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Ghost of Yotei Will Feature a Less Repetitive Open World

LectureMaster

Gold Member

Thankfully, developer Sucker Punch shared a few little tidbits about this sequel in an interview published on The New York Times. Creative Director Jason Connell said that one of the changes compared to Ghost of Tsushima will be a less repetitive open world.

One challenge that comes with making an open-world game is the repetitive nature of doing the same thing over again. We wanted to balance against that and find unique experiences.

Indeed, it could be argued that Ghost of Tsushima's main flaw was its repetitiveness, while the stunning visuals and memorable story and characters were its highlights. It is a flaw that the game admittedly shared with many open world games, so if Sucker Punch can truly improve in this area, Ghost of Yotei could be elevated far above many of its peers.

To be fair, GoT was already one of the better games for handling open-world activities. But Sucker Punch, if you do want to keep things fresh, you need keep this in the sequel. I promise I'll find every one of them in every nook and cranny on the map.
V2kAEnApoyCAcpYB7ED2UV.jpg
 

Flabagast

Member



To be fair, GoT was already one of the better games for handling open-world activities. But Sucker Punch, if you do want to keep things fresh, you need keep this in the sequel. I promise I'll find every one of them in every nook and cranny on the map.
V2kAEnApoyCAcpYB7ED2UV.jpg
No it was one of the worst, open world activities were mechanical and devoid of any meaning or sense of place.

it was the number one flaw of the game, very good that they try to improve it
 

kevboard

Member
To be fair, GoT was already one of the better games for handling open-world activities.

I have seen multiple people say this, but I can't even remotely see it.
the open world consists of very much the bog standard stuff. the Ubisoft "enemy camps" to take over, the occasional town, and the shrines, which were small puzzle and platforming challenges, very reminiscent of the QR code challenges in Watch Dogs.

the rest were random encounters, and the color vendors you could find.

it was as Ubisoft as it gets. which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but what I'm trying to say is that it didn't do anything special outside of removing the minimap (which sounds cool at first, but is at best had a neutral effect on the game)
 
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James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
No it was one of the worst, open world activities were mechanical and devoid of any meaning or sense of place.

it was the number one flaw of the game, very good that they try to improve it

It is a far cry from being "one of the worst".

The open world of GoT was amazingly realized. Very diverse set of biomes with things to look out into the horizon and discover. It's not Elden Ring, RDR2, or BOTW in terms of "emergence", but it is a very pleasant open world to explore.
 

kevboard

Member
It is a far cry from being "one of the worst".

The open world of GoT was amazingly realized. Very diverse set of biomes with things to look out into the horizon and discover. It's not Elden Ring, RDR2, or BOTW in terms of "emergence", but it is a very pleasant open world to explore.

BIG disagree there. that was one of my issues with the game. the combination of the very samey looking world without points of interest in the distance and the lack of a minimap or compass made it really annoying to traverse the world.
I constantly lost my orientation.
the only way to keep oriented is to open the map, mark something and just follow the wind. which I feel isn't ideal, as the removal of the minimap ironically made me look at the map more than in any other game.
 
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Pimpbaa

Member
Well that certainly was a problem with the first game (still enjoyed it however). World should be more interesting to explore if true.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
BIG disagree there. that was one of my issues with the game. the combination of the very samey looking world without points of interest in the distance and the lack of a minimap or compass made it really annoying to traverse the world.
I constantly lost my orientation.
the only way to keep oriented is to open the map, mark something and just follow the wind. which I feel isn't ideal, as the removal of the minimap ironically made me look at the map more than in any other game.

There were things to discover organically through the wind system and things like foxes, etc. Yeah it is more like an Ubisoft style approach, but the world is aesthetically pleasing to traverse due to the great visuals and soundtrack. Even stuff like BOTW has very much Ubisoft style checklists all over the place, but the pleasing aesthetic goes a long way
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
Maybe working on another IP while someone else moves up and takes over?
AiTxvTL.jpeg


FOSTER CITY, Calif., August 2, 2011– Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced today that leading game developer and long-time partner Sucker Punch Productions, creators of the top-selling Sly Cooper and inFamous franchises, joins the global development operation of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS). The addition of Sucker Punch Productions furthers SCE’s long-term commitment to creative excellence in game development exclusively on PlayStation® platforms and marks the sixteenth studio to join the SCE WWS family.
Of course promises are made to be broken. Especially when dumbasses start running the company.
 

dmaul1114

Banned
It is a far cry from being "one of the worst".

The open world of GoT was amazingly realized. Very diverse set of biomes with things to look out into the horizon and discover. It's not Elden Ring, RDR2, or BOTW in terms of "emergence", but it is a very pleasant open world to explore.

