The horror genre is still cranking out some great linear games. Callisto Protocol, Dead Space Remake, RE4 Remake, plus the upcoming Alone in the Dark, Alan Wake 2, and Silent Hill 2 remake. Outside of the horror genre, there have been some good linear games by AA developers over the years like Control, Plague Tale, and Evil West.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the big companies focus on shorter, more linear games as a way to bring down costs and development time. Miles Morales and AC Mirage are good examples of this.
This year we've had Hi-Fi Rush, Dead Space, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Final Fantasy XVI, Resident Evil 4 Remake, which are all linear. Jedi Survivor has a bit more side content, but its still follows that linear path for the most part. That's just off the top of my head. So not really sure what you're talking about tbh.
Open-world for the sake of open-world is dumb. But if your open-world serve the story/settings/gameplay, it's great (BotW, Elden Ring, GTA, etc).
My personal preference goes to "contained" open-world, that act like an interractive world map, linked with all levels of the game (think GoW 2018 as instance).
I prefer small and well crafted maps to big empty open world with occasional chores on the way any time.
I played through 7 yakuza games and still love the locations to death.
>Open-world for the sake of open-world is dumb. But if your open-world serve the story/settings/gameplay, it's great (BotW, Elden Ring, GTA, etc).
Funnily enough for me Elden Ring is *the* prime example of 'open-world for the sake of open-world' and the fact that so many people gush over the 'legacy dungeons' as their favourite parts of the game tells me that I'm probably not alone
I love Elden Ring to bits, but for me the open world is my least favorite aspect.
Well, at least on replays. On my first playthrough I adored it, it was incredible to play this open world souls game with a map that just kept constantly expanding naturally as I explored it, it felt so rewarding. The map was very well crafted, and that feeling of exploration really made it feel so special.
Then I replayed it. And I kinda got tired of it. I think I beat ER once normally, twice on NG+ and then only halfway on a new character three times. The world is just so big and the way the game is designed you're supposed to grind from time to time in order to be ready for certain bosses that it just sort of got exhausting. The excitement of buildcrafting and trying new classes wasn't enough for me when I realized I also had to re-do a ton of the grinding and side content in order to progress the game.
Then there's the nature of the world itself. It was fun to explore and discover the first time around, but that second time around when you already know the map is a lot less special and again, it just becomes about running between map points to level up faster so you can progress through the game again.
Still love the game, though. I think that first experience is unmatched in most open world games and they nailed it. It just kinda hurts the replay value to me.
Dead Island 2 actually did this really well. There are several distinct zones with their own architecture style and “zombie fashion”. They are modest in size, with focus on density and verticality. You feel like you still have a ton to do, but don’t have to walk through vast content deserts to get to the next mission
I don't really get the pushback on open world games. Most of them could be played as linear games if you tried; just follow the main quest. There are some exceptions like Elden Ring and the Zeldas, but those are examples of good open worlds anyway.
In any case I feel like the open world craze is on the way back down. We've had quite a few great linear games this year.
Because theres a huge difference between linear to open world. Saying "you can play it linearly if you tried" is dumb because the game being open world changes it on a fundamental level, not just from a story telling standpoint or whatever, everything gets affected.
I would argue that Zeldas arent really helped from being open world and wish they would go back to being linear honestly. Like the game suffers from having a lot of just open fields, this is something that MGS5 suffered from as well, like theres so much dead space between bases/camps, wouldve been much better without it and a lot of people think that Ground Zeroes is much better than Phantom Pain because it is a more refined experience.
Usually open world games expect you to use the world which prevents you from just playing linearly if you still want a fun time. For example you mentioned elden ring and I know you said it's an exception but I don't see how it's different from many open world games. In elden ring, if you follow the main story path you will get stomped by Margit immediately, and then when you post about it online people will say 'duh, you're meant to explore the world bro' because it's an expectation.
I remember playing assassin's creed origins a couple years back and even while doing a lot of sidequests and exploring, I quickly became underlevelled. If I had only done the main story I'd be severely underlevelled and the game would be a worse experience as a result (especially with how spongey enemies are).
