Skyrim & Co: Open-World

Open World games will be greater from year to bigger. But that's completely idiotic, right? I find that games like Assassin's Creed & Co. finally have to learn an important lesson.

• Hitman 3 is making it: a good Open World does not have to be big
• Game worlds have to be smaller again!

A Comment by Robert Kohlick.

Hitman 3 is making it: a good Open World does not have to be big

For years, there are a trend in open-world games, which prepares with worries: You must always get bigger and more extensive. Proudly brag developers and publishers with how huge their game world is and bribes sometimes with the exact Number of square kilometers - and again and again we drop players on this cheap pocket player trick. "Game X is five times bigger than its predecessor!" Sounds cool on the paper!

But are we honest: Who from us really explored the complete 1,024 km² of Just Cause 4? And would be Assassin's Creed: Odyssey a worse game, if the world is only half the size? For me the answer is clear: No!

What an Open World is really interesting for me, I understood that only after playing Hitman 3. The laugh of IO Interactive sets a completely different focus. In contrast to the competition, the separated Open World Level in Hitman 3 is almost tiny - and yet after dozens of hours still no feeling of boredom. But what is that?

Reading

Hitman 3 in the test: Game again, Agent 47

Alexander Gehlsdorf

Hitman 3 gives me exactly what I expect from a good Open World game: interesting stories and decision possibilities in the continuous fire. Another vibrant game world that works organically and diverse and reacts to my actions, as well as the feeling that there is still something new to discover somewhere. Constantly, I find another hidden secret passage, ceiling a new story mission on or find quasi by chance when exploring an additional detail of the story that remained hidden so far. The density of exciting events, observations and discoveries is simply unbelievable.

Hitman 3 (PS4) at Amazon

_Ein model for every Open World game! Hitman 3 shows what it really arrives: _

Game worlds have to be smaller again!

But that's exactly these aspects miss many Open World games. Instead of confronting me in manageable intervals with unique stories, I get filling material in the form of repeatable quests, which stretch the playing time for several hours. And instead of overtaking from a cool location directly to the next, I must first felt for three hours on my Gaul. Such things in the end only ensure that my player experience is unnecessarily diluted. According to the principle: mass instead of class. In my opinion, the whole stuff can be gone!

Dear Open World developer, my advice to you: makes your game worlds finally smaller and focuses on providing for us players at every corner to discover something interesting. This shortens our season, no question! But if a highlight chases the other, your game will remain significantly better - I can promise you.

_ And where we are about to express our wishes: On these great games features we can also give up in the future: _

Of course, there are also exceptions such as The Crew, where the tabling of the huge game world is part of the gameplay, or Shadow of the Colossus, in which the ubiquitous emptiness contributes to the storytelling - but especially for huge role-playing games and many other genre representatives apply to me : If the game world looks too much like a replaceable backdrop that rarely holds memorable adventures - Yes then you did something wrong, dear developers!

Whether my wish is finding in the end, remains to be seen. Probably I bite with my suggestions for many on granite. In the future we will probably continue to get cheap "All You Can Eat" buffets instead of round three-course menus. But you will probably still dream...