For those of you who enjoy open-world games, how big of a world is too big?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

There are already some huge maps out there, Just Cause 2 and 3 both have maps at around 1000km^2^, and those games are beloved by their players. But if the next Cyberpunk game was announced with Night City now being the size of an actual large metropolis, say like New York, would you say that’s too big? What determines what “too big” is?

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rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Depends on the mood I’m in.

Zelda BotW is a giant map and mostly chill game that I have tons of fun just taking my time exploring.

Far Cry 3 has me going around murdering folks and clearing camps non-stop at a pretty good pace.

Far Cry 4 was way too much pew pew and it bored me.

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MourningDove@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m of the mindset that it can never be too big, as long as it has some life to it. I don’t mind games taking a long time to finish. And I don’t mind if the grind is in the traveling. It’s cathartic in a way.

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wazoobi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Echoing what others have said: size doesn’t really matter until it’s notably empty with nothing of interest to justify it.

But also, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

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USSEthernet@startrek.website ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Witcher 3, gave I multiple tries and just got overwhelmed every time I looked at the map.

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- Analog@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Huh, I loved it. I could either fast travel to get to the content quickly, or ride there and enjoy the scenery.
  
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BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I am looking forward to Light No Fire and have played countless hours of Minecraft and Star Citizen.

“Too big” doesn’t exist as long as I am enjoying myself.

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JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think that all comes down to how the travel, visual appeal, and POIs are handled. As well as a personal interest in the gameplay loop. The following are my general opinions on a few games for why I think they do or do not work.

Daggerfall would be way too big, because the POIs are few and far between and there is no visual interest between, but it worked because it had fast travel.

Each of the successive TES games had more visual interest to them and wel spaced POIs and I spent a lot of time walking on first playthroughs without fast traveling anywhere.

Similarly No Man’s Sky could seem too big at first blush, but if you like the gameplay loop it’s infinitely fascinating. For anyone wanting to move further in it’s also helpful that there are gates to help make large jumps, without them being a requirement to enjoy things.

Cyberpunk 2077 was very visually interesting and had a ton of POIs and was fun to traverse on foot and in a vehicle. I thought the size was fantastic on my first two playthroughs. The third time the badlands areas got a little frustrating though.

Stalker and Stalker 2, are very fun to traverse by foot for me despite being very large. They are visually very interesting, especially 2. There are plenty of things you can stumble on and explore. In fact on my first playthrough of Stalker 2, I didn’t even realize it had a fast travel option for over 60 hours because I didn’t feel the need to look for one to use. Loved the huge size of those.

WoW was horribly oversized, as are many MMOs. WoW was(and imo still is despite many upgrades since I played, just not a fan of toony looking games) completely uninteresting visually, had no “on the way” POIs and had no motivation to look around. Long travel was a chore on top of a burdensome gameplay loop. I hated WoWs size. It felt big just because it would take people longer to play. I can’t express how fucking boring it was to me. And exploring had zero reward. I remember wandering into the water and swimming for like 30 minites to get behind some massive tree or something (all I remember was it was a brown gradient that’s how dull the visuals were) and I get behind it and there was fuckall. That was the last time I played I think. More brown gradient and uninteresting light blue water gradient stretched off into a foggy white gradient. Fucking hated WoW but especially its size. MMOs like that are the equivalent of having a rail shooter that’s more train ride simulator than shooter. It works for other people, I just couldn’t stand it.

Outward is a fantastic game but it’s world feels a little too big sometimes. I don’t really enjoy wandering it that much even though I enjoyed the game on the whole. Just felt I got to the point of sprinting from one objective to the next because I was tired of traversing the map.

So it’s really game dependant imo. If they nail some key aspects, size doesn’t seem to matter.

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Surp@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The halo infinite campaign open world was kind of not alive enough so even though I’ve played bigger game worlds I think that’s something to consider…

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tobz619@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t mind size so long as there’s meaningful activity.

For example, Just Cause 2 is huge with a massive variety of biomes but I enjoy hijacking military jets and blowing shit up on repeat and general traversal.

Infamous 2 and Second Son have very neat and small maps that are action packed and fun to traverse.

But then other open world games just bore me.

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orenj@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Elden Ring is right on the threshold of too big.

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- bytesonbike@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Elden Ring DLC for me.
  
