What does Breath of the Wild do that most open-world games do not?

Hence why I said climbing requires no skill in AC

I watched this video and couldn't believe this game was a real thing...

I think this says it all about the world Nintendo created.

https://youtu.be/uj5chaeys5U

There is simply more variety in what you can do, and its missions tend to be better.

Again, I suppose I need to point out that Zelda does mini-collect puzzles through out its world better... but that is the big plus of it.

That and then there is the MP sandbox.... the ammount of detail in the world, the NPCs, the places to go... you can climb or reach pretty much anything in GTA5 in the same way without having magic climbing hands.

I agree, ES is limited by its dreadful engine... but also limited by their game designers lack of interest in making their open areas more interesting.

The ideal scenario would be Skyrim with Fallouts additional building/settelments additions + Zelda's flair for making their dungeons/puzzles more interesting.

Bethethsda actually taking that onboard is another story however.

@MBirdy88: Variety isn't a sandbox. Playing golf or tennis really isn't what makes a sandbox game a sandbox game. At least not for me.

"A game wherein the player has been freed from the traditional structure and direction typically found in video games, and is instead given the ability to choose what, when, and how they want to approach the available choices in content."

How being the key word that GTA 5 doesn't succeed particularly well in.

Sure there is more variety in that but that's not a successful sandbox game in my opinion. If freedom of choice is the defining factor then GTA gives you the freedom to go anywhere but not the freedom to tackle challenges how you see fit.

The single-player missions of GTA 5 aren't as good as the missions in BoTW. They have great cut-scenes and voice acting, sure but they're often very restrictive, anti-thesis' on sandbox mission design and limit the numbers of ways you can actually approach them. You have these rigid heists and occasions where you can make a select number of choices to approach a mission but compared to the fact that nearly everything in BoTW can be tackled any way you can think of and it's a mute benefit on GTA's part. Actually, most of the missions in GTA play out in a sequential, linear and anti-sandbox fashion. This is the driving part, this is the flying part and this is the cover shooting part. It's not a choice. It's not a sandbox, really. :/

They're certainly longer too and length can be a determining preference for some. Much of BoTW's side missions are 'collect 50 of this' which is dull, but I'd take that over missions that have you doing dull tasks like running up and down (literally), yoga, playing a tennis mini-game or doing something that isn't within the core loop of driving, flying and shooting. That variety is both a blessing and a curse when you find yourself driving shipping containers around. That's only exemplifying BoTW's most dull quests because then you got stuff like Eventide Island and the numerous environmental riddles that have you engaging the world in a meaningful way.

It's not like I can decide to take on that meat factory mission as Franklin by driving my car up to the door and honking my horn to draw the enemies out into explosives I've planted or fly a helicopter to the roof, access the building from the roof and approach it top down, or do the whole thing in stealth. There's no actual choice to the approach of these missions. They're completely anti-sandbox design.

You can explore anywhere in the GTA map, sure. Just don't expect to find much of interest that isn't a map marker outside of a select few easter eggs. :/

One would imagine that focusing on the 'adventure' part of 'action-adventure' unlike many games which focus on the former really helps.

Breath of the Wild is a game that was developed around wanderlust. They created a game that YOU wanted to explore in detail. They just plop you in the middle of it and say do whatever you want. The big success with this game is that the world is more than interesting enough to keep most players engaged with wonderment for over 100 hours.

The "rules" in the game are so dynamic and intricate that if something should logically work based on what we know in the real world, it should work in BOTW. Fires create updrafts, lighting is attracted to metal objects, fire based weapons equipped on your back help warm you in colder climates, animals eat food you place before them, NPCs react to weather and their text changes based on their immediate surroundings, etc. Everything makes sense and works which leads to one of the most believable worlds ever created.

Basically this is a completely player propelled experience. I've never played an open world sand box game that respected the player more than Breath of the Wild. They don't tell you anything, instead the discovery of the many incredible mechanics and secrets of this wildly varied and detailed world leads to the reward the player seeks. This is a truly interactive experience with the player at the very center of it all. This is YOUR game.

No game has ever rewarded curiosity like Breath of the Wild does. There are some crazy and spectacular things in Hyrule if you are willing to explore. You get out of it what you put in.

The fact that Breath of the Wild is this insanely open in everything and still manages to function perfectly is one of the most impressive things I've ever witnessed in regards to game design. Breath of the Wild is one heck of an accomplishment.

There aren't that many missions in zelda to begin with and there aren't that many ways of solving those larger dungeons either. The missions that zelda actually does have aren't that sandboxy. Your sort of measuring with different sticks where zelda because it has no missions really, you are saying its more of a sandbox game. No, while the missions are linear GTA online and most of the game is one giant sandbox for you to explore.

For instance the yoga scene isn't just a task to complete, it pushes character development, your missing the point. There are actually people that play tennis also in gta online. And I completely understand why they have a more linear mission structure, its about challenging the player in a particular way. You can say it would be interesting to see what would have if they added x/y/z element but in the end everyone is just going to roll up in a tank, or a buzzard.

I also don't think you understand what a sandbox is, its not just a way to approach things any way you want. For instance Halo is a sandbox. I'm not sure about 4/5 I don't think 342 has been kind to the core fun of halo. Halo doesn't give you a way to start from anywhere. It gives you the start, some AI and vehicles starts rolling. Most GTA missions fall under something similar, there are a lot of initial starts that enter into more sandbox elements of dyanmics as the mission continues. And then there is some that are more linear. But its balanced well and the missions are I don't think ever lose their appeal, its still a fun shooter and probably one of the best open world action sandboxes to date.

^ gotta agree with this guy.

The only elements in Zelda that take advantage of its sandbox elements are largely the millions of little collectables... in which we insult other games for making these things too much of a focus (ANY UBISOFT GAME) ... I dont care if Zelda did it better.... 90% of my zelda time was collecting/grinding for nothing... no worthwhile missions/story involved.

Hyrule Castle could of been a labrinth of intricate puzzles and good combat sequences with minibosses... instead it was "climb over, and dodge/kill the same easy enemies all round.. then go straight for the right".

I hate to be that guy, but this has nothing on OOT or Majoras mask STILL. IF they bothered to incorperate most of the elements from OOT but included this large exploration mechanic for growth then I would agree with the 10/10 reviews.

As it stands though, good sandbox... bad overall MEANINGFUL content outside of collectables. No themed dungeons, just 4 single themed dungones (granted they were interesting) ... but damn... why couldn't they of made those gaurdians protect temples and have the PROPER experience in depth..? too much to ask?

I got excited when I got to the Garuda stealth section... until I realised it was 2 rooms and then a mini boss... I mean FFS.

I don't think is that simple. For instance a lot of what makes ES fun is building different character classes and a lot of the more interesting missions. Like 2 that stood out are having to fight daedra in a painting, and another where you have to murder everyone in a house and can interact with those people. Both of those are from oblivion. I haven't played skyrim's missions enough... or at all even with 200 hours into the game which I find a little weird now that I think bout it.

I also don't think zelda's dungeons were particularly that interesting, they could have been one massive puzzle game, but I just didn't care for them, They literally were just another thing to find, do quickly, and move on and forget about.

Zelda's dungeon design is not better than skyrim's... they were just one off puzzles. Getting to them was the fun part.

I am willing to buy a console specifically for it

I had the same experience.

Yeah this video highlights a lot of the incredible thought put into this game. It's absolutely insane.

The number of missions has NEVER been important for a sandbox. What is arguably the greatest sandbox game ever made, has a grand total of 0 missions/quests. The size of the world is also completely irrelevant. As the map size in that game is up to 256x256 tiles. Some RTS have larger maps than that.