Yeah I enjoyed it a lot too. Just the biomes, art style, having wind and foxes etc. guide you to stuff instead of mini-map markers.

Nothing mind blowing, and the stuff to find was repetitive, but I just found it very chill and relaxing. Got the platinum and think it may be the only open world game I’ve done that in.

I honestly don’t like the more random explore the open world things like BOTW all that much. Just not much of a sandbox, explore for explorations sake type of gamer. But also don’t really like having a ton of mini map markers all over the place. So GoT was kind of a nice in between for me.
 

Stu_Hart

Banned
If not for the art style and aesthetics, it would just be like another assassins creed game. They clearly took inspirations from AC with that checklist style of objectives. It became clear after all of the initial awe run out. I was replaying the new version with upgraded graphics on the ps5. I loved the graphics at 60 fps and all, but the similarities are uncanny outside of the setting. I initially thought it was a 9/10 game, but after beating it again, it's more of a 7-7.5/10 game. The whole emphasising of the samurai code thing was also quite lame now when I think about it. They could have found more ways to flesh out the other story elements instead of shoving the breaking of samurai code in your face. The story doesn't have the depth and nuances that I was hoping to see. I was hoping ghost of yotei tries something different.
 
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Bernardougf

Member
I loved GOT and it was my goty ...but it was asscreed check box formula trough and trough... it was more polished and with the sony quality seal but I've hoped they would lessen the asscreed and try a more witcher 3 formula with better sidequests and less check boxes, or maybe just make an less bloated more focused game.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member



To be fair, GoT was already one of the better games for handling open-world activities. But Sucker Punch, if you do want to keep things fresh, you need keep this in the sequel. I promise I'll find every one of them in every nook and cranny on the map.
V2kAEnApoyCAcpYB7ED2UV.jpg
You just know they're not going to show us her 🎂
 
GoT had good exploration, I loved the shrines, how easy it was to explore without having to look at the map. It was one of the very few games wherein you can find every single side content without having to open the map at all.

The issue with the game though was that the reward for finding stuff was usually not that good. The game desperately need more variety, better rewards and more details. And it seems that they are focusing on this for the second game. Fingers crossed it pans out.
 

kevboard

Member
There were things to discover organically through the wind system and things like foxes, etc.

organically discover, yes, but my issue is that I literally lost my orientation, because when I stopped and looked aroung, a lot of the time there was nothing but trees and grass around me. that is where I disagree with you. I didn't think the world was all that amazingly designed. it lacked points of interest to organically orientate yourself with. which would have been especially important in this game as it has no minimap or compass.

following the wind is nice and dandy if you are directly following a mission or a map marker (making the wind mechanics a glorified Crazy Taxi arrow... has that patent run out btw? lol), but specifically when I just want to explore the map and find new things, it was often the case that I lost my orientation, went far off the track after doing something like following a fox etc. and then had to open the map to see where North is, reaorient myself, and then go on exploring.


Yeah it is more like an Ubisoft style approach, but the world is aesthetically pleasing to traverse due to the great visuals and soundtrack. Even stuff like BOTW has very much Ubisoft style checklists all over the place, but the pleasing aesthetic goes a long way

Breath of the Wild has very little Ubisoft elements, and even the ones it does have are changed by a lot. it has towers, but towers do not mark things on your map. that is almost all there is in terms of ubisoft formula.
Breath of the Wild stood out due to how absolutely open it felt. you finish the tutorial and then you get some suggested ways to continue, but the game is so open that you can just run up to Hyrule castle and fight ganon if you want. this openness is very different from nearly any other open world game, and even Tears of the Kingdom was a HUGE step back in that regard, and couldn't quite match the pure open adventure feel of BotW.
 
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I have seen multiple people say this, but I can't even remotely see it.
the open world consists of very much the bog standard stuff. the Ubisoft "enemy camps" to take over, the occasional town, and the shrines, which were small puzzle and platforming challenges, very reminiscent of the QR code challenges in Watch Dogs.

the rest were random encounters, and the color vendors you could find.

it was as Ubisoft as it gets. which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but what I'm trying to say is that it didn't do anything special outside of removing the minimap (which sounds cool at first, but is at best had a neutral effect on the game)
I don't think you're wrong at all, but I feel like the way you would find/go to the locations REALLY helped and make this game feel more unique. Like yes, each area had similar camps, shrines, haikus, etc. But being able to just following the wind and not some markers or waypoints in the actual game was a really nice touch. Really allowed me to just play and not bring up the map as much as you would typically need to in this type of game.

