions of players are able to create fantastical stories thanks to the elegant crafting of the game’s lore and their own imaginations. Technically DND is open-world but only because players are able to think and build the world themselves.
Because of the factors mentioned above (different audiences and development time), games will continue to be a mix of open-world settings on a grand scale such as the virtual recreation of the Old West in Red Dead Redemption 2 as well as games that aim to offer smaller slices of a setting for a no-less entertaining experience.