The quests in Zelda are usually not that sandboxy. But, the shrines are often designed to be tackled in multiple ways, with smart players capable of finding completely "abstract" solutions to the problems going through them in entirely different sequences.

You are missing the point with sandboxes. Sandbox doesnt mean big world with a lot of side activities to do and it has never meant that. What sandbox means is a focus on a certain style of gameplay, which is driven by systems and mechanics rather than the content itself, and a huge focus on letting players find their own solutions to problems. Hell, this distinction is no more clear in the mmorpg industry where mmorpgs are divided into themepark mmorpgs and sandbox mmorpgs. When people call Super Mario 64 a sandbox, it is not because of the open world levels, it is because of how people use the game's mechanics to achieve their goals and traverse the world.

Yes they are.

Skyrim's dungeon design was constantly a horseshoe. With perhaps an extra room for hidden treasures. Breath of the Wild had puzzles, traps that actually meant something, obstacles to traverse, some were puzzles, several of which had multiple solutions, but those puzzles were more interesting than any of the linear slogs of puzzles/combat skyrim offered.

Skyrim arguably had some of the worst dungeon design in gaming. Oblivion copy pasted their dungeons, but Skyrim made it so that every single one felt like the exact same thing.

For me, it was the insane attention to detail and the perfect way they designed the entire map. It is crazy how well thought most of the elements were. From the size of the areas to the huge amount of things to do (even if they were at times, meaningless). The game just kept distracting me over and over with new things to explore.

Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to enjoy another open world game. Breath of the Wild just spoiled me so much with that crazy attention to details.

im not going to argue that skyrim's design is better, but Zelda's dungeon design was kinda sporadic. Some would be cool puzzles, but there were also a ton of dumb test your strength, tilt puzzles, picture puzzles, and some where you literally do nothing but walk in. Even the main dungeons sucked by the time the game was over just to how much repetition there was. The best puzzles were the ones that just put you in a room with the runes you were using throughout the game and made you get to the end.

Well said mate. Nintendo goes all out.

@MBirdy88: @waahahah:

"A game wherein the player has been freed from the traditional structure and direction typically found in video games, and is instead given the ability to choose what, when, and how they want to approach the available choices in content." - Wikipedia page on sandbox games.

When it comes to actually doing any of the side missions or main missions in GTA V, you can choose when you do and when you do it but not how you do it. For the most part, your choices are limited to which car will I drive or which weapon will I use? Not, do I want to go in guns blazing or do I take a stealthy approach. Do I drive my car right through everyone or do I take my helicopter this time? This is definitely what a sandbox should accommodate in its mission design.

Those 4 Zelda dungeons may be more rigid but I can still solve them in any order, use all my mechanics to figure out solutions (Revali's Gale opens up your options too) and in what order you actually solve those little switches within. Still more rigid but even in that, it's even still more of a sandbox than the mission design of GTA V. Your reasoning that I don't understand what a sandbox is and then proceed not to explain what a sandbox is - maybe could be seen as irony? :P

A sandbox should be a wide open space with things to do. You should be able to tackle those things in any order and when you tackle those things, you should be given the freedom to take those things on in a way you like. GTA V does not succeed in the latter such that the game mostly decides for you how a task needs to be solved. You are sometimes given some select few choices (see the heist missions) but as soon as you make that choice, you must carry out that task in that fashion. There's so little room to actually explore the mechanics in a way you would like. It's a shame too because GTA V has an abundance of tools like parachuting, flying, swimming, shooting, driving, sneaking, boating and exploding yet the game rarely ever lets you choose which you do to take on a task. That isn't a sandbox to me.

Variety of tasks is not a contributing factor to what a sandbox is. Tennis, Golf, Yoga and all the other mini games to not benefit the sandbox design of a game. They do not give the player choices of how they tackle a given task.

Fundamentally, the problem here is MBirdy, Waa that you're mistaken on what a sandbox game is and are basically asserting that because GTA V has more cut-scenes and more mini-games, it's a better sandbox than BoTW. While I assert that neither of those things are important to a sandbox game nor do they contribute as necessities in ones design. They are nice bonuses but they don't actually help bolster the core of what a sandbox game needs to have in order to actually be a sandbox game.

That's not to say I don't think GTA V is a sandbox game. It is, but very much on a surface level of "What do I want to do first?". Your choices become smaller in number when it drills down to actually taking on any of the game's content. Breath of the Wild, as a sandbox, retains much of its sandbox nature throughout the entirety of its experience. What do I want to do first, when do I want to do it and how do I want to do it - these are all questions that Breath of the Wild gives the player more often than GTA V can because, for the sake of a narative - most of GTA's missions limit that 'how' in order to tell a linear, non-changeable narrative (save for that very last mission).

The comparison to Ubisoft designed games is so misunderstood too - these games can be viewed on a surface level of being similar but zooming in and tackling these games side by side with a level of nuance reveals just how importantly different the design choices in BoTW are to something like Far Cry. That's a conversation for another post but yeah, no. They aren't similar at all. They're similar in the way both olives and bananas are fruits.

I realize that I might sound decidedly harsh toward GTA V but it's not that I want to approach it with animosity. Many people love that game and it's deserving of it for sure! But the bench mark for sandbox games when you're given very, very little freedom to actually approach the game? That doesn't sit well with me. :/ At least not in the conversation of its singleplayer experience. The multiplayer is a different thing all together.

Oh I'm sorry.... I mean it not like you cant do many creative things with GTA5's core sadnbox mechanics right?

Sorry, disagree again. This is the "Crysis Syndrome" all over again ... a seemingly substanceless game, but because there are now no walls and a few BASIC physics/ability tricks.... people defend it to their death beds despite being flat out f*cking average (shoot mechanics were decent, but beyond that, there wasn't THAT much substance to the game".

Yea I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that love wasting hours on slightly improved physics and crawling/jumping/sneaking around another wall to achieve the exact same goal, but to me its lazy. Spam filler puzzles all over the map.. sure there were some fun moments, but again, Zelda suffered the same shortcomings as all other openworld games. forget the "sandbox" word for a second, its STRUCTURED content was poor to the core.

1. I dont think this will surprise you one bit but... I absolutely loved Crysis. Edit: As a matter of fact I am getting an urge to reinstall it now.
2. Crysis was hardly average, there is a reason it continues to impress people even to this day
3. Structured Content is not the point of this Zelda. As a matter of fact, my favorite parts were the less structured, more open ended parts. Parts where Zelda's sandbox really shone.

@MBirdy88: I'd argue GTA V's structured content is quite poor also. :P

I mean you can't slag off Crysis for having average mechanics and not do the same for GTA V's 3rd person shooting...

Substance is not something I'd say GTA V has going for it. Variety and abundance is but absolutely not substance.

It's bolstered up by the fact that it has an attentive narrative with excellent voice acting and cut-scenes as a reward for accomplishing a task but the tasks themselves have some rightly bad 3rd person shooting segments, limited driving segments that lack situational and mechanical depth. I am not defending Breath of the Wild here - just critiquing GTA V.

But it's not about needlessly creative solutions, it's about choice. Sandbox games need to retain freedom of choice. GTA forgets that when you tackle a mission. The difference being that BoTW having limited puzzles and combat mechanics are amalgamated to make the core experience the sum of its parts. this is something GTA V does too except too often it splits its content completely to expose its weaknesses more often.

Breath of the Wild has shallow combat and its puzzles are nothing to write home about but both of these elements being married by the same mechanics, the same creative freedom and permeated by the same language of 'discovery' take those weaknesses and compensate them. GTA V doesn't really do that to me. I'd be far more forgiving of GTA V's 3rd person shooting if I was given actual options (like realistically, how often can I actually use stealth unless I am explicitly told I can do so) like I am in Breath of the Wild and I'd be more forgiving of its open world design not being more than a dump of tasks if it actually let the player engage in the world in a substantial outside of police chases (which are still the best use of the open world in GTA games).

