Open World Action

Let's talk about how the action is impacted in this genre. I'm looking for talk about things that could not be done in an action game without it being open world style.

What would be 5 open world games of your choosing that would encompass a decent worldview of what it adds to action?

What I'd choose:
- Body Harvest
- Dead Rising
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
- Maneater

Prototype series was great. The original had the best combat variety and movement, but it lacked in the campaign and side activities. It's the reverse for the sequel.

Played like a standard action game but without any restrictions.

I don't quite understand the question.

>that could not be done in an action game without it being open world style.

Running for 5 mins to the next enemy?

>What would be 5 open world games of your choosing that would encompass a decent worldview of what it adds to action?

Are you asking what open world mechanics could possibly add to an action game?

Yeah, so what does increased land space allow for in regards to combat in approaching enemies? Additional wait time. Check. Additional stealth attacking range? Increased dynamic action events due to consolidation of levels? If no actual impressive game examples come to mind then why not take things theoretically.

For the 5 games it can be specifically about open world mechanics; the games I chose so far each have different means of attacking things allowing a decent analytical range (e.g. the difference of tranq shooting in open world versus the bashing of zombies in an open world.) If you want you could even just pick 5 linear games with large open areas.

I like playing ranger in Dragon's Dogma and the terrain helps with that. I can snipe enemies from miles away or from higher ground. Use the environment to obstruct them.

But that's an action RPG and if you were using a melee class you'd have to attack from close range then it's action game mechanics with the open world offering nothing other than you might be able to approach unseen.

I don't know if I could list 5 in general that I feel add enough significantly different things without reaching for more than one Spider-Man game, haha

I don't think open world adds much to the action genre.

>different means of attacking things allowing a decent analytical

From a positional perspective right? But isn't this already possible in action games? Open world would only allow you to approach from a different direction.

Heh. Everyone likes a different game.

Birdman wrote:From a positional perspective right? But isn't this already possible in action games? Open world would only allow you to approach from a different direction.

Increased scope of attack possibilities via positioning is one attribute. I don't think Shadows of Rome -> Dead Rising is possible without the change to the world design. Inversely, certain combo systems in action games (i.e. TATE in Shinobi on PS2) would have negative application or be overhauled entirely for expansive areas. Open world games and a cool combo system....

>Open world games and a cool combo system....

What would be the point of making it open?

So the player is always situated in the middle of something. Like a Horde Mode / Battle Royale applied on a world scale. Or something like there always being pedestrians to pick up in Crazy Taxi. Dynamic route action!

I don't think I've ever played an action game where I've sat back and said it could benefit from some open world mechanics.

I think I'm with Birdman on this one. I don't typically find that an open world directly effects "action" because combat is usually always done at close/medium range anyway, so the level size isn't that relevant. The ability to use different insertion points in games like MGSV (making the missions less linear) has already been mentioned, and I think for me that's probably the biggest and most obvious way that open-world mechanics influence action.

Having said that, Spider Man on PS4 did allow you to do some cool things in combat by not locking you in to arenas. Lets say you were fighting enemies on top of a skyscraper - you were free to jump off of the building, swing round the sides and pop up somewhere else to get the drop on your enemies. It was quite novel, given that in most action games you spend the entire time being in your enemy's line of sight. This was partly influenced by the open world, but also the design choice to allow you to use all of your non-combat related movement options during fights.

Devil's advocate, I think we're all a bit lukewarm to the idea because we also haven't seen it done well yet. Personally I'll always prefer a game that is only one street big but with tons of details and a lively world as opposed to a big giant map with nothing in it, but Open World should give action games a lot of options if done right, just that it rarely does so.

Part of the reason for this I feel is that good action relies on enemy compositions and locations that work with those. In an open-world enviroment, this is quickly squandered and turned into a few random brawls without any challenge or nuance.

Some positive examples to me though, are Infamous, Batman Arkham City and Dark Souls. The first two are bit more open world than the latter. Infamous is especially interesting in how areas are a lot more dangerous originally, until you take back the land and its collision and shockwave-based combat systems work well with the open sky. Its missions also still allowed for a pretty tightnit structure when necessary. Batman kept the world small, same with Dark Souls.

Having loved Ultimate Spider-Man back in the day and Spider-Man PS4 now, and excited for Miles Morales, I've seen it done well, but I do agree it is exceedingly rare...

