The best exploration doesnt even come from open worlds most of the time, it comes from instanced worlds where they they took the time to carefully craft every pixel to mean something
The thing is, organically setting up a situation can work too, but as they are random it's hard for it to happen. Finding a combination of normal elements like several different types of enemies that interact off each other is also exploration. "AAA" open world games don't have a tight script, but they also lack interesting interactions. That's another reason "getting to the mountain" is not fun, there's no result except being on the mountain.
@@malcomchase9777 A good example of exploration done right is the borderlands games and my personal favorite game, System Shock 2. Neither really needs explaining
@@V2ULTRAKill I'm talking about the end quote: "it comes from instanced worlds where they they took the time to carefully craft every pixel to mean something". Sometimes the meaning can be scripted, but sometimes meaning can come from organic elements.
@Connor Bolen Not really. You can't just proclaim a game to be the best one ever made. Because if you do, then I will assert the dominance of Minecraft as the greatest game of all time.
@@MacMan2152 that's a difference between actual rights and substantive access to those rights. Which kinda makes your point moot. If you don't have access to the right, it doesn't exist
To any developers out there: Let players fail. Let players miss that awesome thing you maybe spent days/weeks on. Most of us are stupid, blind, and have the attention span of a hyperactive squirrel, but that awesome thing will mean SO much more to the people that do find it.
cant believe he never mentioned dark souls, its the perfect game for this subject and yet he somehow missed the chance to be the person who talks about how great of a series it is!
It's not a perfect game for the example. It's not an open world game. Then every good stealth game ever made is also a master classes in exploration, Hitman, Dishonored 1 and 2 all reward exploration with alternative routes,items,world building and secrets. They best example would be an interesting open world game where the core combat loop is exiting (RE4, Max Payne, or Halo) so you want to go and find new stuff to kill, progress world building and story that adds to gameplay (Fallout New Vegas or other CRPGs where finding unique characters and items changes the story) , visually enticing (Skyrim, Horizon etc). Dark Souls is overrated as a standard for game design. If Dark Souls combat was boring even less people than now would have finished it.
This kinda reminds me of a talk by somebody who's been up the summit of Mt. Everest a few times. I forgot her name, though. But what she said was that honestly, there's nothing up there. You feel like crap and you can barely breathe due to the thin oxygen, and there isn't even a nice view, as clouds are covering everything. Nothing to see but clouds and sky. In other words, the destination wasn't special. But what made it special was the journey. Because it's difficult to make it up there. People have literally died from failing to make it up there. There's a lot you need to do to prepare for the journey. You actually need to go up a little bit at a time then go back down. You need to wait a few days at certain stations on the way to the top. You can't just rush up there. I remember thinking even during the talk that, man that's a lot like video games. You can't just rush to the boss or the ending. You need to get used to the game's mechanics, see what the developers have laid out for you. Level up, collect better equipment, enjoy the game first, and then when it's time and you're all ready to finish the game, you go up to the last boss.
In Hollow Knight I've just been doing "clean up", getting achievements and finding things I might've missed after I finished the main game, and I never even thought about how the water in City of Tears was from Blue Lake even when I thought I knew everything
I made it to the city of tears myself by fumbling about, but I dropped hollow knight shortly after, never came back to it, and if I tried to now I would be super lost. I kinda want to be in the group of people who love this game, but I just found myself fumbling about in the same corridors and not even understanding what I was supposed to do, I thought you were supposed to activate the three mask thingies but the forgotten crossroads became infected, maybe I'm overthinking it but why would I want to open the other masks if it could result in severe problems? Everyone really loves this game so I want to give it a second chance but I don't know how, maybe I'm just bad at wayfinding in complex worlds?
@@dylanenriguehuntington2908 Get yourself the maps, equip the compass, and just go to places you havent been yet, youll succeed eventually. If you find secrets and cool new places and not having fun then maybe exploration games arent for you? Id still suggest you give it a second chance, of course. The crossroads infecting is a sign of progress, you got this!
It would be greatly appreciated if you had a pop-up in the corner with the name of whatever game is on screen at any given time, like you do for the music. Often some interesting game will flash on screen, but I'll have no idea what it is or how I can find out more. Other than that, great work as always!
I cannot recommend The Outer Wilds enough to anyone who is interested in this stuff. Not only did it instantly become one of my favorite games of all time, it exemplifies exploration. Adam mentions it briefly in this video, but I think it warrants more attention. The reason open worlds in games feel like they are a movie set is because they are. They are the backdrop for collecting and managing resources, fighting enemies, advancing a narrative, amassing power, building structures, solving puzzles, etc. In The Outer Wilds you explore. The world is made to be explored and to deliver an experience about exploring. I find it difficult to recall a similar experience in other games. "Walking sims" come to mind, but they are often more about being presented than discovered. The closest contemporary I can think of is The Witness, and even that has the world as backdrop to the primary interactive element of the line puzzles. Though The Witness does have a similar effect on the player in that your personal discoveries and growth replace some statistical or functional growth of the avatar. Play The Outer Wilds if you haven't! And avoid reading anything about it first! ;-)
My feeling exactly. One thrilling exploration-based moment after another. I've not played anything else like it. I would say it's more like a platformer than anything else
Great video as always! The Joy of Discovery is a great way to put it. Love it when games let you do that, which I increasingly find to be more prevalent in indie games!
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Adam, have you explored much of Blackreach? The overworld of Skyrim is very movie-set-ish, and most of the dungeons are simple loops that ensure you get escalating fights and appropriate treasure at the end. But then there's the megadungeon of Blackreach. Towards the end of the main quest, one of the questgivers will give you an optional quest that isn't easily missed, so that players will know it's an option. There are also a few passages down to Blackreach scattered all over the overworld that you might stumble across. Once you've played through the intended quests a few times, Blackreach is there to give you a place to actually go "adventuring" as opposed to "questing". Nobody tells you to explore Blackreach. Nobody tells you they lost their weapon in Blackreach and asks you to find it. Only one NPC ever mentions Blackreach that I know of. So when you do explore Blackreach, you're doing it for yourself. Of course, if you're just tired of Skyrim as a whole, Blackreach might not be what you're looking for. But it is very different to the rest of the game.
While we're on the cool things in skyrim train, solstheim is also super interesting and pulls of the idea of a fascinating world fantastically. It's a small island to the northeast of skyrim where bethesda kept any filler content from seeping in.
I remember seeing that big orange orb in the ceiling for the first time and going "woah wtf fuck that's pretty damn cool," although I skipped over it at least 5 times. The time I finally did decide to explore blackreach made it pretty fuckin cool tbh that I didn't have to go through it with a quest marker looming over my head.
I'm glad someone mentioned this - when I found Blackreach (on my own, stumbled into it by accident) the experience of the game changed significantly for a period of time in a way similar to what you suggest. It may have been the most memorable part of the game precisely because of the total lack of guidance / quest markers / etc.
i feel like procedural generation isnt the way to make exploratory experiences, like how you said about no man's sky, "i've already seen it, just in a different color". procedural generation works more for sandboxing games, like minecraft for example, or games where you want to make a challenge that you cant just memorize, like rouge-likes. they add in some exploring elements, but that isnt the main use for their procedural generation
I'll offer another perspective. If the map is randomly generated, I'm always exploring. I learn the rulesc of the world the same way a traveller learns about environments, but the sense of surprise means I'm really *discovering* something new. The City of Tears example is worldbuilding and narrative, but mapping out the positon of important elements like shops and altars in Spelunky to make sure a boulder hits or doesn't hit them is also exploration. Mechanical exploration, but exploration nonetheless.
@@malcomchase9777 the procedural layout of spelunky's levels isnt discovery, and isnt there for discovery. you're not seeing new things, you're just seeing them in different places. what it is there for, is to promote mastery and understanding of the game mechanics. you cant just memorize the level layout, you have to know how everything functions and interacts so you know what to do, even when its arranged in new ways. it becomes like a puzzle
@@galenrichter41 How is it not discovery, though? Metroidvanias repeat tools and we still call it discovery. Even if we've seen a game with a ledge too tall for a single jump, and we need the double jump to get there, it still feels like discovery when you work your way up to it. If seeing the same thing again disqualifies it as discovery, then almost no game would ever qualify, don't you think?
I mean, if you think about it the world we live in in real life is basically procedurally generated, and there's still a lot of interesting stuff to explore with it. In that regard, I'd argue that the problem with procedural worlds is they often aren't detailed enough. They go "this exists" and don't give a "why," as some hand-crafted worlds do. And that does seem to be the biggest hurdle a lot of open world games, procedural or handcrafted, suffer from. What comes to mind for me is KSP, where going to different worlds is basically only science collection to get better technology, and maybe funding if it was your mission, and all you learn is a little bit of generic flavor text. You're given a solar system to explore, but the exploration is so unrewarding that the focus of the campaign basically becomes making your space agency bigger and more advanced. Which doesn't work without a rewarding endgame. Kerbal could have stuff where players do have to piece more parts of the puzzle on how planets and features formed and how their climate and stuff works, but it really feels like it doesn't. Or maybe I'm just missing that part with the flavor text since collecting science isn't hard and the focus is on getting you new parts rather than learning stuff. And I do wonder if you could make a procedural Kerbal Space Program, with procedural worlds but still with depth on how the planets formed. You know, learn through multiple hints and processes how and when planets formed, what they're made out of, what the inside is, how features like craters and such formed, and that sort of stuff. And maybe make it mean something. I mean, our own universe does that well. That would allow for a game with scale, depth, and high replayability, all of which are things you want from a perfect game. That being said, it definitely wouldn't be easy to procedurally generate planets and planetary features with history and dynamicity. But if that can be done, then suddenly the perfect exploration game can actually exist.
I love the open world of skyrim because there are so many stories you can find in just about every cave. The lay out of the corpses or weapons. Sometimes it's more obvious with books or notes. There is one dungeon that stands out to me in the game. There is a lighthouse on the northern coast that holds a heartbreaking tale of a family.
Another sad story that stands out is from an uninteresting looking nord drunkard in winterhold inn. All the time he thinks his lover Isabelle abandoned him but actually she get killed in hobbsfall cave while doing bids for vex inorder to get them out of poverty.
The dungeons in most Elder Scrolls games have a lot of effort put in to make them good. The overworld and placements outside of dungeons, though? Not so much...
@@Mac_Diddy Well more exactly, the game tends to push you away from those interesting details. And that's a shame. The word is awesome and the game does everything in it's power to make it boring. Like really, why do I need 500 radiant quest to explore dungeons? I'm going to get 300 gold, I don't care about that. What I care about is that those particular bandits had a pit with spikes in which they lured people to then rob their corpse, that's cool. But If I'm just here because I have to kill a bandit leader and am just following a quest marker I'll probably miss that.
i think it's quite telling that as soon as you mentioned the lighthouse i instantly remembered that story of a man and his family (spoilers ahead for skyrim) who were dragged underground by the falmer and killed.
Something I want to see return in RPGs are vehicles. Airships are a staple of JRPGs but I feel like we haven't seen them enough recently. Final Fantasy 4 has several vehicles that progressively escalate how much of the world (and beyond) you can freely explore. Final Fantasy 15 makes you intimate with the customizable and upgradable Regalia, which comes to feel like the closest thing to a home until you finally settle in Cape Caem.
You totally reminded me of the joy of finally being able to use the Lemurian Ship that teased me since early game in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and all the exploration it enabled. And also the story of Briggs the Pirate that you notice on multiple places while sailing around (mostly the later parts that aren't on the critical path).
Never expected Stormlight Archive to be brought up here. Now I'm thinking of the potential Roshar has of being turned into an exploration based game 🤔 Probably the most out of the Cosmere worlds, as the others have narratives isolated to particular areas.