Bringing it back to the OP though, would be great if SP can make it more fresh. Seems like 99% of open world games have this problem of just repeat missions but in different areas. I'm really not sure how to combat that, but hopeful they can find something.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
organically discover, yes, but my issue is that I literally lost my orientation, because when I stopped and looked aroung, a lot of the time there was nothing but trees and grass around me. that is where I disagree with you. I didn't think the world was all that amazingly designed. it lacked points of interest to organically orientate yourself with. which would have been especially important in this game as it has no minimap or compass.

following the wind is nice and dandy if you are directly following a mission or a map marker (making the wind mechanics a glorified Crazy Taxi arrow... has that patent run out btw? lol), but specifically when I just want to explore the map and find new things, it was often the case that I lost my orientation, went far off the track after doing something like following a fox etc. and then had to open the map to see where North is, reaorient myself, and then go on exploring.




Breath of the Wild has very little Ubisoft elements, and even the ones it does have are changed by a lot. it has towers, but towers do not mark things on your map. that is almost all there is in terms of ubisoft formula.
Breath of the Wild stood out due to how absolutely open it felt. you finish the tutorial and then you get some suggested ways to continue, but the game is so open that you can just run up to Hyrule castle and fight ganon if you want. this openness is very different from nearly any other open world game, and even Tears of the Kingdom was a HUGE step back in that regard, and couldn't quite match the pure open adventure feel of BotW.

Disagree. Breath of the wild has cookie cutter towers, seeds infinity the same shit of challenges, forts of enemies to take out and get treasures, it’s very much copy and paste and largely made better through a pleasing design
 

kevboard

Member
I don't think you're wrong at all, but I feel like the way you would find/go to the locations REALLY helped and make this game feel more unique. Like yes, each area had similar camps, shrines, haikus, etc. But being able to just following the wind and not some markers or waypoints in the actual game was a really nice touch. Really allowed me to just play and not bring up the map as much as you would typically need to in this type of game.

I feel like that no minimap, no compass design goes very much against my style of playing open world games. I like to explore everything. and doing so was SUPER annoying to do in this game. because it has so few points of interest, it was really hard for me to explore the island to find new areas I wasn't at already without loosing the feel on where north is, and then just open the map all the time.

the wind was a cool idea to lead you to the next main mission without a map. but at the very least a way to tell where north is easily would have been A HUGE improvement to the game.
maybe swiping down instead of up could have made Jin somehow signal to the player where north is. he is a samurai, I bet there are ways he know how to find north in some... like, survival technique kinda way, then say something and point towards north. something like that. like he could have said "the moss is growing to this side, this means north must be there" or something similar.
 

kevboard

Member
Disagree. Breath of the wild has cookie cutter towers

those were mainly teleport points and ways to look for stuff to explore. not like Ubisoft towers that mark stuff on your map.



seeds infinity the same shit of challenges

which was something new to Zelda. I can't think of a game that did similar hidden challenges in this way. since then other games like Genshin Impact copied these.
also there were so many of them precisely so that you can just find them while traversing towards somewhere. which was a great design choice as it makes you actually take note of your surroundings.



forts of enemies to take out and get treasures

these were also very different. they weren't tied to your progression and therefore felt less rigid. they were just a way to get some resources, and would be reset every bloodmoon (also something I think no other game did before Zelda in that way). you didn't free them and then they were taken over by friendly NPCs or something.


so yes, it has similar elements, but implemented in very different ways that made them feel less like a paint by numbers list of things to check off the map, and more like organically happening things.
you couldn't get a way to get a marker on your map to show you where there might be a Seed challenge or anything of the like.
even Tsushima marks unknown stuff on your map if you complete certain things. it isn't a surprise that there's a shrine there if I talked to a guy I freed and he marked a question mark on my Map. something that never happens in Zelda for example.
 
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Cakeboxer

Member
The big problem of open world games: The map feels like a work plan and there is not much of interest to explore. Best one is RDR2. There are so many small and big things, gags and easter eggs to discover and you'll never find them all on your own.
 

Arachnid

Member
Sure hope so.

It is a far cry from being "one of the worst".

The open world of GoT was amazingly realized. Very diverse set of biomes with things to look out into the horizon and discover. It's not Elden Ring, RDR2, or BOTW in terms of "emergence", but it is a very pleasant open world to explore.
Meanwhile, I found it one of the most repetitive gaming experiences I've had this gen, just behind Horizon.
 
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StueyDuck

Member



To be fair, GoT was already one of the better games for handling open-world activities. But Sucker Punch, if you do want to keep things fresh, you need keep this in the sequel. I promise I'll find every one of them in every nook and cranny on the map.
V2kAEnApoyCAcpYB7ED2UV.jpg
This is the type of stuff I wanna hear more of.

