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[darth.shrimp]

Early Ragnarok Online. Now you have a quest log and a world map (that tells you the level of mobs in each area), but figuring out what to do and where to go to level up and get some money/gear without getting swarmed by enemies 60 levels above yours (did I mention there's an xp penalty on death?) used to be quite hard.

 

[EddieVanHelgen]

Sea of Thieves relies on using the world to navigate quite often. There is a map on your ship but when you're on an island you're stuck using a static map with no indication of where you are, needing to use landmarks to find your way around.

 

[mdkirby]

Fairytale adventure on the Amiga 500

Massive open world of 16,000 screens. Perma-death with 3 brothers, older, middle, young. You start as the eldest in your village. If he dies, you return to your village now as the middle brother (with nothing). You can find your brothers corpse to claim all his stuff (all corpses remain in the game, slowly turning to skeletons). If you don’t eat drink or sleep you grow weak, slow, walk in non straight lines and eventually die. If the youngest brother (ie your third death) dies, then it’s game over, lose everything, start again.

My parents did the cartography and gradually hand made a massive 10ft map that filled the dining table. No googling shit in those days.

 

[Kupfer]

DayZ

Also I remember RDR2 was advertised in a way like this. If you turn off the mini-map, characters you interact with will give you additional information on where to go. I never tried it myself though.

 

[BusierDonkey]

I always turn waypoints off in Bethesda RPGs. I always feel I'm doing myself a disservice by just pointing my screen at an arrow and holding up on a stick. There are several in-game indicators as to where major settlements and landmarks are and finding people or places is much more interesting when you aren't sure exactly who you're looking for. It also makes paying attention to dialogue more important.

More games should trust players to find their own way, problem is a lot of people don't actually want to be immersed into the game.

 

[Kataploom]

That game is not open world, its structure is much more closer to dungeon crawler.

That's the reason why Super Mario 64 doesn't fit OP requirements, it's not open world but damn it's very free and even though the level name tells you the star subject once you're in, you're on your own, also in the castle

 

[GymWolf]

Kenshi on pc.

 

[WildBoy]

Take a game like Gothic for example.

No maps, no quest markers, not even a little compass on the screen with tiny icons indicating that there's something nearby. All you could rely on were your wits, the road signs, and a big scary monster running at you in a sign that you should probably do a 180 and get the fuck out of there.

And all of that was baked into the game's dough, so it's not like this HUD-less experience was an optional one. Any game that offers any kind of HUD-based directions wouldn't count in this little exercise, so don't you go mentioning... whatever game you were thinking about right now, because it's probably not what I'm talking about.

I honestly struggle to think of too many games like that

Morrowind was my first thought.
"the thing is by the rock near the biggest rock on the north bye"

This isn't open world but I recall The Darkness making you rely on it's environment and HD Tube/Train/Road signs.

 

[Radical_3d]

The Getaway.

 

[Bojanglez]

Tchia works kind of like this, there is a map but you are never actively shown on it, you can interact with certain landmarks to plot yourself on the map once you reach them, but it never fully tracks you as you move around. It was a bit weird at first, as I'm so used to my location being handed to me in a game, but it actually encouraged me to explore the map in a more organic way.

 

[Drizzlehell]

DayZ

Also I remember RDR2 was advertised in a way like this. If you turn off the mini-map, characters you interact with will give you additional information on where to go. I never tried it myself though.

Which kinda is in the game but then there are plenty of story missions where the game wants you to go to a very specific spot and do a very specific thing because if you're gonna go off script it's gonna go into Mission Failed screen and you'll have to restart. It's essential to have the radar screen on in a lot of situations.

Ok that is fair, I think that is another good point - the games should probably fit the navigation to the theme/plot/character better. Gothic it makes sense for a shit map, but then something like Greedfall where you are nobility (if I remember right) would probably have a great map.

Yeah, that makes sense. Also reminds me of how in Far Cry 2 your character physically pulled a map out of his ass and held it in front of his face instead of going to some magical map screen in the menu. If it makes sense within the game's internal logic then it's fair to have a map. But if you have a game like Horizon for example, and you run around dressed up like Pocahontas, but then you press a button and you're teleported to Google Maps with a bunch of icons on it to tell you where to go. It would be more immersive if the devs designed a map screen or a radar around this holographic thingy that she wears on her temple but they don't even leverage their own ideas. It should be like that holomap from Jedi Fallen Order, where a 3D map was projected by your little droid buddy in front of Cal's face.

 

[crackajack]

Did Outcast have more than a compass? Everything had to be found by the npcs pointing in a direction.
Also can't remember if Vampire Bloodlines had much guidance systems.