  At least the main game, the world was kind of flat.
  
  The land of Shadow’s map was kind of difficult to read. There was too many layers. Some things were underground. Some were above ground.
  
  If the world wasn’t connected but broken by portals or something, it would have been fine. But condensed like that made it feel too big and I overwhelming.
  
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  - Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I feel like having a similar toggle for overworld/underground similar to in the base game would have been very very nice.
    
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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Depends how full it is, how interesting is it (note this is not the same as full), how fast you can travel, and how fun movement is.

There’s a lot of elements to open world and a lot of devs get the balance very wrong. You end up playing in a map rather than the world.

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prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I prefer smaller open worlds, like in the Yakuza series

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Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Having played Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, I can say that no world is necessarily too big, because infinite is not too big.

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- bytesonbike@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is it.
  
  GTA 5 was boring when it came to exploring, much of it was pretty empty unless there was a mission. Elder Scrolls Arena was just random generated repeated stuff - miles of it. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was a lot of copy and paste.
  
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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
ARMA 3’s Altis map is too big.

Unless you’re flying a jet. Then it’s still too small!

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spaciouscoder78@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
As long as it has fast travel I don’t mind having a big open world but if the open world itself feels empty without much life then I’m immediately turned off by the game

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- invertedspear@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Funny, I have the opposite complaint about Fallout 4. In what is supposed to be a nuclear wasteland of a city where everyone is struggling to keep their small communities going, there are just too many people in such a small space to make this feel real. I liked Fallout 3 and New Vegas more because the world was properly empty, but still had so many things to discover.
  
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- faintwhenfree@lemmus.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Reminds me of no man’s sky and it’s empty bajillions of planets.
  
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  - spaciouscoder78@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have 90 hours in no man’s sky and I got pretty burnt out on it. After a certain point, every planet feels the same and lifeless.
    
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teawrecks@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
WoW is objectively huge, but they made it feel tiny by putting fast travel options everywhere. I would guess that any two points in the world are no more than 5m from each other if routed perfectly.

I want there to exist one MMO where you “live” in a city, and traveling to another city is actually so inconvenient that you only do it if you have to. Not because I want to make the trek, but because I want there to be a world just large enough that any one person has usually seen only ~1%, but the playerbase in entirety has seen >50%. I don’t know if any such game exists.

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- burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  traveling to another city is actually so inconvenient that you only do it if you have to
  
  They don’t work. Vanguard did it way back when, with their three continent world. Each one had enough content to get from lvl 1 to lvl 50, the max, and your starting race determined your starting location. It could take up to an hour to get to friends. Even on the same continent, with a mount (before they added flying mounts), it could take a half hour of running to cross the map… and players complained so vociferously that they were forced to add fast travel options.
  
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  - teawrecks@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t think that means it didn’t work, I think that just means it’s not for everyone. I’m a firm believer that, “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”. Small indie games take firm stances on their gameplay all the time, not every game is for everyone, and that’s ok, that’s how you get unique and interesting gameplay experiences. But that’s easy for and indie game to do because making an indie game is cheap.
    
    MMOs have the unfortunate reality that they’re architecturally complex, and expensive to operate, and thus need to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible to justify their existence to investors. They don’t have the luxury of making the experience they want, which is why they all end up just copying WoW’s enshittified gameplay, but with less polish.
    
    My hope is that this indie revolution we’re in expands to “large scale” multiplayer games. Not so massive that it’s prohibitively expensive to run, but not so small that it’s a ghost town. I think that’s when we’ll start to see interesting MMO experiences again.
    
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- XM34@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I guess Light No Fire has a good chance of becoming such a game. It’s gonna be No Mans Sky, but on one earth sized fantasy planet. I don’t think it will have large cities though. 🤔
  
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  - teawrecks@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t consider NMS to be an MMO. If everyone went to the same location, at best, you’d most likely only see a handful of players you’re instanced with (up to 32 from what a cursory search gives me). That’s kinda the sad state of what passes for an MMO these days, but I don’t accept it. That’s not even a full raid group in WoW.
    
    But yeah, you could squint and say that that otherwise effectively produces the experience I’m asking for. I am looking forward to LNF for sure.
    
