SweetieGames

During 2020-2021, when we weren’t allowed outside as much, when we weren’t seeing anyone, I started playing Genshin Impact. Not only was the game huge at the time, and allowed me to chat to friends and play together, but it allowed you to explore an expansive open world. Fields full of luscious green grass, long abandoned dungeons, snow covered mountains and much more. When we were all stuck indoors, it felt good to run around in a virtual world, exploring nature.

A while later, I picked up Breath of the Wild, as I had heard so much about it. Yes, I was about 5 years late getting to this game but I thought better late than never to start! I had fun playing that too; solving the shrine puzzles, stumbling across new areas to explore and discovering the secrets of the land. So, it may come as a surprise to learn that I haven’t finished BOTW. I’ve had it since 2022. I’ve also not picked up Genshin in months either.

I briefly discussed Genshin in my free-to-play games article, but there is another reason why I put Genshin down. The same reason I stopped playing Breath of the Wild, and haven’t even bought Tears of the Kingdom, even though I enjoyed BOTW for a long time. After a while, open world games are not relaxing for me. They’re actually pretty stressful.

When the game opens, I’m itching to get in and explore everything around me. But the more you explore, the more objectives you find. More puzzles. More NPCs to help. More items to collect. More bosses to fight. I often find them while I’m in the middle of doing something else, and then I get distracted and do that quest instead, but while I’m trying to do that I find something else to do… it just leads to a quest menu filled with half finished things, and when I close the game and come back to it I’m at a loss; what do I do? What am I meant to be doing? There’s now so much, I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know what quests are worth doing; which have valuable rewards, and which are a waste of time.

It’s not only open world games that are guilty of this. It took me forever to finish my first Baldur’s Gate 3 run because when I got to Act 3, I was suddenly bombarded with things to do. It felt like every NPC I spoke to had some kind of quest or task to complete, and I ended up falling straight into quests I didn’t intend to start sometimes! It is impressive that the game has so much to do, but I had to work hard to stay focussed on the task at hand. Thankfully, the actual area of Baldur’s Gate in Act 3 wasn’t as big as an open world, so I couldn’t stray too far from my goals.

I love the initial stages of an open world game; discovering new areas and learning more about the lore through environmental storytelling, but I feel like I’m not focussed enough to stay on track. I usually do pretty good in the early game when there’s not as much to do, but when it reaches a point where there’s a new quest every time I speak to someone, I always tend to lose track of what I’m doing. I end up in a state of paralysis, and I don’t do anything at all. When I’m focussed and decide to ignore the NPC who gave me a new quest, I forget they ever existed. I feel like my autistic brain enjoys structure; I like being told what to do, when to do it and where in a game. That predictability reassures me. When there’s no plan and nothing telling me I’m not prepared for a certain area or task, I end up getting frustrated and putting the game down.

Open world games are very much in at the moment, and it totally makes sense why; the freedom and possibilities that are available to players is very enjoyable. I’m very much aware that I’m the odd one out in this opinion; I think I just need to change my approach so I can truly enjoy the experience. I try so hard to like them! Should I be ignoring everyone while I’m focussed on a task? Should I be marking my map more? I might pick up Breath of the Wild again and give it a good go before coming to my final conclusion on open world games.