What is An Open World Game?

To me base Minecraft - like old old Minecraft where there was nothing but creepers and basic stuff - is the most useful example of an open world game that I can think of. Because in that game the world successfully simulates persistent and meaningful consequences in response to the player's choices and behavior.

The important thing to note about BASE old old Minecraft is that there was no main quest line or any side quests as far I know. Because you want to know why? Because questing and storyline have nothing to do with what makes a game qualify as being open world.

I believe this is why many people say with confidence that Cyberpunk is open world because it has a main storyline and a lot of side quests. It is also why I say Cyberpunk is NOT open world - because as I said before, quests and story have nothing to do with qualifying as being open world.

If you set off TNT in Minecraft it leaves a crater behind... FOREVER. If you build a tower or a castle, it stays there FOREVER or until someone decides to blow it up with some TNT. All very REASONABLE consequences to the players actions.

But what happens in Cyberpunk when you commit crimes out in the open? The entire street of people disappears as soon as you turn your back. Which is a reaction that has NOTHING REASONABLE to do with the player choosing to commit a crime.

Same as when you stand in front of a cop and then all of a sudden he starts shooting you in the face. A reaction that once again... has NOTHING REASONABLE to do with your decision to stand next to the cop.

Eh I dunno. I'm downloading stuff for my new laptop all day so I typed this out of boredom enjoy.

i'd mostly agree with your definition.

to me, an open world game is #1 a game that has a functional world, and #2 a world the player can freely interact with at will and #3 has consequences for those actions.

You are really desperate aren't you? The same arguments as before in a new thread. If I was a suspicious guy I'd say you love the attention your trolling gets

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jacobiarno wrote:

I just want to give the answer in my view. that's all

Oh damn, wasn't talking about you but about the OP

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Johny_Snow wrote:

If I was a suspicious guy I'd say you love the attention your trolling gets

Yeah, I don't think that takes much suspicion.

Also, the answer is pretty obvious:

What is an open world game?

A miserable little pile of secrets.

But enough talk...Have a fetch quest!

"Successfully simulates persistent and meaningful consequences"

It's hard to say what it's a simulation of... the real world? A different game?

An open-ended game may or may not have elements of the passage of time: craters slowly fill in by subsidence and erosion, castle stones loosen and crumble, planks and rooftops rot and sag, etc.

This may seem like it forces players towards a definite goal: fighting the ravages of nature. it's quite a different challenge though, and one that is not as exciting as fighting battles or raiding and killing other players.

Lots of games have open-ended play modes. RTS games plunk your starting dudes on a vast wilderness and you build an empire with no particular instructions or goals. There's Minecraft, which you can mod into practically any game you like. If you want no quests/bosses you can literally just sit and write a data pack that tells your game not to spawn any of those fuckers. If you want erosion and decay you can install any one of a dozen or so mods that add windstorms, floods, pounding surf, termites, shipworms, earthquakes, kudzu, etc. to your actual game. Have fun battling the elements.

Or you can mod it the other way and fill your games with triggers, conditions, effects, dialog, boss fights, magical effects, level up systems, PVP, raids, new weapons, new combat tricks, story modes, and other shit. Many Minecraft servers run story campaigns and MCMMO to mimic RPGs. Age of Empires and Warcraft II/III had huge RPG and campaign/scenario creator communities. Middle Earth, Zelda, and Final Fantasy total conversion mods exist for all the major Warcraft and Age titles.

Heh if you're really looking for an open-ended experience, find games you want to mod, and mod them.

I guess OP really cares.

TLDR: I'm no game developer and nobody at a GDC presentation would ask me to speak unless it was in demanding a response to "Who the F are you"... The below is just my opinion.


A couple of things:

An "Open World" game doesn't often have to be a "Sand Box" game.

But, a "Sand Box" game is very often an "Open World" game.

:)

An Open World game pretty much describes itself - The world is open and the player is largely free to explore and interact with all the primary gameplay elements.

It doesn't mean that certain areas or gameplay elements and mechanics can't be locked off due to quests or other progression elements. It just means that the majority of what they player experiences is not behind some kind of progresion wall. The player is largely free to "progress" as they wish.

Sandbox games are also largely self-descriptive. Gameplay largely involves interacting and combining a game's mechanics to experience various, often varying, results in progressing towards a goal. A "pure" sandbox game might be a puzzle-marker or a crafting-game. Another could be a "production and management game." The idea is that the player can interact with all the game's mechanics and elmenets in very much a freestyle mode of play. Sandbox games usually rely on "creative" play.

But, some things like certain crafting tools or advanced mechanics may have their own prerequisites or progression lines.


Games on Rails - Games that have deep questlines that "progress" the player through the game's content are largely none-of-the-above. Even a game that has open-world elements where the player can just screw off and blow stuff up are not truly "open world" if most of the other experiences in the game rely on completing "quests" or are locked behind progression elements.

How rigorously structured is a game in terms of the gameplay elements, experiences, and mechanics the player has access to as soon as they start playing?

If you can answer that question, you can pretty much decide on the genre of game you're playing as it relates to open-world, sandbox, or progression-locked play.

Examples:

Skyrim is an open-world game. It's not a sandbox. It has a story-quest line of progression elements that isn't necessary for the player to engage in... mostly. BUT, it does lock-off certain gameplay mechanics a tiny bit. They're not significant locks, though.

Minecraft is a sandbox that is also an open-world game. It does have certain progression elements, but they don't have to be engaged with at all to experience the vast majority of the game's mechanics. (Crafting and exploration is required, though.)

Baldur's Gate II is neither an open-world nor a sandbox game as the majority of the content is entirely progression driven. It has some free-form elements, though. (Party and RPG elements)

Mount&Blade:Warband is very much an open-world game. It's not "much" of a sandbox game, but there aren't many progression mechanics the player is prevented from accessing. In that the player can achieve primary game goals using a few different supported means is sandboxy, though.

Factorio is, very likely, entirely a sandbox game. It's difficult to apply "open world" to it, but I'd guess it'd qualify. It's also very much a "builder" and "crafting" game with some "management" elements, I guess?

Rimworld is a murder simulator with cannibalistic elements...It has open-world elements, sandbox play, and deep crafting, building, management elements.

In my definition more story oriented games like Skyrim (or whole Elder Scrolls series), X-Series,GTA V where players can proceed on a smaller scale after they beat the main story .

In regards of true sandbox games i would name vanilla Minecraft or Terraria and Starbound to some extent.

The latter three give you a lot of tools to craft your own sandcastle .
They especially have a very high replayability given how many different seeds exist to make every RNG world a different adventure.

I love how this is literally the last place on my regular internet even talking about Cyberpunk anymore (which of course this thread is, despite morkonan's delightful but very in-character inability to read the room, giving it far more dignity than it deserves) because you're not allowed to talk about anything else going on. Not a slight on said restrictions -- my approval of them was immediate and remains ongoing. Just an observation that in the absence of significant controversy, people's jimmies will just get all rustled about insignificant ones.

But eh, one look at General Discussion probably confirms that. Or any given Announcement thread.