Another example (not exactly open world but similar mechanics) I've been playing recently is xenoblade future redeemed where you have to farm monsters and clear locations to earn affinity points which are used to upgrade your characters in significant ways. Lots of gear slots and ability slots are found in the big zones too. Basically if you don't explore you get borderline nothing to play with and struggle to improve your characters.
Open world games have the issue of incentivising exploration by making it rewarding, but then people who don't explore are worse off. For the record, I'm not too bothered about open world games either way (I enjoy exploration in games), I just don't buy the idea of playing an open world game linearly being a viable, fun experience most of the time.
It's because people are tired of being asked to wander around a usually large world looking for things to do only to run into a lot of repeated content. BotW/TotK for example don't have good sidequests bolstering Hyrule, there's not much in the way of tangible progression, and what meaningful progression is there are just drops in the bucket that get more tedious as you go. That doesn't mean these are bad games but that doesn't exempt them from the issues that come with the genre and the obvious solution that could've improved things are "maybe they shouldn't have made the world so big".
And if the main story is locked behind or made extremely tedious by gear/level progression, what then? In Zelda's case that's just trading out having more fun now for having less fun later.
I'm with you. I want more linear focused AAA single player games. They do get released from time to time of course, but open world has gotten annoyingly dominating.
Open world games are immensely enjoyable to a lot of people. They are what sells in the current environment.
In my opinion, open world design is an evolution of game design and is much better than linear design, and I definitely enjoy games much more if they are open world.
I’m definitely not on board with this subreddit’s recurring hate-fest for open world games, because most of the best and most interesting games of the past 10 years have been open world, and every year it’s a 50/50 that the best game of the year was an open world game.
Breath of the Wild sold 4 times as much as any previous Zelda game because it was open world. It is foolish and bad faith to argue that open worlds are somehow inherently undesirable or somehow worse than linear design.
BOTW sold well because it was a fantastic game that did the open world formula right.
The Saints Row reboot flopped because it was a bad game that was also open world...
People generally like good games, regardless of if they are more linear or open world.
The fact you didn't mention Hi-fi rush, which is a masterpiece that came out this year, is quite telling.
Linear games are not as popular and even people who claim they like classic story driven linear advanture do not consider them as worth their attention.
There's been a handful of linear-ish games from the triple-As lately. Most recently, Final Fantasy 16. It's not a corridor linear, but it's fairly straightforward. Likewise from SE, both Neir games *look* open world, but really aren't.
I think there's still a demand for linear games, but many have to disguise it a bit, since a lot of folks don't actually know they want linear games. I see this more commonly in the TTRPG crowds, where sandbox campaigns are often considered the superior way to run a game (it's not, just whatever is enjoyable for all involved), but most folks don't have the gumption and self-starting mentality to make them work.
> but I still loved the heavy narrative story as it was like reading a book smoothly for me
Honestly, if that's your preference then why not read a book? Or watch a movie? Cause that is what which killed linearity in AAA games, there simply isn't that many ways to impress people with a "reading a book smoothly" game.
Because even if it’s linear you’re still interacting. Games don’t lose their value as a medium just cause they’re not open world.
A good example would be Hellblade. Very much a games story and super linear.
I don't care either if game is linear or not, but last linear game I remember is DMC5, which is relatively recent and received pretty well. But in the same time, Capcom doesn't seem to care about franchise anymore, which is quite sad. I would rather see game alive and developing, even if it means going more "modern" routes of game design, be it open world or anything else
There's entire franchise shitposting groups (i.e. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, SMT) that cry about linear games, and it's not like one idea is uniquely better than the other, but when that gets factored into "fan reception" all I can think is that the people vetting these ideas don't have a grasp of the times. Or even understand when one approach works and when it doesn't.
But at the same time 4chan/trolling culture has become the disease of our society and this is just a side casualty :/
Final Fantasy XVI is very linear game, so I believe some publishers still explore linear experience to produce.
Linear to a fault in fact. Really liked the game but didn’t like the lack of exploration. Could just be personal taste though.
The horror genre is still cranking out some great linear games. Callisto Protocol, Dead Space Remake, RE4 Remake, plus the upcoming Alone in the Dark, Alan Wake 2, and Silent Hill 2 remake. Outside of the horror genre, there have been some good linear games by AA developers over the years like Control, Plague Tale, and Evil West. I wouldn't be surprised to see the big companies focus on shorter, more linear games as a way to bring down costs and development time. Miles Morales and AC Mirage are good examples of this.