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- MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’d love for just any game with a scale that large. I think it’d be awesome
  
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  - teawrecks@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There are space games with procedural large scale galaxies to the point that the entire playerbase can only ever hope to see ~15% of the systems, but that’s why I put the >50% qualifier in there. That’s TOO big. Anyone can generate an effectively infinite procedural world, I want a large world.
    
    When I had originally conceived of this, it was in the context of a pokemon MMO. You would have your home town, and as a trainer, or researcher, or rocket member, etc, you’d travel at a real-time pace akin to the show.
    
    Alternative IP that it could work with are dragonball (imagine the playerbase on a months long search to find/fight over the dragonballs so they could awaken the dragon and make a wish to the devs), or Avatar (each player would have a chance to spawn in as a random bender. One player at any given time is the Avatar. Events happen to strengthen some benders and weaken others. Players make war and peace at will).
    
    There would obviously be challenges in running these types of experiences, but currently it feels like the cost of standing up an MMO is so much that no one ever does anything interesting. Instead they just copy WoW.
    
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cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Witcher 3 and Elden ring were massive, and I enjoyed them because the world’s were beautiful, non repetitive, and dense with unique material.

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bookmeat@lemmynsfw.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s about how much time is spent between points of interest. The size doesn’t matter.

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thatradomguy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Was that 30GB RAM Harry Potter game real or were my friends messing with me? 'Cause my answer would be that.

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twinnie@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It can never be too big, but it’s a problem if it’s a big city with nothing to do (Cyberpunk).

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I_Jedi@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I say density, though Elite Dangerous puts a spin on how large the map should be.

In Elite Dangerous, most of the galaxy is unexplored. The Bubble (human inhabited area) is fully explored, which steadily dwindles as you go to about 1k ly outside the Bubble. Out there, you’re basically on your own.

When you explore and map unexplored areas, you actually get some money depending on the quality of your finds. If you find some Earth-like planets, for instance, you can get a lot of money from exploring. There is also an inexhaustible supply of systems to explore, so there’s no need to worry about running out.

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- MilitantAtheist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I spent 3 months in the void, didn’t see another player for the entire run.
  
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orochi02@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Morrowind

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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Morrowind was exactly the perfect size for its content.
  
  I would argue Daggerfalls map is unnecessarily large for the content it offers. At least Morrowinds NPCs have regional variation. In Daggerfall every innkeeper is exactly the same NPC. Its a technical marvel of its time, but by current standards is rather shallow.
  
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  - orochi02@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yea i think I mixed it up
    
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edgemaster72@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
To summarize this thread: It’s not the size of the map, it’s how you use it

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- YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hey it’s a totally average sized map! Some would even say it’s too much!
  
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  - Zorque@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It has pools in it!
    
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classic@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
More than bigger, I want more accessible interior spaces. Like cyberpunk, but you can go into other people's living spaces

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- KammicRelief@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, this. Even if some of it is procedurally generated, how fun would it be to go in ANY door in cp77??
  
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  - frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Everything except the story bits would be procedurally generated. And it would probably get pretty boring having like three interior types repeated over and over.
    
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  - Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    First mod I put in fallout puts mor interiors into city buildings. Frankly I’d be happy of 70% were recycled but 100% were accessible.
    
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ICCrawler@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nothing much new to say, just reiteration. A big or huge or gigantic map is fine, so long as it’s populated by meaningful content.

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cmhe@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It is too big when the density of reasons to go there and explore becomes to little.

Personally, I don’t really care for games that have huge maps just to pass through while traveling around. There needs to be a reason in the story for every place to be there.

Every village, town or city needs to be filled with quests and stories, and the space between them as well to a lesser extend. They serve as immersive distractions. They need to be alive.

The map is too big if it cannot be filled with enough stuff to explore and experience.

TBH, I am not much of a sandbox game player and the JC 2 and 3 maps looked nice, but didn’t really invite me to stay and explore a single area for a while, because it the areas didn’t have much depth. I prefer a much higher density of things to do. Each village should have a couple of hours of content, exploring it and the neighboring area. And larger towns or cities even more.

I want to minimize the ‘just cruising through’ parts of maps.

Cyberpunk as well had too much dead space when it comes to stuff to do in many parts of the city.

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IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It is all about the amount of content. If you are just wandering around with nothing work doing than to hell with that.

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PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Basically, how much of the world is interesting/fun.

