Players like to be rewarded with additional story, characterization, and fun upgrades upon discovering more of the open world, not another checkmark on a map. The Witcher 3‘s world is huge, but players don’t complain about it being bloated because it’s filled with unique landmarks and interesting side quests around every corner.

These 10 games even manage to disappoint the casual collectathon fan with their uninspired locales and boring terrain, proving that games need to do more than merely populate the world with objects. Here are 10 more open world games in recent years that have suffered from bloat.

Forspoken

Like other games on this list, Forspoken had a ton of potential leading up to its release. We first saw glimpses of it with the impressive next-gen demo when the PS5 was announced but the final result was severely lacking. The best thing about the game, its versatile and engaging parkour, isn’t facilitated well by the open world.

For one thing, there’s entirely too few things to do in the magical world of Athia. What’s more, there’s an absence of ‘magic’ to capture the imagination in the world, consisting of empty rolling hills dotted with repetitive activities as it is. What hinders the empty exploration further is Frey’s constant quipping and complaining. If you’re not keen to hear constant quips and snarky complaints over the course of several hours of empty, though fun, world traversal, you’re not going to have a good time in Athia. After critical and commercial failure, the studio was shuttered.

Rise of the Ronin

Team Ninja’s design identity lives and breathes by its dense and action-packed linear nature, so naturally, the decision to go open-world in their next samurai game was ambitious for the team. Being the first open world game from the studio, Rise of the Ronin doesn’t falter too hard, but it could’ve been better within a more streamlined structure.

The refined action combat the team has been known for helps the formulaic world activities feel a bit more fun than they otherwise would. This is the third game on the list to feature dozens of bandit camps in its large world, but there’s also genre mainstays like watchtowers, and … cats to pet across mid-19th Century Japan, okay at least that’s kind of charming. Still, the lack of organic environmental discovery, unlike, say, Ghost of Tsushima’s waypoint wind, and a more empty and boring world map than other games within the space, keep Rise of the Ronin from reaching the potential set by its unique time period and deep combat. Hopefully, the developers will keep on investing in this IP, because there is potential here and a Rise of Ronin 2 could be a genuinely great game.

Biomutant

Unlike Gotham’s largely samey environments, the open world in Biomutant is rather diverse and visually unique across biomes. But visual distinctness between the six tribal regions  is where Biomutant’s open world stops being impressive – unless you enjoy the busywork of clearing checklists, that is. Completing the many outposts, resource towers, ruins, and fast-travel signpost rewards you with little while being but it’s as shallow as it is repetitive.

But the combat and quests don’t really do anything interesting to accommodate the rote world activities, firmly solidifying Biomutant as a quintessential ‘mid’ game. It’s unremarkable, but not bad per se, and when multiplied by the huge open world and all its repetitive activities, makes for a lot wasted time one could have spent in more meaningful game worlds. Biomutant is a prime example where a stong investment doesn’t always result into a meaningful product.

Gotham Knights

If rote repetition is the death knell of open worlds, Gotham Knights feels oddly lifeless for a city meant to be in constant crisis. All of the positives of the Arkham games, save some of the third-person combat DNA, is gone with this game. Sure, there’s some fun stealth sections to be found within the story chapters, but a majority of the game’s content is beating up the same thugs and solving copy-pasted crimes throughout Gotham to grind towards Knighthood progression.

Players can typically look past a bit of padded grinding if the world feels alive and responsive, but Gotham also fails on that front. Alleyways are mostly empty, civilian traffic is practically non-existent, and the city doesn’t evolve or react to story advancements or a recently liberated borough. At least the game looks really nice with its lighting. Gotham oozes atmosphere on a superficial artistic level despite the lack of liveliness and organic activities. Gotham Knights does have its shining moments, but very few of them have to do with the open world structure. Honestly, at this point, we just need a new Batman Arkham, not to mention the disaster that was Suicide Squad.

Just Cause 4

While Biomutant can’t reasonably be considered bad by any means, Just Cause 4 certainly can. The only thing I’m uncertain about is if this game suffers more on the story or exploration axis because it sucks at both. First and foremost, there’s just way too many patches of nothingness in the game world, resulting in terrible activity density.