There are things I don't like about Breath of the Wild and I do agree that it's most linear form is less appealing than other games or previous games in the series. Let it be said that if you play Breath of the Wild linearly you're probably not going to have as good a time because as far as being a good sandbox game and a good open world game; it lets you engage with the world more, explore and discover distinctive things, find stuff for yourself, get lost, engage with your map, figure out a path of your own and take on those tasks in a variety of ways and in an order you see fit.

GTA V has much, much more attention but into its linear form (which does not benefit the sandbox paradigm, really) and in doing so exposes how it does not use an open world in as meaningful a way, does not take advantage of the abundance of mechanics you have at your disposal and really focuses more on its most weak form - which is that GTA V as a linear game is a weak 3rd person shooter where you sometimes also deal in weak forms of driving and flying.

This is just me personally - and I like GTA V but I admit that most of my enjoyment in singleplayer GTA V comes from drinking in the amazing world that Rockstar built. I mean the cities, mountain range and deserts are fantastic! I love soaking in that scenery and I like the simulation aspects of the game also. Walking through the city - it's incredibly immersive. I never really felt it was worth exploring the game outside of what appeared on the map. Sometimes I liked taking different methods of transport to get to a mission but I never truly felt I was engaging in the open world or sandbox in the same way I have in Breath of the Wild; fundamentally because GTA V doesn't really encourage you to.

It tells you where to go, gives you a method of getting there and when you get there, it explains what you're doing in a cut-scene and restricts how you need to do it...

Big thing to me is BotW is one of a small handful of open worlds that actually feels like it should be open world. The gameplay is all about movement and navigation through a large semi-hostile environment, as well as exploring and finding interesting things.

Far too many open world games are just "x genre but without obvious level borders." Take The Division for example. Literally nothing is gained by being open world, every aspect of it's looter shooter gameplay cycle could be done with closed off environments.

Then there's all the other great stuff about it, like the art and attention to detail.

So to tackle this first. This definition your basing your interpretation off of is vague horseshit. It doesn't actually define anything and is very broad. The fact is on a very macro level this definition applies to GTA and zelda, and on a moment to moment game play it can be applied to a lot of things. Not to mention basing it off of differences from traditional games means its a moving target of a definition.

GTA is a sandbox. I think it was one of the first conceptions of a sandbox and it probably one of two lineages of definitions of sandbox. It's always been defined as a sandbox so your interpretative is irrelevant. Its an open world that lets you tackle objectives in different order and provides a lot of ways to play. The second lineage is probably immersive sims which have dynamic open ended gameplay bread where halo is a sandbox because of its open ended gameplay, but not an immersive sim. Gta has bits of open ended gameplay as well as strict gameplay.

Fundamentally, the problem here is MBirdy, Waa that you're mistaken on what a sandbox game is and are basically asserting that because GTA V has more cut-scenes and more mini-games, it's a better sandbox than BoTW. While I assert that neither of those things are important to a sandbox game nor do they contribute as necessities in ones design. They are nice bonuses but they don't actually help bolster the core of what a sandbox game needs to have in order to actually be a sandbox game.

No, that is not all I am arguing.

GTA has additional side activities you can partake in, plenty of systems in play (cop/car mechanics), lots of character development cinematic and during gameplay, rigid + open dynamic mission structure, side missions that don't really further the plot in a meaningful way but again develop characters/world, collectibles like stunts you can drive around like a maniac searching for. The ability to have both rigid and flexible game mechanics make GTA a superior sandbox experience, you can go from crazy nonsensical fun to being pinned down to change the pace or the way the player can tackle a situation. And all of it is extremely well done and interwoven into the experience.

This isn't all that different when looking at the mini dungeons/mechanics in zelda, not everything can be solved in numerous ways. For instance solving some korok puzzles require putting a rock in the right spot or putting a block in the right spot. The scope of a lot of activities are just simplistic compared to GTA so some can be approached and solved 1 way, some can be more open even if the design wasn't intentional.

That's not to say I don't think GTA V is a sandbox game. It is, but very much on a surface level of "What do I want to do first?". Your choices become smaller in number when it drills down to actually taking on any of the game's content. Breath of the Wild, as a sandbox, retains much of its sandbox nature throughout the entirety of its experience. What do I want to do first, when do I want to do it and how do I want to do it - these are all questions that Breath of the Wild gives the player more often than GTA V can because, for the sake of a narative - most of GTA's missions limit that 'how' in order to tell a linear, non-changeable narrative (save for that very last mission).

The problem with this statement it ignores the fact that zelda doesn't really do much with the mechanics. Yes its a sandbox with some systems driven gameplay, but the amount of puzzles that are solvable in tons of different ways aren't nearly as prevalent as you're making them out to be. Not to mention the mini dungeons aren't a huge experience or appeal to what makes the game great as they are short lived experiences that differ greatly in quality and fun.

And nothing about the game really presents you with many complex scenarios to handle with those mechanics. The vast majority are wasted on trivial experiences where most of it is about the window dressing of the wonderful world nintendo created. Its got some immersive sim elements with systems driven game play but the enemy ai is bare bones. It seems to be half of an immersive sim where the enemies behave more like MMO enemies, they stand around waiting for the player to engage most of the time and are on a respawn timer after you kill them. They can be reset by moving far enough away and they run back to their starting positions. And it lacks diversity in a lot of those enemy engagements...

And zelda doesn't have differences in narrative AT ALL. The game is about beating the boss, the narrative is identical regardless of how you play it except whether or not you've gotten help from friends which again is as trivial about who to choose to kill at the end of gta5, as its a difference in cut scenes really and the enemies health bar.

The comparison to Ubisoft designed games is so misunderstood too - these games can be viewed on a surface level of being similar but zooming in and tackling these games side by side with a level of nuance reveals just how importantly different the design choices in BoTW are to something like Far Cry. That's a conversation for another post but yeah, no. They aren't similar at all. They're similar in the way both olives and bananas are fruits.

Actually wrong. Comparing it to ubisoft open world games of today is completely valid. Ubisoft tried to cash in on the type of gameplay that GTA has but the filler content is collectibles. And when given a choice players really don't want to focus on piles of frivolous collectibles because traditionally those weren't on the mini map but people didn't like finding them. So they were eventually put on the map not because people wanted to experience the more complex parts of the game and ignored them. Or for instance the pigeons were removed from GTA5.

So where one instance of collectibles is "filler content"... nintendo gets a 10/10 designing around what would normally be considered filler content. While some of it is better presented than ubisofts games, the game constantly points to 100 years ago a lot more interesting things were happening and probably would have been a funner game if you got to partake in that story along with the collectibles. Like whoever was link's love interest those scenes were bought using sad music, not well developed characters we actually cared for.

I realize that I might sound decidedly harsh toward GTA V but it's not that I want to approach it with animosity. Many people love that game and it's deserving of it for sure! But the bench mark for sandbox games when you're given very, very little freedom to actually approach the game? That doesn't sit well with me. :/ At least not in the conversation of its singleplayer experience. The multiplayer is a different thing all together.

The benchmark isn't GTA though, or elderscrolls/fallout. There are many other sandbox games like kerbal space program which fall into much more free than anything zelda provides since it takes into account design and really complex problem solving as the basis for its gameplay as well as requiring some skill for flying/driving things and some huge amounts of planning.

