I want worlds big enough that I can suspend disbelief. True scale is too much (True Crime: Streets of LA was awful to traverse, for example) but too small and it feels like being in one of those play parks for small children. It’s a problem I’ve had with Fallout 3+, where the scale makes no sense. I don’t necessarily need the additional space to be dense with content (if it’s supposed to be a barren waste, why is it full of stuff?!).
I want to buy into these worlds, but I struggle when things feel ridiculous. Oh are you struggling for supplies? Even though there’s supplies 50m away from your settlement? Come on!
The first Red Dead Redemption hit the spot for me, as did the native settlement in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The scale isn’t actually realistic, but it’s large enough that I feel like it could be. GTA IV wasn’t bad either, but GTA V was too compact in many places for my tastes.
I suppose it’s much like the theatre. If a scene is well written it feels fine, but if the play calls attention to the limitations of the medium too much then it starts to become a bit silly.
The advantage of putting those supplies 50m away though is that it makes a better video game. Playing The Outer Worlds right after Starfield made me a-okay with every way they shrunk the Bethesda experience.
How are we defining “better”? For me it makes the experience worse because I lose all immersion. I’m trying to be immersed and my brain can let a lot slip (realism is not required!) but for me the limit is when it strains even basic credulity. Yes, 50m makes the quest less hassle, but if I don’t care about the quest due to the scope of the world then there’s a more fundamental issue.
In games where immersion isn’t a factor (e.g. The Binding of Isaac) that stuff doesn’t matter. In an explorable open world I content that it’s rather crucial.
All the immersion Bethesda could muster couldn’t make Starfield a better game than The Outer Worlds. The criticism was frequently that they made 1000 planets but that it would have been better if they’d focused on making 5 good ones, which is basically what Outer Worlds did. Putting the metaphorical supplies 50m away is what they found led to the best pacing, so suspend your disbelief a bit, and have a better time than if they’d put them further away. This isn’t prescriptive, btw. If it’s not your preference, it’s not your preference, but I think most people would prefer the compromise to immersion when it makes the game more fun.
Good point. If you look at the Yakuza games, they’re typically set in a little entertainment district. The map isn’t huge but it’s not supposed to be. It feels the correct size for a busy little part of town.
Meanwhile, yeah, Fallout 3 gave me the impression that even before the war the DC metropolitan area was home to maybe a thousand people.
I recently rewatched Rango and the size of the main settlement in that is about the size of those in RDR. Reflecting on that, I suppose I want the map to reflect the kind of scale and focus seen in other media. A film or TV show doesn’t show us every street (usually) but it gives a sense of the scale of the place. If a game map couldn’t be used for an establishing shot without looking daft then it doesn’t really work for me, I reckon.
It’s something I like about the overhead perspective used by games like Fallout and Wasteland - I perceive what’s on screen as the area of the settlement that’s relevant to me but with the understanding that there’s more off screen. A character might mention going somewhere, much like in a play, and then reappear. Perhaps the player can go there, perhaps they can’t even see it, but it makes the world feel larger.
I suppose, much like in reality, we rarely visit every location of a place, but it needs to feel like it might enter our narrative in some way.
I want worlds big enough that I can suspend disbelief. True scale is too much (True Crime: Streets of LA was awful to traverse, for example) but too small and it feels like being in one of those play parks for small children. It’s a problem I’ve had with Fallout 3+, where the scale makes no sense. I don’t necessarily need the additional space to be dense with content (if it’s supposed to be a barren waste, why is it full of stuff?!).
I want to buy into these worlds, but I struggle when things feel ridiculous. Oh are you struggling for supplies? Even though there’s supplies 50m away from your settlement? Come on!
The first Red Dead Redemption hit the spot for me, as did the native settlement in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The scale isn’t actually realistic, but it’s large enough that I feel like it could be. GTA IV wasn’t bad either, but GTA V was too compact in many places for my tastes.
I suppose it’s much like the theatre. If a scene is well written it feels fine, but if the play calls attention to the limitations of the medium too much then it starts to become a bit silly.
The advantage of putting those supplies 50m away though is that it makes a better video game. Playing The Outer Worlds right after Starfield made me a-okay with every way they shrunk the Bethesda experience.
How are we defining “better”? For me it makes the experience worse because I lose all immersion. I’m trying to be immersed and my brain can let a lot slip (realism is not required!) but for me the limit is when it strains even basic credulity. Yes, 50m makes the quest less hassle, but if I don’t care about the quest due to the scope of the world then there’s a more fundamental issue.
In games where immersion isn’t a factor (e.g. The Binding of Isaac) that stuff doesn’t matter. In an explorable open world I content that it’s rather crucial.
All the immersion Bethesda could muster couldn’t make Starfield a better game than The Outer Worlds. The criticism was frequently that they made 1000 planets but that it would have been better if they’d focused on making 5 good ones, which is basically what Outer Worlds did. Putting the metaphorical supplies 50m away is what they found led to the best pacing, so suspend your disbelief a bit, and have a better time than if they’d put them further away. This isn’t prescriptive, btw. If it’s not your preference, it’s not your preference, but I think most people would prefer the compromise to immersion when it makes the game more fun.
Good point. If you look at the Yakuza games, they’re typically set in a little entertainment district. The map isn’t huge but it’s not supposed to be. It feels the correct size for a busy little part of town.
Meanwhile, yeah, Fallout 3 gave me the impression that even before the war the DC metropolitan area was home to maybe a thousand people.
I recently rewatched Rango and the size of the main settlement in that is about the size of those in RDR. Reflecting on that, I suppose I want the map to reflect the kind of scale and focus seen in other media. A film or TV show doesn’t show us every street (usually) but it gives a sense of the scale of the place. If a game map couldn’t be used for an establishing shot without looking daft then it doesn’t really work for me, I reckon.
It’s something I like about the overhead perspective used by games like Fallout and Wasteland - I perceive what’s on screen as the area of the settlement that’s relevant to me but with the understanding that there’s more off screen. A character might mention going somewhere, much like in a play, and then reappear. Perhaps the player can go there, perhaps they can’t even see it, but it makes the world feel larger.
I suppose, much like in reality, we rarely visit every location of a place, but it needs to feel like it might enter our narrative in some way.