Not that it's wanting for more praise, but I really feel Breath of the Wild pretty much perfects all the points mentioned here. It doesn't just present locations, but it makes them visually interesting from long distances to make them compelling to visit. And the player is never actually gated off from any area. The power you gain, better gear and more stamina, makes accessing some areas easier, but the proper skill and preparation can get you anywhere as well. Really, I think instead of focusing on the ability to go wherever you see, focus should be on making the player want to go wherever they can see!
The most memorable part in the exploration aspect of botw for me is in the great plateau when the old man asks you to go up the tower and look for the shrines. And then you actually have to look for them manually! That was when I thought to myself: "This game is wonderful".
You also forget one more thing. Many secrets are hidden by some physical barriers like many shrines and mini games of hybra region or many shrine quests and shrines of eldin region. This force you to explore every nook and cranny of those region to find those secrets. Spaces of world also force you to explore and find new stuffs. This is the first game I see which uses their spaces for discovery.
@@zackmhuntr25 I really appreciated that about the game. They let you figure out and find stuff on your own. That made the quests actually feel like quests.
I recently started playing Skyrim again and I only sorta agree with you. Looking past its limitations and going into it with a feeling of adventure actually got me to fall in love with the game again. Plus, there are so many good mods now that add new lands to explore. Despite its flaws, I greatly enjoy it. I know it's stupid, but I compare Skyrim to Minecraft. A big open world where you can go wherever you like. In the Witcher 3 (as great as it is), I still felt like I was a pre-made character going along a story path laid out for me. While for Skyrim I felt I was making my own way in life. The npcs who spout exposition at you and the fact that people trust you to do a quest for them without ever speaking a word to them is a bit off putting though, I'll admit.
You and I apparently had completely opposite experiences in Skyrim. I always found exploring in that game to not only be fun and enjoyable, but also incredibly rewarding. Of course, it no longer has the same magic after about 2000 hours of play, but what would?
A couple of thoughts on this (because next to encouraging individuality of play styles through game designs and leveling systems, this is probably my most thought on game design question). You covered a lot of these in the video but, once the rambling starts it's hard to stop so here we go: 1. The Curse of Systematic Design: We live in an day and age that LOVES systems. Procedural generation, metrics, you name it. This allows smaller teams to create bigger worlds which is great, but it also comes with the curse that as human beings we are VERY good at picking out patterns. When we see something enough times it gets old and we go into autopilot on it. That is something you want as little as possible in game design. Some ways game designers combat this is either, doing the grunt of the work through procedural generation and then going through afterwards and adjusting things, or by using multiple systems that are unique save for how the player interacts with them (like a giant venn diagram with the player in the middle) so the player has multiple categories of systems they may encounter. There has yet to be a perfect solution to this problem though and designers get hooked on it so easily 2. Emergent Gameplay: One of the reasons I think that games like Minecraft do so well in spite of having very little goals and purpose is that they gave players the tools to make their own fun. More than designing a path, they designed laws of physics and told players to have fun within these laws. This open sandbox effect can be taken too far, but one of the benefits is that you can make up for the inability to make enough unique and engaging content yourself as a designer by instead having hundred of players using all their creativity within the world. This keeps that "I've never seen that before!" feeling going as players keep pushing the limits of the tech to create phenomenal things. 3. Have SOME Form of Progression That is Easy to Get Back To: Even games like Minecraft which literally drop you in a random location with no goal or consistency do have a goal. Your first goal is to survive by getting shelter resources and food. Your second goal is to improve efficiency by getting rarer materials and building better items. Your third goal is to explore by seeing new biomes, new worlds, or different dimensions. In the same way, having an overarcing goal that is easy to return to even when you get distracted gives you a sense of direction and more freedom to explore as you know no matter how many side quests or hours you spend stealing cheese and sweet rolls.... you can always get back to the main quest easily 4. Hide Rewards for Going Off the Beaten Track but Don't Make them Necessary: I think everyone knows about hidden treasures or abilities that reward players for searching off the beaten track. But I find many game designers take this too far. By hiding SO MANY powers and weapons in hidden side quests, they have to balance the game to keep it from being super easy if you do 100% completion, but that can make it almost essential that you do complete all the side quests in order to be strong enough to beat the boss. At this point these are no longer side quests, but just more tasks on the main quest and they become a chore. I think Control did this. I think it is safe to say that majority of Control's story is NOT in the main quest. People often say the best bosses and most the info is found from doing side challenges and missions. One thing they did well was that by hiding lore info EVERYWHERE, it rewards players who read everything by letting them understand more what is going on. The downside was that by giving so many objects of power through side quests, it becomes part of the main story line just to do all the side quests as opposed to that "Only 4% of players put in the effort to figure this out." kind of feeling 5. Don't be Afraid to do Callbacks: When I write stories, I like to test my readers by hiding little hints here and there JUST to see if anyone is smart enough to connect the dots. Maybe an off comment in Chapter 1 of Book 1 actually referred to something that wouldn't come into play until the end of book 8. When games do the same thing, it can be amazing. Maybe that weird statue you saw in the opening room that you could turn for some reason but it wouldn't do anything comes into play when you interact with another object towards the end. Make your world interdependent on each other and give your player the desire to go back and check something as they gain new skills or learn new information. 6. Red Herrings are Important: This one I'm a little reluctant to write as it is a REALLY hard balance to find, but I believe it is important to have things that really do just do... nothing important. I read an article years ago that discussed the importance of empty rooms, and it's true. In order to make exploration rewarding, you need to reward the tenacity to not give up. If every empty room was full of treasure, then of course every player would search every empty room. But put in subtle traps, or just empty rooms here and there, and the player will suddenly have to debate in their head "Is this really worth it?" Now you don't want to go too hard on the player and make it a chore to explore, but you do want to make it that if they're in a rush, maybe they'll mark it for later, or skip it entirely. Essentially the theme is, MAKE EXPLORATION AN INTENTIONAL CHOICE! NOT ANOTHER CHECKLIST ITEM!
Fallout 3 is still the most fun I've had exploring a new game! I didn't know anything about it and got it for $15 at Gamestop, used. Subnotica did it pretty well, too!
I played Morrowind about 7 years ago when I was 16. I was constantly stressed out every day back as I was doing nothing but studying all day long, and playing Morrowind made me rediscover the joy of exploration and discovery, something I had when I was a child and had lost it once I became a teen. The lack of fast travel and way points had a lot to do with it as without way points you have to follow the directions given by the npcs. This means half the time you can never be completely sure whether you are going the right way or not, which makes it all the more exciting when you see the landmarks provided in the directions. You kinda lose this sense of exploration once you get further into the main quest because the game starts giving you way point, which means all you have to do is pull up the map every now and then to make sure you are going the right way. You kinda lose the sense of uncertainty which is part of the fun of exploration.
My fav open worlds have things to find along with a mix of extremely linked details, encounters and various random events that could happen one time and not the next They allow for a real feeling of exploration and being in a living, breathing world
Until you've seen all random events and it's now just _"more of the same thing, just a different color."_ Throwing a dice is just not quite as good as "wondering where all the water is coming from, and finding that exact area" feeling of analytical exploration.
I had a totally different experience with Skyrim. I loved exploring the world without limitation. Even after several hundred hours of playtime I still kept finding new stuff. Also, I recommend trying out a no fast travel play through; it really changes things.
I haven't played BotW yet but finally bought it after hearing many people like yourself saying similar things. For me the ones that come to mind are Hollow Knight and Guild Wars 1. If I get even half of the exploratory serotonin from it as I did those games I will be a very happy lad.
Gothic 1 and 2 have been doing a living, breathing open world since 2001. And it took until Witcher 3 for other games to catch up to what Gothic was doing.
For the intrinsic joy of exploration. If you need a reason to go somewhere that's fine, but maybe that game just isn't for you. A game doesn't need to have a reward for going to a cool location if that cool location is reward enough in and of itself, which, for some people, it is. Not saying you need to feel that way, just acknowledge that different people play games for different reasons and different ways they have fun.
Skyrim’s exploration is interesting. It definitely feels empty at times, and cluttered at other times. It does have quite a few “woah” moments, but unless youre playing a modded game with artificial limiters like no fast travel, and weather that prevents movement sometime, the need for food and sleep, etc. traveling is too easy and becomes an inconvenience overcome by the fast travel system. But with fast traveling, the game is too convenient, too fast, and much less meaningful. The joy of playing skyrim is found in slowing way the hell down, and the devs didn’t build that into their game. Luckily, mods.
My best moment in Zelda breath of the wild was when I climbed on one of the snowy mountains and found a giant corrupt frost dragon that I had to fight to free it
For me it was a similar, albeit smaller experience. Maybe my memory is serving me oddly, but I swear upon climbing a mountain once, I had seen an aurora within the sky. It was beautiful.
My problem is when "you can go there" becomes "you must go there ... that's where the magic mcguffin is ... also it takes 20 minutes of holding the W key to get there." I'd much prefer a smaller more detailed world that doesn't take hours to traverse. Something more on the scale of a city block than a continent.
My favorite thing about Xenoblade is how it habdles XP and exploration different thab most games by tying them together (similar to Okami). I çiked getting enough glowing orbs to fill an area's glossary or whatever it was called, discoring hidden areas that don't appear in the map, figuring out when enemies that only appear under specific circumstances do, etc etc
@@saberaxe In the context of the video and this thread, that is what they said. No one was talking about series'. It's all been individual games. BotW, Arkham City, GTAV, Skyrim etc..it also wasn't a pedantic correction because it matters. They are different games with potentially different subjective levels of exploration.
@@saberaxe It is explained over time, especially as you approach the endgame. Not sure how far you are in but the setting does make sense - in fact, one of the best things about Xenoblade 2's lore, in my opinion, is how the fundamentals of the world are continually extrapolated outwards and intertwined until it all comes together in the final chapter. @RomanQrr Agreed entirely. Not enough people know that Monolith Soft were brought in for BotW, either. Their world design is arguably the best in the industry.
@@saberaxe calm down dude, first of all, if he just says "Xenoblade Chronicles" then it's the first game. Clearly. So accept your mistake and move on. Second of all, it's no written rule that you must know how everything came to be in a videogame. Some developers want you to imagine how something was created and some think it's thrilling to hit you with the unexpected. Regardless, those are fair reasons. Imagine yourself going on a journey, and you find a beautiful lake. Why tf would there be someone there to explain to you how the lake was formed? and how tf would you enjoy that???? It makes it feel like less of an adventure and more of a tourist attraction.
What I personally find engaging is story. A bit of lore about a place makes so much difference. My goto example is Morrowind. Before I visited places I read about them in books, letters, maps and dialogs. Context, that what is missing in a lot of this games. You can do a lot with game mechanics but nothing is as effective like a good story.
2:20 "Alleged" is the keyword. Let us remember that this was a wolf cry from a snowflake who instead of going to the authorities, went to twitter without any evidence whatsoever. That was encouraged by someone else, who did the exact same thing, ZQ, resulting in an innocent man's(AS IT TURNS OUT FROM HER OWN TWITTER FEED) death. The burden of proof lies on the accuser, NOT the accused.
Great video as always, and I do agree with 99% of what you said. I have to say though, I feel like Skyrim is a bit better in that department than it got credit for. Skyrim really rewards exploration, if you choose to go on foot other than with fast travel you won't only find dungeons but you will also find some random encounters that make the world feel alive. Also, there are some "scenes" like abandoned tents or whatever where if you explore around you can actually realise some things that happened there so it has some pretty cool silent storytelling too in some areas(like that lake bit on hollow knight). For instance, I remember there is a specific town that most players won't really make anything just your normal slightly populated little village with 3-4 houses. But if you stick around and start observing some things you realize something is off... I won't go in details, in order to not ruin anyon'es expereince but there are a lot of things like this in skyrim and I love it for that.
