Cyberpunk 2077 - Shouldn't be an Open World Game

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GameRevolution offers the opinion that Cyberpunk 2077 shouldn't be an open world game.

Just last week, it was revealed that The Division's campaign has been completed more than any other story-based Ubisoft game. Whether it's Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, or Watch Dogs, players are choosing to abandon these open worlds, getting burned out before finishing the story. Why are we so focused on asking about the map size of new releases? This fosters a habit of developers releasing lackluster open worlds, without sufficient time or resources to fill in the details of these massive expanses.

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Well I have no problem with semi-open games like Witcher III but the writer does make a point about open world games like Assassin Creed. You get burnt out way to easily.
 
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Well, the problem is not having an open world but having uninspired, boring, repetitve open worlds. Cause you have AC, but then you got Piranha Bytes for instance. Linear worlds break big part of the immersion for me.
 
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I agree that the uninspired, boring, repetitive stuff is the problem. Fortunately for me, many games are not that way at all (or not much) and those are the ones I enjoy, and the more content the better. As an example, AC Origins had a mix of somewhat boring stuff and good stuff, but by contract AC Odyssey was great and probably my favorite game of all time, and the one I played the longest.

I have a feeling that Cyberpunk 2077 will not have much boring and repetitive stuff at all (though of course I don't know that to be the case), so I'm hoping for as long of a game as possible. I could see making many of the good stuff optional for those who prefer a game which takes less time to complete, so maybe hard difficulty is where you would need all or most of the side quests to become powerful enough for the main ending.
 
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I have this problem with every Bethesda game. It's probably self-inflicted too, I should really stick to the critical path and finish the game, experience the story in its full extent, but I have this impulsive need to complete every side quest, dungeon and landmark that appears on the map. And I do really well for about 60-80 hours, but then the excitement dies out and I can't even get myself to actually finish the critical path.

Only one exception in the last decade or so: The Witcher 3. This is the one open world game I managed to complete 100%, including every side quest and map location I could find before finishing the main story. Part of that is because I found Ciri's story fascinating and I really wanted to see it through, while Bethesda or Ubisoft storytelling tends tend to be pretty bland to my tastes.

I think there's a good point made in the article, but I think it also comes down to two main factors: the quality of the storytelling, and each player's personal "threshold". As I said, I usually lose interest around the 80 hour mark, but I know for a fact that others prefer games to last 40~ hours, and others prefer them to last 120~.

And while on paper it seems like a good practice to just shove 200+ hours of content into an open world game and let the players choose the amount of time they want to invest, in the end when the game is "too big", I think it works against the game itself, at least in cases like my own as I explained above, because I want to complete it all, but I find myself losing interest before that can happen simply because there's too much to complete.
 
I agree that the uninspired, boring, repetitive stuff is the problem. Fortunately for me, many games are not that way at all (or not much) and those are the ones I enjoy, and the more content the better. As an example, AC Origins had a mix of somewhat boring stuff and good stuff, but by contract AC Odyssey was great and probably my favorite game of all time, and the one I played the longest.

I have a feeling that Cyberpunk 2077 will not have much boring and repetitive stuff at all (though of course I don't know that to be the case), so I'm hoping for as long of a game as possible. I could see making many of the good stuff optional for those who prefer a game which takes less time to complete, so maybe hard difficulty is where you would need all or most of the side quests to become powerful enough for the main ending.
I'm currently playing AC Origins and enjoying it more than I expected. I've never been a fan of the series in general, but at least until lvl 25 I like this one.

I like the freedom of open world games if there are things to discover and fun things to do. Something I really dislike is if I have to move back and forth in the game world just because the instructions are unclear or if quests make me backtrack for no reason apart from taking time. I simply dislike wasting time.

I like your idea of changing the need for grinding with difficulty. I think I would probably decrease the difficulty a bit then to not risk burn out.

Edit: I feel like a lot of recent games are made to play a few hours at a time. They often are quite easy to learn, but have enough depth for me to still enjoy them. They are made more for a busy life, but for people who can spend long hours playing I wouldn't be surprised if they tire quicker?
 
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ols story. the balance between quality and quantity.
i found witcher unpalatable .
my value system,
1 - cahracters. characters that i love what they say and do, that i love how they look and sound
2 - stimulating environment . strong level design with maximum attention to detail
3 - story
4 - scripting , choice and consequences
5 - gameplay and whatevers left
the point is that its really hard to do open world well, as its a higher standard.
i would focus on being able to create a strong experience with a clear limit imposed first. otherwise its a huge gamble and waste of resources
immersion is much harder to maintain in non linear games for me due to those above (i assume). maybe when on game would present itself as perfect in all those aspects, i would see that objectively i just hate open world mechanics.. and too much complexity. but i doubt it
 
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They must be very retards at GameRevolution if they think that this will be skyrim open world...Retard Journalists, the cancer of gaming...
 