Someone mentioned earlier that GTA is a theme park. What I'm trying to say is zelda is kinda like a theme park with no rides and the general premise is you have to scavenge for bottles of water and cotton candy before entering the last bit of the park compared. GTA does somethings exceptionally better along with adding to the experience in little nuanced ways like BOTW would, not to mention it has those main attractions as well as hilariously open ended game play segments. People forgot exactly what GTA offered because like many people you probably forgot all of it and boiled GTA down to running people over in the sandbox then going and doing more structured missions.

For instance the Altruist camp has no bearing on the plot but develops these little moments of fun building Trevor's character without showing a cutscene. This has a lot of similarities with the type of moments that make BOTW a great experience. While not identical they serve the same purpose, to fill in the empty parts of moment to moment game play when you choose not to push the main plot. BOTW is built on emptiness though, 4 main missions with thin narratives and the ability to just kill gannon at any time. Even the music emphasizes this emptiness. Its not necessarily bad because it makes for a unique experience but its not at all a better open world design than what we already have. Its definitely not worse either though, just different. And I do think this type of game can be saturated quickly without something more meaningful added. You can only run around the map for so many hours looking for these trivial items until you want to be challenged in more complex ways so once the honey moon period ends people can start looking at it more critically.

Sorry for the long post, there may be grammatical errors I stopped caring about half way through.

Garuda base in OOT? What is that?

To me, not much... and I know I'm going to cop major flak for saying this but I honestly don't see how BOTW is a better game overall than something like Witcher 3. To me, TW3 has a much better story and interesting characters, the world is as detailed and fleshed out as BOTW & is filled with as many interesting things to do and explore.

Maybe in terms of combat mechanics BOTW is better, but then again TW3's combat is a little different.

Anyway, I guess it's a matter of opinion and tastes... like most things.

Believe it or not, Cryisis was the very first game it introduce me to PC gaming late in 2007 when I heard all the rage for Crysis and it made me build my first PC and so with that, if it wasn't for Crysis, I wouldn't be much of a PC gamer I am now.

Funny thing is, I reinstall Crysis though EA Origin 2 months ago.

Fair, thought you were talking about the game's world as a whole.

@davillain-: Heh, yet not surprising. Crysis is that benchmark game.

It is a shame the hype seemed mostly focused on its graphics rather than its gameplay (both were top notch).

Witcher 3: Amazing content
Zelda: Botw: Amazing sandbox mechanics

@waahahah:I don't agree with you and I don't think the separation between wild fun and a more narrative and structured driven experience make GTA V a successful sandbox. :/

Firstly, character and plot development to me has absolute value but let value over the content of said mission being distinctive and memorable. This is personal but much of what I remember from GTA V's side quests were either the narrative directing them or the ones that were distinctively poor (Exercising the Faith). There are, as you mentioned the fun stunt challenges which have always punctuated the GTA franchise and these moments, of course let you choose the vehicle you believe will make the jump. Still, what permeates my issues with GTA V isn't in order or abundance of content, it's a matter of choice. Yes, there are explicit challenges in Breath of the Wild that have limited solutions too but choice, I feel dominates the experience and even in the absence of it, there is still an underlying feeling that I can figure something out in a way I see fit, even if the game is subtly instructing me how to do it. (Because even those block challenges could theoretically be solved using status + a hammer. Just saying. :P )

Understand though, I am coming from a place of difference in importance. Narrative to me only holds so much weight and it's telling, particularly in GTA V that I didn't much care for anything that was going on - more so that I didn't even like any of the protagonists. This is a personal taste, of course but when much of the reward of doing these side events affords to bolster someone I don't care about, then I'll take a new sword or a new horse over seeing a cut-scene. Partly too that outside of the absolutely defined differences like parachuting challenges, races, golf and tennis, not much of the side content is that memorable from a gameplay standpoint. There are the exceptions like Michael gunning down clowns and Trevor going on rampages but in the former's case, it has more to do with the context than the actual meat of it. Personally, the challenges of Breath of the Wild having parallels of similar content and absolutely distinctive content are more valuable. There are exceptions to this of course like the combat trials but to me the way these and korok seeds act as gameplay snapshots over the more verbose Eventtide Island (A brilliant side quest), Trial of Thunder, The Eye of the Sandstorm and... well actually just the Shrine Quests in general rely more on their distinct gameplay situations than their narrative individuality (which is basically non-existent).

"amount of puzzles that are solvable in tons of different ways aren't nearly as prevalent as you're making them out to be." Do you have an actual metric for this? There are endless Youtube videos expressing the opposite.

One Shrine, Eight Solutions

Shrine Skip Compilation... Actually there are a number of these videos.

Getting to a dungeon out of sequence

These are of course unintentional but the freedom the game gives you at the very least makes them a possibility and in the long-term, will open itself to more speed runs, variety of solutions and permanence as a challenge of creative thinking in competition.

It's not like GTA doesn't have its fair share of similar examples but I definitely feel the missions don't encourage the same level of creativity that Breath of the Wild can express. This is partly due to how evocative the mission design is. Too many of them put you in the passenger's seat of the designer's vehicle and give you a solution quite openly. It's a matter of execution over discovering a solution. I would love if the mission design took more from games such as Thief or Dishonored. Granted, I understand these are comparatively smaller worlds but you're still given that mechanical freedom that GTA V doesn't share. Can you give me an example of a very dynamic mission in GTA V? I don't think the heist missions are all that particularly dynamic. Once you've set upon the pre-defined choices, you carry out those choices by the designer's rule. Again, with the abundance of mechanics GTA V has, these are often used sequentially rather than in a free space. I'd love more missions that let me engage in them in a manner that I see fit because the tight, narrative missions highlight the weaknesses of the series rather than the strengths. It's not like I don't think there is some good stuff like Trash Truck which actually punctuates the open world, the cop chases and gives you freedom to lose that wanted level how you see fit but then you got missions like Chop, Fresh Meat and By the Book - missions that I feel dominate the experience in design that are more rigid and less an engaging open world/sandbox experience.

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The Ubisoft comparison I feel doesn't dig deep enough into actually observing the loot, how this loot governs the gameplay loop and in what precedence it takes because loot such as pigeons, Assassin's Creed feathers, Far Cry's herbs and hides and Breath of the Wild's food and herbs are all examples of loot but all function differently and exist for different reasons. It's broad stating them as similar and not examining them meticulously to view their permanence on the core loops of those games.

Let's take for example

- feathers and treasure in Assassin's Creed: Feathers are easy to find, often put in blatant areas and offer no reward until you collect them. You collect them to get a new outfit and they don't stretch the mechanics in any really meaningful way. Treasure can be used to buy better items like swords and replenish resources that cost money. Finding these again is done by way of map markers.

- Far Cry has hunting and leaves: Hunting is used to collect pelts which can be used to expand your inventory. Leaves are used to to create potions which can heal you, assist you in hunting or see gain Witcher vision. The map is very useful in finding animals.

- GTA has pigeons. You get an achievement.

- BOTW has hunting for food items, korok seeds and treasure: These differences are quite punctual. Korok seeds are used to expand your inventory. Micro puzzles that need to be found by the player as they explore the world. There is no solution like Assassin's Creed and there is no indication on where you find these like the animals in Far Cry. If you stumble upon them, solve the puzzle, you get the reward. Much of the hunt for them requires you to investigate interesting formations on the map or search them using vertical space. This in itself is a already a more interesting gameplay loop than the Far Cry loop which is 1. Climb tower to reveal map. 2. Travel to animal icon 3. Hunt animal 4. Enter menu to craft. Nothing wrong with this - and hunting can be fun but the potential for finding interesting stuff is magnified in BoTW by the fact that you don't simply get the answer.