I know the combat in Musou/Warriors games isn't really looked on favorably but I especially want to talk about Dynasty Warriors 9. The combat was entirely reworked, with very interesting controls and mechanics I've not seen in any other game in the series, not even in the more experimental spin-off/adaptation games. But the game was also the first Open World Warriors game- and it suffered heavily for it, including the combat.

On the other hand there is the case of Action RPGs. Not all of them are open world, but a lot are more "open" than the usual action game and can still end up having good combat. Ok, I admit I can't think of an action RPG that had good action combat and open enough level design to be relevant here, but Xenoblade (particularly X) does a good job of having combat that benefits a lot from the open design (environmental effects, positioning matters, a fight with the same enemy can be radically different and more or less challenging depending on where you fight them, mechanics to lure enemies away, etc.)

On that note I also think maybe as action gamers we're not really approaching the question as "openly" (heh) as we could. Sure, maybe there's an open world action game where the open world-ness doesn't benefit the combat. But some games want to be open world, and some of us like open world games (myself included), so maybe we should also consider the question of could an open world game benefit from good action combat? I'd say yes in 99.9% of cases.

> open world game benefit from good action combat

Yes. Common complaints are mediocre combat.

Dragon's Dogma is open but not extremely huge and has fantastic combat.

There's a point where they're just too big though.

A stealth game seems to benefit from open world more than anything.

An openworld-game could definitely benefit from good combat, for sure. But you'll always have the question of wheither the combat benefits from the open world. I think that's mostly because there's a lot of randomization in the open world.

One of my bigger talks with SBK was about Death Stranding recently, and how it could've used more 'dungeons'. Near the end game there's an area that's semi-lineair and is quite the stand-out since it is 'designed'. There's multiple routes, multiple places to use items etc. Compare that to the open world where you can just do whatever, it added a lot to the mechanics, same with the 'war zone' parts of the game.

I think if you scale the open-world down a bit to something like Deus Ex Mankind Divided, you already get a lot more out of it.

By randomness, do you include enemy encounters? Because if so I do want to bring-up Xenoblade again. Again- not an action game, but one of the great things about the series (particularly X) is that everything is deliberately placed, including enemies. There's not one single random encounter in the series. So even smaller fights with "generic" enemies you can feel the intention behind the fight. Whether they affect the fight mechanically (enemies too strong for you placed on the most direct path the first time you enter the area, but also next to, say, a cliff they can be knocked off of or perhaps a slightly hidden path placed for perceptive players to use to sneak past them), or just add cool flavor (a bigger enemy variant paired with smaller ones looking like it's leading them or even sitting on a throne in front of them, or a strong but passive enemy looking directly at slightly weaker but aggressive ones, as if to watch over the fight when you inevitably fight the weaker one).

I think one of the follies of open world design is the lack of intention. Grand Theft Auto popularized the idea of the "sandbox" open world- you make a big place and you put pieces there to let things happen. They're not set, and emergent gameplay arrives. That has its own appeal, but it also feels like open world games lean so heavily on it that people see it as an inherent aspect of Open World design. But I think it's very possible, with the Xenoblade games as proof, to instead make an open world that isn't a sandbox for things to happen, but rather a massive intentionally designed area where each corner of the game world has things the developers want you to experience. Hell, I don't even need to point to xenoblade, 2D open world games like metroidvania or the first Zeldas were like that too.

And if you have that sort of intention in your level design, it can benefit whatever combat you have, Action or otherwise.

Style Video #1
https://webmshare.com/mKQ0q

Extra Video

I really like how creative people've gotten with that game's combat system, lots of fun little details!

Are these largely unintended or glitches?

The good/evil for Infamous is shit, but I like the core game (first even had a decent story). Bolt ONLY and Melee ONLY made for good fun (even in the sequel). Wish I'd gotten to play Prototype, but by the looks of it (as the spiritual successor to Hulk's only decent game) there were some hang-ups even with the original. Really wanted more from the aspects of it to do with stealth/disguise. Super weak imitation of The Thing (and its clever assimilation). The action side was better, but not especially balanced (for making many of the options interesting and competitive with each other). It should have been up to the sequel to get this right, but I'm not given the impression that happened.

NOTE: This said, I don't really care much for open-world. Didn't even finish Dragon's Dogma (not into RPG shit either) though I still want to as I like the gameplay, flavor, etc. Just really not into certain decisions (like making Warrior dogshit).

Infamous was fantastic, somehow keep forgetting about that game for some reason.

I need to play Dragon’s Dogma.