Last year, when I started playing Immortals: Fenix Rising, I was excited to play a far more colorful open-world action game. After years of realistic, tiresome open-world games that Ubisoft had become known for, Fenix Rising looked to be a breath of fresh air that seemed to take inspiration from all things, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, when I claimed my first tower, the game instantly bloomed with tasks to do, items to collect, all in the name of "encouraging" me to explore Fenix Rising's vast world.
It’s here where I said to myself, “I am never going to complete this game.” My hopes of Fenix Rising to be a much more innovative game were dashed as the title suffered the same problem that open-world games have been dealing with for the last few years, the need to force you to explore the world rather than encourage you to.
You see, Immortals: Fenix Rising can't help but give you busy work whenever you access a waypoint. Combat challenges, puzzles, and other tasks are all here, but the game locks ability coins and gear behind these challenges. Rather than exploring Fenix's vast world and get engrossed in the story, I was forced to complete challenges out of fear that I wouldn't stand a chance against some of the game's later enemies.
I was recently re-playing Spider-Man on PS5 for the umpteenth time (in honor of Spider-Man day) and realized how well the game gave me the option to not b-line it to the end but instead encouraged me to explore the extensive re-creation of New York. In addition to Side-Missions, Spider-Man also had many collectibles to obtain, which could be used to get suits. In addition to being based on famous re-creations of Spidey's Iconic outfit, they also had a unique ability that the player can use, from increased damage to using a powered-up Spider-Drone.
However, never did I feel like the game was forcing me to get everything. All the suit's new abilities didn't drastically change the gameplay, meaning I could pick and choose which costume I could work on obtaining. There are also minor upgrades that can be obtained by spending collectible points, but they're just that: minor.
I feel open-world games are at their best when they let the player do what they want. Far too often, I feel like many Open-World adventures are far more linear than they want to be.
Rather than allowing the player to do whatever they want, developers are too often scared that Players won't want to spend so much time in the world they created that they'll get bored and move on to something else.
If I had to think of another game that got Spider-Man's design philosophy down, it would probably be Far Cry 5.
Far Cry would force gamers to explore the world in the past few games by making players craft to obtain better equipment, climb towers to see the rest of the map and destroy outposts to lower enemy activity in certain areas.
But, rather than just creating a better world, devs keep forcing players to explore their digital landscape. By making so much to do mandatory, you’ve overstimulated the player within an hour after they began the journey.
Far Cry 5 cut a lot of the fat and busy work down by removing crafting and not forcing players to climb towers, something the game even openly joked about. Sure, you still had to destroy outposts to progress, but by removing a lot of the filler the game had, it allowed you to explore and take on missions at your own pace. It's something that I was hoping to see in more games going forward, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
To be fair, it's not just Ubisoft's games that have this problem. Horizon: Zero Dawn with its obsession to craft so much for ammo, Days Gone with its never-ending quests, and so on.
Open-World games have this problem: the developers want you to do what they want vs. what the player wants.
It's a stiff rope to balance on, but the best games in the genre (Spider-Man, GTA 5, Metal Gear Solid 5) give you the freedom to explore your way, and not just the way developers want you to.
In many ways, open-world games that control you can often feel more bloated and limited than any linear. If you give us some breathing room, don’t make it feel like we’re still in the closet.
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