Next you got food items to restore health which by all means is optional and also in abundance. You collect green herbs in FC to do this and in BoTW you can hunt for animals, or collect apples, berries, fish, creatures, bugs and what have you simply by playing the game. It's never, at least for me, a dominant experience but a passive one that happens in between the exploration. There's no reason to collect or grind for these resources as they fill up naturally and in large quantities.

Treasure is again not solved for you on the map like in AC. Fun is that not only can this treasure be useful but the loops leading up to some of this treasure can also be fun. Take, for example Misko, the Great Bandit. To get the treasure, you need to find the source of a river beneath a small mountain peek. Again, this isn't just a loot collection Assassin's Creed situation - it's an environmental riddle. There are varying qualities of these treasures and where you find them but it never devolves to 1. Opening the map 2. Go to treasure icon 3. Get treasure.

By actually examining these loot and collectibles, the value in the experiences you get from them are variably different and yeah, the cut scenes you get as reward for finding the picture locations aren't nearly as fun as simply finding the locations themselves - because actually engaging in an open world is fun if you let the player explore and get lost themselves vs. giving them the solution on the screen and hey, the story being bad in BoTW is a fault and I still think Majora's Mask is the best example of story in Zelda but again, not as important to me as the fact that those picture quests were fun to figure out. (at least I thought they were).

GTA could totally nail this too. In a world with social media and a camera phone, I'd love to see more missions like the paparazzi Franklin quest but hold back on giving me the actual location of the target and let me find them by way of clues to their location. That would be a cool modifier on that mission. The problem isn't that collecathon or loot based gameplay is bad it's just that it hasn't been handled as well as BoTW has done it by actually making a meaningful, fun and reward gameplay loop out of it. Far better than hunting for obtusely hidden pigeons that give you literally nothing and not finding but being told where to find treasure and feathers littered around a map that have no real bearing on the core game loop.

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Yeah I think GTA has a better narrative than BoTW. I also feel GTA's world is so meticulously crafted, beautifully immersive and the abundance of mechanics, vehicles, weapons, planes and variety of tasks you can take on populating that world are varying degrees of fun but absolutely appreciative in their sheer numbers but I still don't think the missions are dynamic enough to facilitate much of the mechanical abundance as highlighted by the missions I listed before, nor do I feel these rigid missions really use the open world in a valuable way (much of them are isolated to a location on the map, and then further isolated by means of how you can tackle them). As a linear experience, GTA is more cohesive and better defined but Breath of the Wild excels then at not being a linear experience, rewarding you for treating the game as a non-linear experience and frequently punctuates the open world and the sandbox of the world through it.

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I think if GTA had more rewarding reasons to explore the world, more freedom within its mission design and *ahem* better 3rd person shooting both in level design and mechanical deliverance, then I think I'd enjoy it even more than I do now. Ditto BoTW, if it had more complex puzzles, deeper combat and a stronger narrative, it too would be a much better game. As it stands though, the reasons I like BoTW revolve around its open world and sandbox nature and the reasons I like GTA V and IV for that matter are the mechanical abundance and beautifully, meticulous cities but I'm rarely ever actually treating the open world with any level of dedication other than traveling to and from points of interest. So when I'm thinking about which is a successful sandbox, open world game? I'm thinking about the one that actively has you engaging in them and not the one that uses it to facilitate the points of interest and the simple immersion of it, which isn't as cool as this: Honey Bunny Brown video.

"You can only run around the map for so many hours looking for these trivial items until you want to be challenged in more complex ways so once the honey moon period ends people can start looking at it more critically."

And that's understandable because contextually substantial content is not what BoTW excels and I think players expecting this will be alienated when they discover that they need to explore, seek out and use their own sense of discover to actually appreciate the game loop of BoTW but it's a different in design and one that, I think open world games could benefit from more - even the ones that are defined by more narrative and contextual driven weight because GTA being a more appealing linear, narrative driven experience is less substantial of an open world game than a game that values the open world above the narrative, which might be why I think GTA Online is probably a better use of that world than the singleplayer itself. I would strain explicitly in my recommendation of BoTW that the game is very much about exploring and getting lost and less about having something concrete to actually do. This is going to divide people because not everyone likes a game that requires you to find the fun but for me, in an open world adventure? I want more of that!

Also two thumbs up for Kerbal Space Program. :)

And there are infinity better sandboxes for this type of thinking like kerbal space program, as I mentioned it is far more interesting in its solutions and complex game play mechanics. I've pointed out that the vast majority of solutions in botw are fairly simplistic, ie they aren't that diverse of solutions when you get into the details. You've got to bring a ball up and into a hole, the game only presents so many ways you can move the ball up, and over to the hole, so bypassing most of the mechanics are going to follow a pattern and it repeats those types of trivial obstacles over and over. So there is a finite way of solving most if not all the mechanics of the game applying similar techniques to similar puzzles.

So no as far as creativity in open world games go, there are significantly better games that scratch that itch, like ksp, besiege, space engineers... even banjo n&b allowed you to engineer some really cool solutions to the challenges posed. There are plenty of games where you can bend the physics/mechanics to their limits, zelda's is just too simple to care and doesn't present enough difficulty for the solutions. It's intriguing but still one of the more shallow creative experiences I've seen. The puzzles just aren't that important to the overall experience and the larger game of exploration doesn't present anything really hard to tackle where abusing the mechanics would be extremely rewarding. I think the only real cool thing I've seen people do is the anti grav sled or something.

I think if GTA had more rewarding reasons to explore the world, more freedom within its mission design and *ahem* better 3rd person shooting both in level design and mechanical deliverance, then I think I'd enjoy it even more than I do now. Ditto BoTW, if it had more complex puzzles, deeper combat and a stronger narrative, it too would be a much better game. As it stands though, the reasons I like BoTW revolve around its open world and sandbox nature and the reasons I like GTA V and IV for that matter are the mechanical abundance and beautifully, meticulous cities but I'm rarely ever actually treating the open world with any level of dedication other than traveling to and from points of interest.

I like shooting mechanics in gta, I think they are great when you consider its a more weighty feel because the animations have to run and it changes the dynamic of what shooters feel like. Its less about running and gunning and more about preparation and positioning. You can get carved up if your out in the open... not to mention run down by a civilian. There is a lot of dynamics in GTA's action mechanics that lend it self to far more dynamic situations your giving it credit for.

And that fact that you are treating the world so shallowly is a you problem, there is a rewarding experience for those that want to seek out its easter eggs, collectibles, and beauty. Again your ignoring mechanics that only exist for the players attention with no tangible rewards, like your desire to see the creative moments for your own benefit but no tangible reward for doing it differently. Stop changing the measuring stick here.

The Ubisoft comparison I feel doesn't dig deep enough into actually observing the loot, how this loot governs the gameplay loop and in what precedence it takes because loot such as pigeons, Assassin's Creed feathers, Far Cry's herbs and hides and Breath of the Wild's food and herbs are all examples of loot but all function differently and exist for different reasons. It's broad stating them as similar and not examining them meticulously to view their permanence on the core loops of those games.

Let's take for example

- *snip map*

- *snip map*

- *snip not ubisoft*

- BOTW has hunting for food items, korok seeds and treasure: These differences are quite punctual. Korok seeds are used to expand your inventory. Micro puzzles that need to be found by the player as they explore the world. There is no solution like Assassin's Creed and there is no indication on where you find these like the animals in Far Cry. If you stumble upon them, solve the puzzle, you get the reward. Much of the hunt for them requires you to investigate interesting formations on the map or search them using vertical space. This in itself is a already a more interesting gameplay loop than the Far Cry loop which is 1. Climb tower to reveal map. 2. Travel to animal icon 3. Hunt animal 4. Enter menu to craft. Nothing wrong with this - and hunting can be fun but the potential for finding interesting stuff is magnified in BoTW by the fact that you don't simply get the answer.

