Open world with level design

What are some open world games where every part of the landscape feel unique and intentional, and nothing feels copy-pasted? The only ones I can think of are Dragon's Dogma and Paradise City.

2D games are easy-mode

BotW

Fallout 4

How fucking shit is Paradise?

Good going lads, all we need now Skyrim.

If you loved crash mode in Burnout 3, you'd hate Paradise. Also if you're a racer type that enjoying shooting for the lowest time, you're not going to like it. You have to really like the combative nature of Burnout's driving and get into the expanded stunts that cars are capable of to really get into Paradise.

It's a divisive game.

Gotta call bullshit on that one. There are totally areas to BoTW that feel like they just rushed it out to make the deadline. The Tabantha region, the area to the west and north of the Korok forest and much of the coastline all look and feel like rushed garbage that they either didn't care to flesh out or ran out of time.

Dragons Dogma is a fucking barrenland, the game is clearly unfinished

...

Dark Souls if you count it as open world

all the random rock formations you find in the fields of gransys are copy-pasted, user
I still love the game though

...

It's only taking the bait if I respond with some shitty flamewar response. I made a post that could be used to start legitimate discussion.

Yes, especially in western gransys. I wouldn't say the same about most of the map, though.

The landscape's content is very lacking, but the landscape itself feels unique at every point. There's never a point where you wouldn't know where you are without looking at the map.

It's not fucking open world.
It's like calling Diablo 2 open world.

You can get across the overworld without taking tunnels, it just means taking longer routes and fighting tougher enemies.

If games like Dragon's Dogma don't count as open world then open world games are unambiguously shit.

You are wrong on more levels than one.

wrong

...

...

Son, you should try to re-learn the definition of "level design". It's not about making it feel like anything, it's about communicating a goal to the player, and giving them fitting obstacles to keep the gameplay fresh. Interaction with the level is the only thing you do in open world games when you're not engaging in combat or whatever else.
Open world is synonymous with backtracking, as your path through the game will be across one, large map instead of multiple tiny maps. As a result, effective level design in an open world environment needs to work for all the possible situations. You can already see how this is near impossible, especially when you add in the player's ability to free-roam. With no goals to guide the player towards, you have no idea of where the lines should point to, or how the roads will intersect. The developers can only imagine specific, predetermined scenarios where the levels they designed shine the most. Adding in content, secrets, or collectibles won't do shit if the level doesn't work for every scenario. And in the case of turds like Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft decided to make the player only have a handful of interactions with the environment (running and climbing). There's always some "clever side routes" to climb faster or whatever, but it's always just a random area that you either happen upon or remember from last time. There's no meaningful interaction with the level, you're just using the shit that happens to be in front of you– the city might as well be randomly generated.
It's not much better in the case of GTA, where you have gameplay both on foot and in cars, but without deeper mechanics (or ways to interact with the level), the game becomes boring once you've memorized the entire map. You don't really care if you can take a shortcut through an alleyway, since you'll be able to lose the cops all the same. You don't care if there's a good sniping spot at the top of a building since there's no incentive to use your sniper rifle. You don't care if there's two or three bridges across the river since you'll just take the closest one to get to the bowling alley to play that dumb fucking minigame one more time. This isn't how things should be; games should let you interact with the level, that's the whole reason the level is there.

The best open world level design is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I don't specifically mean the "open world" entries to the series, despite their merit. Maybe this doesn't count, but since the streets of 3's Canada or the Hangar in 2 feel more alive than any square mile of any GTA or Elder Scrolls, there's at least something to be learned here. Each map in THPS has multiple, distinct routes with infinitely many branching paths to do a variety of tricks. The game knows its own mechanics, and what kind of things you'd be doing with the mechanics and with the level to score well. The ability to score high in THPS requires the player to both know his surroundings, and to know how to use these surroundings to maintain a combo. Missions in the level encourage you to explore the map, as well as prove your mastery of mechanics and knowledge of the level design. Having distinct visual clarity and thematic consistency amplifies the ability to remember level characteristics and aspects, making even bad players want to revisit areas after they've completed the missions.

Well now I have to play Tony Hawk 2x again, thanks.

Dick.

smh

It was good

DD isn't real open world though.

I miss Asheron's Call 1.

You should always be playing Tony Hawk games 1-4, THUG-THAW to taste.

All you did was post low effort trash and reaction images. Try harder next time, faggot.

Races in Paradise are more like Midnight club 3 races + road rage events from 3

Gothic 1 had shit level design though. It was worst attempt at open world i've ever seen. Run from one end of the empty map to another more than 20 times in a row, getting only enemies and herbs in between. Gothic II with night of raven fixed that shit though and put content around the world, with a lot of quests with closer goals from each other.

underrated post

The worst part of the whole thing is that the Great Plateau and the areas immediately surrounding it (mostly the northeastern section of the map from Hateno to the Zora) feel like they were very deliberately designed, and show the potential of a Zelda game in that style. The GP especially has fun challenges littered throughout that encourage use of all the sandbox mechanics. Unfortunately this is broken pretty early on when the player gets the parasail, negating the need for clever solutions like chopping down trees to make a bridge across a gap. The problem only grows bigger as the game progresses and enemies get larger and larger pools of health, making things like burning grass to light up bokoblins or setting off explosive barrels useless. The player has too many options for their own good, and the world is too big for its own good. They were so close to making the perfect open world that it hurts.

...

Is this game good? I've been hearing a lot about it despite never hearing about it coming out.

Good crpg with a lot of interactivity which gets slowly worse and worse towards the end.

So games with memorable dungeon design but realistically boring wilderness don't count?

GTA games, specifically IV and V, but SA and III also apply to an extent. Unfortunately much of the city looks the same in VC probably due to it being an overglorified expansion for III

Starts pretty okay then straight up meh. Better than most AAAs, but that is not saying a lot. Also diablo loot, power spikes and scales of both crunch and fluff are absurd.


A lot of ways to solve the quests, but not really many conclusions. Not much 'third ways' out of a sadistic situation and mid game it starts becoming linear.

Off topic but this pisses me off to no end in all games, especially the HL trilogy and to a lesser extent Dead Space 3 even though HL2 and DS3 are trash.

I do agree with this. Effective level design is all about making gameplay work effectively for the player.

It's why DE_Dust2 is so popular because it's perceived as being really balanced

How's that Nioh "exclusivity" working for you, (((user)))?

He's exaggerating, but BOTW has a pretty weak open world for a lot of it. I'd say this is a pretty fair evaluation of it.

I just keep reverting and manualing to keep combo and not think, only 2 and 1 is where you have to actually think and grind a lot. thps4, thug1 and thug2, are pretty open with really good levels, but thaw is more "open" but gay because it's thaw.

I just finished Gothic and I don't know why people praise it so much.

Good:

Bad: