10 Most Insulting Video Game Industry Habits (That Have To End)

Grand Theft Auto 3 changed gaming forever. Whilst it wasn’t the first game to feature an open world explorable by players at will, it popularised the concept, which is now ever-present across a host of genres. Contained linear environments are now quite rare by comparison and even traditionally ‘level-based’ games like first-person-shooters or platformers now usually have ‘hubs’ to traverse.

If done right, open worlds are fantastic, offering countless hours of enjoyment to inquisitive explorers, who are rewarded for going off the beaten path. Hours can be spent roaming Red Dead Redemption 2’s vast countryside, with nary a dull moment to be had between tracking animals, uncovering easter eggs and interacting with dynamic non-player characters.

If done wrong, they are soulless creations, sparsely populated and filled with content that seems to have been created solely for content’s sake. The most recent Assassins’ Creed trilogy boasts a well-crafted story, but many players likely gave up on Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla well before finishing them as they grew tired of the chore of going from question mark to question mark on the map and clearing out identical bases.

Empty open worlds offer developers a lazy way of advertising that their creations are far longer than they actually are. Stuffing dead space with nothing bar the odd collectible is not the way.