Next you got food items to restore health which by all means is optional and also in abundance. You collect green herbs in FC to do this and in BoTW you can hunt for animals, or collect apples, berries, fish, creatures, bugs and what have you simply by playing the game. It's never, at least for me, a dominant experience but a passive one that happens in between the exploration. There's no reason to collect or grind for these resources as they fill up naturally and in large quantities.

*snip map*

By actually examining these loot and collectibles, the value in the experiences you get from them are variably different and yeah, the cut scenes you get as reward for finding the picture locations aren't nearly as fun as simply finding the locations themselves - because actually engaging in an open world is fun if you let the player explore and get lost themselves vs. giving them the solution on the screen and hey, the story being bad in BoTW is a fault and I still think Majora's Mask is the best example of story in Zelda but again, not as important to me as the fact that those picture quests were fun to figure out. (at least I thought they were).

Your pointing out a difference I already pointed out, Its like a ubisoft game but without any map markers or missions... so I'll just ignore the bits where things are on the map. Also I'm talking more the larger structure of the open world. Zelda isn't primarily an action game like AC or watchdogs, or gta, so if you want to try to bring game play mechanics at a differently level lets compare it to more appropriate games.

So your talking about more survival mechanics as being the better thing in an open world game? So this is the one thing I think this game does well as its a better SURVIVAL open world game because its not about meter management and more about exploration and item management. The problem is its just not that important over the duration of the entire game like in something like don't starve/subnautica... because most traditional survival games treat time as a resource. In BOTW time is not a resource and you can do everything at w/e pace you feel like and there are no resources you need to gather regularly.. so there is nothing really preventing your from stocking up or just exploring. You get to choose to engage in the challenge or disengage when ever you want.

If the game required you to have more resources more regularly maybe it would have mattered. But the lack of structure means its hard to escalate the players struggle in a meaningful way and there is a massive drop off of how useful items are. So no I don't think your right about why zelda is a good open world game because of just how much those rewards or items have serious diminishing returns. It didn't take long for me to go from oooh a new sword to aww a sword.. So the game falls back on that somber exploratory experience as being the primary point to playing it and most of the time in the game world.

Yeah I think GTA has a better narrative than BoTW. I also feel GTA's world is so meticulously crafted, beautifully immersive and the abundance of mechanics, vehicles, weapons, planes and variety of tasks you can take on populating that world are varying degrees of fun but absolutely appreciative in their sheer numbers but I still don't think the missions are dynamic enough to facilitate much of the mechanical abundance as highlighted by the missions I listed before, nor do I feel these rigid missions really use the open world in a valuable way (much of them are isolated to a location on the map, and then further isolated by means of how you can tackle them). As a linear experience, GTA is more cohesive and better defined but Breath of the Wild excels then at not being a linear experience, rewarding you for treating the game as a non-linear experience and frequently punctuates the open world and the sandbox of the world through it.

GTA could totally nail this too. In a world with social media and a camera phone, I'd love to see more missions like the paparazzi Franklin quest but hold back on giving me the actual location of the target and let me find them by way of clues to their location. That would be a cool modifier on that mission. The problem isn't that collecathon or loot based gameplay is bad it's just that it hasn't been handled as well as BoTW has done it by actually making a meaningful, fun and reward gameplay loop out of it. Far better than hunting for obtusely hidden pigeons that give you literally nothing and not finding but being told where to find treasure and feathers littered around a map that have no real bearing on the core game loop.

Just because one game does something doesn't mean all games need to. Trying to remove map markers just for the sake of having to search for something doesn't work well in all contexts. It wouldn't work as well with GTA because the pacing is different, its more of an action game and generally wants to keep the momentum which means directing the player more than a game built on the premise of just finding things. But it still has things for the player to just relax and find and the experience still matters as far as open world games go. If you want to measure creativity as important while completely unnecessary than stop changing the measuring stick for the experience of what the game offers beyond what its asking you to actually accomplish. That sort of thing matters. And some things have rewards like toxic barrels. Like even after 5 years I only just discovered you can eat peyote and become an eagle... so again GTA rewards the player for gotten off the path on a regular basis or you get to try to do things creatively in certain scenarios, but then you also get a extremely well crafted plot with incredibly built characters and more.

I just don't see BOTW succeeding long term if they don't add to it in meaningful ways beyond a massive map with a collectathon. There were just too many parts of the game that were too short lived and it just felt like i was moving from one interesting thing to the next at a break neck pace just because there wasn't any real structure. I loved the lost woods bits but it ended fairly quickly, same with eventide.. shrowded shrine quest. Nothing in the game felt developed, i stepped into something where it showcased something neat, then moved on. Same goes for most of the gameplay mechanics. It was just enough to say oh cool... then sort of just move on.

I don't think it's any one mechanic that makes Breath of the Wild different from the others, it's more the direction they went with. It's the same reason Conan n I gas up MGSV even though yo it has some fairly obvious short comings as an open world thing: the open world is dull to look at visually, those side ops are fucking boring, MGS loses its boss fights, MGS shitty ass story actually has to take a back seat. But the larger pay off is that the game is a sandbox first, not an open world game.

Both games recognize what is fun and interesting about playing a game in a big ass space. Games like Skyrim, GTAV, and whatever give you a lot of shit to do, but none of it is actually good. It lacks the freedom that the likes of MGSV n Zelda offer, so the games are glorified hub-worlds with a lot liner game content, except they suck ass mechanically and level design wise to make it any good. On the flip side MGSV has brilliantly designed outposts, and a good chunk of Zelda is exceptional as far as being built for replays and emergent scenarios. There is still too much filler in Breath of the Wild (combat shrines are shit, universally, not enough enemy variety, way too many puzzle shrines where it's not even a puzzle), but the core of the game is light years ahead of what 3d Zelda used to do.

I think if I had a larger complaint, it be the same one I've always had against 3d Zelda: lack of depth. It has more depth than any of the previous Zeldas, especially as an exploration based game over the likes of Ocarina, Majora, Twilight Princess and those two shit barrels Wind Waker n Skyward Sword, but eh the combat isn't going to stack up favorably against an action game and the puzzles aren't consistently intricate enough to offset that I play better puzzle games.

But I will take it over just about any other fucking open world game. Because I'm sick n tired of my incentive being the fucking story or some stupid rpg system that is more about how compulsive we can make the game than asking the player to pay attention and think about what they are doing. Like Horizon Zero Dawn is so fucking boring man.

No, not in the missions, GTA hasn't been a sandbox game since San Andreas. They fucking railroad you for the entire game, but little to no options for the player when they get in the game and play the missions. Even the fucking heists peak at the first one, and its bare bones basic as the game never elaborates on it. And the sandbox part of GTA, was barely anything more than just dicking around with your explosives n running roughshod over the city until the cops came n took you out.

The actual moment to moment game you played was a third person shooter being apologized for because "look at how big, how long, and how blah blah blah" everything is, not how fucking fun any of it is to do. I mean really, I can go play Tennis? yeah if I want to do that, Virtua Tennis was an option. At best the addition adds to the "immersion" and "selling" the part about how "lived in" and "alive" the world feels.

All the adjectives one uses when there is nothing worth actually gassing up about the gameplay.

