As the gaming community stands on the proverbial bridge between this generation and the next, it becomes easy to pinpoint the palpable inclination towards open, liberating worlds. Not only do they present a Pandora’s Box of untapped potential —as developers are granted a bigger canvas to present their ideas— they allow gamers to tackle obstacles at their own pace within an expansive realm where load times are minimalized and freedom is king. It’s an exciting time. Technology doesn’t exert the stifling hold over imagination it once did; instead, the new consoles present an advanced entry point for audiences to experience nuanced, socially-connected worlds.
Undoubtedly, open-world games have an established legacy; one that stretches all the way back to the late 70s. Having said that, one resounding criticism that is levelled towards the genre is its inability to tell a convincing story to collate and indeed support its broad scope. For years, the free-roaming game has been hamstrung by this caveat; a weakness that dilutes the substance of an in-game narrative in favour of sprawling environments and complex systems. Of course, there’s something to be said for presenting the gamer with these cognitive decisions —it’s one of the primary tropes of the genre, after all— but if this input doesn’t influence the outcome then the feature is immediately relegated to a simple gimmick. Choice is freedom, but not when it’s constantly for its own sake.
In saying that, there’s no reason for compelling stories and open-world game designs to be mutually exclusive. If the free-roaming genre is to maintain a foothold in the gaming community, it needs to continuously invigorate; to iterate on ideals and systems as developers become accustomed to the new hardware.
As we approach the next generation of consoles, developers will have the technical resources at their disposal to create truly immersive software. We’ve already got a taste of this through recent preview events, with titles such as Tom Clancy’s The Division, Mad Max and the Mirror’s Edge prequel all incorporating several open-world mechanics. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien: “Not all who wander are lost.” And judging by 2014’s release schedule, when it comes to worlds vying to be lost in, gamers will be spoilt for choice.