Open World vs Closed World Games: A production Analysis
Open-world games are quite a bit of a hot commodity within the recent video game marketplace.
Genshin Impact yielded revenue averages of $5.8 million daily ( source ).
Grand Theft Auto 5 has generated around $6 billion since its release ( source ).
Elden Ring has sold over 16 million copies worldwide in half a year ( source ).
The structure of a project’s play space is essential for project success. What are the benefits of each archetype for us as designers?
Regardless of how we may personally feel about specific genres, Open-world games have rocked the foundations of the entire game development field.
All of this seems perfectly fine. But with the budget of triple-A open-world games such as Cyberpunk2077 reaching figures of around $316 million ( source ), do these benefits outweigh the costs of an ever-growing battle of budgets within the industry?
The terms "Sandbox" and "Open-world" are often synonymous within game design discussions, but aren't quite the same.
A Sandbox game is without specific directions, goals, or instructions, allowing the player to tinker with the many options the game provides. There is typically very little in the way of a final goal; if there is, the player is never entirely forced to pursue it.
In contrast, an Open-world game is meant to be as sprawling and vast as possible; there are no significant limitations on the player's ability to navigate these locations. A player may hypothetically walk from one point of the map to the other unimpeded by invisible walls, triggered events, or any other deliberately designed blockades from the very start of the game.
Many Open-world games have been released that also implement Sandbox design choices, especially those of the survival variety.
Minecraft, Don't Starve, and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim are all sandbox open-world titles. Players are dropped into a world with complete control and can explore until their hearts are content. (within programmed parameters, of course).
Don’t Starve has an abundance of simple mechanics built entirely around survival, making for an open-world sandbox game with hours and hours of gameplay for the audience to enjoy.
The Sims, City Skylines, and the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise are Sandbox games but not Open-world. While these games have the same breadth of gameplay options and freedom of choice, they don't contain worlds the players can actively explore and discover. They use specific play spaces instead.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 allows the player to build their own theme parks to their heart’s content, but it’s not an open-world title. Games take place within small closed worlds and the genre itself is built specifically for mechanical, not exploratory purposes
Open-world and sandbox design choices go together incredibly well. Still, each of them poses specific considerations for us as designers. Let's focus on the unique traits and challenges presented by Open-world design.
Open-world Games: Limitless limitations & boundless boundaries
Open-world games are big. You might consider a walk to the shops a long distance. And yet, with the constant progress of technology, open-world games are only growing larger and larger.
Sprawling World Exploration: With games such as Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Fallout 4, and Grand Theft Auto 5 exceeding sizes well over 50 square miles, these play spaces carry a sense of unbridled exploration and adventure for players on entry into these worlds. Naturally, this is exciting for an audience wanting to immerse themselves in a completely separate world from ours and a huge selling point for Open-world games.
The pale blue dot of video game worlds, while it might not look like much, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall boasts an open world 62,000 square miles in size, over double the size of Scotland in its entirety.
Emergent Gameplay: The nature of these open worlds being sprawling and vast makes them so synergistic with sandbox design and the notion of "Emergent gameplay."
“Emergent gameplay” is the design concept of players finding unplanned gameplay within the confines of the game itself. Trying to reach the tallest building in Grand Theft Auto 5, scaling mountains on a horse in Skyrim, or just general, undirected play are all considered emergent gameplay.
Improbable, impossible, and downright impetuous, emergent gameplay can strike at any time, resulting in some unusual gameplay distractions such as horseback mountain climbing in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.
The notion of emergent gameplay (the idea that players can "create their own fun") is a vast value proposition and benefit for any game that can capitalize on this. Emergent gameplay, through interactions with the environment or NPCs in methods not anticipated by the designers, often lends itself to longer playtimes and more replayability.
Emergent Narratives: Emergent narratives (the same notion as emergent gameplay, but focused on the stories players create through their own play and are unique to each player) are also more possible with open-world games. The triumphs of allies or losing beloved characters that happen dynamically within the world create emotional and personal stories for every player.
Fallout 3’s companion system., especially Dogmeat, has been the source of many player-driven emergent narratives and stories. These stories make the game feel unique and special to the individuals experiencing them.
Fallout 3's Dogmeat is an excellent example of this. Dogmeat is a powerful dog companion the player finds within Fallout 3. This companion will loyally follow the player and fight with them, but is also prone to be injured and can even die from these injuries.
The players often forge an emotional connection with their animal companion, leading to war stories that are unique to each player. These stories are wholly generated within the confines of their play space ( source ).