At least Rico’s versatile grappling hook can be played around with to traverse the boring environments because it’d be downright sleep-inducing to go anywhere in this game otherwise. Accommodating the poor map design is a total absence of a minimap or radar. I mean, come on, an open-world game with no way to track points of interest at-a-glance, and one with such a bloated and empty world at that, is inexcusable. The missions and side activities are also far less creative and interesting than previous Just Cause titles, and the game crashes pretty often. You know what, I can’t even point the main blame on the open world, Just Cause 4 is just plain bad. It’s amazing how the series shifted into a complete free fall after Just Cause 2. Such a massive shame!

RAGE 2

Rage 2 is another game on this list that certainly isn’t altogether bad; its open world design just kinda feels tacked on to extend game time. Avalanche studios used Id Software’s wonderful gunplay tech to craft a fast and fun gameplay. Shooting in Rage 2 feels fast paced but with very lackluster and repetitive map design, its potential is severely diminished. There’s hardly any reason to spend time checking off side activities due to the drip-fed upgrades that players are rewarded with. This is thanks largely to a pretty early plateau in the upgrade tree, which maxes out your character pretty quick.

And without any meaningful side stories or lore to discover out in the wasteland, exploration is largely an exercise in repetition. The rapid pacing of the gunplay also just isn’t well suited for the wide swathes of land, something a more densely populated map could’ve remedied a bit.  It’s a shame Rage 2 faltered on the open world front. A synthesis between Id gun mechanics and the open world chaos of Just Cause 3 set within a Mad Max-esque setting seem like a dream come true. But Rage 2’s world is largely average and is enough to pull down the game’s otherwise fun gameplay and traversal mechanics. It’s unlikely we will ever see a new RAGE game and that’s such a disappointment.

Mafia III

The original studio behind the first two Mafia games merged into Hanger 13 for Mafia 3. Hanger 13’s debut game lacks a lot of the charm and density the previous games had, going for a quantity over quality approach. The territory control system quickly becomes repetitive, with little variation between districts. The world itself, a fictional version of New Orleans, also lacks intriguing landmarks and unique stuff to do within it. It’s just a shallow and hollow open world all-round.

At least the story and atmosphere somewhat make up for it; however, repetitive side objectives are often mandatory to progress the main plot, harming that aspect as well. Here’s hoping the Hanger 13 has learned from their first game and refined Mafia: The Old Country’s Italy into something more engaging.

Saints Row (2022)

In a lot of ways, the 2022 reboot of Saint’s Row feels like a first draft of a game from a decade ago. It’s got the basic elements to make a classic Saints Row experience, but hardly any of the creativity, charm, or polish. Where previous Saints Row games made exploring and causing mayhem unpredictable and fun, this reboot turns every open world activity into a chore.

Criminal Ventures are just one example of this; once you do your first couple insurance fraud busts and repo jobs, you’ve pretty much seen done them all. The world does little to encourage curiosity either, considering how empty and vacuous it feels. What’s really a shame is the lack of charm across the whole experience, thanks in part to the odd incongruent meshing of attempted wackiness with serious drama, resulting in an experience that falls flat in the end. This release, more or less, has killed Saints Row.

Crackdown 3

Out of all the games featured on this list, Crackdown 3 reigns supreme when it comes to boring environments. We all wanted to explore a dark sci-fi city in the sequel, but the city’s repetitive building designs make exploration feel stale and uninspired. It’s one of those games where the asset reuse is so glaringly obvious that it significantly detracts from the experience. But it’s not just the bland environments of the city that hurt the open world experience, mission and enemy variety is severely formulaic too. What puts the nail in the coffin is the paltry rewards for doing open world activities.

You’re mostly just collecting ability orbs after completing activities or exploring environments with no interesting lore or customization. And of course, Crackdown 3 commits the major sin of mandating side content to progress the main story, this time in the guise of collecting intel for regional boss fights. At least there’s the charm of playing as Terry Crews throughout the formulaic experience, but even that wears thin pretty quickly. With Microsoft cancelling projects left and right, the future of Crackdown seems like it’s done and dusted.

Need for Speed: Payback

Need for Speed: Payback is a game I still kind of enjoy playing to this day, but it’s not to experience the exploration or anything. No, it’s the superb vehicle selection and customization which is the main draw of the game, but even that can be had in the better NFS maps that Heat and Unbound facilitate. Payback’s fictional map is quite large and spread out, but it features no police chases outside of scripted events.

Instead of hiding from cops and making an intricate escape through a dense downtown route, you’re just collecting stuff and starting events on the map. This makes Payback’s map the least dynamic and least designed for racing than any of the modern-era NFS titles. Fortunately, a lot of great Need for Speed games were released since then, so let’s hope this continues into the future.