2:18 - Sorry, but if actions are 'alleged' then it is stupid to 'pirate his music guilt free'. Or are we going to treat people as scum before anything is actually proven, hm?
You have the right to feel that way. Others have the right to feel what they want. And while pirating music or other copyrighted material is technically illegal, good luck finding those that have. Unless you are distributing the material yourself you have practically nothing to fear as the effort, time, and money it take to to after someone for it is simply to high to be worth it. So while I dont personally "condone" pirating music if someone were wanting to the likelyhood of them getting in trouble for it is essentially 0 so it is irrelevant by that point. Anyway just somthing to think about. Humans are humans and the whole "innocent until proven guilty" bit only applies to courts.
@@chasefox3100 Presumed innocence isn't just a legal principle, it is also a moral principle. Where were you from 8:13-9:13 PM on February 2nd, 2011? And how can you prove that you were there, and not somewhere else committing a crime? If you can't, I will now steal the products of your labor, and encourage others to do so as well.
@@robertboily9030 well lucky for me you don't know me, what I do, and if you break into my house to steal I can get the cops for that. I never said that pirating is a good thing. I said that it basically isn't enforceable in any meaningful way. That is the truth. Dont really know what to tell you.
@@chasefox3100 Sorry, that came off wrong. To be clear: I'm not actually going to do it. I'm making the point that that's what Architect of Games just did.
@@chasefox3100 You've somehow managed to miss the point twice, try reading between the lines man lol. This has nothing to do with pirating music or breaking in to your house. OP and Robert's points were that it is immoral to condemn someone as guilty before anything has been proven. I've certainly noticed that spouting off this kind of rhetoric is a recurring theme in AG's videos. It's annoying and a bummer, but definitely not a deal breaker.
I sunk a lot of time into No Man's Sky. I've stopped now because of the same problems Adam brought up here eventually came through, but it took a while for that too happen. While exploring an exotic planet during a quest, I randomly stumbled upon a stunning lake set into a valley. I immediately detoured and spent the next few hours building a villa there.
One of the first examples of the “see that mountain? You can go to it!” actually came from the Official PlayStation Magazine page spread on Dragon Quest VII, long before Skyrim and BotW - and it was legitimate and sold me the game in a series I’d never heard of.
I think you were a bit harsh on Skyrim, because there is plenty of things that you quoted on other examples inside Skyrim. Not that Skyrim is perfect, and the linear aproach of certain contends are... less than adequated, but there is so many contents to explore by your own that is not "on your face" that's hard to agree with you in that topic. But nice video, as ever!
Very late to the party but I never once in my 368 hours of Skyrim was I ever bored or felt like anything was recycled. I opened Skyrim and started a new playthrough recently cause I was feeling nostalgic. I had to uninstall it cause I was hooked again and I don't have the time to dissapear for a month again lol
There are many games I loved to explore. The world of The Witcher 3 was a joy to discover, and each passage between rocks was a call to exploring, each logation told a tale of culture or man-made horrors. The writing made it really stand out for me. The world of Subnautica have so many different ambiances, from the beautiful and colorful shallow waters to the dark dark depth, there is plenty to see, and the sense of advancement and danger made it incredibly interesting. But recently, it's Supraland's world which made me want to explore every single corner. That game is incredibly well crafted!
quirell actually alludes to the blue lake in hollow knight when you meet him on the first bench in the city of tears. if you talk to him he mentions that there's a resevoir of water above the city that slowly drips down giving it the name "the city of tears".
Dark Souls has the opposite problem though. It creates really meaningful journeys... that you have to do a thousand times over until they become hollow because you constantly die only two inches from your actual destination. Or at least that was my experience with it.
In 7:45 I was pretty sure you would mention the "Just Cause" series. Grappling Hook + Parachute / Squirrel suit is the most satisfying transportation combo ever devised on a videogame 😍
As soon as the invisible walls guiding you through the first few story missions disappeared, I immediately headed north to get a foothold on the continents up there (which was a very long walk through those small islands I didn't even know were there). Sylvalum became my favorite area, because I loved the aesthetic and had fond memories of trying to explore and not die with my low level. It was also a great marker of progress as I kept returning over the course of the game, and gradually had an easier time wandering around.
The audio logs were a big part in my enjoyment of Horizon Zero Dawn. They managed to be a good reward to the mandatory token search of AAA open worlds. I was always very happy to hear a piece of the world before the fall and the attack of the machines. I think my favourite ones were about the soldiers fighting the robots in the giant citadel, but exploring the flooded powerplant in the DLC was also very enjoyable, thanks again to those audio logs
I felt the opposite, i completely loved walking around Skyrim just to look at things and to see the scenery, where hallow knight I hated exploring, it felt tedious even tho the game was great
Same although i agree with the statement that exploring in skyrim can feel hollow Walking around in skyrim often does feel good And i dont know why hollow knight feels so unsatisfactory to explore but i feel the same way
Hollow knight is a very well made polished game with a lot of content But it feels cramped and it feels kind of shallow from moment to moment The game feels almost slow and cumbersome But i dont know what it is exactly that makes it feel that way Another metroidvania i love and played before hollow knight was salt and sanctuary And while that game isnt as polished and more linear It didnt feel as cramped and i enoyed exploring it much more But that might also be because i was a little younger then (And a lot less depressed which might be a factor as well)
I loved the exploration in hollow knight, but my hypothesis as to why you felt that way is because hollow knight has lots of platforming challenges and difficult enemies, which makes it inherently more difficult to explore, and thus also more tedious.
You could have a game set in one house and it could feel as rewarding as a whole kingdom, if done correctly. It’s all about content, meaningful moments, and interacting in unique ways in the environment. A room could be defined as having 4 walls, but if you think about it, a room has corners, shelves, drawers, a closet, maybe a mouse hole, curtains, and all sorts of other things.
TBH the two games aren't even in the same genre so there's no comparison. You don't play Skyrim to wander randomly and you don't play NMS to achieve a certain goal.
He is a famous music composer, and he was accused of "sexual misconduct". In short, he allegedly used his position to make women sleep with him. It is pretty nasty, but I am not sure treating the guy like a criminal just cause he was accused of something is the right way to go. I mean, have you guys ever heard about due process?
@@Eshtian I think but to no degree am I sure that encouraging people to do something illegal is indeed illegal, though it is only if they are likely to do it, like incitement to violence. Even if I'm wrong, that is probably the case, what gives him the right to be the judge and his logic is far more dangerous for overturning innocent until proven guilty would get many innocents imprisoned.
To add to the Hollow Knight segment, when I first played the game I was so engrossed in exploring that I ended up completely missing the entrance, went all the way around to the other side of the city and went in backwards, all without realising I had gone the wrong way. It felt so natural that discovering the *actual* entrance became such a profound moment because it really taught me just how much freedom there was in the game. So it begs the question, was it really the "wrong way"?
Skyrim is one of my favourite games of all time. I love the soundtrack, atmosphere, setting, scenery, voice acting, questlines like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild. The ability to go anywhere and run into random events, it's just great. I'm playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey at the moment and absolutely loving it. Dark Souls doesn't look particularly enjoyable to me, but I'm not a fan of drab looking, depressing settings.
How do you see Breath of the Wild fitting into the conclusions of this video? It, like Skyrim and No Man's Sky, doesn't do much to restrict your exploration, but it still feels really good to explore.
Highly recommend the ultra-mod 'set' called "Ultimate Skyrim", built on Requiem, for making the experience of the game a good deal more substantive and challenging.
I personally got that feeling of exploration from Firefall. My play of that game glitched horribly, and I was rendered incapable of progressing the main questline. So I wandered off, and explored. And I loved it. With the games movement controls being so close to my personal ideal, I just dashed around the world, seeing everything I could climb, every enemy AI issue I could exploit, and many Main-quest areas as I stumbled upon them (and hearing the Main quest story out-of-sequence as a result). I miss that game so much nowadays.
Jeremy Soule alleged actions aren't worth mentioning before the trial is done. Won't be the first time someone is false accused of these, you know, actions.
There isn't even a trial. I don't think criminal charges have even been filled. The accuser went straight to Twitter, not the police. At this point, there is no evidence or investigation.
@@Jabu354 It's definitely not, considering he isn't the sole person receiving money from the sale of his music. You'd be fucking over anyone who has ever worked for him, anyone who works for record labels who represented him before he founded his own one, hell - you'd even be fucking over game devs and publishers that have used his music if you pirate it. You might as well claim it's okay to pirate copies of Pulp Fiction because Harvey Weinstein...
I'd argue that Dark Soul's is the opposite problem... or maybe the inverse problem. It's masterfully put together, but it doesn't want you to have a meaningful journey, it wants you to have constant conflict. As such I found myself hating my game experience because while I loved the detail and the forlorn beauty of the world, I eventually had to strip it down into its most game-ified chunks. The game became a bunch of arbitrary shortcuts and invisible lines to agro zones. All the mystery and magic of the world, of this difficult journey I was supposed to be taking and exploring was stripped to something worse than rote procedural generation. Combine that with the fact that Dark Souls is not fun to navigate at all, especially when you can't be immersed and just have to break all the encounters and environments to their basic game parts just to make progress. The Taurus demon isn't this imposing naturalistic roadblock anymore, it's just a big fat boi that you have to figure out how to cheese if you want to beat it. Add in the fact that there is no real objective because the game wants to be coy, no real narrative that isn't buried in lore and item descriptions, and you find very little upfront motivation to explore once the veneer of Dark Souls's world is stripped away by my logical brain to make progress which is a snake eating its own tail in that the more progress I make, the less I enjoy the world, the less I enjoy the world, the less I want to explore, the less I want to explore, the less I play until the game gets pitched into a wall and traded in to GameStop in a few days. The difficulty was fine, but it came at the expense of everything else, at least for me. So Dark Souls is really a bad example of good open world design but because of its other mechanics and not actually bad world design.
As if nothing bad ever happened with immediately being antagonistic towards a person because of twitter allegations. I mean we don't really need concrete trials and complete evidence, we just need to point fingers and blame and antagonize. I mean, no one really suffers because we pile on hate because of some alleged actions. I mean no one died from those, right?
Earl Layno Yeah I heard there’s probably some allegations against Adam Milliard or something. No proof anything just allegations, so it’s okay to take his content and upload it elsewhere
i love the philosophy of Outer Wilds design, nothing is preventing you from progressing except your own understanding. in a metroidvania you gain access to new areas when you unlock or find new skills/equipment, but in OW you the player actually learn skills not your avatar. it's very immersive and satisfying to explore
The reason why Hollow Knight has had such a great sense of exploration is mainly because its confined in its own world with its own rules. Let me put it this way: In both Zelda and Skyrim you can go everywhere from the start of the game (after the tutorial but that kinda goes with any game so I let that slide). These games have nothing big or grand to hide other than some unique places that after a while dont really seem too impressive anymore. Especially in Skyrim. But when I think about a game such as Half Life 2, you can find many a thing along your path you can simply ignore and head on through. I think that a game such as open world games, would be able to do a lot more with their world if the developers would and could spend the time to actually mark their world with their own little stories. Not written down or recorded, but with visuals. Like in Half Life 2 where you can find various spots where there are things that you will never truly understand why they are here because you dont know the story behind it and will never know it. But something had once happened here and the game shows you this. Tell me of a dungeon or place in Skyrim and Zelda that does this proper without either reffering to refferences or having the same old same old with various same enemies scattered across the entire effing dungoen UNTIL you get to maybe a dead body which is clear why they are dead because they got killed by one of the monsters. In other words: Bring mystery back to gaming. Bring back the old mystery games where you knew F all. BRING BACK POINT AND CLICK butnotreallytheyarequiteboring BUT THE STYLE OF IT WAS PERFECT DAMMIT
I honestly think Skyrim gets mostly hate because it's popular to do so among the gamerboys. The thing you want from Skyrim it, in reality, does in spades, well better than the overrated Half Life 2. And I don't even like Skyrim. You just need to actually explore. The problem with Skyrim is that gamerboys like you are so used to being dragged by the nose that you only look for questmarkers and ignore everything else. If you do ignore them, there's plenty in between, the exact little stories you claim to be looking for. The same goes for BOTW, by the way. If you find a village ruin, or a little ruined hut, take the time to actually look around. There's more there to find and see than you think, it's just that you're so conditioned to follow markers that you're not even looking anymore. That's the real problem there. Nostalgia for HL2 just blinds you to that fact.