Another strong example of an emergent narrative is the use of the nemesis system within Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor. The nemesis system allows enemies to develop direct mechanical connections with the player. Enemies adapt to player choices by wearing arrow-resistant armor, becoming terrified of fire, or leveling up with each player's defeat they secure. Many have touted this nemesis system as "genius" ( source ).
Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor’s nemesis system results in some truly unique and interesting emergent narratives, unique to every player.
Shadow of Mordor is a unique example of an open-world game deliberately designed and built around emergent gameplay and narratives. It is a perfect example of gameplay mechanics reinforcing the notion of emergent narratives and emergent gameplay. By employing these concepts, the developers have crafted a game that lasts an incredible amount of time.
Massive Replayabilty: All of these above points lend themselves to a critical element of interest for the player base; replayability. Exploring a vast, open world with many options is always a tempting prospect.
With no one experiencing the exact same gameplay, open-world games have become popular on streaming platforms such as twitch because they lend themselves far more to dynamic and emergent experiences.
More eyes on a product generate more sales, more sales generate more money, and more money generates more funding for future development and new projects.
Grand Theft Auto 5 has yielded hours upon hours of easy-to-produce media for streamers and influencers such as the Yogscast ( source ) also results in more frequent eyes on the product. It’s no wonder that Grand Theft Auto 5 has performed so well, as it’s perfectly designed for continuous content production.
All Points Unified: These emergent experiences are a core feature of why open-world games are so effective; they result in several hours of gameplay and replayability skyrockets as a result. Combine this with the tantalizing nature of being thrust into a world the literal size of American states and certain countries, and you have a value proposition most players find hard to ignore. Open-world gaming is big, mostly because they are big games, the audience can’t deny that there’s a whole lot of game to these projects. The larger the game, the more replayability, and the more replayability, the more “fun” to be had by the audience.
So what's the catch? If Open-world games offer all of the above to the player base, why not design every game with Open-world concepts?
Directionless Goals: Well, picture this. After a brief tutorial, enter into a world for the very first time with the world and its horizon sprawling in front of you, with seemingly limitless options available.
So, why are you here? What are you doing? Why chop down wood to get lumber, to build a campfire, and then to cook meat? Why spend time going from zone to zone, beating up guards to climb the same tower asset to unlock even more zones and repeat the same action? Why spend time tracking down a happy, friendly little forest person for golden collectibles, repeating the process over a hundred times?
Minecraft is incredibly successful, but it may not be for everyone. The lack of direction or clarity or conveyance is often derided by players who aren’t fans of the directionless freedom provided by certain open-world games.
These are all gameplay elements that encourage replayability and boost playtime but also reflect a common design problem in open-world games. Without basic conveyance or motivation for why players are performing actions, the game risks losing player agency. There isn't enough reason to perform most of the content in most open worlds.
This isn't a problem for most gamers that enjoy open-world, as there is an audience of players who want nothing more than to lose themselves in the landscape for four or more hours. Still, there is a growing sentiment within audiences who have grown weary of these strategies and gameplay loops. This audience has grown vocal about this recent popularity in open-world projects.
The notion of "directionless fun" ( source ) can result in players becoming bored and disconnected. It's never enough to "assume" the player will find their fun. A little nudge in the right direction or a tangible goal for the player to work towards can help conveyance and result in a game that doesn't feel pointless to the player.
Repetitive and Shallow Gameplay: These formulaic patterns result in "broad but shallow" gameplay loops such as those found in Frycry 6 ( source ). The over-reliance on finding hidden collectibles and defeating duplicated enemy groups to conquer terrain has resulted in a vast majority of projects lacking a unique identity compared to their already well-established competitors.
Combat in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is accessible, but also very formulaic. By intentionally keeping combat simple, it results in standard gameplay loops that oftentimes fail to excite or interest the player after the first hours of gameplay.
These mechanics are often simplistic by design, lacking depth or nuance beyond the essential elements presented to the player as they are. Although simpler mechanics are often easier to access for the player, a lack of depth or any sense of unique reward for partaking in them can very quickly result in a very stale gameplay experience.
Scope Creep: Developers aren't necessarily to blame for this approach, however. Open-world games are gigantic design undertakings, with huge budgetary costs to produce the art assets to populate these massive worlds and considerable potential for scope creep.
Scope creep is a production challenge that occurs with many projects. When additional features are added to a project that increases the development time or requires additional team members beyond the initial estimations, it becomes scope creep. This is especially true when these new features delay pre-established deadlines for the project. This is naturally a bad thing, as projects often have limited funds available to reach completion. Any instance of scope creep can result in overbudgeting and the risk of the project becoming unreleasable due to the requirements of these new features.
