I cannot describe in words how impactful Ocarina of Time was to me as a kid, how intensely I got sucked into that world to the point that I even wrote some (bad) fanfic set in that universe back in the days. When Majora's Mask came out I was almost bursting with excitement until I was actually able to play it and was again totally blown away by a unique experience. When I played Breath of the Wild, I felt ... nothing…
> I'm also not a huge fan of open world games in general and to this date In theory they sound great. In reality it seems to work against every open-world game I've played. Elden Ring is almost an exception, but the side quests are completely broken in this format without following a guide. I hated the Witcher 3. Much like RDR 2 it has great presentation, writing and VA - and everything else suffers. But it seems the…
Open world games need the open world to work with how players explore and interact. Interesting sites should be visually distinct from each other and the environment, and frequent. They should not all be visible at once, to avoid players being overwhelmed with unclear choices. They should all be rewarding so players are confident they aren’t wasting their time visiting. There shouldn’t be important content hidden from visibility because then the game is teaching the player that looking at the world is futile. And the world should be navigable without the UI, i.e. the players are focused on the world and not the UI.