Games with interesting places to explore.

[Thule Esperada]

So This is a bit of a dilemma I run into from time to time, but many games that have a focus on exploration seem to lack locations that are actually interesting. I mean in games like skyrim and fallout, all I found were caves, empty shacks and more bloody caves. No open world game I've played has had anything cool to find in their massive boxes of mediocrity. What games do you think have locations with intrigue?

 

[Linnaete]

Indeed, the general issue with open world games is down to design. Nowadays, developers tout geographic size as a selling factor and neglect the consider it's what you put in that virtual geographic space that determines whether we as a player want to, and can be invested enough, to explore what has been created. In doing so, there's a lot of asset pasting, particularly when it comes to Ubisoft games, albeit done in a way that isn't as conspicuous as FFXIV 1.0, thus accentuating this impression of the world being rather hollow and samey. Of course, one can also say that it's realistic, because fauna, geography and topography aren't going to radically change every 2 kilometres, so it generally comes down to whether you like the setting or not.

I personally think it would be more interesting to have a scaled down open world, but focus on interiors. So often you have an open world, but can barely enter into any buildings except those of specific mission importance, meaning the urban environment you have is ultimately a bunch of non-interactive buildings that serve as decoration, with little reason or opportunity for you to be intimate with the setting. Let's scale down the size and do some hand-crafted wonders. Or alternatively, adopt what I regard as the classical Hitman approach of small individual sandbox levels. It affords a great variety of settings and providing you expand on what Hitman: Blood Money achieved, you have a game that will always present the player with somewhere fresh to roam about and interact with as they go along.

But to actually answer your question, I can only really think of:

1) Guild Wars 2 - the one MMO I have played that nails the exploration aspect. It plays its fantasy aspects very well and has a wide assortment of bizarre, otherworldly environments and architecture. Zones on their own are satisfyingly large enough to feel like a genuine journey crossing them, and thematically distinct enough from each other, and that is not to mention the inclusion of underwater exploration and combat. As you would expect, especially if you are playing solo, the fun and the risk is when you deviate from the beaten track to explore mysterious parts of a map only to land yourself in the middle of a hotbed of overpowered opponents, or even some weird jumping puzzles.

2) Xenoblade Chronicles - not an open world unlike its Wii U successor game, but its individual zones are expansive enough without feeling too constrictive, or too oversized. Of all the RPGs I've played, I've yet to encounter one with a setting as unique as the carcasses of two warring gods, which reflects very well on the ground where you can often see the towering titan of the other god looming overhead with relative perspective fluctuating the higher you climb the Bionis. One combat-heavy zone involves running across the giant sword of one of the gods, and another one takes place on a petrified, dismembered arm. Just changing the time to night can alter a zone almost beyond recognition, such as Satorl Marsh. No two zones feel too alike and the variety is in the scenery and the fauna. The best thing about the world of Xenoblade? Moments like the accidental encounter of a two-storey tall spider emerge unexpectedly from a chasm capable of wiping the party in an instant.

 

[Thule Esperada]

Indeed, the general issue with open world games is down to design. Nowadays, developers tout geographic size as a selling factor and neglect the consider it's what you put in that virtual geographic space that determines whether we as a player want to, and can be invested enough, to explore what has been created. In doing so, there's a lot of asset pasting, particularly when it comes to Ubisoft games, albeit done in a way that isn't as conspicuous as FFXIV 1.0, thus accentuating this impression of the world being rather hollow and samey. Of course, one can also say that it's realistic, because fauna, geography and topography aren't going to radically change every 2 kilometres, so it generally comes down to whether you like the setting or not.

This is exactly why I prefer suspension of disbelief over realism. The real world does have plenty of beautiful and facinating locations with so called "wonders of nature". Too bad no one ever uses them for reference. I also despise the notion some people have that a setting HAS to be realistic to be immersive, especially in fantasy settings. It's called FANTASY for a reason people, use your imagination.

I personally think it would be more interesting to have a scaled down open world, but focus on interiors. So often you have an open world, but can barely enter into any buildings except those of specific mission importance, meaning the urban environment you have is ultimately a bunch of non-interactive buildings that serve as decoration, with little reason or opportunity for you to be intimate with the setting. Let's scale down the size and do some hand-crafted wonders. Or alternatively, adopt what I regard as the classical Hitman approach of small individual sandbox levels. It affords a great variety of settings and providing you expand on what Hitman: Blood Money achieved, you have a game that will always present the player with somewhere fresh to roam about and interact with as they go along.

