this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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I had exactly the same experience. I played Ghosts of Tsushima after Elden Ring and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, I was surprised how shallow the mainstream open world games are. I don't hate them, but the gameplay really boils down to:
Walk slowly while characters talk to eachother for 5 minutes
Open the map, click on where you need to go, then walk in a straight line to your objective
Trail an enemy without being seen
Liberate an enemy camp (kill the same 3 enemies and collect the 5000 twinkly useless items in the area)
The Elden Ring withdrawal is really hitting me. Most AAA games are trying so hard to be cinematic and movie-like that it's boring me to tears.
If you want good exploration, I would recommend:
witcher 3: good exploration and incredible quests
hollow Knight: 2d metroidvania so very different genre, but great exploration with no hints. Souls like fights, so similar there to some games you've played and liked. Metroidvanias in general are good at exploration.
genshin impact: most varied biomes I've ever seen. Will hold your hand first time you see a mechanic, but won't tell you anything subsequent times. Cons: starting areas have the blandest exploration and quests. You need good willpower to not swipe. Combat is often very easy.
I liked Gensin Impact for the first few years, but last time I played it, that game was the worst example of this.
Teleport to location. Chat with npc for 5 minutes. Teleport to next location. Chat with another npc rehashing the first conversation for 5 minutes. Quick fight with trivial enemies. Teleport back to first npc Chat about random crap, slow walk to another npc, rehash the earlier conversation again, walk back to starting location, receive the most basic of rewards.
The game is 90% dialog of which very little is relevant or meaningful and none can be skipped. There is an auto advance option for conversations, but so many meaningless dialog prompts (with options are always the same semanticly) that it doesn't work.
Of course this is all by design as the real goal is to sell you characters, not play a game.
Yeah quests are pretty shit. But I think just the exploration and puzzle part is still good.
I think Witcher 3 falls into the same problems listed.
I mean, I loved the game, but it's not minimalist. It's like playing a movie.
Geralts talking to self never bothered me. The characters, story and world were really interesting for me. The side quests were definitely all filler. I found a few that were amusing but most were the same thing: go kill this over here.
The winds are howling
Looks like it's about to rain
Actually this is what I liked about the Witcher 3 is that the side quests were really great. Of course there were generic ones that felt like doing chores but a surprisingly big amount of quests were actually unique with great stories.
This for me was the best thing about the game. Combat was kind of meh, especially the oils, etc. but the world was very well crafted and not only the main story but also a big chunk of side quests were really engaging.
The chores ones are what I mean. Boring. But there were some really good ones for sure. I really liked finding all the Witcher gear too. The world is incredibly vast and detailed, packed with stuff in every nook and cranny. Same with elden ring. Though I felt the dlc lacked in that regard.
The blood and wine dlc was amazing. I loved the main story/mission. There was a lot to love in the Witcher 3. I'll have to play it again some day.
I mean a Witcher getting paid to kill monsters...
/S
I understand though
You're right. The witcher 3 never grabbed me because of these reasons. It's got such phenomenal quests and storytelling but in between feels like a chore since im just staring at the minimap the whole time. I installed mods to remove HUD elements to help fix it but I still needed a toggle for them to show me direction occasionally since the games design relies on those HUD elements to drive the player.
It's such lazy design in an otherwise rich experience. It boggles my mind.
Also, Witcher has some heart-punch right-in-the-feels moments in side quests, FFS. 😶 Even when you're purposely avoiding what you know is gonna be an emotional wringer in a prominent quest line, they cut ya while you're wandering around? Genius. Damn. 🤌🏾🙇🏽♂️
I haven't played Forbidden West yet, but I had a very different experience from most with Zero Dawn. I think a lot of people view these games as Ubisoft style open world checklists, but if you turn the difficulty up a few notches, it really forces you to engage with the mechanics. A game where you used to just charge headlong into a fight you were surely going to win changes into one where you need to pay attention to weaknesses, lay traps, and pick off their deadliest weapons. Plus, you end up actively hunting certain machines for their upgrade parts, because those upgrades become more crucial to your own success.
I agree with you here. While turning up the difficulty means it takes me quite a bit longer to finish as I have limited time to play these days, I tend to enjoy the time more as I learn the mechanics.
Elden Ring and the other Souls games are just different in that there isn’t a difficulty setting so you have to do this from the get go. I prefer this style, but it’s possible to get a more enjoyable experience in other games.
In my opinion, easy games aren’t as fun and I lose interest much more quickly.
Speaking of this, I hate the fact that farcry just stuck with the farcry 3 format.
Farcry 2 had none of this “tag an enemy to make them always visible” bullshit. But then they did 3, and that was just their settled format from there on out.
I love Tears of Kingdom, that’s one of the few games that does open world really well and doesn’t do any of the things that OP mentioned. Sense of exploration in ToTK is even better than Elden Ring imo with some really clever environmental puzzles and multiple ways to tackle them.
Im so glad the minimap genre is dying. Fucking killed gaming there for a moment.