Thirith on 27/2/2017 at 11:09

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Since I'm currently playing Watch_Dogs 2, I've been thinking about what makes a good open world for me. For others this may be about sandbox gaming and freedom, but for me it's almost entirely about a cohesive, believable space to explore and live in. I'm impressed by WD2's San Francisco, which IMO is a huge improvement over the relatively drab, boring Chicago of the first game, but while it's very good, for me it's not quite as memorable as the following:

* Los Santos (GTA V): for me this is the gold standard of open worlds. It's varied, its individual parts feel specific and unique, and it's all presented with gorgeous lighting, a day/night cycle and weather that make the place feel not just real but hyperreal: for me, it's concentrated (movie) LA. (When I watched Nightcrawler, I repeatedly thought, "I've been there...", only to realise that where I'd been was Rockstar's reimagining of that place.)
* New Austin, West Elizabeth, and Nuevo Paraiso (Red Dead Redemption): it's been a while since I visited RDR's dying West, but I'd say it's my favourite open world on the previous generation of consoles. It has all the strengths of Rockstar's best work, but added to this it's a world we don't often see in games, and definitely not with this level of detail and personality. As with GTA V, R* puts together fantastic places that are partly real, partly our collective imagination of these places.
* Late Victorian London (Assassin's Creed Syndicate): I'm sure that real Londoners have somewhat more ambivalent feelings about Ubisoft's touristy London, but it's probably my favourite Assassin's Creed location, mainly because of that uncanny mix between familiarity and novelty. I got the game about a week or two after a trip to London, and the first thing I did was go to Trafalgar Square, walk down to Westminster and cross the river. Incidentally, this was also the first Assassin's Creed where I told myself that I wouldn't run anywhere (outside of missions) until I'd got to know the area by walking around, and my appreciation of the virtual place increased massively. I kinda wish I'd done the same with Unity; whether that game is good or bad, its Paris is gorgeous, and in some respects even more so than Syndicate's London.
* Britannia (Ultima VII): probably the first open world that felt like an actual world. The switch from turn-based (Ultima VI) to real-time made a huge difference. Also, I'd known the various cities and towns from Ultima V and Ultima VI, so I had an idea of how they'd developed their own personalities. I've not played the game in a long time and I don't know how much this aspect would hold up, but in my memory and imagination U7's Britannia is still one of the best game worlds to inhabit.

icemann on 27/2/2017 at 11:36

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San Andreas - GTA San Andreas

Witcher 3's open world after that.

Gryzemuis on 27/2/2017 at 12:15

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Size is everything.

I found the open world of TW3 a bit disappointing. A bit too small. Maybe not enough surprises.

You got to mention World of Warcraft here. That world is huge. Well, it used to be big. Before people could use their flying mounts everywhere. Although I dislike the game now, I have fond memories of hours, days, weeks even years of exploration in Azeroth.

Morrowind, Skyrim, even the Dark Souls games (do they count as open world ?) are at the top of my list.

Oh, and GTA5 of course. People take that game for granted. But it is a true masterpiece. I can guarantee you, just 30 years ago, nobody had imagined we would ever see a product like GTA5 in our lifetimes. And certainly not for a lousy 50 euros on a machine that would cost less than a night out with half a dozen friends. We would have envisioned flying cars and cell-phones and cat-scan machines. But something like GTA5 ? Nah, that would have sounded way too impossible.

WingedKagouti on 27/2/2017 at 12:37

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Some memorable open worlds for me:
Stillwater, Steel Port & Hell from the Saints Row franchise.
Manhattan Island as seen in the Prototype games.
Tamriel of the Elder Scrolls.

And it is a small part of Tamriel that makes up my favourite open world: The island of Vvardenfell as seen in Morrowind.

demagogue on 27/2/2017 at 13:52

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Well I just finished off GTAV last night, so I'm still on a high by it, but I expect even a year from now I'll still be just as taken by it. Roaming that world is a joy.

Skyrim also captures me. The catch is that Skyrim is almost too littered with random quest locations, it loses its sense of being a real place sometimes. The best parts, as an open world, are the vast stretches of snow or forest that lead to a great city emerging in the distance.

Procedurals like Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft have their moments. Don't forget those early days playing MC when you took off treking for days and eventually stumbled on to some epic scene where you build some kind of obelesk or shrine to say "I discovered this".

Ultima, I forget the number now, yeah, probably the first computer world to really open my mind. Well, thinking back, Legend of Zelda had to be the very first game world to do that. (That and a clone called Govellius.)

Recently, my own game I've been trying to make makes an open world out of Revolution-era Paris and that's really been capturing my imgination. Unfortunately no one can share it with me unless I can complete it, no easy task as it's a complex game!

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Edit. Incidently, I had an intuition with this post and checked my post count, and sure enough, this is my 10,000th lifetime post on TTLG. (A pretty astounding coincidence actually. Hadn't checked how close I was in months.) So I'm now an official member of the exclusive 10k club. Not a bad post for it.

I want to thank the Academy of course. I'd also like to thank my legs for always supporting me, my arms for always being by my side, and my fingers -- I could always count on them.