Open-World Evolution

02 Dec 2009 at 00:00:00 by Tim McDonald

Open-world games are a bit of a new fad, and it's a fad that's rapidly growing stale.

They're not a new type of game, but they're a new fad. They've been around for ages, with plenty of early CRPGs – from Wasteland through Ultima to the slightly-more-relevant Alternate Reality: The City – taking place in open worlds that let you handle things in a manner that, these days, is generally termed sequence breaking, differing in that there wasn't necessarily a linear order back then.

Now, though, most open-world games do have a linear order. If I say open-world, it probably conjures images of Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause, Saints Row, Prototype, Infamous, and so on and so forth, which are linear games that give you a huge “hub” with plenty of side missions and hidden bonuses to occupy your time. The illusion, usually, is that you're in a living, breathing world that you can impact in a variety of different ways at any given time, even if your ultimate goal is to progress through the entirely linear set of missions that make up the core gameplay.

One old open-world game that probably deserves mention was something surprisingly special, not least because it was a movie tie-in that wasn't utter shite. Bethesda's The Terminator, on PC, gave players the option of taking control of either Kyle Reese, or the Terminator. The Terminator's mission was to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle had to protect her and ultimately destroy the Terminator. The methods used were the same: players had to search out Connor (for varying reasons, admittedly) and destroy their opposite number. You could steal cars, rob banks, and buy guns. As Reese, if you found Connor, you could order her to follow you, stay still, or run away. You could give her items or take them from her. As either character, you really didn't want to run afoul of the police – but you inevitably would.

It was awesome. Bearing in mind this was 1991, you had full 3D (polygonal) environment to wander around in. You could check the phone book to find nearby stores. You could wander down the street. You could nick a car and then go haring into a crowd of civilians. It was, bluntly put, incredible.

And yet no-one's even tried anything like this since. For all the talk that open-world games let you do whatever you want, they don't. I'm not talking about climbing into every building, sitting down, and watching TV, but rather that most games termed open-world are just linear games with large mission hubs and various other activities dotted around. The Elder Scrolls games remain an exception, admittedly, largely because the size of the world and the wealth of side-missions far outstrip the meagre main plot in each game, usually in quality as well as quantity.

As such, we're approaching a nadir. It's not that open-world games are all bad because they're not, by any stretch of the imagination; even the most average ones have sufficient redeeming features that they're usually worth a purchase. But “open-world” is rapidly becoming something at risk of being tacked on to games, much as “online multiplayer” and “co-op” frequently are. They're not the focus of the game. They're a bullet point on the back of the box.

I wouldn't mind so much if someone did something special with the open-world subgenre – no, I'm not dignifying it by calling it a genre – but it's been a long time since anyone has. Even Rockstar appears to have fallen over, creatively speaking. As marvellous a game as GTAIV was, its improvements were in the fidelity of the city itself moreso than in the way the city took on the game, stand-up comedy be damned. GTA was “true” open-world in that players had to acquire a certain amount of money to proceed and could do it through missions, sidequests, or random violence. GTA2 gave players warring factions to work for. GTA3 moved the series into 3D in utterly stunning ways, while adding in a linear plot. GTAIV added stand-up comedy clubs, bowling, and a cellphone. It refined the combat, the driving, and the way the city felt, but it was still a deeply linear game. Why not have GTAV revive the warring factions and allegiance systems of GTA2?

Hell, the marvellous Andy Alderson talked about the possibility of a cop game with what sounded suspiciously like open-world overtones to me, and you know what? Stick in a variety of main plots, procedurally-generated crimes and subplots, and a variety of short-term obstacles that need to be met – quotas, and so on – and I'm all for it, because it'd be something truly different in a subgenre that now seems to revolve around utterly linear missions, action-based combat, and various methods of getting around.

No, not all open-world games are like this, but too many are, and it's not that hard to think of ways to fix this. Playing a few recently has really pointed out to me how much potential there is here, and how much the subgenre needs another boot up the arse. Make my non-linear games non-linear, please, developers.

Comment