If an open world game doesn't distract you from the main story, it's trash

[MikeLowrrrey]

Always lol at people buying trash open games then complaining how it's boring.

If I know an open world game isn't gonna draw my attention from the main story then I won't bother playing it.

Witcher 3, Skyrim and I predict Cyberpunk 2077 are great examples of what open world games should be

[PopASquatt]

Most Ubisoft produced "open world" games are like this, (maybe not Far Cry 5, I heard that was good) side missions are filler that feel more like chores.

[wasp9166]

Rdrd2 as well

[MikeLowrrrey]

Rdrd2 as well

Rockstar games wasn't really all that great open world games. It took me some years to realize this, but I finally understand. Reason why GTA is good is because of story and you can mess around a lot

But put Skyrim vs GTA 5, and it's no competition, Skyrim wins hands down.

[CrimsonSteel]

Skyrim was absolute trash. A waste of an awesome map. I legit had more fun walking around looking at the scenery than I did completing generic, repetitive dungeons. And the combat is so wonky. Whole thing was as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a puddle, as one reviewer called it.

"I'm fighting a dragon, oh no!"

(Hits pause. Digs through menu for health power up, magic+ bonus, and switches three spells. Entire process pauses the fight.)

"How immersive!"

Fallout was trash, too. Fire a gun three times and it breaks. "Welp, gotta clear off the rust I guess and repair the thing." That's not realistic and gritty, it's tedious.

More time is spent with menus and upgrade trees than anything in Bethesda games. Never understood their appeal.

[JayJ350]

Yeah Skyrim is pretty much a perfect open world game as I never even enjoyed playing the main quest lol

[MikeLowrrrey]

Skyrim was absolute trash. A waste of an awesome map. I legit had more fun walking around looking at the scenery than I did completing generic, repetitive dungeons. And the combat is so wonky. Whole thing was as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a puddle, as one reviewer called it.

"I'm fighting a dragon, oh no!"

(Hits pause. Digs through menu for health power up, magic+ bonus, and switches three spells. Entire process pauses the fight.)

"How immersive!"

Fallout was trash, too. Fire a gun three times and it breaks. "Welp, gotta clear off the rust I guess and repair the thing." That's not realistic and gritty, it's tedious.

More time is spent with menus and upgrade trees than anything in Bethesda games. Never understood their appeal.

Compared to all the other open world games it's definitely waaaay better. Hopefully they improve and make good changes. The menu thing was silly

Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk 2077 will be GOAT

[Kcrack]

I'm kind of doing this with Borderlands 3 now, even though it's semi open world. So much fun exploring and looting.

[whitedoor]

I thought Oblivion did this really well.

solid guild story lines and other side quests.

[WoofieNugget]

Wanting to complete the side missions is a great indicator of a good game. Sleeping Dogs was awesome at this.

[KathleenRyan]

Rdrd2 as well

Yeah, I would say RDR2 succeeded in this as well, although in a different way than say Witcher 3.

My main gripes for RDR2 is just that the game's pacing is inexcusably slow, and IMO the story could have been a lot better. The game also has a lot of bugs/glitches considering it was made by an AAA company and has had 2 years of patch updates.

But they did a good job with the open world, overall.

[JStrez]

I forget what game it was, but me and my roommate were playing the same RPG open world game. I asked my friend what level/mission he was on, and he didn't start the second one, whereas I had just beaten the game and was doing the side missions. This dude went out and beat every single side mission in the entire game before even starting the main story. It was like after the first introductory mission, you could go out and do anything, and he went out and beat every single side mission.

[TokenV]

I forget what game it was, but me and my roommate were playing the same RPG open world game. I asked my friend what level/mission he was on, and he didn't start the second one, whereas I had just beaten the game and was doing the side missions. This dude went out and beat every single side mission in the entire game before even starting the main story. It was like after the first introductory mission, you could go out and do anything, and he went out and beat every single side mission.

