I’m over open world games.

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For example, the newer assassin's creeds. While I like them, I rarely complete them because there's not enough small stuff to fill the world out. You just spend too much time traveling with nothing to hold your attention while doing it. It feels hollow.

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Yes! Same thing.

I think the problem is attaching a story to an open world. Like Scrolls has like a mild main storyline. It’s not a super important thing that you feel you need to do. You create your story and character with Elder scrolls and it works.

BotW/Witcher…I spend hours doing side stuff and just get burned out. Then I think about the main story and I’m like…what was I doing again?

Saw a pretty interesting article recently on how the ES Oblivion AI was initially so advanced that NPCs were doing things like stealing from each other and killing themselves as soon as the player started a game on the other side of the map. So they had to tone it down, which resulted in the dumb but IMO lovable AI it and Skyrim have. This was mainly caused by the NPCs having desires programmed in, so any of them that liked alcohol were just constantly trying to find it. The goal was to make them eat, drink, sleep, go to the store, fish, hunt, etc (so basically just live a life).

I think a flaw with other open games is that they didn't go overboard and then throttle back, they only made the AI as good as it was ever capable of being at release. That and many of the worlds just feel really empty.

Just because the game is open world, doesn't mean you have to play it like a open world game. Just run through the story missions, and be done with it. If you want to, go back to the game and explore it.

That's the beauty of an open world game, you can play it how you want.

My problem isn’t so much with open word games as a concept it’s more about the Ubisoft formula of open worlds and games having open worlds that absolutely are worse off for it. Elden Rings open world is so good I wish more games with open words would design theirs similarly.

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FF7 remake

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Which FF is the best 3D RPG?

FF15 is open world, but it’s actually fairly linear. In fact, the entire final 1/3 of the game is entirely linear. Nearly all of the sidequests are optional (I would know because I barely did any of them on my first play through).

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Witcher being too much

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I think this comes down to personality traits of the gamer. I'm currently playing TW3 right now, and coming very near the end of the base game. I cleared every damned thing in White Orchard, because it felt like what I should do. I started doing the same in Velen, and then the world just kept opening up, with more and more points of interest. Then I hit Skellige, and the sheer number of question marks just kind of made me pause. I was self aware enough to know that I would not enjoy clearing all of those question marks, so... I just decided not to.

And honestly? The idea is a bit titillating. Knowing that if I fire up a NG+, I'll probably stumble onto some shite I didn't see or experience in my first play through. But the world is gorgeous, especially for a game that's seven years old. I genuinely enjoy exploring it. And as long as you treat it like a living world instead of a list of check boxes to clear, I see no issue with having another monster, or another treasure chest, or another quest you could set your gaze on were you to so choose.

I can agree with your point to a degree. I personally enjoy the exploration aspect of games. I like finding secrets and being rewarded for off the beaten path exploration. It's part of why I like metroidvania games so much.

Not many open world games need to be open world though. Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher 3, and Elden Ring however work very well with this setting. I don't necessarily find open world to be daunting or anything...but a lot of them fail to keep my attention for long enough to experience the full game.

Elden Ring is in a league of it's own for me though. Not just the large world to explore, but the aesthetics of the game alone keep me intrigued. My first time going down the elevator into Siofra really captured my imagination. I had a lot of fun with Skyrim when it came out, but now I feel like it's lacking in environment design and enemy encounters compared to Elden Ring. To each their own though. Skyirm is still a great game, I just wish there was more. I feel that way about Fallout games too. Probably because I've played those games into the ground and then some.

Agreed

I won’t bore everyone with reasons but I’ll just say I still enjoy open world games knowing I’ll never come close to completing them. MAYBE I can bang out the main story but that isn’t really the point of an open world is it?

As always I’m several years behind but recently started Last of Us and like you said, the linearity can be refreshing

Edit: all that said and I’m firing up Elden ring right now