![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Worse yet, you could venture out into the frontier, the 75% of the map that wasn’t used. If you were unfamiliar with the large loop, you could spawn anywhere and be completely lost for the next 10-20 minutes. Other games may do something similar (such as the new Rust), but the penalties of dying in Rust Legacy were harsh. If someone killed you they could take your map and head to points that you’ve marked, so usually it wasn’t a good idea to mark where your base was. The map would only show what you had explored, and you could put markers on it if you wanted to. In Legacy Rust you would make your own map and take care of it. It was a big open world with a road that looped around a quarter of the map but there was always a lingering fear that if you ventured too far away from it then you’d never find your way back. Not Rust as we know it today with its proc-gen islands of a repetitive nature, but the original Hapis Island. The only other current-generation game I’ve felt truly lost in is Legacy Rust. I don’t wish The Witcher III was any smaller, in fact, looking at Cyberpunk 2077’s map, I wish Cyberpunk 2077 was much larger. The Witcher III is only 5 km 2 larger than Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey yet it feels much larger due to its wilderness and its style of open-world gameplay where you’re not told ‘You must go here now!’. I hadn’t felt that way about a game since playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time more than two decades ago. By the time I reached the Skellige Isles I was in awe. Although the starting area of White Orchard was quite small, Velen blew my mind. So, which two games have I felt truly lost in this generation? The first would be on a lot of people’s lists. This completely removes the perception of being lost in an open world, making maps like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s 130 km 2 seem a lot smaller than they actually are, and even smaller yet when you can press a button to put Alexios or Kassandra on auto-pilot. Secondly, markers displayed on-screen can’t show the exact distance away you are from your next waypoint or objective. For games to let you feel truly lost, firstly the map needs to be one of gradual growth and not one you can immediately see when you hit the pause button (I’m looking at you Ghost of Tsushima). Let me ask you this: When was the last time you felt truly lost in a video game world?įor me, there are only two current-generation games that have made me stop and question exactly how much further into the wilderness I can travel. Throw in a bike or a car or even a helicopter or a plane and suddenly you’re traversing an enormous map much faster than on foot. Let’s be honest, most maps aren’t that hard to traverse either. Whenever a new open world Ubisoft or CD Projekt Red game is announced, the first thing I want to know is its location and size. I’m that guy that sees a big empty space and has to find out if there’s anything behind the rocks at the end of it (damn it Sucker Punch, why’ve you gotta hide the banners there?). Also, have you ever been for a walk in a park? Do you venture off the beaten path much? At all? Can’t you just observe the huge empty space and appreciate its vastness? I’m glad AAA publishers are obsessed with big open worlds because I want them to be bigger. There are locks on doors to keep out people like you. People argue silly things like “I’d rather a smaller world where I can enter every building” or “There was a huge empty space with so much room for activities, but there weren’t any.” Well, guess what buck? You can’t enter every building in real life. There’s a reason why the Mario Galaxy and Odyssey games are higher rated and more well received than the New Super Mario Bros. There’s a reason the Mario games switched to open world in the Nintendo 64 era. An adventure is not judged by your reward upon completion but by the events you experience along the way. To become someone (or something) else, if only for a moment. Let’s be honest, we all play games to escape our real-world responsibilities. Open worlds are the best way to give the player a sense of adventure. Who wants more realistic 1:1 style games like The Division 2 but on a grander scale? Me. Who wants an empty big open world with nothing to do? Nobody. A larger map does not mean a better game. Here at Rocket Chainsaw we are constantly debating the relevance of big open worlds to how good a game is, and while our editor Andrew wishes they were less obsessed, I’d straight up like to say the map size is irrelevant. ![]()
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