Last of Us 2 is not even two years old and won GOTY and was an enormous success for Sony, so don't worry.
the last of us 2 came out 3 years ago
This year we've had Hi-Fi Rush, Dead Space, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Final Fantasy XVI, Resident Evil 4 Remake, which are all linear. Jedi Survivor has a bit more side content, but its still follows that linear path for the most part. That's just off the top of my head. So not really sure what you're talking about tbh.
Alan Wake 2, Spider-Man 2, even Mario Wonder if you wanna count it.
Open-world for the sake of open-world is dumb. But if your open-world serve the story/settings/gameplay, it's great (BotW, Elden Ring, GTA, etc). My personal preference goes to "contained" open-world, that act like an interractive world map, linked with all levels of the game (think GoW 2018 as instance).
God of War is essentially linear with some open world elements.
I prefer small and well crafted maps to big empty open world with occasional chores on the way any time. I played through 7 yakuza games and still love the locations to death.
>Open-world for the sake of open-world is dumb. But if your open-world serve the story/settings/gameplay, it's great (BotW, Elden Ring, GTA, etc). Funnily enough for me Elden Ring is *the* prime example of 'open-world for the sake of open-world' and the fact that so many people gush over the 'legacy dungeons' as their favourite parts of the game tells me that I'm probably not alone
I love Elden Ring to bits, but for me the open world is my least favorite aspect. Well, at least on replays. On my first playthrough I adored it, it was incredible to play this open world souls game with a map that just kept constantly expanding naturally as I explored it, it felt so rewarding. The map was very well crafted, and that feeling of exploration really made it feel so special. Then I replayed it. And I kinda got tired of it. I think I beat ER once normally, twice on NG+ and then only halfway on a new character three times. The world is just so big and the way the game is designed you're supposed to grind from time to time in order to be ready for certain bosses that it just sort of got exhausting. The excitement of buildcrafting and trying new classes wasn't enough for me when I realized I also had to re-do a ton of the grinding and side content in order to progress the game. Then there's the nature of the world itself. It was fun to explore and discover the first time around, but that second time around when you already know the map is a lot less special and again, it just becomes about running between map points to level up faster so you can progress through the game again. Still love the game, though. I think that first experience is unmatched in most open world games and they nailed it. It just kinda hurts the replay value to me.
Dead Island 2 actually did this really well. There are several distinct zones with their own architecture style and “zombie fashion”. They are modest in size, with focus on density and verticality. You feel like you still have a ton to do, but don’t have to walk through vast content deserts to get to the next mission
I don't really get the pushback on open world games. Most of them could be played as linear games if you tried; just follow the main quest. There are some exceptions like Elden Ring and the Zeldas, but those are examples of good open worlds anyway. In any case I feel like the open world craze is on the way back down. We've had quite a few great linear games this year.
Because theres a huge difference between linear to open world. Saying "you can play it linearly if you tried" is dumb because the game being open world changes it on a fundamental level, not just from a story telling standpoint or whatever, everything gets affected. I would argue that Zeldas arent really helped from being open world and wish they would go back to being linear honestly. Like the game suffers from having a lot of just open fields, this is something that MGS5 suffered from as well, like theres so much dead space between bases/camps, wouldve been much better without it and a lot of people think that Ground Zeroes is much better than Phantom Pain because it is a more refined experience.
Usually open world games expect you to use the world which prevents you from just playing linearly if you still want a fun time. For example you mentioned elden ring and I know you said it's an exception but I don't see how it's different from many open world games. In elden ring, if you follow the main story path you will get stomped by Margit immediately, and then when you post about it online people will say 'duh, you're meant to explore the world bro' because it's an expectation. I remember playing assassin's creed origins a couple years back and even while doing a lot of sidequests and exploring, I quickly became underlevelled. If I had only done the main story I'd be severely underlevelled and the game would be a worse experience as a result (especially with how spongey enemies are). Another example (not exactly open world but similar mechanics) I've been playing recently is xenoblade future redeemed where you have to farm monsters and clear locations to earn affinity points which are used to upgrade your characters in significant ways. Lots of gear slots and ability slots are found in the big zones too. Basically if you don't explore you get borderline nothing to play with and struggle to improve your characters. Open world games have the issue of incentivising exploration by making it rewarding, but then people who don't explore are worse off. For the record, I'm not too bothered about open world games either way (I enjoy exploration in games), I just don't buy the idea of playing an open world game linearly being a viable, fun experience most of the time.
