Open World Games Will Forever Hold a Candle to Tears of the Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom takes the oversaturrated and formulaic open world model and injects in some much needed fun. Open world games will often have some great design choices that get squashed under the weight of its map. Moments of joy are traded in for running endlessly over plains. Tears of the Kingdom gives you the vastness without compromising the fun factor.

Open World Games Will Forever Hold a Candle to Tears of the Kingdom

Since Tears of the Kingdom came out a couple of weeks back, I’ve been pretty much glued to my TV like one of my misaligned Zonai constructions. I’ve run out of excuses to not spend time with my friends and family. I’m impressed that my 8bitdo controller has been keeping up without complaint. I’ve been muttering like an old man who hates fun for the last few years. “Myeh, there are too many open worlds cluttering up my games list. Back in my day, blah blah blah.” So how has Tears of the Kingdom stolen my heart even after I sunk hundreds of hours into its predecessor’s open world?

I went into Tears of the Kingdom curious as to how they would keep my frazzled attention. I knew they couldn’t just give me another big world and some new traversal option like a plane or something. And it turns out they knew that too. One of my biggest gripes against open worlds is that so much time is spent just moving from one place to another. Holding forward on a controller and maybe doing a little jump here and there. Tears of the Kingdom is much the same yet every moment in the open world is a pleasure. How did they do that? First, let’s talk a bit about how big open worlds are.

There Are a Lot of Open World Games

I don’t think anyone would disagree with the statement that there’s a bit of oversaturation going on with AAA open-world games. Ghostwire Tokyo, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Elden Ring, Sonic Frontiers, Horizon: Forbidden West. Those were just last year. Not to mention all of the linear franchises that have turned open-world like Metal Gear Solid and The Witcher.

I cannot help but feel like open worlds have taking over the industry of sorts. And why wouldn’t they? The point of AAA is to make money and all of the best-selling franchises are open-world franchises. GTA, Assassin’s Creed, Minecraft, Pokemon. From an investor’s standpoint, going open world is a no-brainer. And for players, open worlds offer an entire fictional reality for you to get immersed and invested in. The open-world model isn’t a horrible idea, the issue comes with execution.

The Issues With the Open World Model

To be clear, I actually loved a lot of the games I’m bad-mouthing here but for other reasons than the open world. Ghost of Tsushima had amazing combat. Elden Ring has some of the best lore I’ve ever seen in a game, plus it had some great bosses and areas. I’m not saying these games are without merit, I’m saying that the open-world elements offer nothing more than a detraction from what makes those games good.

Ever since GTA 3, we’ve had copious examples of what I call chore-ridden 3D sandboxes. You’re given a vast city or world to explore but you tend to stare at a minimap for most of the game as you chase a little dot to your next objective. Now that feeling of vastness can be amazing. One of my favorite gaming memories is first stepping out of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII and seeing everywhere you’ve been, everything you’ve done, up until that point represented as a little Midgar model on the world map. Those old Final Fantasy games had tonnes of open-world elements but the travel in between points never detracted from the story or the core loop.

Hey, it's everyone's favourite character

Hey, it’s everyone’s favourite character

Loops

For those that aren’t gnostic to developer lingo, game mechanics are usually described as being part of three loops. The core loop, the secondary loop, and the tertiary loop. And they pretty much describe what the player is doing during between different time intervals. The core loop in a Mario game is jumping on platforms and enemies, while the secondary would be finishing levels or collecting stars. And the tertiary is finishing worlds and trying to save the princess. Sorry to all the developers out there who are wincing at my rudimentary understanding.

If you hear anyone say a game needs to be fun, what they’re essentially saying is that a game needs a strong core loop. What are you doing moment to moment in the game? And is it fun? The core loop to a GTA game would mostly be driving cars and shooting people so you would hope to see a lot of emphasis on the driving and shooting mechanics. But GTA doesn’t hold up against basically any other driving or shooting game for their driving and shooting mechanics. So why is it fun? Partly because they tend to have great tertiary loops, but they also offered vast open worlds.

I have no idea how the Switch runs this game

I have no idea how the Switch runs this game

The Allure of Open Worlds and What They Take Away

For a moment in time, the freedom of being in an open world was unparalleled. It made games feel more like real places, more lived in. But then competition started to take over. Games started competing for players’ attention. Look up an interactive map of any modern open-world game and it’s packed to the brim with stuff. Which you can argue is a good thing, a world with a lot of things to do is better than a completely empty world. But every single thing on those maps makes everything else on the map look smaller and less significant.

As much as I love Ghost of Tsushima, they could’ve cut two-thirds of the stuff out of that game, and not only would it not detriment the overall experience, it would actually make everything you do in that game more special and unique. It became more about stuffing these open worlds with so much space and content that the affects upon the core loops were overlooked. It’s harder to truly appreciate how great the fighting is when most of your time is spent chasing markers on a map. Let’s talk about Elden Ring.

Look at all the things ... Look at them!

Look at all the things … Look at them!