Honestly, that's what I call a cool story brah. Such a riveting tale, I honestly copy and pasted it to word, saved on my hard drive, backed it up on a jump drive, drove to the bank, put the jump drive in the safe deposit box, and will leave it there until my kids turn about 12 (when they can actually state their age, and ask what it is I'm showing them), when I will pick it up, put it in an old USB drive reader and relay this cool story to them and tell them, "kids, this is what a cool story should look and sound like...not like the stories your generation tells.

[Sinan09400]

Skyrim was a masterpiece. There were times I climbed up to some mountain, set up a camp (mods) and just watched the auroras while listening to Jeremy Soule- Secunda (its in the soundtrack).

Played lots of games and none of it made me do this ever again.



perfection

[MarioZ93]

Skyrim was a masterpiece. There were times I climbed up to some mountain, set up a camp (mods) and just watched the auroras while listening to Jeremy Soule- Secunda (its in the soundtrack).

Played lots of games and none of it made me do this ever again.



perfection

yeah the soundtrack is mostly what makes an open world game good for me and skyrim was one of the best

[EoR]

100 hours into Witcher 3, level 32 and it's a great combination of theme+open world. Though, so many games really don't know how to handle XP gains and level scaling so there has to be many mods for that and other failures such as inventory management.

You do get punished if you complete everything because you will outlevel the main quests and get the 1/15th penality. These quest sgive the bulk of your XP, so I am constantly having to check the XP gains for each side/contract quest so I don't pass the 4-5 level threshold. That really is annoying, I've rather level XP required go up exponentially than be a static 2K. You can use an XP for any quest mod but I am trying to play it as vanilla as possible for now, plus you will then out level too much trivializing main quests.

Hoping Cyberpunk comes out on November and is equal or better than Witcher 3, because that will provide months of gaming.

Fallout/Skyrim didn't have the writing and combat/build depth of Witcher 3, so I got bored of them well before 100 hours. I also hated the STRICT level scaling in Oblivion games, which made progression pointless and you shake your head when you kill a dusty vagabond that drops T1 gear.

[CrimsonSteel]

Compared to all the other open world games it's definitely waaaay better. Hopefully they improve and make good changes. The menu thing was silly

Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk 2077 will be GOAT

Compared to what other open world games? Bethesda makes some of the lamest open world games out, IMO. It's all so middling and bland. The voice acting, the storylines, the tedium in gameplay...every aspect of Bethesda open worlds besides the music seems designed to be boring and plodding. Hell, if you pick up too much sh!t your character moves at a snail's pace. It's basically 400 hours of lackluster filler.

"You can be a blacksmith! You can craft armor! You have 90 upgrade trees! There's full books you can read in-game!" It's all so boring. Where's the gameplay? Sitting in menus isn't immersive. Next Elder Scrolls you'll have to sh!t and find medieval toilet paper to wipe your ass, and a bunch of people will go "10/10, game of the decade."

People love to trash Ubisoft but I'll take the Far Cry and Assassins Creed games over ANY of the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games in a heartbeat. Blood Dragon, pound for pound, blows Skyrim out of the water.

[BearyManilowe]

Yeah nothing better than 10 hours of story and 90 hours of fetch quests and "exploration"...........

[NsaneOne]

OP have you played Metro Exodus? That's a real immersive open world. I get lost in the world everytime I play.

[MikeLowrrrey]

Compared to what other open world games? Bethesda makes some of the lamest open world games out, IMO. It's all so middling and bland. The voice acting, the storylines, the tedium in gameplay...every aspect of Bethesda open worlds besides the music seems designed to be boring and plodding. Hell, if you pick up too much sh!t your character moves at a snail's pace. It's basically 400 hours of lackluster filler.

"You can be a blacksmith! You can craft armor! You have 90 upgrade trees! There's full books you can read in-game!" It's all so boring. Where's the gameplay? Sitting in menus isn't immersive. Next Elder Scrolls you'll have to sh!t and find medieval toilet paper to wipe your ass, and a bunch of people will go "10/10, game of the decade."

People love to trash Ubisoft but I'll take the Far Cry and Assassins Creed games over ANY of the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games in a heartbeat. Blood Dragon, pound for pound, blows Skyrim out of the water.