For example, Fallout 3 doesn’t do a great job of this, as much of the world is baren with no story or gameplay. Half of the world feels like it could be cut out without much loss. The Yakuza games on the other hand, have smaller worlds but they feel massive and fun because there’s always something to do moments away.

The work-around is to make travel fun, so the “empty-space” is just more gameplay. The Just Cause games are the perfect example of this. All the movement mechanics are quick and satisfying, from the grapple and parachute, to the driving, to the OP wingsuit.

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- winety@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  For example, Fallout 3 doesn’t do a great job of this, as much of the world is baren with no story or gameplay. Half of the world feels like it could be cut out without much loss. The Yakuza games on the other hand, have smaller worlds but they feel massive and fun because there’s always something to do moments away.
  
  On the other hand, the world of Fallout 4 feels very cramped; you can’t go 5 meters without encouraging something. Bethesda’s games are interesting in this aspect – the worlds of different games are built similarly, but they differ in some small parameters (as in the density of Fallout 4), so they’re ripe for comparison.
  
  Personally, I feel there were two peaks in Bethesda’s worlds – Morrowind and Skyrim. Both for different reasons.
  
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  - Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    As a Morrowind enjoyer, I find Skyrim to be too shallow. There’s 7 weapons in the game, 7 spells, and nothing really to do.
    
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NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Big enough that I lose interest or notice the padding.

A lot of it boils down to execution. The more urban areas of a Sleeping Dogs or the TW3 map with the Bloody Baron (not the viking map) feel geuinely massive enough though both are on the smaller end. Whereas something like GTA5’s San Andreas actively pissed me off because so much of the game was just driving to and from set pieces on the interstate.

That said: I actively don’t care about completion unless I really love the game. So if something was 40000km^2… I might never leave the two square kilomters the actual game takes place in and not care about the rest.

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magic_lobster_party@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s not about the size, but more about density of meaningful content. I like Elden Ring because every nook and cranny feels worth exploring. It’s the game that dares to hide optional areas behind optional areas, all with their own unique enemies and bosses.

On the other hand, taking Elden Ring as an example again, the mini dungeons were too repetitive. The first time visiting a catacomb is exciting, but it turns into quite a chore after the third time and onwards. You’ve already seen it all. Same thing with the dragon battles.

I think Elden Ring overall strikes a good balance with amount of surprises per square meter.

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- HollowNaught@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think it’s really interesting to compare a game like elden ring to something else like BOTW
  
  My first time playing through elden ring I had an amazing time, and thoroughly enjoyed the open world experience. I made sure to explore every crack in every wall, not necessarily for the rewards, but rather for the exploration itself because that exploration felt magnificent
  
  However, I’ve now played through elden ring four times over the years, and I quickly realised I was only playing for the bosses, with the open world merely being a hindrance to my journey. This problem quickly compounds, as the first few hours of a save is usually you running around buck naked looking for your weapons, smithing stones, flasks, etc.
  
  This is opposed to something like dark souls 3, where your journey to get the build you want usually means you can a 30 second detour from your main path.
  
  Compare this with BOTW, which I’ve also played through a fair few times, and it’s easy to understand why these games are different. Unlike ER, I honestly thought of the bosses as more like hindrances to getting the powers, which would help me traverse the open world. To me, that traversal was the most enjoying thing about the game
  
  This might just be a tinfoil hat theory, but I think this is because of the difference in rewards between the two. Unlike ER, which most rewards being clearly defined and memorable, in BOTW the vast majority of rewards are either
  
  a) spirit orbs from shrines
  
  or
  
  b) korok seeds
  
  While the shrines themselves can be memorised, I’d say it’s practically impossible to remember the location of all these things, mainly because there’s no point - there are so many, you’ll run into your fair share anyway. There are exceptions of course, with weapons and shields and the like, but for the most part it holds true
  
  Anyway, this went on way too long lol
  
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- YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There was one maze type catacomb with teleporting chests that was like a breathe of fresh air.
  
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tpihkal@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t think it can be too large, but like others have said, there has to be enough quality content in each location you can visit to compensate for the vastness of the open world.

It be amazing if you could go inside every single building/dungeon/etc. and have every one of them chockablock full of things to experience, like they did with Elder Scrolls 6, but look how long it took for that game to come out…

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