Worlds that are rather compact and you can't wander around for hours anyway are much easier to make in such a way. Anything that is just some vague text with terrible maps that remind me of the worst procedural attempts suck balls and thank god practically no one makes shit like that anymore. At worst you can deactivate most or all. I think AC:Valhalla let's you play pretty much without any markers if you are into wasting even more hours.

 

[FrankWza]

You have a light showing the direction to the next colossus, OP is talking about games where there is no exploration hand-holding at all.

If you have no idea going in that's exactly what SotC does. Even with the general direction some of them were hard to find. Once you know it's easier but the first time you play it's stripped down to bare bones and even the boss fights are puzzles.

No maps, no quest markers, not even a little compass on the screen with tiny icons indicating that there's something nearby All you could rely on were your wits, the road signs, and a big scary monster running at you in a sign that you should probably do a 180 and get the fuck out of there.

 

[Toots]

I'm gonna be burned at the stake for this but i remember a Far Cry 5 promo where the dev was talking about how they were trying to do organic direction (in a ubisoft game yes sir) and they had implemented a hudless mapless UI where you'll have to rely on roadsigns and landmarks to navigate. I actually tried this mod and it was kind of fun.
I think you can have the experience OP is trying to find with a lot of games nowdays still, but this "hardcore" experience isn't forced upon the players, it would make no sense financially...

 

[PanzerCute]

That game is not open world, its structure is much more closer to dungeon crawler.

Yes my bad, I realized too late that topic was only about OW games.

 

[Kdad]

Flower

 

[trikster40]

Before Morrowwind: Daggerfall.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Basically any old PC RPG game

 

[anthraticus]

Been playing cRPGs like this since the early 80s with games like Ultima, etc..lol

Good write up on the subject...

Game Platforms recent news | Game Developer

Explore the latest news and expert commentary on Game Platforms, brought to you by the editors of Game Developer

www.gamasutra.com

 

[supernova8]

PlaneShift - A 3D Fantasy MMORPG

Planeshift is a Free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, completely made and maintained by volunteers for fun and research. PlaneShift uses an open development approach accepting contributions from the community from code to art.

www.planeshift.it

There's an MMO (free I think) made and maintained by a small group of people and when I tried it (admittedly about 5 years ago), it was pretty much almost zero no HUD and no clear idea of where to go/what to do.

Could try that if that's what you're into.

 

[Fuz]

Does Darklands apply? Never understood what the fuck I had to do in that game and it was brutal.
But there was technically a map.

Before Morrowwind: Daggerfall.

I don't think Daggerfall applies, for how the world and autotravel were structured.
Also there was a definite world map and a (awful) dungeon map.

 

[Fuz]

Been playing cRPGs like this since the early 80s with games like Ultima, etc..lol

Good write up on the subject...

Game Platforms recent news | Game Developer

Explore the latest news and expert commentary on Game Platforms, brought to you by the editors of Game Developer

www.gamasutra.com

Excdellent article... and even being guilty of using quest helper, I feel the same way as the author.

I guess designing a good open world structure is harder than just give you a dot on a minimap.

 

[lestar]

Zelda 1

 

[Yerd]

Days Gone in survival mode.

It's hard 2 mode (which is tough as nails anyway)

as well as:

In the Days Gone Survival Mode has the following features:

• No Survival Vision feature which normally helps you locate enemies and items on other difficulty levels.
• No fast travelling
• No HUD.
• Map waypoints are removed.
• Extremely scarce resources.
• Enemies have an incredible amount of health.
• Many enemies can kill you in one or two hits.
• Freakers can smell you from a mile away.
• Can't lower difficulty.

I am currently playing this. Its super hard. The big brute enemies (the breaker) take FOREVER to kill.

I'm playing this mode right now, and I think I bit off more than I can chew.

I played and beat it on ps4 already on regular or hard or something lower, now playing on PC again. The missing HUD isn't that big a deal until you can't see your damn stamina bar. That's really annoying to me. I'm only at the beginning too. Not even met a special freak yet. I remember taking out hordes and running out of stamina a lot. Now I can't even see the stamina bar.

 

[nikos]

Sea of Thieves

 

[01011001]

You actually had to listen to the directions the quest giver provides. Imagine that.

We really have regressed.

players today when their schizophrenic protagonist doesn't talk to himself constantly to tell them exactly what to do next:

 

[01011001]

Days Gone in survival mode.

It's hard 2 mode (which is tough as nails anyway)

as well as:

In the Days Gone Survival Mode has the following features:

• No Survival Vision feature which normally helps you locate enemies and items on other difficulty levels.
• No fast travelling
• No HUD.
• Map waypoints are removed.
• Extremely scarce resources.
• Enemies have an incredible amount of health.
• Many enemies can kill you in one or two hits.
• Freakers can smell you from a mile away.
• Can't lower difficulty.