Need for Speed Payback

Payback rectified the always online requirement of predecessor reboot Need for Speed but that’s about the only thing it got right. With its predictable story, dearth of police chases – and heavily scripted chases, if there were any – poor handling, unrealistic car damage, loot-box style microtransactions, plus a format which didn’t cohesively translate to open world, Need for Speed Payback is a low point in the otherwise esteemed racing series.

With every entertaining and well-designed open world game, there are several that feel mundane, awkward or terribly put together. Let’s take a look at 10 of the most boring open world titles.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint

If there’s one thing that stuck out the most when first playing Ghost Recon Breakpoint at launch, it’s how utterly dead Auroa felt. There was no seemingly no semblance of normal day-to-day life with environments that felt sterile and samey. Sure, the setting had a lot to do with it, whether it was the whole “island belonging to a military contractor” or the occupation by Colonel Walker and the Wolves forcing much of the populace into hiding. But it seems like this was all done just to reinforce the Skell Tech drones as the true indigenous life (and it doesn’t help that the Wolves were fairly disposable as well). Combine all of this with boring activities and a terrible storyline, not to mention tons of bugs and copy-paste outposts, and you’ll beg for Wildlands’ Bolivia. New paid content and updates including the return of AI squadmates helped improve the overall experience but it was a disaster at launch.

September came and went, and now it’s time once again for the offerings of Sony’s PS Plus to refresh. While the month of October is often reserved for more spooky affairs, it seems Sony decided to do a little bit of a half and half there with a good game for the horror-themed month and one that is a bit more quick.

As announced by the official Twitter, this month’s offering consists of Vampyr and Need for Speed: Payback. Vampyr is an action RPG from the folks at Dontnod and follows a doctor who finds himself as part of the undead and must choose between his oath to help people or to give in to his newfound bloodlust. Need for Speed: Payback is on a very opposite end of the spectrum. A racing title from earlier this gen from Ghost Games it sees you trying to pull off wild stunts in a Hollywood style.

Vampyr and Need for Speed: Payback will be free to all PS Plus subscribers starting October 6th. You can still redeem the current games, Street Fighter 5 and PUBG, until that time.

Need for Speed: Payback and Vampyr are your PS Plus games for October: https://t.co/kKNMxUDkCL pic.twitter.com/K1Kutlws67

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) September 30, 2020

Dragon Age 2

Don’t you just love it when a publisher wants a sequel for your game? Especially with just 14 to 16 months for development? Such was the fate that befell Dragon Age 2 thanks to Electronic Arts and as a result, BioWare ended up cutting a lot of story content and scaling back on the locations (besides crunching continuously). Granted, the sequel would find some appreciation, especially for what it offered in its short development cycle, but such haphazard development wasn’t needed.

Ghost Games’ Need for Speed Payback didn’t exactly have the warmest welcome at launch, thanks primarily to microtransactions and gameplay elements gated behind them. But the developer has been working hard to rectify this with various free updates. The latest update brings freeroam mode, dubbed “Alldrive: Hangout” and allows players to simply drive around in Fortune Valley. It’s out later today and will be free for all platform holders.

On top of driving around, Alldrive: Hangout also allows people to play with friends, take Snapshots together and so on. There will also be some new items called Catch-up Packs which let you boost progression for a car to level 6, level 11 and level 16. These different varieties are unlocked by getting to certain points in the campaign and can be purchased with in-game currency. The level 6 pack is for 71,400; the level 11 pack is 131,000; and the level 16 pack is for 180,000.

There will also be new Underglow and Tire Smoke variations along with some improvements to Snapshot Pro mode. It will now be possible to increase the distance of the camera from your car and you can even take photos during takedown sequences. The option to sell and trade-in all Speed Cards that aren’t equipped will also be coming soon.

Ghost Games’ Need for Speed Payback was more or less dead on arrival thanks to its horrid microtransactions that tied into progression, terrible story and dialogue, lame missions and so on. The developer has been making strides to improve it and one such step is to bring back online free roam.

You know, the feature that shipped with Need for Speed (2015) but was conspicuously absent in the 2017 sequel. The news was announced by Ghost Games on Twitter where it simply said that online free roam would be coming this year. It confirmed in a later tweet that the feature would be free for everyone and not paid DLC.

So that’s some good news. The mode is still being worked on though so a release date is yet to be locked down. You can read more about Need for Speed Payback here in our official reviews and find out why it was so terrible at release. Thoughts on the upcoming online free roam? Let us know below.

https://twitter.com/NeedforSpeed/status/947829788663726080

Free to everyone.