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Gaming journalism at its best:
Badly implemented features suck, more news at 11!

An open world is not a problem if it is well made and not just big and bland.
 
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I'm not surprised another "journalist" doesn't recognise the distinction between a poorly implemented feature and the feature in and of itself.
 
Yup, the only problem is that there are actually TWO open-world games in my recent memory, that are actually of any good:

Ultima 6 or 7 (take your pick): You know why this one is mentioned here.
Zelda: BoW: The only game I know where the open world map is a crucial part of the gameplay. Getting from point A to point B is not trivial, but an actual challenge in itself.

Mind you, Creed, Witcher, etc… are good games, have beautiful maps, lots of things to do, "living, breathing", yadda-yadda -- but the open-world adds nothing significant to the experience, except the initial wow-factor.

In fact, the big map gets really annoying after a certain point in the game, and you'll thank the developers for the fast travel option… which is kinda… you know… lame, when praising a game for its size.
 
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Yea, hairworks don't add nothing significat too - except it means keeping up with the modern technology.

I don't care about GameRevolution's opinion for one reason:
The Division.
I mean, WTF? An imbecillic mmo falsely advertised as RPG is their ace card?

That aside, after breezing through the thread... Is codex down? Must admit if yes, surprisingly in here, it isn't so negative.
 
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All that option did was showing middlefinger to inferior hardware.
 
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Most styles have merit for me, I'm fond of both sprawling open world environments as well as the more linear games. If the mechanics are sound, with some decent choices and consequences, just about anything will work for me. I've only given up on a handful of games, so that's not a factor for me at all, the odds of it occurring again are fairly low.
 
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For me open world is the bomb. The biggest failure of CDP is closed character choice, not being open world. I didn't like Geriatric the Geezer at all. I couldn't relate to him and it made the game impossible for me to complete. This is looking true for Cyberpunk too. What I've seen of V doesn't make me want to play that role and I'm pretty sure it's the only role in the whole game. I actually like games where you can choose to ignore the story and do your own thing. I also could care less if I ever finish the "story". That shouldn't be the main focus of open world anyway.

P.S. I played quite a bit of Witcher 3 but I broke Ciri's quest by pretending the game was open world. I went to Skellige right after the Baron quest and basically skipped 90% of Ciri's story. The game acted as if I had done the stuff in between and it broke something. They patched that out I believe but I never felt compelled to go back and replay it. Maybe one day I'll see if they've modded Geralt to not look like a hideous freak and retry.
 
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I played quite a bit of Witcher 3 but I broke Ciri's quest by pretending the game was open world.

This.
And that's why I mentioned Ultima and Zelda:BoW as the two great examples of true open-world gaming.
AFAIK, these are the only open-world games where you cannot really sequence-break.

In U7, sequence breaking is simply knowing stuff well before you are supposed to, hence it is primarily a narrative cheat. If you know what to do, you can beat this 100+ hour epic in 30 minutes. Well done, Origin.

In Zelda: BoW, sequence breaking is actually designed into the game. You may skip all the preparations, and go after the Main Goal right after the closed tutorial segment, thus you can 1-hour speedrun a potentially 100+ hour game. You have to be a Freakin' Superhuman Gamer to pull off this feat, but the game won't stop you trying. Well done, Nintendo.

Moreover, these are the two open-world games where side activities are actually fun and unpredictable, thus these games are very much encouraging experimentation.
All of the other big name open-world games are just simply fill the maps with minor variations of 10-20 tightly designed/scripted activities, and …. that's it, folks. Kinda sad.
 
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The biggest failure of CDP is closed character choice, not being open world. I didn't like Geriatric the Geezer at all. I couldn't relate to him and it made the game impossible for me to complete.
Again?
Okay then again. You're roleplaying a mutant. Not a human to relate to.
That doesn't speak about the game but about you. In other words, if you can't understand Vivaldi, that's okay, stick with pop or hiphop, there are good things there too. :)

I'm writing to CDpr to add deodorant and antiperspirant sprays in Cyberpunk to prevent another "can't relate to". :p
Zelda:BoW
Never heard. Did a Steam search, no dice.
 
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