The allure of an open world game is something that most developers find very hard to ignore, and though there are many studios out there who do end up using all of that real estate in all the right ways, there are just as many who don’t do it nearly as well as they should. Whether it’s because of a lack of interesting content or a lack of content, period, all too often, open worlds in video games end up feeling barren, unengaging, uninteresting. Here, we’ll talk about a few such games.
METAL GEAR SOLID 5: THE PHANTOM PAIN
Metal Gear Solid 5 is and always will be a stealth masterpiece, and while nothing will even diminish the game’s mechanical strengths, its open world doesn’t quite stand as tall. The open world maps are full of vast stretches of nothing populated only by the occasional enemy patrol, and getting from point A to point B ends up feeling like a chore. The emergent sandbox of the game’s web of mechanics does alleviate some of those issues, but by and large, it’s hard to shake the feeling that The Phantom Pain’s open world wasn’t executed nearly as well as it could and should have been.
