Open world video games are great. Being able to explore the environment around you as a brilliant story unfolds adds to the immersion of a game and its world. It can make everything feel more alive and the adventure feel more epic. That being said, not every single game needs to be open world. There’s been a thought process that’s grown more prominent over the years that a game that isn’t open world is therefore worse than those that are, and I just can’t agree with that.
I love open world games. It’s genuinely so much fun exploring what a world has to offer and finding hidden collectibles and worldbuilding details. However, I also love plenty of games that aren’t open world. Just because it’s an element that works exceptionally well for many games, it doesn’t mean it works for others.
Crash Bandicoot excels at challenging platform-based levels. Uncharted and The Last of Us tell their brilliant stories through linear progression. The same can be said for games like It Takes Two and Split Fiction, which gives you the ability to explore the environment in otherwise linear games. There’s no need for an open world there.
It all depends on what a game is trying to accomplish. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a world that feels rewarding to explore. Mario Kart World, however, has this gigantic world that many fans feel is too empty, and maybe Nintendo should have kept the focus on the actual racing through dedicated tracks.
The point of Kingdom Hearts is to explore a variety of worlds on a grand adventure. It’s better off that it’s open world. Kid Icarus: Uprising is more focused on unique combat in a linear, level-based format. Both work for exactly what they’re intended for.
Even looking at different games in the same series, Kirby has newer games with open world environments, but most Kirby games are linear and level-based. The series is originally meant for the former, but Nintendo has developed games in the series that specifically work for that open world.
Not every video game needs to have an open world. Being an open world game just makes it different, not better or worse. When a new game is announced and it doesn’t have open world, people saying it will be bad solely because of it are annoying and just plain incorrect.
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