Compared to every Ubisoft game. Compared to GTA. There's always something in a Bethesda open world game pulling me away from the main story. You named one weakness, which is the menus, besides that it's great. Remember walking into this Cave on Skyrim thinking wtf is this, picking up scripts to see what had happened and the backstories which were all interesting.

Did you know Ubisoft follows the same formula over and over again with all their games. They copy and paste everything whereas games like Skyrim are built from the ground up. Please don't compare trash with Bethesda Skyrim.

OP have you played Metro Exodus? That's a real immersive open world. I get lost in the world everytime I play.

I beat Metro Exodus months ago, I'm actually on the 2nd DLC.

Metro is better than Fallout if you ask me.

[CrimsonSteel]

Compared to every Ubisoft game. Compared to GTA. There's always something in a Bethesda open world game pulling me away from the main story. You named one weakness, which is the menus, besides that it's great. Remember walking into this Cave on Skyrim thinking wtf is this, picking up scripts to see what had happened and the backstories which were all interesting.

Did you know Ubisoft follows the same formula over and over again with all their games. They copy and paste everything whereas games like Skyrim are built from the ground up. Please don't compare trash with Bethesda Skyrim.

I mentioned way more than menus. It's got...

- Boring, generic stories
- Lame, one dimensional characters
- Boring, unfulfilling gameplay
- Tons of useless, bland mechanics
- Excessive menu time
- Excessive time spent managing items or upgrade trees
- Repetitive dungeons
- Lame combat lacking immersion
- Nothing feels serious at all. None of your actions change anything in the world. It's like NO ONE knows the world is ending, and no one knows you saved it after the main quest.
- So much to do and none of it feels like you've accomplished anything. It's like all these nerds rented an island to larp on, that's how uninspiring and bland every aspect of execution is.
- Even the land itself is bland; washed out colors. It all bleeds together.

Blood Dragon, pound for pound, makes Skyrim look like paint drying. I got more out of the 4 - 8 hours of fun, immersive gameplay of Blood Dragon than I did struggling through the first few hours of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim combined. Bethesda open worlds are an exercise in tedium.

You trash Ubisoft games because it's fashionable. Congratulations, you took an easy stance. I think the AC games lagged big time with Unity and Syndicate, but Origins, IV, III, and II were all ace. And Far Cry has been dumb fun action movies that nail it every time since 2. 2, 3, Blood Dragon, 4, Primal, and 5 were all a ton of fun. Every video game can be boiled down to repetitious tasks. Everyone acts like Ubisoft are the only ones guilty of this, but Skyrim was just as repetitive. You can do 10,000 things and they're all boring as f$%^.

I agree the Metro series is superior to Fallout.

[MikeLowrrrey]

I mentioned way more than menus. It's got...

- Boring, generic stories
- Lame, one dimensional characters
- Boring, unfulfilling gameplay
- Tons of useless, bland mechanics
- Excessive menu time
- Excessive time spent managing items or upgrade trees
- Repetitive dungeons
- Lame combat lacking immersion
- Nothing feels serious at all. None of your actions change anything in the world. It's like NO ONE knows the world is ending, and no one knows you saved it after the main quest.
- So much to do and none of it feels like you've accomplished anything. It's like all these nerds rented an island to larp on, that's how uninspiring and bland every aspect of execution is.
- Even the land itself is bland; washed out colors. It all bleeds together.

Blood Dragon, pound for pound, makes Skyrim look like paint drying. I got more out of the 4 - 8 hours of fun, immersive gameplay of Blood Dragon than I did struggling through the first few hours of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim combined. Bethesda open worlds are an exercise in tedium.

You trash Ubisoft games because it's fashionable. Congratulations, you took an easy stance. I think the AC games lagged big time with Unity and Syndicate, but Origins, IV, III, and II were all ace. And Far Cry has been dumb fun action movies that nail it every time since 2. 2, 3, Blood Dragon, 4, Primal, and 5 were all a ton of fun. Every video game can be boiled down to repetitious tasks. Everyone acts like Ubisoft are the only ones guilty of this, but Skyrim was just as repetitive. You can do 10,000 things and they're all boring as f$%^.

