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Is it fair to say Sony is leading the industry when it comes to open worlds?

Flabagast

Member
The game is nice but for as beautiful as Ghost of Tsushima is (and it really is) I thought that the open world was really artificial, as I never got the impression that the island was a real place with a coherent ecosystem, urbanisation or interrelations between the different places. The world never really felt lived in, even if I know that the context of invasion would most probably downplay this feeling. Tbh, to me it was such as Sucker Punch created a bunch of iconic landscapes & Japanese biomes and architecture and put all of that into a shaker to dispatch them randomly accross the map. There was a lack of worldbuilding & world design as well imho, for example the Golden Temple is at the center but you are never really explained what is its purpose, how its people used to live, etc etc. And finally, the exploration based on the copy pasting of the same activites, fox dens & all of that with very few if any backstory comes as jaring where you are navigating accross the map ... All of this builds up towards what seems a very "gamey" world and a postcard land with minimum substance to be found within it.

In comparison, Rockstar & CDProjekt worlds, and dare I say even some Ubisoft ones seem much better designed to sell you an authentic sense of place.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Nobody and i mean nobody does open world anywhere close to the level that R* does it, them guys are on another fucking planet when it comes to this sorta shit
 

bender

What time is it?
From an open world perspective, you could tell me that Sony is a division of Ubisoft and I'd believe you. Sony really hasn't brought anything original to the table with their designs.

Nobody and i mean nobody does open world anywhere close to the level that R* does it, them guys are on another fucking planet when it comes to this sorta shit

Their production values are off the charts and they create very believable worlds. I just wish they'd utilize them better but I prefer a sandbox to a heavily scripted/narrative experience.
 
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assurdum

Banned
GoT is great but Horizon
got talent claudio GIF by Italia's Got Talent

I don't remind any exceptional free roam by Sony. Curious to see Horizon 2 but Guerrilla needs to improve a lot of stuff from the boredom of the first
 

MayauMiao

Member
Sony spent the last few years hitting it out of the park over and over, with God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn and now Ghost of Tsushima. Even Days Gone, which I think is fair to say sits a tier lower than those games, gave a better overall experience than a lot of other open world games from other publishers last gen.

Is Sony currently the best publisher of open world games? And if not, who is?

The games you listed can barely touch what GTA V has to offer, let alone RDR II.

Its like calling PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale the better version of Smash Bros.
 

Old Empire.

Member
Just my opinion. Horizon Zero Down was a great game, though it lacked the gameplay content, you see in a Witcher or Skyrim game. Still believe it was best open world first party game, so far and had a unique story.

Reality is Bethesda, and Ubisoft are the kings of the open world game, not Sony.
 

bender

What time is it?
They're tied with Ubisoft in keeping open world games stale.

RDR2, BoTW, Outer Wilds and Witcher 3 are the best open world games this gen.

Mostly agree but I'd lump Witcher 3 in the Ubisoft school of design category. While it does narrative well, it's a bog standard open world game.
 

DonJorginho

Banned
Not at all.

BOTW, RDR 2, Fallout New Vegas and Outer Wilds are all levels ahead of any Sony open world barring GoT so far, that could change however in the future.

Ghost was an amazing step in the right direction as it was heavily influenced by these great titles I listed (BOTW specifically). However GoT is the exception as every other Sony open world I have played feel just slightly ahead of your typical Ubisoft shtick.
 
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nikolino840

Member
And bethesda? You can say everything but there's lot of freedom in the map in elder and fallout .. you can earn xp during exploration without follow the story
Yeah red dead is more a cinematic story driven set in an open world..
Depend on what do you like more in an open world
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Id prefer my open worlds to not have every fucking icon shown on a map, i'm currently playing Witcher3 (for the first time) and whilst im loving it my maps are full of fucking question marks and things to see and its overfuckingwhelming, i would prefer that instead of showing everything on the main map games encourage exploration by showing nothing until your in the immediate area and then only on your mini map, leave the main map for say the main questline and towns/cities etc but leave all the other shit off it until you actually get off your arse and ride to a particular area and then reveal whats around you
 

GymWolf

Member
Kinda yeah, but not by that much.

Yep they have generally better combat and story than the trash from ubisoft but that is not an hard task at all.

People ripping their hairs off for tsushima combat clearly shows how bad the situation is in most open world games...
 
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IDappa

Member
You have to be crazy to think that and Sony open world game is better than RDR2, certain mechanics in Red dead are flawed but the world is second to none. Not to say Sony's open worlds are bad. I think they are definitely better than everything else out there other than Rockstars output.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
To be honest, no one are leading the open world, as everyone copies each other. Being more busy about stupid collectibles and whatnot to make it time consuming instead.

With that said, I had the most fun in AC open worlds. Not being a true fan to the series, AC black flag and origins can't be matched. I still have odyssey that I need to okay at some point.

I love the open world in RDR as well, but neither gta v or rdr2 really tickled my impressive meter.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
No. Sony can make some fun games, but the open worlds are like cardboard cutouts at an amusement park - they have no depth (with a few notable exceptions).