Love this vid. Great thoughts! It's especially heartwarming to hear you call out some of the content I designed and built in Guild Wars 2 (specifically the pirate jumping puzzle hidden in Lion's Arch) It's been a rough year for me since getting laid off from ArenaNet after 15 years, so it's really nice to feel like my work is recognized and appreciated. :)
Just discovered your channel recently, and it's fantastic! I've been watching Mark Brown at GMTK for a while now so it's nice to have another channel also doing game design theory videos. Thanks for sharing your unique perspective!
Jeremey Soule now? Oh joy, another famous person 'allegedly' doing something evil. Edit: anyone notice that nowdays it's automatically "guilty until proven innocent, and probably still then"?
I love No Man's Sky. The game, while still interesting to explore, feels like an extended list of ways to immerse yourself into a science-fiction lifestyle. Want to be a fleet admiral? Want to be an industrial tycoon? Want to network dozens of teleporters along the galaxy? Do it, and own it. I really, *really* like, and love discovering and mastering the systems at my disposal.
About your Jeremy Soule comment: As far as I know there isn't *any* proof that Jeremy Soule is guilty at all... With what's been going on with false accusations as of late I think it's more fair to say that he's innocent until proven guilty. Treating him like a criminal without proof is just wrong and will ruin his life. Oh and please don't encourage theft, as that's kinda illegal and morally wrong. Great video btw, I really enjoyed it!
Guilty until proven innocence is simply what the court system follows. The court of public opinion functions in a completely different way and is not obligated to follow the courts. How many times have we seen clearly guilty scumbags get away with things (example: O.J. Simpson) and the public is outraged? Same here. If the allegations are substantial enough and consistent enough to show a pattern of suspect behavior over a lengthy period of time most people will not assume you're innocent. That's how you get open secrets about certain people and places being infested with rotten assholes (example: politicians are widely considered to be guilty of corruption as a rule because so many have consistently been found in the act of and (strangely acquitted of) said crimes).
@Wurzelbert84 No, it's a statement of fact. "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" has always been a legal burden and requirement. The public has always operated outside of that framework, and behaving as if this is somehow new borders on dishonesty.
@@felix6764 My opinion here doesn't matter. The court system adheres to the most fair approach (innocence until otherwise proven), but the court of public opinion has always been something else entirely. People who consider Jeremy Soule a scumbag are well within their rights, as are those who consider him innocent. Neither side can tell the other to shut the fuck up.
Hello Adam, I've only started following your channel a couple of weeks ago, and I went back and watched a lot of your old videos. I wanted to say that I really enjoy your insightful ideas into game design and your witty humor, and this video really shows it. Mentioning the video you should've mentioned a small game called Dark Souls, it's really the perfect game for this topic.
Hey, I wish you would start providing timestamps for your spoiler sections so you know where to skip ahead if you don't want to go through a spoiler section of the video. You had a similar thing last episode, where you didn't provide a timestamp for a spoiler section.
what is a spoiler in this video? there is a town and it rains? are you serious? how can this spoil your experience? people who popularise this spoiler bullshit need to stop.
@@MacMan2152 Please do get some sympathy and empathy in your life, you're going to be a better person that way. Look at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't played Hallow Knight yet. If someone who hasn't played Hallow Knight gets to that part of the video, what will their immediate reaction be? If this person also really cares about spoilers, then what will their reaction be? Could you please consider other people are way different from you before you open your mouth? @darkmoon (UA-cam doesn't allow me to reply to two people at once) Well that's just unnecessarily mean, isn't it? Why be unnecessarily mean in a video about analysing game design? It makes no sense, does it?
@@RandomBurfness if the man in the video didn't say that it is a spoiler, no one (you included) would actually think it is a spoiler. If a person really cares about spoilers, they might as well really care about some other shit and no real person should be bothered by some shit some imaginable person really cares about. Why do you think if you and me are different it is me who should change? Ridiculous levels of narcissism. "Oh no, some people will be offended because they care about spoilers". Stop talking that shit, you obviously wouldn't be able to analyse anything without some spoilers. It's stupid to think that in a video on how games work and how they should work won't be any spoilers.
6:08 That makes no sense because the shadow dash is an actual skill... It gives you invincibility frames and is essential to late-game combat, not just a key for those doors (although it also functions as that). I will admit that those doors in particular feel very "game-y" though.
One of my favorite games is Final Fantasy 14 Online. The way you travel around the game is loads of fun! The moment I got my first Chocobo, I was alarmed by the speed of which the bird runs! Comparing the Chocobo's speed to your character's is astounding, even while walking around! 😁
So, basically, the appropriate mind set to have when designing these games is that of the musical nomads from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Don't have destination fever, focus more on the going. Gotcha. They even talk about secret tunnels and who doesn't love those?
In elder scrolls ,books and lore are used to flesh out the world. Agreed, most of the books might not have actual impact on how the game plays out but there are some exception like when you read the book "the legend of red eagle" and " the lost legends" to name a few initiate respective quests.
I can into a similar issue when working on a Dwarf Fortress conversion. I could generate a massive world, populated with more lore, mysteries, and creatures than anyone would ever explore. But then the questions was: Why would anyone care? There was no point to the scale or depth. It was... Thin. Like butter spread over too much bread. I think the answer lies in a ball of yarn, or a spiderweb. It does not need to have a massive flat scale, rather it should loop back on itself over and over again. Where you can pass through the same area dozens of times and still find new links to other parts of the game. You just didn't know where to look. In the end, what is most satisfying is exploring our own minds. The game map should look like a human brain, a labyrinth of nodes and paths.
First I will say that, at the time I'm making this comment, the allegations have not been proven in court. He's been accused of having relationships where he has complete control over the other person because of his position. Pretty scummy. But let me reiterate that right now they have not been proven to be true.
It seems he got accused of rape by a indie developer he's worked with, 10 years ago, and she made it public few weeks ago. I just googled so maybe I'm not entirely right, might be false accusations. (or not...) The trap you shouldn't fall to in this case is to associate the art and the people who made it... His creations may be beautiful to someone or may even have influenced a huge part of someone's life, but it has nothing to do with his personality...
@@sanfransiscon "have not been proven in court." you mean no charges brought no law enforcement contacted, the only court involved is the court of public opinion if someone commits a violent crime against you go to the police, not right a blog post in the hopes that all the virtue signalers will destroy a man life on hearsay
Arkham City's grapple and glide system really make you FEEL like Spiderman.
Funkopedia just finished spiderman on ps4 yesterday, and that was literally my first thought. It looks exactly the same...
BTW 6 free Batman games on EPICGames. 3 Lego and 3 normal ones ^^
I actually lol'd. Thank you.
That's what insomniac thought when they were ripping arkham games off
That’s the stupidest thing I heard this day
The best exploration doesnt even come from open worlds most of the time, it comes from instanced worlds where they they took the time to carefully craft every pixel to mean something
I personally like to call some games semi-open world. The games that are linear, but have openish levels with a few different paths and some secrets.
The thing is, organically setting up a situation can work too, but as they are random it's hard for it to happen. Finding a combination of normal elements like several different types of enemies that interact off each other is also exploration. "AAA" open world games don't have a tight script, but they also lack interesting interactions. That's another reason "getting to the mountain" is not fun, there's no result except being on the mountain.
@@malcomchase9777 A good example of exploration done right is the borderlands games and my personal favorite game, System Shock 2. Neither really needs explaining
@@V2ULTRAKill I'm talking about the end quote: "it comes from instanced worlds where they they took the time to carefully craft every pixel to mean something". Sometimes the meaning can be scripted, but sometimes meaning can come from organic elements.
Thats what i love the gem that is what remains of edith finch. Feels like ever book, doll and cup has its place in that small small world.
Not mentioning Dark Souls is the Dark Souls of games analysis.
@@yueffstueff6542 Dark souls of Dark souls is dark souls
420th like, nice 😎
@Connor Bolen Not really. You can't just proclaim a game to be the best one ever made. Because if you do, then I will assert the dominance of Minecraft as the greatest game of all time.
@Connor Bolen I'd be "weong", but I wouldn't be "wrong".
@Connor Bolen Nah Minecraft is the greatest of all time.
I know this was minor tangent in the video, but it's nuts how many companies like Rockstar get away with paying zero taxes.
Not just games companies. Amazon, Netflix too, at least here in the states. Absolutely nuts
you can do it too but i bet you don't have as much lawyers as rockstar
@@MacMan2152 that's a difference between actual rights and substantive access to those rights. Which kinda makes your point moot. If you don't have access to the right, it doesn't exist
Welcome to aggressive capitalism. Hope you like this world, where the only thing everyone cares about is money, not people and the world.
@@garr_inc and there are people who will defend this bullshit too
To any developers out there:
Let players fail.
Let players miss that awesome thing you maybe spent days/weeks on.
Most of us are stupid, blind, and have the attention span of a hyperactive squirrel, but that awesome thing will mean SO much more to the people that do find it.
that's cool and all but; does it sell well?
If yes: they will do it
if no: good luck
@Diogen the cool things in that game stick out like a sore thumb on the map.
You may want to check out games made by the studio "pyranha bytes", personally I prefer "ELEX", they litereally did what you are saying.
@@eliegbert8121 Nah there is so much to miss without playing extensively.
That's team Cherry's design philosophy
cant believe he never mentioned dark souls, its the perfect game for this subject and yet he somehow missed the chance to be the person who talks about how great of a series it is!
How could I have missed it!?
@@ArchitectofGames seriously, and you call yourself a professional?! pfffhhhh...
It's not a perfect game for the example. It's not an open world game. Then every good stealth game ever made is also a master classes in exploration, Hitman, Dishonored 1 and 2 all reward exploration with alternative routes,items,world building and secrets. They best example would be an interesting open world game where the core combat loop is exiting (RE4, Max Payne, or Halo) so you want to go and find new stuff to kill, progress world building and story that adds to gameplay (Fallout New Vegas or other CRPGs where finding unique characters and items changes the story) , visually enticing (Skyrim, Horizon etc). Dark Souls is overrated as a standard for game design. If Dark Souls combat was boring even less people than now would have finished it.
@@samuelraji8343 wooosh
@@samuelraji8343 Ironically, Hitman and Dishonored are fantastic examples of games with phenomenal exploration. As is Dark Souls. Get bent.
This kinda reminds me of a talk by somebody who's been up the summit of Mt. Everest a few times. I forgot her name, though. But what she said was that honestly, there's nothing up there. You feel like crap and you can barely breathe due to the thin oxygen, and there isn't even a nice view, as clouds are covering everything. Nothing to see but clouds and sky. In other words, the destination wasn't special. But what made it special was the journey. Because it's difficult to make it up there. People have literally died from failing to make it up there. There's a lot you need to do to prepare for the journey. You actually need to go up a little bit at a time then go back down. You need to wait a few days at certain stations on the way to the top. You can't just rush up there.