@waahahah:

I don't like the shooting mechanics in GTA. :(

It's primarily because of that weight - because the auto-aim is clearly compensating for the fact that the aiming recital is stiff and that weight tends to really just stuff you behind cover. You can't step out and run-and-gun but the result of that finds you behind cover and auto-aiming enemies when they pop out like a shooting gallery, which is the opposite of what I look for in a 3rd person shooting game. Some more kinetic movement would have actually helped to make the action interesting, dangerous and not extremely easy. I certainly didn't find I needed to prepare... it's too easy for that. The game solves much of the point of shooting games for you. You can turn that auto-aim off but then the actual manual aiming is really under-par. I think they could really improve their shooting mechanics, personally. :/

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The world being shallow is an artifact of the game not being populate with enough receptive content to actually explore. Obtusely hidden easter eggs and gorgeous vistas are, of course stuff to see but it's not receptive content. That's not my problem. That's the game not making me feel like I am accomplishing anything by exploring its world because there is nothing to achieve by exploring it. That's the game's problem. :P

Even if the korok seeds are repetitive, they are still a more meaningful reason to explore a world than easter eggs or to look at stuff.

That's not to say I haven't had moments I enjoyed in GTA's simulation. I mentioned before it's one of my favorite aspects of the game. I loved taking taxis in GTA IV, listening to John Coltrane and staring out the window as rain lashed outside. I think that is a valuable experience to have but it's not going to hold my attention in the world the same way that, as I mentioned before, things like the korok seeds do.

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I'm not saying that I believe BoTW is the best in sandbox gameplay. I am saying though that it is better at it than GTA V. Also Kerbal Space Program is awesome but it's not an open world game.

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I'd argue Eventide island was actually a perfectly fine length. I don't see how it was half-baked at all. In fact, I don't know what more they could have done with it without just making it into a restart of the game itself. It's not like I feel some of the ideas in BoTW aren't half-baked. The shrines absolutely could have benefited from being longer and given more substance. Ditto the dungeons. Still though, GTA V's heist missions. Those, to me felt under utilized and the potential there was huge. Specifically recruiting a team each with their individual stats felt like something that could have been explored much more but these people, their stats and their purpose is isolated to, what 3 heists? Games have ideas that could have been explored more. At the very least, all the mechanics I use in BoTW are the ones that I use throughout the game. There are never mechanics that become abandoned outside of their one specific use like in GTA's heist cases... or even stealth really. Some of the characters stats in that game are odd inclusions. What does the stealth meter even mean?

How much longer did Shrouded Shrine need to be? It's an area covered in darkness. You use a light source to navigate it and you have access to all your tools to do that. What more could they have done with that snapshot idea? :P It's not like it doesn't elaborate, you go from different enemies of varying difficulties in a linear order until you get to the end of the shrine. It's short but I don't think length is the same thing as substance.

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But by removing that information, it makes it unlike a Ubisoft game. :P

At least to me because the reason I highlight a Ubisoft open-world game with that reputation is because of the pointless engagement with the open world, uninteresting collectibles and useless rewards - attributes I wouldn't give to BoTW. So that makes it unlike a Ubisoft game for me.

I'm not necessarily talking about survival though. It's less to do with surviving harsh environments and more to do with holding back on information so that I can get lost, discover things for myself and come up with solutions to problems such as scaling the environments or figuring out how to find treasure. It's giving me something to do with my mind rather than being told where to find something and not feeling like I am engaging with the open world. Surprise is one of the keys here because stumbling upon an alter in the middle of a snowy cliff face and spontaneously having to chase a dragon down a cliff to destroy its infection, or stumbling upon a glowing, white horse are only prevalent surprises and discoveries when I have actually discovered them myself. I made no assertions on BoTW as a survival game; I'm simply speaking of it in terms of an open world adventure game.

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Limiting information is only one suggestion. It might not even be a solution that works for GTA because things like GPS systems exist naturally in a modern, urban environment. I do think more open world games could learn from games like BoTW and Thief in terms of how to engage the player more in the open world but perhaps that's not the solution GTA could use. Not every game needs to be the same, like you said, but having more to engage with the world like cop chases but giving purpose behind them would make the world feel less like the navigation between the missions and more like a world worth exploring because I don't feel like GTA V is worth exploring or getting lost in. It is really just what ever appears on the map for me...

Exploring is one way to engage me another would be to open up the map to more of those cop chases in the mission design. I think it would be fun to see more missions in GTA designed around the world rather than a sub-set of that world. BoTW's dungeons also limit you to an area but that's in face of a world you're constantly engaging in outside of these dungeons.

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It's just a difference in preference, I guess. We're both expecting different things from our games. :/

BoTW is certainly one of the first open world games in a while where I haven't felt guilty dumping hours into just running around and finding things to do because the things I find were often memorable. If I sat down to play GTA and decided I wanted to explore the world, I probably wouldn't come out of that session with much to talk about. I don't really want to get aggressive toward GTA because many people love it just how it is. It's not for me and it's not something I feel other open world games could learn from. People feel differently and that's fine.

I certainly prefer BoTW as an open world and sandbox game.

@jumpaction: What do you mean by "aiming recital" ??

@mjorh: The wee white dot in the middle of the screen. The horizontal and vertical aiming in GTA V is a little too stiff for me much of this is because movement has that weight and physics based draw so when you move, the aiming reticle sort of moves with this stiff jolt. The auto-aim is on by default and it basically aims for you. You can turn auto-aim off but then the manual aiming isn't as well executed as it could be. The movement in GTA is more of a hindrance than a help in combat.

@jumpaction: Gotcha, yeah it's not as good as like Max Payne 3 but it's way better than previous installments in the series

@mjorh: For sure! It's an improvement but there I still feel there's room to match its contemporaries.

As much as I appreciate the immersion of the movement in GTA, I think it holds the gunplay back.

Which will never happen as there's always the excuse "this is an open-world, this is a huge game, look at this greatness" :P

@mjorh: It is very immersive though. Especially when walking through the city and taking in the beautiful sights.

It's just not at all useful to the gunplay. It more often than not puts you behind cover where you pick at enemies when they pop their heads out. It's just not very kinetic for me.

I think I've exhausted my opinion on GTA V and some of my thoughts on BoTW too. I hate speaking with that level of animosity toward any game because games are fun and I did get enjoyment out of GTA V. It's really hard to be this negative toward a game without feeling tired because of it, you know what I mean? :(

True that

Yeah I know what you're saying, you should try to change your perspective, you're NOT being hostile about it, you're being critical and that's a good thing, everyone should understand that being critical doesn't mean that you don't enjoy sth, personally when it comes to enjoyment I can be so forgiving and try to enjoy sth as much as possible but I'd like to also know the flaws and discuss about them

@mjorh: Yeah. I just want to be careful in being critical without being forceful, you know? I think I could have articulated my opinion better here. The language could have been more constructive and positive.

Yeah there's always room for improvement but I think your language and criticism is good enough, I don't sense that harshness or hostility, sth that you might sense in Champ's posts :P

Overall, I don't mind it as long as it's informative, however, yeah one should be as careful as possible.

@mjorh: My brother loves GTA V and many people rightly do. I want that critique to be positive and not alienating, you know?

@jumpaction: Well, you can also praise its positive aspects, which may outweigh its downsides for some ppl

Or "Look at all these side activities you can do!". Which people confuse with go anywhere, do anything with "Go Anywhere, Do Anything".

Well, technically you can go anywhere, but your ability to interact with the world is very barebones. Zelda barely passes in terms of the kind of interactivity I want (no, adding a million minigames does not do it, sorry GTA), but even Zelda is utterly dwarfed by Dwarf Fortress.

@Maroxad:

oh them terrible tacked on side-quests!

The aiming reticalis not stiff. That doesn't make any sense and if it is change your sensitivity on either your mouse or your controller. And you can just turn free aim on... it turns out aiming at things like cops in cars and helis is why the aiming is there, its just much harder to do on a controller.

Also the game is NOT that easy, if it was heists online wouldn't be infuriating, and cops can tear you to shreds in the open and swarm you. Theres a lot more movement in a driving game then your giving it credit for. Having a stand off is hard without finding a good spot or its usually better to continue moving to get back to a car of some sort.