I stand by they BotW was a massive step forward in open world gameplay and RDR2 was a step in a different, branching direction. Nothing Sony has done has come close to either title. They take what is already done and either repeat it or make it worse. They never push it forward, which is perfectly fine. Sometimes you just want a refined experience of something familiar.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
I can understand why so many people put RDR2 above all other open world games. I have to concur with this. However, Ghost of Tsushima is a better game to me because it has better art direction and I absolutely love the samurai world. Having said that, I can see how people think it's a canned version of AC games. It's the samurai game they should have made a long time ago. BotW is also a superior open world game. It's just a different type of one. I never finished BoTW but I did finish RDR2.
 
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RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Yeah completely forgot about Days Gone, now that was a brilliant example of an open world done great.. fantastic art direction, realistic towns, wildlife, forests, mountains and roaming bands of zombies, one of the best open worlds to date tbf
 

KillaJamm

Member
Tbh Sony open worlds pretty much just copied the Ubisoft formula. I'd go with Rockstar as a whole but as others have pointed out Breath of the Wild is definitely up there.
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
The games you listed can barely touch what GTA V has to offer, let alone RDR II.

Its like calling PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale the better version of Smash Bros.
I had more fun with all of them except Days Gone than I did with GTA V.
 

itsArtie

Member
Sony does not have better stories or less repetitive gameplay than any Rockstar game. Ubisoft are not great anyway but RDR2 is the benchmark for open world, story, world simulation, characters etc

In all fairness all Sony first party open world games are decent but nothing special. I just don't understand why all this praise is heaped upon them, I sure if another company made these games they'd be scored lower. Just my opinion but I stand by it.
I said that Sony has better story and gameplay than Ubisoft games, not R*...

They get all the praise because of the story and perfectly polished games. They don't try to compete with R* but rather make something that will beat all smaller studios in that genre. For example, God of War in Greek/Norse mythology, The Last of Us in single-player zombie games, GoT in samurai games - even though we have Sekiro and a bunch of other samurai/ninja games, GoT stands out because it's open-world with amazing combat mechanics.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Good games.. but TBH don't really scratch the open world itch for me that much.

Days Gone by far the best in that respect. I like Ghosts of Tsushima but other than being pretty the world doesn't have much going on at all. Running into the obviously spawned "same group of 3-7 guys" gets really stale.

Bethesda is my king of open world games personally.
 
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Amiga

Member
This is not about the best single open world game, R* barley turns out 2 games a decade. Nintendo did one game. so Sony on volume+quality.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Breath of the Wild. Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Most games that want to be Open World have instanced zones. Both Xenoblades have instanced zones so I wouldn't count those. XCX was something else though.

I'm very much a fan of games that let you go wherever with no real roadblocks other then high level enemies.

I like the mantra of if you see that lake or mountain you can go there and swim and climb it.

Not a fan of Ubisoft open world systems.
 

Zannegan

Member
Ghost is supposed to be amazing, and I've heard good things about Spiderman, but Horizon? Interesting combat concept and amazing creature designs, but the open world is so lifeless and static. Good game overall, but not what I'd call a good open world.

As for who is number one, I think each dev probably has at least one standout and one stinker, so it's really hard to choose.
 
I think since open worlds became a well developed, practical game design choice with Grand Theft Auto III, it's been fair to say that Rockstar has ruled the roost in the open world space. Lots of companies have also made great open world games (Mercenaries comes to mind,) and occasionally somebody has made a better GTA than Rockstar (Saints Row 3 says hello.) But even where one game might show its weakness, Rockstar always had other games to show that they weren't just sitting around stagnating, like Red Dead Redemption or L.A. Noire.

Last gen was something different. There was no GTA, and Red Dead Redemption II, as amazing as it is, had some serious flaws. And other great franchises in the space, like Assassin's Creed, couldn't help getting stale. Sony spent the last few years hitting it out of the park over and over, with God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn and now Ghost of Tsushima. Even Days Gone, which I think is fair to say sits a tier lower than those games, gave a better overall experience than a lot of other open world games from other publishers last gen.

Is Sony currently the best publisher of open world games? And if not, who is?
God of War is not open world at all. That game is classic on rails game with an overworld.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
No, Rockstar still makes the most detailed, believable open worlds. They may not be the best games in terms of the stories or the actual gameplay, but the worlds in GTA 5 and RDR 2 feel very alive and it's a result of a ton of work most studios skip out on (including recently CDPR in Cyberpunk).
 
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bitbydeath

Member
Come on. I appreciated DG but it's what would be an open world Ubisoft games with zombies...
I’m not sure what that means exactly but RDR2 wasn’t as interactive or detailed as Days Gone.

The random encounters/interactions was a generation ahead of RDR2.
 

Max_Po

Banned
So that turns Black Ops Cold War into the best game of last year or how do those fucked up metrics of yours work exactly?

New IP and Open world games ... thats what we are discussing

Don't drag conversation to your narrow mind retard level...

who gives a shit about COD?
 

oldergamer

Member
This feels like a thread trying to credit sony for a genre they have barely made any games for. Open world games have been around long before sony attempted its first so id say "no"
 
Fallout is open world? I have only played 4 and it wasn't open world at all

Maybe you're thinking of something else? Fallout 4 is absolutely an open world game. 1 and 2 I haven't played through all the way and it was forever ago so I don't remember them too much, but 3, New Vegas, 4, and 76 are all open worlds.

People can say what they want about the gameplay of Fallout 4 and 76 but they're two of the best open world games out there. I'd say RDR2 has them beat but it's pretty close. Fucking great games.
 
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