All These Open World Games Are Wearing Me Down
Open world overload. Sandbox sickness. Free-roam fatigue. Expansion ennui. Vastness virus.
I could come up with more, but it's what you get from playing a video game that gives you too much to do. That pit in your gut when you pull up the world map and it's overloaded with quest icons. It leaves you feeling used up and overwhelmed, like you're always supposed to be in two places at once.
I think the medical term for it is Jan Quadrant Vincent Fever.
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I very recently finished Horizon Zero Dawn, an open-world adventure that many believe is the best game out of 2017. Yet, while I definitely agree it is a very good game, I can't agree that it is the best--my personal GOTY 2017 is Persona 5. The aforementioned affliction probably has something to do with that.
An overwhelming number of open-world games released last year. Breath of the Wild, Yakuza 0, and NieR: Automata are among the most celebrated, but there's also Gravity Rush 2, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Assassin's Creed Origins, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and enough updates to the 2016 title Final Fantasy XV that it might as well count.
That's a ton of digital kilometers to explore. It's a completionist's nightmare, and having played through many of these titles before finally starting Horizon, I was more than a little tired of the genre. That the game held my interest at all is testament to how good it is.
I find Horizon's world engrossing, the combat tense and strategic, the voice acting excellent, and the conclusion satisfying. I love how the game slow-rolls the backstory. I'm relieved that it's a post-apocalyptic setting in which the humans act appropriately human and form sustainable communities to survive rather than the unrealistic (but popular) fiction of tearing each others' throats out over a can of beans.
I'm heaping mountains of praise on Horizon. By all metrics, it is an excellent game. Why, then, do I not love it?
Part of it is being jaded with the genre. Part of it is Horizon feels a little too much like Witcher 3, but with good ranged combat instead of good melee combat and a menu that didn't take an afternoon to load. Both games had me feeling like everything was a bit samey about ten hours in, and the only reason I stuck around for another 30 is because the world and story were so finely constructed.
That said, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters in Horizon besides Aloy (though Rost comes close). She's the protagonist, sure, but every other character doesn't have a substantive story of their own; they're only there to be part of Aloy's story. Compare that to supporting characters like Yennefer, Triss, and Vesemir in Witcher 3 and it really feels like Aloy's hero's journey is an awfully lonely one.
Lastly, Horizon didn't have specifically memorable moments for me as the player. There are boss fights, but they're often against enemies you could encounter in the wild. I'm never left feeling like Aloy (and by extension, me) overcame any particularly threatening or challenging foes. She certainly suffers hardships and trauma--just not on the battlefield, where I have the most input.
Perhaps some of these problems are inherent to the sandbox genre, and it took Horizon for me to finally pinpoint them. Or maybe I just hate having all that freedom.
I could come up with more, but it's what you get from playing a video game that gives you too much to do. That pit in your gut when you pull up the world map and it's overloaded with quest icons. It leaves you feeling used up and overwhelmed, like you're always supposed to be in two places at once.
I think the medical term for it is Jan Quadrant Vincent Fever.
------
I very recently finished Horizon Zero Dawn, an open-world adventure that many believe is the best game out of 2017. Yet, while I definitely agree it is a very good game, I can't agree that it is the best--my personal GOTY 2017 is Persona 5. The aforementioned affliction probably has something to do with that.
 |
| Gotta collect all those mugs! |
An overwhelming number of open-world games released last year. Breath of the Wild, Yakuza 0, and NieR: Automata are among the most celebrated, but there's also Gravity Rush 2, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Assassin's Creed Origins, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and enough updates to the 2016 title Final Fantasy XV that it might as well count.
That's a ton of digital kilometers to explore. It's a completionist's nightmare, and having played through many of these titles before finally starting Horizon, I was more than a little tired of the genre. That the game held my interest at all is testament to how good it is.
 |
| Isn't the apocalypse fun? |
I'm heaping mountains of praise on Horizon. By all metrics, it is an excellent game. Why, then, do I not love it?
Part of it is being jaded with the genre. Part of it is Horizon feels a little too much like Witcher 3, but with good ranged combat instead of good melee combat and a menu that didn't take an afternoon to load. Both games had me feeling like everything was a bit samey about ten hours in, and the only reason I stuck around for another 30 is because the world and story were so finely constructed.
That said, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters in Horizon besides Aloy (though Rost comes close). She's the protagonist, sure, but every other character doesn't have a substantive story of their own; they're only there to be part of Aloy's story. Compare that to supporting characters like Yennefer, Triss, and Vesemir in Witcher 3 and it really feels like Aloy's hero's journey is an awfully lonely one.
 |
| Oh, good. Another one. |
Lastly, Horizon didn't have specifically memorable moments for me as the player. There are boss fights, but they're often against enemies you could encounter in the wild. I'm never left feeling like Aloy (and by extension, me) overcame any particularly threatening or challenging foes. She certainly suffers hardships and trauma--just not on the battlefield, where I have the most input.
Perhaps some of these problems are inherent to the sandbox genre, and it took Horizon for me to finally pinpoint them. Or maybe I just hate having all that freedom.
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