I am currently playing this. Its super hard. The big brute enemies (the breaker) take FOREVER to kill.

the issue with modes like these is that the games weren't designed with that in mind usually, which in return means the leveldesign/world design isn't working well with all the UI elements removed that usually tell you where to go.

the prominent waypoints markers and minimap icons are not only there to help bad players, it's often also just a bandaid slapped onto the game to hide the fact that the Leveldesign is shit/lazy.

the same is true with UI elements like button icons appearing everywhere. sometimes it's just the devs having no faith in the intelligence of the players sure. but usually, and more often, the controls aren't intuitive enough to work without constant button promts and button icons for every interaction.
which is also a design flaw of many modern games.

One game that proudly advertised the decluttered UI was Ghost of Tsushima, and it simply didn't have the world design/leveldesign to work well with it.

never in my life did I have to open my map more often than while playing Tsushima, simply due to the fact that you often are somewhere that has zero identifiable landmarks, just generic forest or generic field as far as the eye can see.
the game also had no compass on screen, so I often had to open the map to reorientate myself because there was just nothing in any of the cardinal directions to naturally help me keep myself oriented.

the only way to solve this is to mark something and then just follow the wind, which was a cool way to replace waypoint markers, but in the end, functionally it's just a waypoint arrow that's prettier.

Meanwhile, Breath of the Wild, which has a minimap and compass had the world design down well enough for me to almost ignore those elements completely while playing.

so we have one game where the elements are missing but were needed due to suboptimal Level/World design, and another that had these elements but didn't need them due to really good Level/World design.


so it's not as easy as just turning off elements of the game and call it a day,
the game needs to be designed with low amount of UI elements from the beginning and has to be competent in its design, if it isn't both of those you will end up with an annoying experience.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Isn't that a mod?

Just asking, can't remember.

Nah, it comes with the base game. May be toggleable. I just booted up morrowind a few months ago, played it vanilla for 10 minutes, modden the shit out of it for 20 hours, ruined my mod order and deleted everything.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Take a game like Gothic for example.

No maps, no quest markers, not even a little compass on the screen with tiny icons indicating that there's something nearby. All you could rely on were your wits, the road signs, and a big scary monster running at you in a sign that you should probably do a 180 and get the fuck out of there.

And all of that was baked into the game's dough, so it's not like this HUD-less experience was an optional one. Any game that offers any kind of HUD-based directions wouldn't count in this little exercise, so don't you go mentioning... whatever game you were thinking about right now, because it's probably not what I'm talking about.

I honestly struggle to think of too many games like that.

Dark Souls, actually.

In retrospect, that was my favorite thing about the game. Usually the games that take that route have terrible combat (morrowind) but Dark Souls did it well. Shame they abandoned that for the remainder of the series in favor of pRePaRe To DiE

 

[Games of Today]

ET for Atari 2600

Raiders of the Lost Ark as well.

 

[Games of Today]

I'm playing Stray right now and it's awesome because of this. I have actually remember where I'm going like a real cat. Haha

 

[22:22:22]

Zelda and Death Stranding came close. So were the Souls borne games.

Maybe I'm misremembering.

Cool thread Drizzlehell

 

[01011001]

I'm playing Stray right now and it's awesome because of this. I have actually remember where I'm going like a real cat. Haha

ah yes, Stray lol.

if that game had waypoints you basically would have zero player agency/challenge whatsoever
the game literally has scripted and predetermined jump promts...

 

[Games of Today]

Days Gone in survival mode.

Does it really not have a map in that difficulty?

ah yes, Stray lol.

if that game had waypoints you basically would have zero player agency/challenge whatsoever
the game literally has scripted and predetermined jump promts...

I know but I really appreciate the ability to turn off the jump prompts, which I did. There is no HUD on my screen outside of interactable button prompts for scratching walls and talking to NPC's.

It's really an incredible game so far. I can't believe how much I'm convinced that I'm an actual cat when I play it.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

 

[01011001]

I know but I really appreciate the ability to turn off the jump prompts, which I did. There is no HUD on my screen outside of interactable button prompts for scratching walls and talking to NPC's.

It's really an incredible game so far. I can't believe how much I'm convinced that I'm an actual cat when I play it.

how do you know where you can jump if you turn the prompt off?
this is exactly what I meant with my post above,

the same is true with UI elements like button icons appearing everywhere. sometimes it's just the devs having no faith in the intelligence of the players sure. but usually, and more often, the controls aren't intuitive enough to work without constant button promts and button icons for every interaction.
which is also a design flaw of many modern games.

the game is designed with completely scripted, arbitrary, and predetermined jumps in mind, meaning you basically need to know where you can press the jump button. turning that off will result in guessing where you can go and where you can't.

it's bad gamedesign, and you can't just fix it by turning off the bandaid that keeps the bad design from getting in the way.

