Summary
Revisiting older open-world games can be hard after becoming used to modern conveniences. Despite this, many of the classics arguably benefited from the absence of these helpful features, and they now highlight one of the most prevalent issues that’s affecting recent releases.
How Navigation Features Became a Crutch
The open-world genre is as vast and varied as the lands it features, but it has lost much of its original magic. Many modern open-world games boil down to traveling between quest markers or following a cluttered trail of map icons that leads to repetitive side quests and pointless collectibles.
Even if you turn off minimaps and quest markers, your experience won’t be much better.Modern open-world gamesare often designed around the expectation that you’ll be using navigation features to reach your next objective.
Because of this, many of these games feature oversized maps that are full of reused assets and repetitive environments. If you try to play these games without relying on navigation features, you’ll be disappointed by the abundance of visually indistinguishable locales and lack of interesting things to discover.
This isn’t to say that open-world games should stop using these convenient features, but rather that their over-reliance on map icons, quest markers, and other common navigation tools is detrimental to the genre. It’s hard to get excited about exploring an open world when everything it has to offer is plainly laid out on a map. These guides make finding new locations and encountering side content feel like marking off a checklist rather than making an exciting discovery.
Having some guidance is important for open-world games. Aimless exploration may seem exciting at first, but it can get frustrating if you don’t know how to progress. Although map icons and other navigation tools are meant to avoid this problem, plenty of games have proven that there are better ways to guide players.
More Games Could Use Less Guidance
Plenty of early open-world games seem daunting or downright unfair when judged bymodern standards. Whereas recent games introduce you to their worlds with a detailed tutorial, retro classics don’t provide that luxury. Even basic mechanics and controls aren’t always explained. Some of the earliest games in the genre, such asUltima(1981) andThe Legend of Zelda(1986), went so far as to drop you onto a map without any directions.
Open-world games have thankfully become a lot easier to play, but some of these changes have caused the genre to regress in a few significant ways. Despite theiraging graphics, manyretro gamesare more effectiveat immersing players in fantastical settings than modern releases.The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowindis one such example that’s often remembered for its uniquely bizarre setting, which trades the series' traditional fantasy aesthetic for an island of towering mushrooms, giant flea-like creatures, and fog-coated swamps.
Aside from its scenery,Morrowindwas notable for its lack of hand-holding. Instead of having quest markers to follow, you had to rely on the instructions written in your quest log to find your objectives. This also encourages you to pay more attention to environmental details like signposts and landmarks that can guide you to your destination.
Combined with the game’s surreal aesthetic, playingMorrowindfor the first time can feel like being a tourist in a foreign land. LaterElder Scrollsentries have tried to recaptureMorrowind’s immersive quality, but their use of modern navigation aides prevents them from achieving the same effect.
Another open-world game that can seem similarly obtuse is the cult-classicShenmue, but its lack of explicit directions serves an even greater purpose. The game centers around Ryo Hazuki, a skilled fighter and socially inept teenager who scours the city of Yokosuka in search of his father’s killer.
Both you and Ryo begin this journey with only a few vague clues about the killer’s identity, and the game makes this clear by throwing you into the city with no other hints about what to do. From there, you use what little information you have to interrogate NPCs, investigate potential leads, and uncover the truth behind the murder.
Not only doesShenmue’s complete lack of quest markers allow you to play detective and discover clues on your own, but it also contributes to the game’s open-ended design.Shenmuelets you play at your own pace, whether that means tackling objectives in the order you decide, playing minigames in the arcade, or working part-time as a forklift driver.
Balancing Adventure and Accessibility
Navigation aids may be overused in games, but that doesn’t mean the genre should abandon them. Games likeMorrowindandShenmuemay be able to chalk their success to a lack of modern convenience features, but some recent releases prove that these features don’t have to be a detriment.
Red Dead Redemption 2follows the formula of other open-world games by showing the locations of story missions and side quests. If you’re only interested in experiencing these parts of the game, you’ll always know where to find them. However, taking the time to explore the rest of the world will lead to a wealth of secret events and random encounters.
Entering a seemingly abandoned cabin might lead to a surprise ambush or the discovery of a grisly murder. In other parts of the world, you might confront cannibals, conmen, and even supernatural beings. Unusual secrets and strange encounters are hidden all overRed Dead Redemption 2, meaning there’s always a reason to go off the beaten path.
But even in games likeRed Dead Redemption 2, quest markers rarely add to the thrill of exploration. When you’re not searching for secret encounters or aimlessly wandering through the wilderness,Red Dead Redemption 2is a highly linear experience. That’s not to discredit the game, but it and many other open-world titles draw a hard line between free-form exploration and strictly guided gameplay.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildandTears of the Kingdomare notable exceptions to this rule. Both games feature the usual open-world tropes like quest markers, collectibles, and icons dotted around the map. But each of these elements serves to enhance the open world and reward exploration.
Many quests consist of simply talking to an NPC or confronting a challenging foe, but their quest markers often lead to the peaks of mountains or the depths of underground caverns. Reaching these locations requires you to fight foes, bypass environmental obstacles, and find inventive ways to overcome dangerous terrain.
Other quests involve solving puzzles by using both the environment and your toolset to create your own solutions. Although the quest markers reveal your destination, they never spoil the journey to get there.
Likewise,Breath of the WildandTears of the Kingdommanage to make optional collectibles into a meaningful addition rather than pointless filler. Not only does every collectible serve a useful purpose, such as unlocking fast travel points or upgrading your inventory capacity, but they’re also earned by completing various challenges.
Some require you to solve puzzles or take pictures of specific locations, while others are acquired by completing mini-dungeons. Most importantly, the game never tells you where these collectibles are located, requiring you to search for them yourself or randomly encounter them while exploring the map.
Open-world games don’t need to use objective markers to reliably guide players.Elden Ringis one of the rare examples of a modern game that doesn’t use any traditional navigation aids or even a quest log, but that doesn’t mean it’s as elusive asMorrowindandShenmue. Instead,Elden Ringuses the world itself as your guide.
In most parts of the map, you can see distant landmarks such as towering ruins and imposing fortresses, showing you where to head next. The paths leading to these areas are densely packed with unique locations, roaming enemies, and well-hidden secrets. The major dungeons are just as expansive, with labyrinthian interiors that carry their own surprises and pathways leading into different parts of the world.
Elden Ringis a dizzyingly huge game, but it avoids themistakes that plague most other open world games. Every inch of its map serves a purpose, and the game balances the size of its world with subtle visual hints that lead you to your next objective.
At the same time,Elden Ringconstantly incentivizes you to explore the rest of its world, either to prepare for the next challenging boss fight or to build your collection of unique spells and equipment.Elden Ring’s fantastic balance of immersive freedom and subtle guidance makes it one of the best games in the genre, and more games can benefit by learning from its example.
Games likeTears of the KingdomandElden Ringdemonstrate how the genre can return to its roots without abandoning its modern conveniences. While these games are steps in the right direction, open-world games can only improve if more developers stop relying on overused tropes and learn to embrace the immersive freedom that originally defined the genre.