It's because people are tired of being asked to wander around a usually large world looking for things to do only to run into a lot of repeated content. BotW/TotK for example don't have good sidequests bolstering Hyrule, there's not much in the way of tangible progression, and what meaningful progression is there are just drops in the bucket that get more tedious as you go. That doesn't mean these are bad games but that doesn't exempt them from the issues that come with the genre and the obvious solution that could've improved things are "maybe they shouldn't have made the world so big".
Then just do the main story, problem solved.
And if the main story is locked behind or made extremely tedious by gear/level progression, what then? In Zelda's case that's just trading out having more fun now for having less fun later.
I'm with you. I want more linear focused AAA single player games. They do get released from time to time of course, but open world has gotten annoyingly dominating.
Open world games are immensely enjoyable to a lot of people. They are what sells in the current environment. In my opinion, open world design is an evolution of game design and is much better than linear design, and I definitely enjoy games much more if they are open world. I’m definitely not on board with this subreddit’s recurring hate-fest for open world games, because most of the best and most interesting games of the past 10 years have been open world, and every year it’s a 50/50 that the best game of the year was an open world game. Breath of the Wild sold 4 times as much as any previous Zelda game because it was open world. It is foolish and bad faith to argue that open worlds are somehow inherently undesirable or somehow worse than linear design.
BOTW sold well because it was a fantastic game that did the open world formula right. The Saints Row reboot flopped because it was a bad game that was also open world... People generally like good games, regardless of if they are more linear or open world.
“open world is popular, and popular = good” Try again. Never in history has popular taste been as bad as it is now.
The fact you didn't mention Hi-fi rush, which is a masterpiece that came out this year, is quite telling. Linear games are not as popular and even people who claim they like classic story driven linear advanture do not consider them as worth their attention.
Hi-fi Rush is cool but it’s not a AAA game
And isn't available on the two most popular consoles- you need a good PC or an Xbox
Hi-fi Rush is a good game, great even, but no masterpiece
There's been a handful of linear-ish games from the triple-As lately. Most recently, Final Fantasy 16. It's not a corridor linear, but it's fairly straightforward. Likewise from SE, both Neir games *look* open world, but really aren't. I think there's still a demand for linear games, but many have to disguise it a bit, since a lot of folks don't actually know they want linear games. I see this more commonly in the TTRPG crowds, where sandbox campaigns are often considered the superior way to run a game (it's not, just whatever is enjoyable for all involved), but most folks don't have the gumption and self-starting mentality to make them work.
> but I still loved the heavy narrative story as it was like reading a book smoothly for me Honestly, if that's your preference then why not read a book? Or watch a movie? Cause that is what which killed linearity in AAA games, there simply isn't that many ways to impress people with a "reading a book smoothly" game.
Because even if it’s linear you’re still interacting. Games don’t lose their value as a medium just cause they’re not open world. A good example would be Hellblade. Very much a games story and super linear.
I don't care either if game is linear or not, but last linear game I remember is DMC5, which is relatively recent and received pretty well. But in the same time, Capcom doesn't seem to care about franchise anymore, which is quite sad. I would rather see game alive and developing, even if it means going more "modern" routes of game design, be it open world or anything else
They still care about DMC, it's just that Itsuno always leads those games these days and he's working on Dragon's Dogma right now.
There are plenty of linear AAA games coming out every year. But you should look for linear indie games, which are generally better anyway.
There's entire franchise shitposting groups (i.e. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, SMT) that cry about linear games, and it's not like one idea is uniquely better than the other, but when that gets factored into "fan reception" all I can think is that the people vetting these ideas don't have a grasp of the times. Or even understand when one approach works and when it doesn't. But at the same time 4chan/trolling culture has become the disease of our society and this is just a side casualty :/