 

[shenmue mugen]

Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System

 

[daveonezero]

Miasmata

This is a game I want to play. Next time I get a windows rig up and running. I know it’s old but I have just laptops right now. Was an interesting premise.

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

Morrowind.

You actually had to listen to the directions the quest giver provides. Imagine that.

We really have regressed.

Sounds like progress to me, I don't want to have to remember what an NPC told me a week ago, or have to navigate a map based on directions, there's GPS in real life, I'm fine with it existing in video games, it should be toggleable, but I don't want to spend lots of time figuring out how to get to the place where I have to go before I can do the fun video game stuff, I already don't have enough time to play all the games I want to

 

[worldwithpyramids]

Outer Wilds?

 

[GHG]

Sounds like progress to me, I don't want to have to remember what an NPC told me a week ago, or have to navigate a map based on directions, there's GPS in real life, I'm fine with it existing in video games, it should be toggleable, but I don't want to spend lots of time figuring out how to get to the place where I have to go before I can do the fun video game stuff, I already don't have enough time to play all the games I want to

If you don't have time to play these kinds of games then don't play them. Nobody is forcing you to, nor must you play absolutely everything.

It's not that deep.

 

[The Stig]

Does it really not have a map in that difficulty?

I know but I really appreciate the ability to turn off the jump prompts, which I did. There is no HUD on my screen outside of interactable button prompts for scratching walls and talking to NPC's.

It's really an incredible game so far. I can't believe how much I'm convinced that I'm an actual cat when I play it.

yes. days gone in survival mode is brutal.

one thing i will say is that the hilly nature of the map in that game helps you look a long distance, i am often navigating by landmarks/mountains

 

[SteelCurtain 59]

If you don't have time to play these kinds of games then don't play them. Nobody is forcing you to, nor must you play absolutely everything.

It's not that deep.

I have time for those games, I don't have time for adding filler content of (follow the directions a random npc gave you, only using landmarks), adding time consuming unfun content to a game would be a negative imo,
it's not that deep

 

[Games of Today]

how do you know where you can jump if you turn the prompt off?
this is exactly what I meant with my post above,



the game is designed with completely scripted, arbitrary, and predetermined jumps in mind, meaning you basically need to know where you can press the jump button. turning that off will result in guessing where you can go and where you can't.

it's bad gamedesign, and you can't just fix it by turning off the bandaid that keeps the bad design from getting in the way.

You understand what you can and cannot jump on after about 20 minutes of playing the game with the HUD still on. You can literally jump on 98% of things you would assume a cat can jump on.

That's why I'm saying I can't believe how convincing it is that you're controlling a cat. It's very intuitive.

You see that random box that leads to no where? Sure you can jump on that! That small pipe you think a cat could fit on? Sure you can run across it!

Also items that you can't jump on (mainly around the map boundary) are covered in spikes.

 

[Games of Today]

yes. days gone in survival mode is brutal.

one thing i will say is that the hilly nature of the map in that game helps you look a long distance, i am often navigating by landmarks/mountains

How does finding the main missions work? Does it still just say meet Ricki at Lost Lake for example and you just have to know where that is?

I guess it still functions fine and isn't really confusing if it's an actual feature of that difficulty. And I've played the game enough to know where to go without the map most of the time.

I just never tried that mode though. I'm just a little weary of how bullet spongy the enemies would feel. Because I know they are harder to take down.

 

[fart town usa]

Zelda on NES?

Link's Adventure for that matter too.

 

[Draxon Gamer]

1990's RPG, and Action Simulation games.

 

[Draxon Gamer]

Zelda on NES?

Link's Adventure for that matter too.

Zelda telegraphs directions to you all the time, and it comes with a map.

 

[The Stig]

How does finding the main missions work? Does it still just say meet Ricki at Lost Lake for example and you just have to know where that is?

I guess it still functions fine and isn't really confusing if it's an actual feature of that difficulty. And I've played the game enough to know where to go without the map most of the time.

I just never tried that mode though. I'm just a little weary of how bullet spongy the enemies would feel. Because I know they are harder to take down.

You still get markers for missions you select. just no map to show you how to get there.

BTW I just finished it last night. last mission in the cone....... all the soldiers were fully armored. takes TWO shots to knock off their helmet. That means a minimum of 3 headshots to kill most enemies if you just unload on their bodies theyre just bullet sponges.. it was fucking BRUTAL.

also the sawmill horde was................ EPIC!

btw proof:

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

My parents did the cartography and gradually hand made a massive 10ft map that filled the dining table. No googling shit in those days.

Damn, your parents are hardcore.

I kinda liked playing that game, but couldn't get too far. The impressive thing is that it was made by only one guy.