LACK OF ENVIRONMENTAL VARIETY
Environmental variety is crucial in any game, but especially so in the open world kind. When you’re spending this much time playing a single game, you want it to keep things fresh, to keep introducing new elements to stave off monotony and repetition. The best of the best open world games are keenly aware of that, and they make it a point to keep bringing players to new locations with distinct visual styles and atmospheres. Some open world games, though, end up underestimating the importance of environmental variety, and their worlds end up suffering as a result. And when you’re in a world that ends up feeling drab and monotonous after you’ve been in it for a couple dozen hours, your experience of the game also suffers.