But what is "less repetitive" are we talking Witcher 3 where it's still mostly repetitive but there's a different story for each or are we talking full rdr2/gtaV where the open world is just packed with 100s and 100s of random shit to find/discover etc.

Where scouring every inch is a treat
 

Trilobit

Member
It is a far cry from being "one of the worst".

The open world of GoT was amazingly realized. Very diverse set of biomes with things to look out into the horizon and discover. It's not Elden Ring, RDR2, or BOTW in terms of "emergence", but it is a very pleasant open world to explore.

There was very little to "discover" thanks to this damn spoilerbird.

UUBKHqz.jpeg
 
I'll foegive GoT for being repetitive, it's their irst game on this scale with a new IP after all, I won't be so forgiving this time around. Expectations are very high, especially with Shadows to compare.
 

Lorianus

Member
I have said it time and time again EMULATE WITCHER 3!!!

Best side missions writing ever, just change up the formula of gameplay
Why would anyone copy from W3 the game with the most pointless tacked on open world where there is 0 things to discover outside of quest related locations, every point of interest on the W3 world map is ubisoft busywork on steroids, the rest of the game is fine but man it should have been linear like W2...
 

LMJ

Member
Comparing Witcher 3 to Ubisoft slop is quite frankly just laughable, again the gameplay certainly could have been more varied but the side Quests were interesting

They were quests, they weren't just the same thing regurgitated over and over there were very seldom requests in that game I found that weren't different

Clean out this graveyard, find one of the creatures hiding in a cave but rather than fight it you can converse with it, I have no doubt Baldur's Gate 3 learn some of it's missions writing from playing Witcher 3.

Thanks to the writing Witcher 3 felt like a fleshed Out World, it made it more visceral and it made it more believable

Ubisoft come off as task lists. Climb this tower, clear this camp, free this base, I never got that feeling in The Witcher despite how many there were
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Good, the open world was mostly boring in the first one.

Great location art design but not much going on other than a couple of scripted events.

Following foxes and birds get annoying after the 10th time you do it.
 
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Clean out this graveyard, find one of the creatures hiding in a cave but rather than fight it you can converse with it, I have no doubt Baldur's Gate 3 learn some of it's missions writing from playing Witcher 3.

Thanks to the writing Witcher 3 felt like a fleshed Out World, it made it more visceral and it made it more believable
Writing and characters in Witcher 3 are good/great. In BG3, they are OK at best.

Though, in most other things, BG3 is way better.

They are almost polar opposite titles in terms of their strengths.
 

Denton

Member
I have said it time and time again EMULATE WITCHER 3!!!

Best side missions writing ever, just change up the formula of gameplay
It is not that easy, it actually takes a lot of writing and design talent to pull off, plus leadership that's unwilling to put low effort content in the game. And even CDP could not resist in the end and quickly added monster nests to make the open world more "full" eventhough that was mostly fluff content. Still, Witcher 3/Red Dead 2/Kingdom Come/New Vegas/Cyberpunk are the best representations of modern open world genre, simply because their side stuff is very often of similar quality as the main stuff and there is lot less filler than in Ubisoft-like games.
 

Nasigil

Member
The thing about GoT's open world is that it's very much formulaic and checklist-y, but they did a very good job of making checklist stuff happens as natural as possible. The guiding wind is such a genius touch.

At the very least, compared to Ubisoft games that shares a lot of same structure, there are much fewer UI elements on the screen and you open minimap/inventory significantly less frequently in GoT. It's easier to suspense disbelief and enjoy the illusion of free exploration. It's not GTA, BotW or Elden Ring but it's better than almost every other open world games out there.

For what I see, if you can't do the crazy sandbox mechanics of BotW, the only way to solve the open world problem is just put in the hard work and make things as diverse as possible. Elden Ring did it by having insane amount of enemy variety, hidden areas, intricate levels and just weird fucking things happening all over the map. Witcher 3 seems to have a lot of open world checklist stuff on the surface, but they also achieve success by creating a staggering amount of unique stories and characters to populate the world so it kept the experience fresh. GoY could probably do a bit of both.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Laat complaint i had from this game was generic ass shit.

Go look at ubisoft
 

CuckMeister

Banned
Yah I’m playing GoT now and it’s a fucking bore fest to be honest.

Because it is a boring game, it uses the exact ubisoft open world shtick, go find 30 of the same sauna, temples, follow the same stupid fox for 20th time, go clear that same shitty camp, it's pure laziness.
But this is what people like these days, coming home from a 12h shift just to do the same mind numbing busy work in a game.
 
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