Have you ever started an open-world game, opened the map, and felt your shoulders sink as you realize just how much there is to do? Me too. At a recent GDC talk, former GTA 6 and Red Dead Online developer Cameron Williams explains some of the problems with modern open worlds.
"Players just don't explore, right?" Williams says in a GDC talk reported by PC Gamer. "Whether that's because you have a super action-oriented game or because they just simply aren't compelled. Or, [your game has] a huge time investment and it's hard for players to pick up and put down, which is an increasing challenge, especially with the sort of evolving ecosystem of free-to-play and live service games that are kind of eating everyone's time and attention."
I can't both fully explore and immerse myself in an open world and keep up with the onslaught of video game releases, I have to pick one or the other. Either I'm spending a month on one or two games, or I'm completing them as they come out, mostly mainlining the core story and ignoring side missions and optional activities. I certainly couldn't keep up with new games while also grinding out a live-service title.
Williams calls this "open world fatigue" and says it makes us less likely to explore. Rather than wandering off the beaten path, we just hop from mission to mission and then put the game down once the credits roll for the first time.
There's also something Williams calls "analysis paralysis." If there are too many visible landmarks on a map, all potentially offering us something interesting, we freeze because we don't know where to go next. When I think about a game like Assassin's Creed Unity and its endless icons and viewpoints to climb, I remember how hard it was to get myself to actually explore rather than just going wherever the story told me to go.
"We want to avoid creating a possibility space so large that players simply just don't know what to choose," Williams says. Williams cites a study done in 2000 that shows people are less likely to buy jam in a supermarket if there are 24 options to choose from compared to just six.
I think we've found the solution to that, though. Games like Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring, and even Red Dead Redemption 2 offer huge open worlds but they don't bombard you with icons and points of interest. Elden Ring lets you explore however you want and just offers interesting landmarks you can spot and investigate at your leisure, as does Breath of the Wild – whereas Red Dead Redemption 2 often only highlights stranger missions and other optional activities when you get close to them.
I'm currently replaying the cowboy game and loving just wandering around aimlessly, but I couldn't do this on a first playthrough, and I know that engaging with the game this way means I won't play as many new ones. But I like living off the land as an outlaw, so I'm going to keep playing that way.
Williams has a nice anecdote about Red Dead's design and how it encourages us to try new things and not just rush the story. During an early main mission, you go fishing with young Jack, "and the mission essentially showcases the best possible version of fishing by having companions react to the player's fishing skills, and they create opportunities to explain some of the systems in very natural ways," WIlliams says. "It actually enhances the fishing system with context and meaning. So now, whenever players are presented with an option to go fishing, they're going to recall the great memories from this experience as their tent poles."
Just like hunting with Hosea, the game teaches you how to do this with an in-game companion rather than just shoving a bunch of tutorial screens at you. It's a far more immersive and natural way to get you to play around, have fun, and spend time with the game.
If you want something that you can finish quicker, check out our list of the best short games you can play.