— Need for Speed (@NeedforSpeed) January 1, 2018

Persona 5 Spoiler Bots

When Persona 5 first released, Atlus was so gung-ho about preventing spoilers from leaking that it actually threatened content creators and streamers with account suspensions. To that end, someone created Twitter bots for Persona 5 to spoil the game should it ever be referenced on Twitter. This resulted in the official Persona 5 Twitter receiving spoilers every time “#Persona5” was used. Ah, justice.

Need for Speed Payback was quite a disappointing game. We gave it quite a low score of 5/10 in our review (which you can read right here), and called it out for a number of significant issues. But the one area where Payback is actually more than just decent, which was something we mentioned in our review as well, is the visuals. They’re not spotless, of course, but for the most part, Need for Speed Payback looks really good. It is now also playable on the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, so those visuals have received a bit of a boost- but just how much of a boost? And how do the two versions stack up against each other?

This should really come as no surprise to anybody, but Payback on the Xbox One X looks significantly better than on the PS4 Pro. Both versions run at a mostly solid frame rate of 30 frames per second, but the parity ends there. When it comes to the resolution, the Xbox One X version of the game is a pretty big jump over the PS4 Pro, and though we cannot confirm with certainty the exact pixel count, we can tell you the area that both versions land in.

On the Xbox One X, Payback runs at a resolution of what seems to be native 4K, which looks about as impressive as you would expect it to, while on the PS4 Pro, the game is rendered at more or less 2560 X 1440.  It goes beyond just the resolution, though, since developers Ghost Games have made several other improvements in other visual aspects of the game on the Xbox One X, which isn’t something that can be said about the PS4 Pro version of the game as well. On the Xbox One X, Payback’s visuals are boosted by a higher quality of texture detail, a higher shadow quality, as well as reflections that look pretty good (though in comparison to some other games on the platform such as Forza Motorsport 7, they just don’t hold up as well). There’s also decent ambient occlusion, though Payback unfortunately falters in terms of distant LODs. Distant LODs is the one area where the PS4 Pro version of the game seems to have an edge over the Xbox One X. In every other area, such as shadow quality, reflection details, and ambient occlusion, the PS4 Pro version of the game is lagging behind its Xbox One X counterpart visibly.

Ultimately, it’s pretty clear that the Xbox One X version of Need for Speed Payback is the best looking version of the game. It should be noted though, that this is a pretty good looking game to begin with, so if you do decide that you want to play it (we wouldn’t recommend that, given how many other new and great racing games there are out there right now), you can’t really go wrong with either the PS4 Pro or the Xbox One X as far as the visual quality goes. The One X has a very clear and visible advantage, but it’s not as big a gap as you’d see in some other games, such as Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Lawbreakers

In a way, you have to feel bad for Lawbreakers. This was Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski’s return to the games industry after a long sabbatical. It was supposed to be the perfect union of hero shooter and arena shooter. Sadly, Lawbreakers was handicapped out of the gate with a market dominated by Overwatch. The actual game had a paucity of content with poor matchmaking and weird balance issues. Of course, the high skill ceiling, lack of personality to its heroes and outright lameness didn’t help either.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

On the surface, it seemed like Electronic Arts had learned its lesson with the first Star Wars Battlefront. People don’t like expansion passes? They’re gone! People want a campaign? They get it and you get to play as the Empire! More maps, proper class loadouts, space battles – it almost seemed like a dream come true. Of course, in true EA fashion, it turned into a nightmare. The campaign was barely worth experiencing. The game’s loot boxes completely ruined progression, leaving the min-maxing of loadouts to random luck of the draw.

Friday The 13th: The Video Game

Friday The 13^th: The Video Game suffered from many of the same expectations as Star Wars Battlefront but on a smaller scale. It was the first time we’d get to properly play as Jason Voorhees. With an asymmetrical multiplayer approach, everything seemed like it was on track even with some delays. Sadly, the actual game was riddled with bugs and server issues that made it nigh unplayable at launch. Though such issues were resolved later, Friday The 13^th: The Video Game was still just a fairly okay game and not the murder-a-thon we expected.