I remember thinking even during the talk that, man that's a lot like video games. You can't just rush to the boss or the ending. You need to get used to the game's mechanics, see what the developers have laid out for you. Level up, collect better equipment, enjoy the game first, and then when it's time and you're all ready to finish the game, you go up to the last boss.
_I want to support this comment in some way because it's too perfect_
*I understood that reference*
In Hollow Knight I've just been doing "clean up", getting achievements and finding things I might've missed after I finished the main game, and I never even thought about how the water in City of Tears was from Blue Lake even when I thought I knew everything
I made it to the city of tears myself by fumbling about, but I dropped hollow knight shortly after, never came back to it, and if I tried to now I would be super lost.
I kinda want to be in the group of people who love this game, but I just found myself fumbling about in the same corridors and not even understanding what I was supposed to do, I thought you were supposed to activate the three mask thingies but the forgotten crossroads became infected, maybe I'm overthinking it but why would I want to open the other masks if it could result in severe problems?
Everyone really loves this game so I want to give it a second chance but I don't know how, maybe I'm just bad at wayfinding in complex worlds?
@@dylanenriguehuntington2908 Get yourself the maps, equip the compass, and just go to places you havent been yet, youll succeed eventually. If you find secrets and cool new places and not having fun then maybe exploration games arent for you? Id still suggest you give it a second chance, of course. The crossroads infecting is a sign of progress, you got this!
@@antoinefrigon2101 Thanks!
It would be greatly appreciated if you had a pop-up in the corner with the name of whatever game is on screen at any given time, like you do for the music. Often some interesting game will flash on screen, but I'll have no idea what it is or how I can find out more. Other than that, great work as always!
The games are on the description, but I agree.
Sadly, there's no easy way to know which game in the description is which.
@@wariolandgoldpiramid they are in order of appearance
I cannot recommend The Outer Wilds enough to anyone who is interested in this stuff. Not only did it instantly become one of my favorite games of all time, it exemplifies exploration. Adam mentions it briefly in this video, but I think it warrants more attention. The reason open worlds in games feel like they are a movie set is because they are. They are the backdrop for collecting and managing resources, fighting enemies, advancing a narrative, amassing power, building structures, solving puzzles, etc. In The Outer Wilds you explore. The world is made to be explored and to deliver an experience about exploring. I find it difficult to recall a similar experience in other games. "Walking sims" come to mind, but they are often more about being presented than discovered. The closest contemporary I can think of is The Witness, and even that has the world as backdrop to the primary interactive element of the line puzzles. Though The Witness does have a similar effect on the player in that your personal discoveries and growth replace some statistical or functional growth of the avatar. Play The Outer Wilds if you haven't! And avoid reading anything about it first! ;-)
My feeling exactly. One thrilling exploration-based moment after another. I've not played anything else like it. I would say it's more like a platformer than anything else
Great video as always! The Joy of Discovery is a great way to put it. Love it when games let you do that, which I increasingly find to be more prevalent in indie games!
What a crossover
Serious shade thrown all around in this video. Adam's lost patience with everyone, it seems.
Soon, he will metamorphose into another Jim Sterling. Thank God for Jim Sterling, yes - but *which one*.
well he does say he's a chronic misanthrope...
Hopefully not, Jim kinda sucks now
@@Shoxic666
How about a res of old Jim?
@@nullpoint3346 that'd be pretty cool, old jim was a chad, but he gradually went downhill
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Adam, have you explored much of Blackreach? The overworld of Skyrim is very movie-set-ish, and most of the dungeons are simple loops that ensure you get escalating fights and appropriate treasure at the end. But then there's the megadungeon of Blackreach. Towards the end of the main quest, one of the questgivers will give you an optional quest that isn't easily missed, so that players will know it's an option. There are also a few passages down to Blackreach scattered all over the overworld that you might stumble across.
Once you've played through the intended quests a few times, Blackreach is there to give you a place to actually go "adventuring" as opposed to "questing". Nobody tells you to explore Blackreach. Nobody tells you they lost their weapon in Blackreach and asks you to find it. Only one NPC ever mentions Blackreach that I know of. So when you do explore Blackreach, you're doing it for yourself.
Of course, if you're just tired of Skyrim as a whole, Blackreach might not be what you're looking for. But it is very different to the rest of the game.
While we're on the cool things in skyrim train, solstheim is also super interesting and pulls of the idea of a fascinating world fantastically. It's a small island to the northeast of skyrim where bethesda kept any filler content from seeping in.
I remember seeing that big orange orb in the ceiling for the first time and going "woah wtf fuck that's pretty damn cool," although I skipped over it at least 5 times. The time I finally did decide to explore blackreach made it pretty fuckin cool tbh that I didn't have to go through it with a quest marker looming over my head.
I'm glad someone mentioned this - when I found Blackreach (on my own, stumbled into it by accident) the experience of the game changed significantly for a period of time in a way similar to what you suggest. It may have been the most memorable part of the game precisely because of the total lack of guidance / quest markers / etc.
there is a quest for blackreach where you have to find all 30 red nirnroot plants that are there.
@@Murtagh653 I think I did discover that quest later on, though I'm not sure I ever completed it.
i feel like procedural generation isnt the way to make exploratory experiences, like how you said about no man's sky, "i've already seen it, just in a different color". procedural generation works more for sandboxing games, like minecraft for example, or games where you want to make a challenge that you cant just memorize, like rouge-likes. they add in some exploring elements, but that isnt the main use for their procedural generation
I'll offer another perspective. If the map is randomly generated, I'm always exploring. I learn the rulesc of the world the same way a traveller learns about environments, but the sense of surprise means I'm really *discovering* something new. The City of Tears example is worldbuilding and narrative, but mapping out the positon of important elements like shops and altars in Spelunky to make sure a boulder hits or doesn't hit them is also exploration. Mechanical exploration, but exploration nonetheless.
Malcom Chase True, but there’s a difference between roguelikes and the still-broken letdown of procedural generation that is No Man’s Sky.
@@malcomchase9777 the procedural layout of spelunky's levels isnt discovery, and isnt there for discovery. you're not seeing new things, you're just seeing them in different places. what it is there for, is to promote mastery and understanding of the game mechanics. you cant just memorize the level layout, you have to know how everything functions and interacts so you know what to do, even when its arranged in new ways. it becomes like a puzzle
@@galenrichter41 How is it not discovery, though? Metroidvanias repeat tools and we still call it discovery. Even if we've seen a game with a ledge too tall for a single jump, and we need the double jump to get there, it still feels like discovery when you work your way up to it. If seeing the same thing again disqualifies it as discovery, then almost no game would ever qualify, don't you think?
I mean, if you think about it the world we live in in real life is basically procedurally generated, and there's still a lot of interesting stuff to explore with it.
In that regard, I'd argue that the problem with procedural worlds is they often aren't detailed enough. They go "this exists" and don't give a "why," as some hand-crafted worlds do. And that does seem to be the biggest hurdle a lot of open world games, procedural or handcrafted, suffer from.
What comes to mind for me is KSP, where going to different worlds is basically only science collection to get better technology, and maybe funding if it was your mission, and all you learn is a little bit of generic flavor text. You're given a solar system to explore, but the exploration is so unrewarding that the focus of the campaign basically becomes making your space agency bigger and more advanced. Which doesn't work without a rewarding endgame. Kerbal could have stuff where players do have to piece more parts of the puzzle on how planets and features formed and how their climate and stuff works, but it really feels like it doesn't. Or maybe I'm just missing that part with the flavor text since collecting science isn't hard and the focus is on getting you new parts rather than learning stuff.
And I do wonder if you could make a procedural Kerbal Space Program, with procedural worlds but still with depth on how the planets formed. You know, learn through multiple hints and processes how and when planets formed, what they're made out of, what the inside is, how features like craters and such formed, and that sort of stuff. And maybe make it mean something. I mean, our own universe does that well. That would allow for a game with scale, depth, and high replayability, all of which are things you want from a perfect game. That being said, it definitely wouldn't be easy to procedurally generate planets and planetary features with history and dynamicity. But if that can be done, then suddenly the perfect exploration game can actually exist.
I love the open world of skyrim because there are so many stories you can find in just about every cave. The lay out of the corpses or weapons. Sometimes it's more obvious with books or notes. There is one dungeon that stands out to me in the game. There is a lighthouse on the northern coast that holds a heartbreaking tale of a family.
Yeah skyrim has its own charms, it just takes a bit of attention to detail to notice them.
Another sad story that stands out is from an uninteresting looking nord drunkard in winterhold inn. All the time he thinks his lover Isabelle abandoned him but actually she get killed in hobbsfall cave while doing bids for vex inorder to get them out of poverty.
The dungeons in most Elder Scrolls games have a lot of effort put in to make them good. The overworld and placements outside of dungeons, though? Not so much...
@@Mac_Diddy Well more exactly, the game tends to push you away from those interesting details. And that's a shame. The word is awesome and the game does everything in it's power to make it boring. Like really, why do I need 500 radiant quest to explore dungeons? I'm going to get 300 gold, I don't care about that. What I care about is that those particular bandits had a pit with spikes in which they lured people to then rob their corpse, that's cool. But If I'm just here because I have to kill a bandit leader and am just following a quest marker I'll probably miss that.
i think it's quite telling that as soon as you mentioned the lighthouse i instantly remembered that story of a man and his family (spoilers ahead for skyrim) who were dragged underground by the falmer and killed.
Something I want to see return in RPGs are vehicles. Airships are a staple of JRPGs but I feel like we haven't seen them enough recently. Final Fantasy 4 has several vehicles that progressively escalate how much of the world (and beyond) you can freely explore. Final Fantasy 15 makes you intimate with the customizable and upgradable Regalia, which comes to feel like the closest thing to a home until you finally settle in Cape Caem.
You totally reminded me of the joy of finally being able to use the Lemurian Ship that teased me since early game in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and all the exploration it enabled. And also the story of Briggs the Pirate that you notice on multiple places while sailing around (mostly the later parts that aren't on the critical path).
CHocobo breeding in ff7 plus sub and highwind
So the immortal words are applicable to game design also.
“Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”
Never expected Stormlight Archive to be brought up here.
Now I'm thinking of the potential Roshar has of being turned into an exploration based game 🤔 Probably the most out of the Cosmere worlds, as the others have narratives isolated to particular areas.
When I heard the skyrim ost...something moved within me
fus ro
Ah, yes, that parasitoid will hatch eventually. But be prepared that the process may be a bit... painful.
@@Daralima. DAH!
wont leave you hanging dovakhin
@@ultimasurge thenkz
@@ultimasurge Yol Tor
Not that it's wanting for more praise, but I really feel Breath of the Wild pretty much perfects all the points mentioned here. It doesn't just present locations, but it makes them visually interesting from long distances to make them compelling to visit. And the player is never actually gated off from any area. The power you gain, better gear and more stamina, makes accessing some areas easier, but the proper skill and preparation can get you anywhere as well.
Really, I think instead of focusing on the ability to go wherever you see, focus should be on making the player want to go wherever they can see!
@Ahmed Yasir Another good point!
The most memorable part in the exploration aspect of botw for me is in the great plateau when the old man asks you to go up the tower and look for the shrines. And then you actually have to look for them manually! That was when I thought to myself: "This game is wonderful".
You also forget one more thing. Many secrets are hidden by some physical barriers like many shrines and mini games of hybra region or many shrine quests and shrines of eldin region. This force you to explore every nook and cranny of those region to find those secrets. Spaces of world also force you to explore and find new stuffs. This is the first game I see which uses their spaces for discovery.
