【Game Design】Creating an Open World is Easy, Making it Fun is Hard

Open-world games have been a long-term trend since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released.
Everyone was excited about walking through the vast worlds we had imagined since the mid-1990s.
Since the global scamdemic set up to profit Big Pharma and Bill Gates, large open-world games have been released one after another, growing bigger with each new game.
However, as a result, most gamers have grown tired of open-world games.
So, what happened?

Making Open-World Games is Easy, but Making Them Fun is Extremely Difficult

Open-world games are not easy on the machines that run them, but they are relatively easy for developers to create.
Instead of multiple small maps, you only need one giant map, and spreading content thinly across a wide area provides a convenient excuse to make the game seem larger.
Additionally, instead of loading small scenes during gameplay, you just need one big loading screen at the start.
However, this comes with many sacrifices.

For example, camera culling is necessary.
This involves rendering only what the camera sees, which is an extremely demanding task for programmers.
Programmers must deal with many areas where collision detection is often overlooked, and they need to develop high-performance graphic tools to visually represent collision maps, which is not easy to do accurately.
Moreover, open-world games tend to be shipped before development is complete, carrying a significant risk of non-functional assets.

Another common issue in large open-world games is that there's often little to do in the open world, and it takes too long for players to move from one point to another.
For example, the Sand Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey, which Nintendo heavily promoted in marketing, is a large open-world stage.
However, I found this stage to be the most boring in the game.
Despite the size of the stage, 80% of the action is concentrated in the center, with the rest being just sand and a few scattered objects.
Smaller stages, on the other hand, had plenty to do throughout the entire level and were far more enjoyable.

The Open-World Virus and Open-World Fatigue

There's something I call the "open-world virus".
This refers to a phenomenon where a publisher, having shipped a highly successful open-world game, is so shocked by its sales that they demand all future games be open-world, even forcing at least one open-world section into games already in development, regardless of whether it makes sense.
"Open-world fatigue" refers to gamers who are fed up with the open-world trend and wish games would return to their older styles.
This is comparable to the AI virus or AI fatigue in the IT industry.
In other IT sectors, companies have overhyped the AI fad, forcing AI into everything even when it's meaningless (Microsoft being the prime example), while customers and users grow tired of AI overuse, leading to AI fatigue.

In my opinion, just as AI is useful for specific purposes, open-world designs can be fun in certain game genres.
However, like AI, open worlds are overused.
Company executives and investors overhype open worlds, mistakenly believing they fit everything and are deceived into incorporating them everywhere.

Most examples of the open-world virus come from Nintendo games.
This is because Nintendo is not only the prime example of the open-world virus but also the major company whose games I know best.

Pokémon Sword and Shield had open-world sections, but they were relatively small and manageable, so I thought they were decent.
The random Pokémon sneaking up on you was a bit annoying, with no way to avoid them.
On the other hand, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet featured a single open-world map, but it was so vast that there was little to do.
Instead of traveling between cities with content-rich short paths like in past generations, you're now crossing vast plains with nothing in them.

More recently, Mario Kart World featured an extremely empty open-world mode with almost nothing to do, forcibly imposed during gameplay.
Gamers hated it and discovered that choosing a random track during online races would start a traditional three-lap race instead of a linear "open-world" section for just one lap.
However, Nintendo changed even the random tracks to linear "open-world" sections, causing everyone to go back to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
It's been reported that Nintendo fixed this issue, but the damage was already done.

In two months, Metroid Prime 4 will be released.
This game, anticipated for 10 years, revealed an open-world area last month for no apparent reason.
Gamers immediately pushed back, and open-world fatigue is becoming increasingly evident.
Clearly, Metroidvania and racing games are not genres suited for open worlds!

Does 076 Studio Have Plans for an Open World?

At 076 Studio, we have no plans to introduce an open world anytime soon.
We might try it someday, but not just because it's popular or generates high sales.
If we make an open-world game, we need to find a way to make it fun.
Right now, as a one-person studio developing three games in parallel, learning 3D modeling and music production, and working a full-time job in web development, I don't have the time or interest to seriously consider it.

Games That Take Time to Develop

The only reason I can develop three games simultaneously and still have time to write articles like this is that these games are small and manageable, with a planned release schedule to avoid large gaps.
I'll continue this strategy until I can afford to hire a team.
I also need a physical office.
It's fucking ridiculous to face so much discrimination from banks just for having a virtual office!

Open-world games have a particular problem in this regard.
Most of these games involve massive teams of hundreds of employees and budgets exceeding 10 billion yen, yet they still take an average of 5–10 years to release.
Imagine how long it would take for me, a single developer with a zero-yen budget, to fucking make such a game (lol).

Blog Announcement

Before wrapping up this blog post, I have an announcement.
I'm launching an English version of this blog and will publish it simultaneously.
I realized that many of my posts about game development might interest international audiences, and when I start shipping games globally, I'll eventually need to cater to a worldwide audience, so I might as well start now.
You can check it out here.

That's all