Mass Effect Andromeda

Mass Effect Andromeda was doomed from the EA Access trial with horrible facial animations, poorly written dialogue, glitches, an odd set-up and strange design choices. The full game was worse with severe performance issues, game breaking bugs and glitches, a total waste of a new setting, the squandering of any potential that the premise could have had and don’t even get us started on the co-op multiplayer mode. Mass Effect Andromeda’s combat was up to snuff but everything else makes us think that the series died just so we could have an amazing year of games. Was it worth it? Hmm.

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite

A hilariously bad story mode, low-rent roster, lack of additional features, idiotic new mechanics and terrible graphics – at this rate, you’d wonder why we had any expectations from Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. Well, this was the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and to a series that we thought was generally dead and gone. To think that we went from “Take you for a ride!” to this nonsense is just sad.

Need for Speed: Payback

Electronic Arts just couldn’t catch a break in 2017. It’s not like we had too much to hope for Need for Speed Payback until its reveal. Over the months, we thought its open world approach, introduction of Heists and three playable characters might finally offer something cool. Expectations were tempered to say the least. Unfortunately, as with Star Wars Battlefront 2, EA ruined it with Speed Cards that could be earned either in-game or with microtransactions. Again, it’s not like the game is suddenly better without microtransactions – customizing your vehicle this way is simply asinine and completely up to RNG. The story was horrendous, the open world didn’t offer much by way of fulfilling gameplay and for an industry that needs microtransactions to fund triple A development, Payback didn’t look particularly good either.

Sonic Forces

When Sonic Forces was first announced, there was cautious optimism. A sequel to Sonic Generations with some kind of war setting? Hurray-ish. Then it was revealed that Sonic would be working alongside all his critter friends. Then all his past enemies appeared as well. And for some reason, Sega thought to throw a customizable avatar. All these bells and whistles aside, Sonic Forces takes everything Generations did right with its gameplay and messes it up. Present Sonic is meh and the Avatar levels are boring. The experience is underwhelming at best and disappointingly idiotic at worst.

NBA 2K18

NBA 2K titles used to walk a fine line between love and hate. Virtual Currency has been an epidemic for a while but the games were generally well built on the basis of their gameplay and campaign. NBA 2K18 looked like it would be even better with its Playgrounds and Career mode and whatnot. Then, like most everything else this year, it was ruined with microtransactions. Customization options are severely gated by Virtual Currency and the game would reward very little of it, pushing you towards microtransactions even more. What could have been a great game is ultimately a decent one that demands way too much money from you past the initial $60.

WWE 2K18

Visual Concepts and Yuke’s haven’t really given us much in terms of quality wrestling for the past few years but past WWE 2K games were at least somewhat decent. WWE 2K18 beats that streak, mixing in a number of amazingly stupid glitches along with a nonsensical MyCareer mode. Though the loot boxes included aren’t purchased with real money, they still severely limit customization and lean towards RNG luck than any kind of actual freedom. This year’s iteration is the best-looking yet but that can only get you so far when everything else is so fundamentally bad.

Styx: Shards of Darkness

Styx: Master of Shadows wasn’t exactly the next Assassin’s Creed (which doesn’t mean much since the current Assassin’s Creed is so different). However, it offered a nice little offbeat fantasy stealth adventure that players could sink their teeth into. Styx: Shards of Darkness sadly failed to build on that. Level design was better this time around but instead of paying homage to the old-school while streamlining gameplay elements, the game stubbornly stuck to it. Stealth is very easy to cheese, which makes you wonder what the point even is and the humour just doesn’t click.

Winner: Star Wars Battlefront 2

It started with the realization that Star Cards could upset the balance of gameplay in multiplayer. Fans were irate that a $60 release introduced pay to win elements. Naturally, DICE responded and promised changes. However, once Star Wars Battlefront 2 hit the early trial stage, the costs of various heroes proved to be the tipping point. The “sense of pride and accomplishment” comment by EA’s community management team became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. It eventually snowballed into microtransactions being removed and EA experiencing severe falls in its stock prices.

But that’s not what made Star Wars Battlefront 2 a disappointment. It’s the fact that the campaign is a few hours long and fails to deliver on its promise of an Empire state of view. It’s the fact that the multiplayer would suffer severe rubber banding and latency issues, making matches unplayable. It’s the fact that progression makes no sense and is so heavily gated by randomness that you’ll probably never get rewards for the classes you enjoy the most.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is the most disappointing game of 2017 because EA took what should have been a winner with its graphics, presentation and sound design and utterly ruined it out of pure greed. That it accomplished this even after Star Wars Battlefront (2015) was so heavily panned is remarkably sad.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.