@@zackmhuntr25
I really appreciated that about the game. They let you figure out and find stuff on your own. That made the quests actually feel like quests.
2:36 I only play Skyrim for the "lore" I swear.
the lore in Skyrim is actually really interesting I encourage you guys to go check it out
@@tjparrillo5931 oh yeah let's check out the Lusty Argo- I mean lore
I recently started playing Skyrim again and I only sorta agree with you. Looking past its limitations and going into it with a feeling of adventure actually got me to fall in love with the game again. Plus, there are so many good mods now that add new lands to explore. Despite its flaws, I greatly enjoy it.
I know it's stupid, but I compare Skyrim to Minecraft. A big open world where you can go wherever you like. In the Witcher 3 (as great as it is), I still felt like I was a pre-made character going along a story path laid out for me. While for Skyrim I felt I was making my own way in life.
The npcs who spout exposition at you and the fact that people trust you to do a quest for them without ever speaking a word to them is a bit off putting though, I'll admit.
You and I apparently had completely opposite experiences in Skyrim. I always found exploring in that game to not only be fun and enjoyable, but also incredibly rewarding. Of course, it no longer has the same magic after about 2000 hours of play, but what would?
A couple of thoughts on this (because next to encouraging individuality of play styles through game designs and leveling systems, this is probably my most thought on game design question). You covered a lot of these in the video but, once the rambling starts it's hard to stop so here we go:
1. The Curse of Systematic Design:
We live in an day and age that LOVES systems. Procedural generation, metrics, you name it. This allows smaller teams to create bigger worlds which is great, but it also comes with the curse that as human beings we are VERY good at picking out patterns. When we see something enough times it gets old and we go into autopilot on it. That is something you want as little as possible in game design. Some ways game designers combat this is either, doing the grunt of the work through procedural generation and then going through afterwards and adjusting things, or by using multiple systems that are unique save for how the player interacts with them (like a giant venn diagram with the player in the middle) so the player has multiple categories of systems they may encounter. There has yet to be a perfect solution to this problem though and designers get hooked on it so easily
2. Emergent Gameplay:
One of the reasons I think that games like Minecraft do so well in spite of having very little goals and purpose is that they gave players the tools to make their own fun. More than designing a path, they designed laws of physics and told players to have fun within these laws. This open sandbox effect can be taken too far, but one of the benefits is that you can make up for the inability to make enough unique and engaging content yourself as a designer by instead having hundred of players using all their creativity within the world. This keeps that "I've never seen that before!" feeling going as players keep pushing the limits of the tech to create phenomenal things.
3. Have SOME Form of Progression That is Easy to Get Back To:
Even games like Minecraft which literally drop you in a random location with no goal or consistency do have a goal. Your first goal is to survive by getting shelter resources and food. Your second goal is to improve efficiency by getting rarer materials and building better items. Your third goal is to explore by seeing new biomes, new worlds, or different dimensions. In the same way, having an overarcing goal that is easy to return to even when you get distracted gives you a sense of direction and more freedom to explore as you know no matter how many side quests or hours you spend stealing cheese and sweet rolls.... you can always get back to the main quest easily
4. Hide Rewards for Going Off the Beaten Track but Don't Make them Necessary:
I think everyone knows about hidden treasures or abilities that reward players for searching off the beaten track. But I find many game designers take this too far. By hiding SO MANY powers and weapons in hidden side quests, they have to balance the game to keep it from being super easy if you do 100% completion, but that can make it almost essential that you do complete all the side quests in order to be strong enough to beat the boss. At this point these are no longer side quests, but just more tasks on the main quest and they become a chore. I think Control did this. I think it is safe to say that majority of Control's story is NOT in the main quest. People often say the best bosses and most the info is found from doing side challenges and missions. One thing they did well was that by hiding lore info EVERYWHERE, it rewards players who read everything by letting them understand more what is going on. The downside was that by giving so many objects of power through side quests, it becomes part of the main story line just to do all the side quests as opposed to that "Only 4% of players put in the effort to figure this out." kind of feeling
5. Don't be Afraid to do Callbacks:
When I write stories, I like to test my readers by hiding little hints here and there JUST to see if anyone is smart enough to connect the dots. Maybe an off comment in Chapter 1 of Book 1 actually referred to something that wouldn't come into play until the end of book 8. When games do the same thing, it can be amazing. Maybe that weird statue you saw in the opening room that you could turn for some reason but it wouldn't do anything comes into play when you interact with another object towards the end. Make your world interdependent on each other and give your player the desire to go back and check something as they gain new skills or learn new information.
6. Red Herrings are Important:
This one I'm a little reluctant to write as it is a REALLY hard balance to find, but I believe it is important to have things that really do just do... nothing important. I read an article years ago that discussed the importance of empty rooms, and it's true. In order to make exploration rewarding, you need to reward the tenacity to not give up. If every empty room was full of treasure, then of course every player would search every empty room. But put in subtle traps, or just empty rooms here and there, and the player will suddenly have to debate in their head "Is this really worth it?" Now you don't want to go too hard on the player and make it a chore to explore, but you do want to make it that if they're in a rush, maybe they'll mark it for later, or skip it entirely.
Essentially the theme is, MAKE EXPLORATION AN INTENTIONAL CHOICE! NOT ANOTHER CHECKLIST ITEM!
Fallout 3 is still the most fun I've had exploring a new game!
I didn't know anything about it and got it for $15 at Gamestop, used.
Subnotica did it pretty well, too!
This is why morrowwind was awesome! No fast travel, no waypoints. Only word of mouth to find interesting locations.
I played Morrowind about 7 years ago when I was 16. I was constantly stressed out every day back as I was doing nothing but studying all day long, and playing Morrowind made me rediscover the joy of exploration and discovery, something I had when I was a child and had lost it once I became a teen. The lack of fast travel and way points had a lot to do with it as without way points you have to follow the directions given by the npcs. This means half the time you can never be completely sure whether you are going the right way or not, which makes it all the more exciting when you see the landmarks provided in the directions. You kinda lose this sense of exploration once you get further into the main quest because the game starts giving you way point, which means all you have to do is pull up the map every now and then to make sure you are going the right way. You kinda lose the sense of uncertainty which is part of the fun of exploration.
My fav open worlds have things to find along with a mix of extremely linked details, encounters and various random events that could happen one time and not the next
They allow for a real feeling of exploration and being in a living, breathing world
Weell Plains of Eidolon is trying, but failed.
Until you've seen all random events and it's now just _"more of the same thing, just a different color."_
Throwing a dice is just not quite as good as "wondering where all the water is coming from, and finding that exact area" feeling of analytical exploration.
I much prefer the Witcher 3 approach of no random encounters, all designed and puposefully placed along the road to mean something most of the time.
You just described breath of the wild
I had a totally different experience with Skyrim. I loved exploring the world without limitation. Even after several hundred hours of playtime I still kept finding new stuff. Also, I recommend trying out a no fast travel play through; it really changes things.
I think comparing no-mans-sky to Skyrim is a bit unfair. Skyrim has a lot of fun narrative and rewards you for exploring with unique stuff.
I wouldn't say he was comparing Skyrim to Noman's Sky, he just said which problems in both games felt similar
Breath of the Wild is the only game that I would describe as having truly fun exploration in recent memory
Totally agree!
I was going to say Witcher 3 but then realised it came out over 4 years ago. That's nowhere near recent.
Really? It’s pretty bland for my taste
Have you played Hollow Knight
I haven't played BotW yet but finally bought it after hearing many people like yourself saying similar things. For me the ones that come to mind are Hollow Knight and Guild Wars 1. If I get even half of the exploratory serotonin from it as I did those games I will be a very happy lad.
Gothic 1 and 2 have been doing a living, breathing open world since 2001. And it took until Witcher 3 for other games to catch up to what Gothic was doing.
Agree.
Still my favorite RPG to this day...
Not a single sentence about the gothic series - that's even more impressive than not mentioning dark souls!
"You see that? You can go there!"
Okay but why should I want to?
_You just summed up the video in one sentence_
For the intrinsic joy of exploration. If you need a reason to go somewhere that's fine, but maybe that game just isn't for you. A game doesn't need to have a reward for going to a cool location if that cool location is reward enough in and of itself, which, for some people, it is. Not saying you need to feel that way, just acknowledge that different people play games for different reasons and different ways they have fun.
Skyrim’s exploration is interesting. It definitely feels empty at times, and cluttered at other times. It does have quite a few “woah” moments, but unless youre playing a modded game with artificial limiters like no fast travel, and weather that prevents movement sometime, the need for food and sleep, etc. traveling is too easy and becomes an inconvenience overcome by the fast travel system. But with fast traveling, the game is too convenient, too fast, and much less meaningful. The joy of playing skyrim is found in slowing way the hell down, and the devs didn’t build that into their game. Luckily, mods.
My best moment in Zelda breath of the wild was when I climbed on one of the snowy mountains and found a giant corrupt frost dragon that I had to fight to free it
For me it was a similar, albeit smaller experience. Maybe my memory is serving me oddly, but I swear upon climbing a mountain once, I had seen an aurora within the sky. It was beautiful.
My problem is when "you can go there" becomes "you must go there ... that's where the magic mcguffin is ... also it takes 20 minutes of holding the W key to get there."
I'd much prefer a smaller more detailed world that doesn't take hours to traverse. Something more on the scale of a city block than a continent.
I'm really disappointed that you didn't mention Xenoblade Chronicles. You see it, you can go there at it's finest.
My favorite thing about Xenoblade is how it habdles XP and exploration different thab most games by tying them together (similar to Okami). I çiked getting enough glowing orbs to fill an area's glossary or whatever it was called, discoring hidden areas that don't appear in the map, figuring out when enemies that only appear under specific circumstances do, etc etc
@@saberaxe They did not say Xenoblade 2. They said Xenoblade 1.
@@saberaxe In the context of the video and this thread, that is what they said. No one was talking about series'. It's all been individual games. BotW, Arkham City, GTAV, Skyrim etc..it also wasn't a pedantic correction because it matters. They are different games with potentially different subjective levels of exploration.
@@saberaxe It is explained over time, especially as you approach the endgame. Not sure how far you are in but the setting does make sense - in fact, one of the best things about Xenoblade 2's lore, in my opinion, is how the fundamentals of the world are continually extrapolated outwards and intertwined until it all comes together in the final chapter.
@RomanQrr Agreed entirely. Not enough people know that Monolith Soft were brought in for BotW, either. Their world design is arguably the best in the industry.
@@saberaxe calm down dude, first of all, if he just says "Xenoblade Chronicles" then it's the first game. Clearly. So accept your mistake and move on.
Second of all, it's no written rule that you must know how everything came to be in a videogame. Some developers want you to imagine how something was created and some think it's thrilling to hit you with the unexpected. Regardless, those are fair reasons.
Imagine yourself going on a journey, and you find a beautiful lake. Why tf would there be someone there to explain to you how the lake was formed? and how tf would you enjoy that???? It makes it feel like less of an adventure and more of a tourist attraction.
What I personally find engaging is story. A bit of lore about a place makes so much difference. My goto example is Morrowind. Before I visited places I read about them in books, letters, maps and dialogs. Context, that what is missing in a lot of this games. You can do a lot with game mechanics but nothing is as effective like a good story.
2:20 "Alleged" is the keyword. Let us remember that this was a wolf cry from a snowflake who instead of going to the authorities, went to twitter without any evidence whatsoever. That was encouraged by someone else, who did the exact same thing, ZQ, resulting in an innocent man's(AS IT TURNS OUT FROM HER OWN TWITTER FEED) death.