Elden Ring Suffers From its Open World Elements

Before I tear into this game, I want to say that I think Elden Ring is worth all the praise that it gets. The lore and world are brilliant. And it offers the best in terms of open-world mechanics if you exclude Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Elden Ring made the correct decision to not overload the map with markers so that when you go exploring, you’re actually discovering things instead of just being told where to go. But when compared to the previous games by FromSoftware, I wouldn’t even rank it above Demon’s Souls because there’s a conflict between the core loop and the open world.

There are some pretty great bosses in Elden Ring

There are some pretty great bosses in Elden Ring

Mass Does Not Equal Value

The core loop, and by far the most fun thing, in any FromSoftware game is the combat. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro. Every fight in those games is memorable, and the balance between combat and traversal is perfect. Every time you beat a block of enemies or a boss, you’re given just enough space to hype you up for the next battle. I spent over two hundred hours in Elden Ring, doing multiple playthroughs, and all the dungeon bosses blur together. There are so many repeats and reskins that they had to make to fill the world out. Every Tree Spirit fight takes something special away from the experience.

My point is that Elden Ring, and pretty much all other open-world games, trade out a lot of potentially great and unique design choices for the sheer mass of content. They’ll put so much emphasis on exploration while forgetting that most linear games have enough exploration in them anyway. And they don’t lose their linearity. They’ll come up with some great core mechanics and then set it in an open world where those mechanics are seldom used because most of the game is spent riding your horse around.

But Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s open worlds are also massive, why do they get a pass? It’s simple, the open world isn’t just a setting, it’s the core loop.

Even falling in Tears of the Kingdom is fun

Even falling in Tears of the Kingdom is fun

The Genius of Zelda Open Worlds

The first open-world Zelda was the first Legend of Zelda game on the NES. It’s still one of the best open-world games to date because it wasn’t trying to be an action game set in an open world. It was an exploration game with combat as a reward. You might be inclined to think that the core loop in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is the combat and puzzles, but it’s not. Finding a group of enemies to fight or a shrine to solve is the same as finding a treasure in any other game. But instead of just getting a cool new weapon or whatever, you get a fun challenge.

The core loop is figuring out how you’re going to get to the places you want to go. And because they’re treating the traversal as the core loop, they give you so many options to play around with. In Breath of the Wild, you can run, climb, glide, ride a horse, turn your shield into a sled. And along the way, you might find random things that steal your attention and lead to an interesting discovery.

Elden Ring has that too but your traversal options are so limited that it’s boring and often needlessly frustrating. The number of times I got to a cliff in Elden Ring, and Ghost of Tsushima, and just groaned was too many times. Why didn’t they let you glide in those games? Because they weren’t treating the traversing as the fun part of the game even though that’s what you were mostly doing.

Ugh

Ugh

Gushing Over Tears

In Tears of the Kingdom, they stepped the open world traversal options up by a seemingly infinite degree with the inclusion of Zonai devices. Instead of giving you a couple of new ways to traverse, they instead gave you a bunch of new tools that can interact with each other. So a very welcome addition to the core loop is that of your imagination. What kind of elaborate design are you going to come up with to most efficiently get to where you want to go? And when it doesn’t work, it’s hilarious watching Link go flying off somewhere.

A great challenge can be the best reward

A great challenge can be the best reward

Completionists

Another big thing Tears of the Kingdom has going for it is straight feel. It’s the only game I’ve played in recent years where I feel completely comfortable with the idea of not getting 100% completion. Tears of the Kingdom benefits greatly from being on Nintendo. If it had trophies or achievements, like collecting every Korok seed and all that, it would fully detract from the essence of the game and make it feel more like other open worlds. All the achievements would turn the entire map into a den of chores. I’m not saying achievements are bad, I’m a big PlayStation trophy hunter, but they have a place where they shine and a place where they frustrate.

Open worlds are not a good place for trophies. The ‘100% Completion’ trophy can turn an open-world game into a slog if it’s carrying hundreds of hours of content. And most open worlds give you indicators to track your progress. It’ll tell you how many collectibles are in every area, maybe even give you hints as to where they all are. All elements that psychologically push the idea that you have to be a completionist.

In Tears of the Kingdom, I have no idea how many Korok seeds there are in the open world. I have no idea how many shrines there are. The game doesn’t incentivize you towards 100% completion at all, leaving you to explore stress-free. Some people will inevitably go for 100% though and I think those people should probably talk to someone.

The depths are a great example of superior game design

The depths are a great example of superior game design

Conclusion

All open-world games suck except for Zelda. Nah, I’m kidding. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with open-world games. I’m saying that simply shoving a game into an open world doesn’t make that game better and often steers away from what makes a game good. There’s only so much developmental attention that can be put into a game and if it’s all being spent on just how much content can be crammed in, it takes away opportunities for good design choices.

Tears of the Kingdom constrasts the bright overworld with the darkness of the depths

Tears of the Kingdom constrasts the bright overworld with the darkness of the depths

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