I think a good way to describe that type of game would be free roam. FFXII was like this; It had large areas that consisted of smaller free roam maps that had unique level design. And since the maps weren't absurdly huge, they could fit more than one type of wildlife and biome type. It helped that the game took place in a larger nation instead of ine location. FFXII also featured entire areas that were optional, with unique enemies and the occasional boss fight. It did exploration fairly well, as there was actually something concrete in those locations to find.
I'd definitely like to have more games with smaller but more organic maps with fun level design over sandbox zones.

But to actually answer your question, I can only really think of:

1) Guild Wars 2 - the one MMO I have played that nails the exploration aspect. It plays its fantasy aspects very well and has a wide assortment of bizarre, otherworldly environments and architecture. Zones on their own are satisfyingly large enough to feel like a genuine journey crossing them, and thematically distinct enough from each other, and that is not to mention the inclusion of underwater exploration and combat. As you would expect, especially if you are playing solo, the fun and the risk is when you deviate from the beaten track to explore mysterious parts of a map only to land yourself in the middle of a hotbed of overpowered opponents, or even some weird jumping puzzles.

2) Xenoblade Chronicles - not an open world unlike its Wii U successor game, but its individual zones are expansive enough without feeling too constrictive, or too oversized. Of all the RPGs I've played, I've yet to encounter one with a setting as unique as the carcasses of two warring gods, which reflects very well on the ground where you can often see the towering titan of the other god looming overhead with relative perspective fluctuating the higher you climb the Bionis. One combat-heavy zone involves running across the giant sword of one of the gods, and another one takes place on a petrified, dismembered arm. Just changing the time to night can alter a zone almost beyond recognition, such as Satorl Marsh. No two zones feel too alike and the variety is in the scenery and the fauna. The best thing about the world of Xenoblade? Moments like the accidental encounter of a two-storey tall spider emerge unexpectedly from a chasm capable of wiping the party in an instant.

I'm not a big fan of MMOs. The quest types and gameplay are too grindy for my tastes. And Exploration is usually just rewarded with crappy RNG loot.

As for Xenoblade, I actually do own it. The world and story are interesting, but I was burned out by the horrible MMO-style sidequests and haven't played it in a long while. It didn't really feature much exploration in my opinion, since you visit more or less every area during the story. Should propably return to finish it sometime, but I'll propably ignore every side activity as there is no reason to actually do them.

 

[Dionysos]

The problem is it is difficult to create a large open world game with enough variation to make it interesting to explore and get lost.

GTA games tend to stick to one type of location (at least for the open world aspects) for each game (i.e sticking to one city, with potential for surrounding countryside). Assassin's Creed sticks to one or a handful of cities, and sometimes the surrounding countryside. Rarely do you pass into a variety of different climates.

I think Assassin's Creed still does the exploration pretty well... Perhaps AC4 and AC Rogue in particular, because you had the option to sail and explore deserted islands. That said, once you'd seen a handful of islands then you'd pretty much seen them all. There's not much variety where islands are concerned, though they did their best. There were some pretty decent smuggling cave bases and other optional areas to explore though.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate's London is pretty amazing to explore too. It really is like wandering about in London, so it wasn't as if I was exploring new areas. It was, however, fun to see which buildings they put in the game, and it was beautiful to climb them and explore inside them (where possible). The detail truly is stunning and London is the best designed city in an Assassin's Creed game to date (add to that the joy of there being far fewer glitches in this game, and it really is back on form - though unfortunately the series is still suffering due to Unity's launch).

I don't know how things will work out, but I'm really looking forward to games like Ark: Survival Evolved and No Man's Sky.

Ark is out already on PC and Xbox Live (I think) in some form, but a full release for PS4 is planned later this summer. I've seen videos online of people having a lot of fun building up bases, fighting and taming dinosaurs, and exploring vast cave systems and jungles, or exploring other people's creations.

No Man's Sky should be the king of all exploration if it pulls off what it intends. This game should create a universe of content (no hyperbole!) and we can explore procedurally generated planets and discover and name alien species, etc.