In truth, it’s unlikely that open-world games will ever capture the feverish infatuation associated with first-person shooters. In its tenth year reign at the top of the gaming hierarchy, Call of Duty has effectively blurred the line between war-themed franchise and out and out phenomena. Love it or loathe it, Activision’s behemoth is wholly responsible for luring more gamers into the community and, ultimately, supporting the industry financially. Many would go so far as to attribute the ongoing indie resurgence to the CoD supremacy, as gamers long for smaller, more personal titles as an antidote to the commercialized, first-person mayhem.
However, the first-person shooter is, by its very nature, limiting and restrictive. Out of all the categories in the industry, the genre is the one that continues to ape the Hollywood blockbuster the most through lavish set pieces and scripted, in-game events. It’s a tried, true and ultimately hackneyed formula that has become stale in its annualized repetition— hence, the much needed injection of vitality that has fallen on Titanfall’s broad, metallic shoulders. Having said that, it’s bordering on naivety to claim that the genre will fall by the wayside as we move towards the eight generation of consoles. The first-person shooter is still considered to be one of the industry’s flagship categories, and, as evidenced by the launch lineup of both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, one that can be fine-tuned to attract core and casual gamers alike. And this facet could serve as the crux of the open-world appeal going forward.
The free-roaming framework may never emulate the success of the first-person shooter, and , quite frankly, it doesn’t necessarily have to. With prestigious companies such as Ubisoft pouring resources into open-world games such as Watch Dogs and The Crew, there’s no doubt that the genre will be well supported in the years to come. The aforementioned qualities of immersion and freedom are fundamental strands of the open-world DNA; qualities that grant the gamer with an unparalleled degree of player agency — invisible walls be damned. Once developers become accustomed to the next-gen hardware, there are a myriad of avenues begging to be explored; because, after all, stopping to smell the pixelated roses is what free-roaming is all about, right?
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