henke on 27/2/2017 at 16:59
Welcome to the 10k club, dema! :cool:
Piggy, keep drunk posting and you'll be here in no time! :thumb:
SD on 27/2/2017 at 17:00
Oh, these are the games I love. Video games have always been about escapism for me, so I am drawn to the ones that fashion a coherent and exciting world for me to explore.
However I'm finding it difficult to just name one or two, so let me sub-divide the genre down even further to real-world, reality-based fictional and fantasy settings.
In a real-world setting, I had a great time in Renaissance Florence (Assassin's Creed II) and Rome (Assassin's Creed Brotherhood) and I can't separate those two. Beautiful locations to experience.
In fictional worlds based on real places, I'm again split, between Vice City and San Andreas (GTAV's Los Santos suffers, in my opinion, for losing the variety that San Fierro and Las Venturas added to the earlier game). In San Andreas, the world really feels like your oyster, though cruising down Miami's Vice City's oceanfront avenues on a motorcycle listening to Jan Hammer is an experience that is hard to top.
In the fantasy realm, Oblivion's Cyrodiil was a wonderful and diverse place - all of the cities had their own distinct identity - though I maybe enjoyed the Vvardenfell of Morrowind even more, as it felt so mysterious and unexplored, even if the game has dated somewhat. Revisiting Vvardenfell in a modern engine would be a tantalising prospect.
Renault on 27/2/2017 at 17:20
Skyrim's world is just too fun to explore, repetitive quests be damned. It would be my clear cut #1. I really liked Oblivion too.
Far Cry 4 has a nice open world as well, although your mileage may vary on the actual gameplay.
I'm hoping we'll be adding Breath of the Wild to this list starting on Friday.
Renzatic on 27/2/2017 at 17:49
Quote Posted by Brethren
I'm hoping we'll be adding Breath of the Wild to this list starting on Friday.
From what I've read, it'll be a contender at least.
Though if the rumors are true, and the Hyrule in that game is 70 sq. miles, I don't know how they could fill up all that space with stuff to do. Skyrim in comparison is less than a 3rd that size.
chk772 on 27/2/2017 at 17:59
GTA, Elder Scrolls, the Risen series. The Risen games may seem a bit more linear than the other games, but, for me, it doesn't really restrict the feeling of an open world setting for me. It's like a holiday in the Carribean. :)
Renzatic on 27/2/2017 at 18:04
I'd give a nod to Gothic 2, and the first Risen. They're not nearly so large as most open world games, but their landscape designs are so much more interesting, filled to bursting with all kinds of nooks and crannies, I can't help but love them.
Sulphur on 27/2/2017 at 18:36
Quote Posted by Thirith
I couldn't put my finger on what it is, but while I find the world of
The Witcher 3 utterly beautiful, it doesn't resonate with me the way some open world games do.
TW3 is undoubtedly a better game than
Skyrim in almost every single respect, but when I reinstalled
Skyrim over the weekend and checked out the beginning, just being there in that world pulled me in more than it does in Geralt's world, even though the latter looks much better. It's not the first-person vs. third-person thing, because Rockstar's games give me that "being there" feeling as much as
Skyrim does. It may have something to do with the simulation systems you mention;
TW3's world often feels static to me, for want of a better world, while the simulation of
GTA V, even if shallow, makes the world feel dynamic.
Personally, I think it's a combination of these things plus there's the incidental density/density of interaction R* packs into its environments. Apart from the TV and radio shows and NPC chatter you can appreciate passively, you can also interact with the world in a few more ways than just killing people or running them over. There's the phone, the different vehicles, the different in-game activities to try out.
But also, there's the environments themselves. I think GTA V's world scale is just about right -- and by that I mean the literal scale they've used as a reference to construct the buildings and streets and whatever's contained within them. TW3's scale feels a bit compressed, so to speak; just slightly
off -- like everything's that little bit smaller than it should be.
henke on 27/2/2017 at 18:55
Yep, most of the Rockstar and Bethesda open worlds would go on this list. Ubisoft I'm not sure about, but AC:Syndicate definitely makes it in, thanks largely to the excellent Thames section(which TTLG's own Kroakie had a hand in making!).
Other good ones that haven't been mentioned yet:
Post-apocalyptic Canada, in The Long Dark - Gorgeous, deadly, and always something interesting to find around the next bend.
California, Nevada, and Arizona, in American Truck Simulator - Deserts and powerlines. Highways and speeding fines. Gas stations are islands of light, in the pitch black sea of the night. From the canyons in the east to the coast in the west, if you're looking for a way to see this great country, behind the wheel of a Kenworth W900 is the best. I'm not even trying to be all poetic, it just kinda happens automatically when you start describing this game.
chk772 on 27/2/2017 at 19:07
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I'd give a nod to Gothic 2, and the first Risen. They're not nearly so large as most open world games, but their landscape designs are so much more interesting, filled to bursting with all kinds of nooks and crannies, I can't help but love them.
True that. Piranha Bytes gameworlds are filled with life. Bethesda have learned a lot in that regard too though, and the ones in Skyrim and Fallout 4 aren't worse really. They had a very generic world design in Morrowind and Oblivion though.
Sulphur on 27/2/2017 at 19:10
Also, happy 10K, dema! Onwards to the top!
(Good god that's a lot of posts to get to where dethy and ZB are at.)
((Also also, Morrowind had generic world design? Say what? The only thing I liked about Morrowind was its otherworldliness.))
