Is Every Game Open World Now? Open-World Games Dominate Gaming

Every game seems to have the open-world tagline these days. Selling you a giant world to explore and expecting 500+ hours of your time. Which is great value for money, but how many of these games have the world building, quest lines and story to back up their sprawling environments? How have they been dominating for so long and what is it that keeps them at the top?

What isn’t open-world?

Often open-world gets confused for Sandbox games, or ‘open-zone’ gets called open world. Sandbox games are games like Minecraft and to a degree Animal Crossing New Horizons. In sandbox games the player has control over the landscape and build their world, rather than exploring a built world. Open-zone could describe Mario Odyssey: you progress through areas in any order but there is still structure to the overworld. As games developed the open-concept game started as Sandbox or Open-Zone, but for more on that check out The Game of Nerds article on The Evolution of Open World Games

What is Open-World?

Open-world might mean that the game has a massive map, but ultimately a good way to define ‘open-world’ is through how much agency does the player have to explore the world in any order. Open-world doesn’t have to mean miles and miles of map, but rather you choose the direction to go in first and the game doesn’t punish you for going against a ‘encouraged’ route. Open-worlds are most often found in RPGs, simulation, sandbox and survival games. 

Remember The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you come out of the tutorial (which can also be completed in any order) and all you know is you’re meant to save Hyrule and Zelda. You’re gently encouraged by the landscape to head one way and it’s open for you to wander off and explore at your leisure. That’s what makes a game open world, a map to be explored in whichever way the player chooses to. The Legend of Zelda has time and time again made waves, challenging what an open game can be, how much agency can players have, for more on that check out our article on How The Legend of Zelda Changed Gaming Forever. 

Genres are objective, but for the sake of this article we’re defining open-world as primarily being about player agency within a structured experience which allows each player to have a unique experience. 

What is the appeal of open-world games?

So it’s definitely having agency in how they play their games, how they adventure and play through the story. For games like Skyrim, it’s a common joke online for people to have ignored the main narratives and get lost in the side quests. But it’s being able to choose to explore the world without boundaries if you haven’t completed a certain part of the story. 

Increasingly consumers of all media want more from the worlds they already know. They want to know every character, every problem, hero and history of the world they’re exploring. Making a sequel or the next game in the franchise more open feeds into that desire, ultimately meeting the needs of the players. It’s harder to get people into new franchises when the ones they already love could be expanded upon ten fold before they feel like they know everything. 

Exploration of the open-world is the appeal. Having that sense of freedom, being able to solve puzzles and quests in different ways and in different orders is the appeal and incentive to progress through the game. For the random NPC that you become obsessed with and check in on to see if something else you do affects them. Dynamic social systems and player driven narratives are all a part of the exploration based motivation. 

The other element that I think is the appeal of open-world games, replayability. Games are expensive, players want to get their money’s worth, the freedom within a structured landscape allows players to build unique playstyles. Each time you play, you can create a new experience within the game by making different choices or doing challenge runs. Or even games with active modding communities, there are endless options for replaying and having a different experience to the first playthrough. 

Do people dislike open-world games?

There are people in the world who don’t like open-world games, they can be overwhelming, intimidating and even inaccessible for new gamers. Even for seasoned players, an open-world game can feel empty, pointless and sometimes like the player doesn’t have an effect on the world as they progress through it. 

Why does it dominate?

The whole development cycle now takes longer, development companies can’t turn over games as quickly making each of their games a bigger gamble for the company. Expanding on worlds that already have an audience is a safer gamble then a smaller world that people may not like. 

Games are only getting more expensive. For players, open world games have a better chance of having something that you like about it. Linear games if they don’t deliver, can feel like a waste of 60+ dollars. For companies, open-world games guarantee more people will buy because it feels like they’re getting more game for their money and with so many mechanics and systems in open games, the longer development cycle feels more worthwhile to the company. These varied systems mean that players are more likely to like a part of the game … you see the cycle that keeps open-world games at the top. 

Games don’t need to be open-world – it doesn’t hurt though

The market is over-saturated with games that claim to be open-world experiences, it’s overused as a descriptor because it helps convince people to play their games. It makes players feel like it’s a safer bet for their money, developers make open-world games because people will buy them, especially if they’re expanding on the world they already know. Open-world games are great, even when the games are sub-par, there will be people who love the game anyway, despite all of its faults.