The burden of proof lies on the accuser, NOT the accused.
You know how beetles have wings, but they have a shell over their wings? That shell is elytra.
Great video as always, and I do agree with 99% of what you said. I have to say though, I feel like Skyrim is a bit better in that department than it got credit for. Skyrim really rewards exploration, if you choose to go on foot other than with fast travel you won't only find dungeons but you will also find some random encounters that make the world feel alive. Also, there are some "scenes" like abandoned tents or whatever where if you explore around you can actually realise some things that happened there so it has some pretty cool silent storytelling too in some areas(like that lake bit on hollow knight). For instance, I remember there is a specific town that most players won't really make anything just your normal slightly populated little village with 3-4 houses. But if you stick around and start observing some things you realize something is off... I won't go in details, in order to not ruin anyon'es expereince but there are a lot of things like this in skyrim and I love it for that.
It`s really nice to hear so many new people supporting you and your vids
2:20
ALLEGED
Internet operates under "guilty until proven innocent" principle apparently
Yeeeees a new upload, I just finished binging all your videos and was sad that I had run out of content, so this is perfect timing.
2:18 - Sorry, but if actions are 'alleged' then it is stupid to 'pirate his music guilt free'.
Or are we going to treat people as scum before anything is actually proven, hm?
You have the right to feel that way. Others have the right to feel what they want. And while pirating music or other copyrighted material is technically illegal, good luck finding those that have. Unless you are distributing the material yourself you have practically nothing to fear as the effort, time, and money it take to to after someone for it is simply to high to be worth it. So while I dont personally "condone" pirating music if someone were wanting to the likelyhood of them getting in trouble for it is essentially 0 so it is irrelevant by that point. Anyway just somthing to think about. Humans are humans and the whole "innocent until proven guilty" bit only applies to courts.
@@chasefox3100 Presumed innocence isn't just a legal principle, it is also a moral principle.
Where were you from 8:13-9:13 PM on February 2nd, 2011? And how can you prove that you were there, and not somewhere else committing a crime?
If you can't, I will now steal the products of your labor, and encourage others to do so as well.
@@robertboily9030 well lucky for me you don't know me, what I do, and if you break into my house to steal I can get the cops for that. I never said that pirating is a good thing. I said that it basically isn't enforceable in any meaningful way. That is the truth. Dont really know what to tell you.
@@chasefox3100 Sorry, that came off wrong.
To be clear: I'm not actually going to do it. I'm making the point that that's what Architect of Games just did.
@@chasefox3100 You've somehow managed to miss the point twice, try reading between the lines man lol. This has nothing to do with pirating music or breaking in to your house. OP and Robert's points were that it is immoral to condemn someone as guilty before anything has been proven.
I've certainly noticed that spouting off this kind of rhetoric is a recurring theme in AG's videos. It's annoying and a bummer, but definitely not a deal breaker.
14:21 I cannot express how much I love this sly Memento reference.
The Long Dark does a great job of encouraging exploration.
It does. I love his game
I sunk a lot of time into No Man's Sky. I've stopped now because of the same problems Adam brought up here eventually came through, but it took a while for that too happen. While exploring an exotic planet during a quest, I randomly stumbled upon a stunning lake set into a valley. I immediately detoured and spent the next few hours building a villa there.
Thought provoking as always mate wonderful work :)
One of the first examples of the “see that mountain? You can go to it!” actually came from the Official PlayStation Magazine page spread on Dragon Quest VII, long before Skyrim and BotW - and it was legitimate and sold me the game in a series I’d never heard of.
I think you were a bit harsh on Skyrim, because there is plenty of things that you quoted on other examples inside Skyrim. Not that Skyrim is perfect, and the linear aproach of certain contends are... less than adequated, but there is so many contents to explore by your own that is not "on your face" that's hard to agree with you in that topic. But nice video, as ever!
Skyrim isn't as good as Morrowind, and I feel like this video helps explain why.
Agreed, Skyrim has a lot of recycled content, but there are still plenty of fun places to explore and moments to run into.
Very late to the party but I never once in my 368 hours of Skyrim was I ever bored or felt like anything was recycled. I opened Skyrim and started a new playthrough recently cause I was feeling nostalgic. I had to uninstall it cause I was hooked again and I don't have the time to dissapear for a month again lol
There are many games I loved to explore.
The world of The Witcher 3 was a joy to discover, and each passage between rocks was a call to exploring, each logation told a tale of culture or man-made horrors. The writing made it really stand out for me.
The world of Subnautica have so many different ambiances, from the beautiful and colorful shallow waters to the dark dark depth, there is plenty to see, and the sense of advancement and danger made it incredibly interesting.
But recently, it's Supraland's world which made me want to explore every single corner. That game is incredibly well crafted!
quirell actually alludes to the blue lake in hollow knight when you meet him on the first bench in the city of tears. if you talk to him he mentions that there's a resevoir of water above the city that slowly drips down giving it the name "the city of tears".
12:04
“Gee, it sure is [DYNAMIC] around here...”
Dark Souls has the opposite problem though. It creates really meaningful journeys... that you have to do a thousand times over until they become hollow because you constantly die only two inches from your actual destination. Or at least that was my experience with it.
In 7:45 I was pretty sure you would mention the "Just Cause" series. Grappling Hook + Parachute / Squirrel suit is the most satisfying transportation combo ever devised on a videogame 😍
Xenoblade X has the BEST exploration out of any game I've ever played. I kinda wish it got more attention in videos like this.
TheAbsol couldn't agree more...
As soon as the invisible walls guiding you through the first few story missions disappeared, I immediately headed north to get a foothold on the continents up there (which was a very long walk through those small islands I didn't even know were there). Sylvalum became my favorite area, because I loved the aesthetic and had fond memories of trying to explore and not die with my low level. It was also a great marker of progress as I kept returning over the course of the game, and gradually had an easier time wandering around.
@@thatnerdygaywerewolf9559 I spent half an hour swimming there, but it was worth it.
The audio logs were a big part in my enjoyment of Horizon Zero Dawn. They managed to be a good reward to the mandatory token search of AAA open worlds. I was always very happy to hear a piece of the world before the fall and the attack of the machines.
I think my favourite ones were about the soldiers fighting the robots in the giant citadel, but exploring the flooded powerplant in the DLC was also very enjoyable, thanks again to those audio logs
I felt the opposite, i completely loved walking around Skyrim just to look at things and to see the scenery, where hallow knight I hated exploring, it felt tedious even tho the game was great
Same although i agree with the statement that exploring in skyrim can feel hollow
Walking around in skyrim often does feel good
And i dont know why hollow knight feels so unsatisfactory to explore but i feel the same way
Hollow knight is a very well made polished game with a lot of content
But it feels cramped and it feels kind of shallow from moment to moment
The game feels almost slow and cumbersome
But i dont know what it is exactly that makes it feel that way
Another metroidvania i love and played before hollow knight was salt and sanctuary
And while that game isnt as polished and more linear
It didnt feel as cramped and i enoyed exploring it much more
But that might also be because i was a little younger then
(And a lot less depressed which might be a factor as well)
I loved the exploration in hollow knight, but my hypothesis as to why you felt that way is because hollow knight has lots of platforming challenges and difficult enemies, which makes it inherently more difficult to explore, and thus also more tedious.
That red dead redemption 2 map I felt like a real cowboy
Ok Woody.
"has about as much content as Rockstar had paid tax" holy shit go off
It's like exploring and finding and collecting a group of strangers VS exploring and finding a completing a whole family.
Star Wars AND Harry Potter spoilers in ONE video? :-)
@The Accidental Hipster But you still didn't know why and how that happend. So that was only a 33% of a spoiler :-)
You could have a game set in one house and it could feel as rewarding as a whole kingdom, if done correctly. It’s all about content, meaningful moments, and interacting in unique ways in the environment. A room could be defined as having 4 walls, but if you think about it, a room has corners, shelves, drawers, a closet, maybe a mouse hole, curtains, and all sorts of other things.
Finally someone compared No Man's Sky to Skyrim. I hate that Skyrim is kept being mentioned as a good exploration game
TBH the two games aren't even in the same genre so there's no comparison. You don't play Skyrim to wander randomly and you don't play NMS to achieve a certain goal.
Skyrim is not an exploration game.
Totalbiscuit had a great analogy to describe just this: as huge as an ocean yet shallow as a puddle... i miss TB :(
Allright, who's Jeremy Soule's and what did he do and what's the proof?
He is a famous music composer, and he was accused of "sexual misconduct". In short, he allegedly used his position to make women sleep with him. It is pretty nasty, but I am not sure treating the guy like a criminal just cause he was accused of something is the right way to go. I mean, have you guys ever heard about due process?
there is no proof as it is often the case, however, his career will probably be destroyed.
@@Eshtian Is encouraging theft a crime? I think it is, if the people you are saying it to are likely to do it.
@@ascendantdawn ? I don't know all the details so fill me in please.
@@Eshtian I think but to no degree am I sure that encouraging people to do something illegal is indeed illegal, though it is only if they are likely to do it, like incitement to violence. Even if I'm wrong, that is probably the case, what gives him the right to be the judge and his logic is far more dangerous for overturning innocent until proven guilty would get many innocents imprisoned.
To add to the Hollow Knight segment, when I first played the game I was so engrossed in exploring that I ended up completely missing the entrance, went all the way around to the other side of the city and went in backwards, all without realising I had gone the wrong way. It felt so natural that discovering the *actual* entrance became such a profound moment because it really taught me just how much freedom there was in the game. So it begs the question, was it really the "wrong way"?
Skyrim is one of my favourite games of all time. I love the soundtrack, atmosphere, setting, scenery, voice acting, questlines like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild. The ability to go anywhere and run into random events, it's just great.
I'm playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey at the moment and absolutely loving it.
Dark Souls doesn't look particularly enjoyable to me, but I'm not a fan of drab looking, depressing settings.
Odessey is also drab lookinga and repetitive tho
4:21 but that's what I'm here for!
How do you see Breath of the Wild fitting into the conclusions of this video? It, like Skyrim and No Man's Sky, doesn't do much to restrict your exploration, but it still feels really good to explore.
Today - the 18th of August 2020 - I learned that there are some scripted birds in Skyrim that point you towards a dungeon 0_0
Skyrim has SO MANY mods to fix its problems. This doesn’t excuse its problems, but it can really help.
Highly recommend the ultra-mod 'set' called "Ultimate Skyrim", built on Requiem, for making the experience of the game a good deal more substantive and challenging.
I personally got that feeling of exploration from Firefall.
My play of that game glitched horribly, and I was rendered incapable of progressing the main questline.
So I wandered off, and explored. And I loved it.
With the games movement controls being so close to my personal ideal, I just dashed around the world, seeing everything I could climb, every enemy AI issue I could exploit, and many Main-quest areas as I stumbled upon them (and hearing the Main quest story out-of-sequence as a result).
I miss that game so much nowadays.
Jeremy Soule alleged actions aren't worth mentioning before the trial is done. Won't be the first time someone is false accused of these, you know, actions.
And even if they are proved true, I don't understand how that makes it "Okay to pirate his music guilt free"
There isn't even a trial. I don't think criminal charges have even been filled. The accuser went straight to Twitter, not the police. At this point, there is no evidence or investigation.
@@ExValeFor British people have to virtue signal at least once a day or they get their internet cut off.
@@Jabu354 It's definitely not, considering he isn't the sole person receiving money from the sale of his music. You'd be fucking over anyone who has ever worked for him, anyone who works for record labels who represented him before he founded his own one, hell - you'd even be fucking over game devs and publishers that have used his music if you pirate it.
You might as well claim it's okay to pirate copies of Pulp Fiction because Harvey Weinstein...