I agree the Metro series is superior to Fallout.

You're probably the only one on planet earth that doesn't like Skyrim LOL. Is Blood Dragon on Console? I'll pick it up.

Ubisoft is equivalent to Activision and COD. I don't respect them. They're a 'safe' Publisher while taking advantage of it's customers and the ruined and dumbed down Tom Clancy games for the masses, namely my beloved Splinter Cell. Aren't all their games nearly RPGs now with random numbers to represent damage?

[GodlessWonder]

GTA 5 & Witcher 3 are actually what I think most open world games should be like: lots of mini-things to do, great side stories that take you to other parts of the map, funny interactions with non-main story NPCs, and the ability to jump back in to the main story at any moment.

Hoping Cyberpunk 2077 delivers. Last two games I played that were promoted like this were Fallout 4 and Mass Effect: Andromeda. The story for both were a let down and the open world's had potential but ultimately failed.

[eod8989]

Skyrim is the GOAT

It's such a beautiful game

[Sinan09400]

GTA 5 & Witcher 3 are actually what I think most open world games should be like: lots of mini-things to do, great side stories that take you to other parts of the map, funny interactions with non-main story NPCs, and the ability to jump back in to the main story at any moment.

Hoping Cyberpunk 2077 delivers. Last two games I played that were promoted like this were Fallout 4 and Mass Effect: Andromeda. The story for both were a let down and the open world's had potential but ultimately failed.

I dunno man while I played Witcher 3 there were times I forced myself to play for the sake of finishing what I have started.

Game felt like an arcade.

[Rexcalibr]

Red Dead2 had a great open world but the missions, storyline and characters (aside from arthur) were so boring , slow and forgettable I quit the game within a couple weeks after I had my fix of wandering around. BOTW had a better open world but I didn't like the shrines and found it too puzzle heavy but BOTW is the superior game imo.

Skyrim has still been the most fun open world game I've played.

[Deathstroke]

Yeah Skyrim is pretty much a perfect open world game as I never even enjoyed playing the main quest lol

That is beautiful. Especially if the main quest is a masterpiece.

[VTheKing]

100 hours into Witcher 3, level 32 and it's a great combination of theme+open world. Though, so many games really don't know how to handle XP gains and level scaling so there has to be many mods for that and other failures such as inventory management.

You do get punished if you complete everything because you will outlevel the main quests and get the 1/15th penality. These quest sgive the bulk of your XP, so I am constantly having to check the XP gains for each side/contract quest so I don't pass the 4-5 level threshold. That really is annoying, I've rather level XP required go up exponentially than be a static 2K. You can use an XP for any quest mod but I am trying to play it as vanilla as possible for now, plus you will then out level too much trivializing main quests.

Hoping Cyberpunk comes out on November and is equal or better than Witcher 3, because that will provide months of gaming.

Fallout/Skyrim didn't have the writing and combat/build depth of Witcher 3, so I got bored of them well before 100 hours. I also hated the STRICT level scaling in Oblivion games, which made progression pointless and you shake your head when you kill a dusty vagabond that drops T1 gear.

I hate how devs refuse to introduce level matching from the start. I just finished the main story for Borderlands 3, minding the suggestion that I skip side quests so I could play them once I unlocked Mayhem Mode (which lets you not only match levels but adjust the difficulty to ungodly levels). The experience got x1000 better after being able to adjust levels and difficulty to my taste.

Levels really were a huge problem in Witcher 3. The main story was written to account for going to Skellige before you head to Novigrad but you're going to be ridiculously underleveled if you do so.

[kr1kit]

For all their faults, The Division and The Division 2 really did an incredible job of distracting me from the missions. The beautiful, haunting winter setting of New York City and then the almost apocalyptic jungle of Washington DC in #2 were completely immersive to me, I would spend hours just running around looking at the buildings, going through the alleys, exploring everything.