9 Ways All Open-World Video Games Are Starting To Suck
Was Horizon Zero Dawn the genre's final hurrah?
Video gaming generations have always been defined by specific genres. A decade ago it was World War 2 shooters, after that it was linear, story-based third person experiences, and ever since the dawn of the 2010s, sandbox games have reigned supreme.
Although they were always popular, open world games received a much larger focus after the introduction of the PS4 and the Xbox One, no doubt thanks to the way those machines alleviated the graphical limitations of the genre that plagued titles such as GTA IV and Oblivion in the previous era.
But just like every major video game fad before it, open world games are going to die. And they deserve to.
After years of having every major new release be a sandbox game, players have become accustomed to seeing the same old features in virtually every title, and developers have been content to continue regurgitating the same tried and tested open world formulas.
Unfortunately, this mentality has resulted in a homogeneous sea of releases that all do the same thing, and the games are starting to flat-out suck because of it.
Sure, there's still some big names that get away with iterating on what came before (Horizon Zero Dawn being this year's example), but for the most part, if games don't stop being slaves to these dated conventions, the entire genre is going to pay the price.