@@ExValeFor I don't see, wether the accusations are true or false, how this can be considered virtue signaling??
I actually exclaimed "WHAT?" out loud and might've woken up my uncle in the next room at that part where Paarthurnax is voiced by Mario's VA.
I'd argue that Dark Soul's is the opposite problem... or maybe the inverse problem. It's masterfully put together, but it doesn't want you to have a meaningful journey, it wants you to have constant conflict. As such I found myself hating my game experience because while I loved the detail and the forlorn beauty of the world, I eventually had to strip it down into its most game-ified chunks. The game became a bunch of arbitrary shortcuts and invisible lines to agro zones. All the mystery and magic of the world, of this difficult journey I was supposed to be taking and exploring was stripped to something worse than rote procedural generation.
Combine that with the fact that Dark Souls is not fun to navigate at all, especially when you can't be immersed and just have to break all the encounters and environments to their basic game parts just to make progress. The Taurus demon isn't this imposing naturalistic roadblock anymore, it's just a big fat boi that you have to figure out how to cheese if you want to beat it.
Add in the fact that there is no real objective because the game wants to be coy, no real narrative that isn't buried in lore and item descriptions, and you find very little upfront motivation to explore once the veneer of Dark Souls's world is stripped away by my logical brain to make progress which is a snake eating its own tail in that the more progress I make, the less I enjoy the world, the less I enjoy the world, the less I want to explore, the less I want to explore, the less I play until the game gets pitched into a wall and traded in to GameStop in a few days.
The difficulty was fine, but it came at the expense of everything else, at least for me. So Dark Souls is really a bad example of good open world design but because of its other mechanics and not actually bad world design.
I love love love the music you choose for your videos! It's always good _and_ makes a parallel statement to the video.
As if nothing bad ever happened with immediately being antagonistic towards a person because of twitter allegations. I mean we don't really need concrete trials and complete evidence, we just need to point fingers and blame and antagonize. I mean, no one really suffers because we pile on hate because of some alleged actions. I mean no one died from those, right?
Earl Layno Yeah I heard there’s probably some allegations against Adam Milliard or something. No proof anything just allegations, so it’s okay to take his content and upload it elsewhere
i love the philosophy of Outer Wilds design, nothing is preventing you from progressing except your own understanding. in a metroidvania you gain access to new areas when you unlock or find new skills/equipment, but in OW you the player actually learn skills not your avatar. it's very immersive and satisfying to explore
The reason why Hollow Knight has had such a great sense of exploration is mainly because its confined in its own world with its own rules. Let me put it this way: In both Zelda and Skyrim you can go everywhere from the start of the game (after the tutorial but that kinda goes with any game so I let that slide). These games have nothing big or grand to hide other than some unique places that after a while dont really seem too impressive anymore. Especially in Skyrim. But when I think about a game such as Half Life 2, you can find many a thing along your path you can simply ignore and head on through.
I think that a game such as open world games, would be able to do a lot more with their world if the developers would and could spend the time to actually mark their world with their own little stories. Not written down or recorded, but with visuals. Like in Half Life 2 where you can find various spots where there are things that you will never truly understand why they are here because you dont know the story behind it and will never know it. But something had once happened here and the game shows you this. Tell me of a dungeon or place in Skyrim and Zelda that does this proper without either reffering to refferences or having the same old same old with various same enemies scattered across the entire effing dungoen UNTIL you get to maybe a dead body which is clear why they are dead because they got killed by one of the monsters.
In other words: Bring mystery back to gaming. Bring back the old mystery games where you knew F all. BRING BACK POINT AND CLICK butnotreallytheyarequiteboring BUT THE STYLE OF IT WAS PERFECT DAMMIT
I honestly think Skyrim gets mostly hate because it's popular to do so among the gamerboys. The thing you want from Skyrim it, in reality, does in spades, well better than the overrated Half Life 2.
And I don't even like Skyrim. You just need to actually explore. The problem with Skyrim is that gamerboys like you are so used to being dragged by the nose that you only look for questmarkers and ignore everything else. If you do ignore them, there's plenty in between, the exact little stories you claim to be looking for.
The same goes for BOTW, by the way. If you find a village ruin, or a little ruined hut, take the time to actually look around. There's more there to find and see than you think, it's just that you're so conditioned to follow markers that you're not even looking anymore.
That's the real problem there. Nostalgia for HL2 just blinds you to that fact.
Love this vid. Great thoughts! It's especially heartwarming to hear you call out some of the content I designed and built in Guild Wars 2 (specifically the pirate jumping puzzle hidden in Lion's Arch) It's been a rough year for me since getting laid off from ArenaNet after 15 years, so it's really nice to feel like my work is recognized and appreciated. :)
I see you've never played Ori and the Blind Forest. Great metroidvania game with a powerful (if short) story and a fun world to explore.
Just discovered your channel recently, and it's fantastic! I've been watching Mark Brown at GMTK for a while now so it's nice to have another channel also doing game design theory videos. Thanks for sharing your unique perspective!
Jeremey Soule now? Oh joy, another famous person 'allegedly' doing something evil.
Edit: anyone notice that nowdays it's automatically "guilty until proven innocent, and probably still then"?
yep, by Adam's standard's i think we can totally disregard his entire video.
Instead of mentioning Dark Souls he mentioned Bug Dark Souls. Perfect.
I feel like breath of the wild should have been mentioned more here
I love No Man's Sky. The game, while still interesting to explore, feels like an extended list of ways to immerse yourself into a science-fiction lifestyle. Want to be a fleet admiral? Want to be an industrial tycoon? Want to network dozens of teleporters along the galaxy? Do it, and own it.
I really, *really* like, and love discovering and mastering the systems at my disposal.
About your Jeremy Soule comment: As far as I know there isn't *any* proof that Jeremy Soule is guilty at all... With what's been going on with false accusations as of late I think it's more fair to say that he's innocent until proven guilty. Treating him like a criminal without proof is just wrong and will ruin his life.
Oh and please don't encourage theft, as that's kinda illegal and morally wrong.
Great video btw, I really enjoyed it!
Guilty until proven innocence is simply what the court system follows. The court of public opinion functions in a completely different way and is not obligated to follow the courts. How many times have we seen clearly guilty scumbags get away with things (example: O.J. Simpson) and the public is outraged? Same here. If the allegations are substantial enough and consistent enough to show a pattern of suspect behavior over a lengthy period of time most people will not assume you're innocent.
That's how you get open secrets about certain people and places being infested with rotten assholes (example: politicians are widely considered to be guilty of corruption as a rule because so many have consistently been found in the act of and (strangely acquitted of) said crimes).
@Wurzelbert84 No, it's a statement of fact. "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" has always been a legal burden and requirement. The public has always operated outside of that framework, and behaving as if this is somehow new borders on dishonesty.
@@RicochetForce
Do you think that guilty until proven innocent is fair?
@@felix6764 My opinion here doesn't matter. The court system adheres to the most fair approach (innocence until otherwise proven), but the court of public opinion has always been something else entirely. People who consider Jeremy Soule a scumbag are well within their rights, as are those who consider him innocent. Neither side can tell the other to shut the fuck up.
@@RicochetForce
Fair enough.
Hello Adam, I've only started following your channel a couple of weeks ago, and I went back and watched a lot of your old videos. I wanted to say that I really enjoy your insightful ideas into game design and your witty humor, and this video really shows it. Mentioning the video you should've mentioned a small game called Dark Souls, it's really the perfect game for this topic.
Hey, I wish you would start providing timestamps for your spoiler sections so you know where to skip ahead if you don't want to go through a spoiler section of the video. You had a similar thing last episode, where you didn't provide a timestamp for a spoiler section.
what is a spoiler in this video? there is a town and it rains? are you serious? how can this spoil your experience? people who popularise this spoiler bullshit need to stop.
@@MacMan2152 he's just saying it to incite reaction i think
@@MacMan2152 Please do get some sympathy and empathy in your life, you're going to be a better person that way. Look at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't played Hallow Knight yet. If someone who hasn't played Hallow Knight gets to that part of the video, what will their immediate reaction be? If this person also really cares about spoilers, then what will their reaction be? Could you please consider other people are way different from you before you open your mouth?
@darkmoon (UA-cam doesn't allow me to reply to two people at once) Well that's just unnecessarily mean, isn't it? Why be unnecessarily mean in a video about analysing game design? It makes no sense, does it?
@@RandomBurfness if the man in the video didn't say that it is a spoiler, no one (you included) would actually think it is a spoiler. If a person really cares about spoilers, they might as well really care about some other shit and no real person should be bothered by some shit some imaginable person really cares about.
Why do you think if you and me are different it is me who should change? Ridiculous levels of narcissism. "Oh no, some people will be offended because they care about spoilers". Stop talking that shit, you obviously wouldn't be able to analyse anything without some spoilers. It's stupid to think that in a video on how games work and how they should work won't be any spoilers.
6:08 That makes no sense because the shadow dash is an actual skill... It gives you invincibility frames and is essential to late-game combat, not just a key for those doors (although it also functions as that). I will admit that those doors in particular feel very "game-y" though.
Hey @Adam is Caio also a Patreon or is it just a great way to end your video?
As of right now it's both!
If you want to make sure you are the first person he always mentions, create a patreon account with screen name myPatreonSupporters
I honestly disagree with you on Skyrim. The enemies are a bit repetitive, but there’s a lot to do in the world
One of my favorite games is Final Fantasy 14 Online. The way you travel around the game is loads of fun! The moment I got my first Chocobo, I was alarmed by the speed of which the bird runs! Comparing the Chocobo's speed to your character's is astounding, even while walking around! 😁
"Wreck his livelihood based on unproven allegations, lads, it's AWWRIGHT."
Classy.
yep, by Adam's standard's i think we can totally disregard his entire video.
This.
So, basically, the appropriate mind set to have when designing these games is that of the musical nomads from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Don't have destination fever, focus more on the going. Gotcha. They even talk about secret tunnels and who doesn't love those?
In elder scrolls ,books and lore are used to flesh out the world. Agreed, most of the books might not have actual impact on how the game plays out but there are some exception like when you read the book "the legend of red eagle" and " the lost legends" to name a few initiate respective quests.
I can into a similar issue when working on a Dwarf Fortress conversion. I could generate a massive world, populated with more lore, mysteries, and creatures than anyone would ever explore.
But then the questions was: Why would anyone care? There was no point to the scale or depth. It was... Thin. Like butter spread over too much bread.
I think the answer lies in a ball of yarn, or a spiderweb. It does not need to have a massive flat scale, rather it should loop back on itself over and over again. Where you can pass through the same area dozens of times and still find new links to other parts of the game.
You just didn't know where to look.
In the end, what is most satisfying is exploring our own minds. The game map should look like a human brain, a labyrinth of nodes and paths.
2:18 what's that about Jeremy Soule?
First I will say that, at the time I'm making this comment, the allegations have not been proven in court.
He's been accused of having relationships where he has complete control over the other person because of his position.
Pretty scummy. But let me reiterate that right now they have not been proven to be true.
It seems he got accused of rape by a indie developer he's worked with, 10 years ago, and she made it public few weeks ago.
I just googled so maybe I'm not entirely right, might be false accusations. (or not...)
The trap you shouldn't fall to in this case is to associate the art and the people who made it... His creations may be beautiful to someone or may even have influenced a huge part of someone's life, but it has nothing to do with his personality...
@@sanfransiscon
"have not been proven in court."
you mean no charges brought no law enforcement contacted,
the only court involved is the court of public opinion
if someone commits a violent crime against you go to the police, not right a blog post in the hopes that all the virtue signalers will destroy a man life on hearsay