Current Events > I wish open world games had more dynamic stuff going on.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm playing through Horizon Zero Dawn Complete on PC and it's a lot of fun, I'm usually not into these kind of games. I think the responsiveness of the combat, and the ability to make it as difficult as I usually want my games to be, is fun. But it's really just Far Cry 3 again. Enemies will generally only spawn in their big icons on the map. The best fights are in set piece moments or quests. You'll rarely see random people fighting random robots just because they crossed paths, etc.

I've played a few games that do it well (STALKER comes to mind) but I feel like "AAA sandbox game" has been a near identical formula for as long as I can remember which is a collect-a-thon mixed with a skinner box.

A warred after tribal land mixed with marauders, allies, bandits, killer robot dinosaurs and so on should be a warzone. But everything waits for you to be around. Witcher 3 comes to mind for this too. I dunno. Maybe this is why sandbox games aren't for me and I prefer tighter knit games.

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yeah, i'm playing AC Valhalla and the entire game world only exists to give you something between point A and point B. Nothing happens, there are no random events, side activities, nothing. People have grown to hate open world games because devs absolutely squander and piss away any potential they have. It all comes down to too many focus groups and stockholder meetings, and far, far, far too few actual creative minds.

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While I really liked H:ZD, it felt more like a proof of concept than a full game. Like there aren't any proper bosses in it, the rewards for finding collectibles are just garbage, and a lot of the items marked as crafting materials don't actually do anything.

It's one reason I'm really looking forward to Forbidden West because I want to see if they improve on that aspect.

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viewmaster_pi posted...

yeah, i'm playing AC Valhalla and the entire game world only exists to give you something between point A and point B. Nothing happens, there are no random events, side activities, nothing. People have grown to hate open world games because devs absolutely squander and piss away any potential they have. It all comes down to too many focus groups and stockholder meetings, and far, far, far too few actual creative minds.

It's new icing on the same cake with Ubisoft open world games. Shareholders and focus groups look at dressing the successful big budget, guaranteed to sell formula in a new setting. Not utilizing the new setting for gameplay features. The fact you can't get longboats together and pillage monasteries and kill priests is wild. The game actually desyncs you for raiding.

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The viking aspect itself is completely fucked. The danes were not nice people. They were religious nutjobs who didn't even kill for supplies, it was just to scratch off an arbitrary blood sacrifice count for their absurd gods. In another timeline, the game might have had you playing as an Englishman pushing back invaders. Lord knows there were enough of them.

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