The world being shallow is an artifact of the game not being populate with enough receptive content to actually explore. Obtusely hidden easter eggs and gorgeous vistas are, of course stuff to see but it's not receptive content. That's not my problem. That's the game not making me feel like I am accomplishing anything by exploring its world because there is nothing to achieve by exploring it. That's the game's problem. :P

Even if the korok seeds are repetitive, they are still a more meaningful reason to explore a world than easter eggs or to look at stuff.

That's not to say I haven't had moments I enjoyed in GTA's simulation. I mentioned before it's one of my favorite aspects of the game. I loved taking taxis in GTA IV, listening to John Coltrane and staring out the window as rain lashed outside. I think that is a valuable experience to have but it's not going to hold my attention in the world the same way that, as I mentioned before, things like the korok seeds do.

GTA's world is not shallow any more than BOTW. Your picking things out to your liking, the people in the game are incredibly interesting to interact with and the shooting mechanics lend themselves to a very receptive world making shoot outs more chaotic with fleeing pedestrians and piles of cops.

I didn't say the the korok seeds were repetitive to find, I said there is a rapid dropoff in usefulness so reward isn't the primary reason to explore in the end. Its the journey that matters and one of similarity that can be found in gta if you choose to explore it.

I'm not saying that I believe BoTW is the best in sandbox gameplay. I am saying though that it is better at it than GTA V. Also Kerbal Space Program is awesome but it's not an open world game.

What i'm saying is that they are different types of games and the level of interaction in BOTW stops to short. There is nothing to really abuse the mechanics of the game on. I've had more fun being creative in gta 5 because of how much more complexity the scenario's can be. It's just being creative in different ways.

I'd argue Eventide island was actually a perfectly fine length. I don't see how it was half-baked at all. In fact, I don't know what more they could have done with it without just making it into a restart of the game itself. It's not like I feel some of the ideas in BoTW aren't half-baked. The shrines absolutely could have benefited from being longer and given more substance. Ditto the dungeons. Still though, GTA V's heist missions. Those, to me felt under utilized and the potential there was huge. Specifically recruiting a team each with their individual stats felt like something that could have been explored much more but these people, their stats and their purpose is isolated to, what 3 heists? Games have ideas that could have been explored more. At the very least, all the mechanics I use in BoTW are the ones that I use throughout the game. There are never mechanics that become abandoned outside of their one specific use like in GTA's heist cases... or even stealth really. Some of the characters stats in that game are odd inclusions. What does the stealth meter even mean?

How much longer did Shrouded Shrine need to be? It's an area covered in darkness. You use a light source to navigate it and you have access to all your tools to do that. What more could they have done with that snapshot idea? :P It's not like it doesn't elaborate, you go from different enemies of varying difficulties in a linear order until you get to the end of the shrine. It's short but I don't think length is the same thing as substance.

My point is the entire game is built on "snap shot" ideas. Nothing feels fully developed apart from you show up, solve a small puzzle and move on. Apart from some areas being cold and you operate in the cold. In fact i'd argue this game feels MORE shallow as an open world because of that.

Like what happens if the lost forest took a corner of the map and had like several dungeons to discover while you got lost and you were forced to constantly navigate using unconventional means. They were set up as tiny challenges, not built up in a meaty area for you to explore.

More eventide like areas could have also helped to expand on that initial idea.

The sandbox they created can be done in a much smaller with more developed ideas, nothing in the game requires a large game world for the type of sandbox to work.

So I'd go back to GTA's sandbox is just different, its scale works because of cars and the chaos that insues when things get messy. The stealth meter means you make less noise moving around, you can see your "noise" on the minimap, if you start sprinting its very clear.

Also I would just state, outside of switchable characters, heists do not have mechanics any mechanics that are exclusive to heists. You are factually wrong. The heists are the main narrative.

But by removing that information, it makes it unlike a Ubisoft game. :P

At least to me because the reason I highlight a Ubisoft open-world game with that reputation is because of the pointless engagement with the open world, uninteresting collectibles and useless rewards - attributes I wouldn't give to BoTW. So that makes it unlike a Ubisoft game for me.

I'm not necessarily talking about survival though. It's less to do with surviving harsh environments and more to do with holding back on information so that I can get lost, discover things for myself and come up with solutions to problems such as scaling the environments or figuring out how to find treasure. It's giving me something to do with my mind rather than being told where to find something and not feeling like I am engaging with the open world. Surprise is one of the keys here because stumbling upon an alter in the middle of a snowy cliff face and spontaneously having to chase a dragon down a cliff to destroy its infection, or stumbling upon a glowing, white horse are only prevalent surprises and discoveries when I have actually discovered them myself. I made no assertions on BoTW as a survival game; I'm simply speaking of it in terms of an open world adventure game.

The reason I compare botw to ubisoft games is they are both filled with tons of collectibles. GTA's collectibles aren't as prevalent when you consider its got a meaty game meaty side missions and incredibly fun mechanics to interact with that world with.

BOTW is a sandbox without any meat basically, like ubisofts open world meat light games.

Limiting information is only one suggestion. It might not even be a solution that works for GTA because things like GPS systems exist naturally in a modern, urban environment. I do think more open world games could learn from games like BoTW and Thief in terms of how to engage the player more in the open world but perhaps that's not the solution GTA could use. Not every game needs to be the same, like you said, but having more to engage with the world like cop chases but giving purpose behind them would make the world feel less like the navigation between the missions and more like a world worth exploring because I don't feel like GTA V is worth exploring or getting lost in. It is really just what ever appears on the map for me...

Exploring is one way to engage me another would be to open up the map to more of those cop chases in the mission design. I think it would be fun to see more missions in GTA designed around the world rather than a sub-set of that world. BoTW's dungeons also limit you to an area but that's in face of a world you're constantly engaging in outside of these dungeons.

The cops are a huge part of the interactivity of GTA's world and directly translates to how difficult the game is depending on how messy you let things get.

And your comparing most of BOTWS trivial interactions in the end that have no real bearing on success when the complexity and difficulty isn't that much. Again the neat things you can do in BOTW are not "rewarding" in a tangible or meaningful way outside of player satisfaction.

It's just a difference in preference, I guess. We're both expecting different things from our games. :/

BoTW is certainly one of the first open world games in a while where I haven't felt guilty dumping hours into just running around and finding things to do because the things I find were often memorable. If I sat down to play GTA and decided I wanted to explore the world, I probably wouldn't come out of that session with much to talk about. I don't really want to get aggressive toward GTA because many people love it just how it is. It's not for me and it's not something I feel other open world games could learn from. People feel differently and that's fine.

I certainly prefer BoTW as an open world and sandbox game.

Right but I'm the one pointing out they are both GOOD sandbox'es in their own way. Neither is better than the other and we need both to make both actually stay good. If every game was like botw than gta5 would come out and it would be the refreshing sandbox that has a bit of structure and progression built into the chaos.

As someone that likes gameplay I didn't like BOTW nearly as much as gta 5. And thats to say its a problem with creativity. I liked Kerbal space program just as much as gta5. The problem with botw is the creativity isn't meaningful and its built on trivial "snap shot" ideas where you only have so much wiggle room for creativity. They are neat but none of them is meaningfully rewarding and using the mechanics in interesting ways are NOT tangible rewards like your making them out to be. Gta's underwater discovery or peyote animal fever dreams are just as rewarding for people that find them because its a personal experience reward. Shooting the tires out of a car coming head on so it crashes into cops behind you is again rewarding to the player mostly for doing that. To say there are not receptive elements in GTA is nonsense.