Agents of Mayhem is the product of years of additional content and a push to add more gameplay to the existing Saints Row format. The end result for Agents of Mayhem’s scope creep was an ambitious open-world title that sadly underdelivered for many players who wanted a more focused experience.
To create the sense of a living, breathing world, one with unique experiences hidden behind every corner for the player, the risks for scope creep can grow considerably. This desire to fill the game with interactivity to prevent the world from feeling stale can often lead to half-developed mechanics. These devices are designed to facilitate the notion of existing in a dynamic world rather than an engaging, fun one.
Lack of novelty- Formulaic Design: The reliance on established trends and successful mechanics can aid in developing such titles, acting as a quick design bible for what does and does not work. But to become over-dependent on these strategies can water down the identity of the projects in question; a crafting mechanic in a game will not necessarily make the game massively successful by itself. The game needs an identity beyond well-worn and familiar gameplay loops.
There are many survival open-world games, but there is only one Minecraft.
(At least for now, until someone comes in and inevitably redefines the survival open-world game genre.)
If the notion of huge budgets spanning into the hundreds of millions, such as Cyberpunk2077's $316 million ( source ), the balancing act of spreading thin hundreds of hours of content across a map the size of small countries and somehow keeping some gameplay depth and direction for the player to avoid a lack of agency and sticking to a reasonable scope that does not burn out your entire staff and overrun the project's deadlines doesn't appeal to us for our projects, are there any other alternative options we should consider instead?
Perhaps we should look back into our collective video game past. Before the years of sprawling landscapes, look at the old-school approach of closed-world game design, a design approach for play spaces that never really left us.
Closed-world Games: The grand tour
Welcome to the focused design of closed-world design. These play spaces are the antithesis of an open world, concentrated and linear. Progression is forced, and players are given specific targets and a route to follow toward the end goal.
Closed-world games are often associated with stage-by-stage platformers or corridor first-person shooters. On the surface, closed-world design has fallen out of favor as developers aim for more extensive and more expansive realms of play.
The ever-growing demand for hundreds of hours of runtime with casual drop-in and out gameplay appears to overshadow closed-world design. And yet a renaissance has occurred for closed-world games in the form of cinematic gaming.
Titles such as God of War, The Last of Us, and Final Fantasy 7 REMAKE all take place in sprawling locations but are ultimately confined within a set narrative and controlled environments that keep the player focused and continuously progressing through content. It's not necessarily fair to assume closed-world games can't be vast and adventurous feeling. Still, the structure of these titles is far more directed and focused than their open-world compatriots.
So what exactly can closed-world play spaces provide for us as designers?
Focused, Directed Gameplay: Focus. Unadulterated, pure, and simple focused game design. Build rooms to contain as many gameplay elements as required. Carefully plan out the time spent within rooms and zones. Mechanics can be more developed and detailed because the game will be explicitly designed to capitalize on them when required. Players can be guided and shown through the entire fabric of these interwoven mechanics and challenges. An open-world rendition of Braid would be a fascinating experiment, but the inability to plan out the difficulty curves and mechanical complexity of these areas could prove to be a considerable challenge, especially for smaller teams.
An old classic, Gunstar Heroes is a shining example of a closed-world game focused entirely on gameplay mechanics which has resulted in its well-earned legendary status in the gaming landscape.
Tailored Design and Team Sizes: Closed worlds allow designers to carefully lay out their Rube Goldberg machine of challenges and mechanics. This focused approach also improves conveyance drastically; there are very few places for the player to get distracted, lose their way and forget the storyline's focus. This approach doesn't necessarily mean that all closed-world games must be narrative-driven. Neither does it mean that all open-world games are purely player-choice-orientated. Still, the benefits of a closed-world play space are staggering when tackling nuanced, detailed gameplay.
Hades is a perfect example of a refined, focused design with scope and content scaled beautifully and manageable for an independent studio such as Supergiant Games. The closed-world nature of the project lends itself to fast-paced, in-and-out action gameplay that resulted in it becoming the first video game to win a Hugo award in 2021.
The same focused approach can also lend itself to smaller, more focused teams, as development can be more easily focused and driven toward an end goal. Talent is not as stretched, covering miles or art assets and populating worlds with interaction every foot of the way. Closed-world development allows studios to keep to scope and budget far more manageable than an open-world title, where more is often thought to be better.
Pattern Breaks: There is something to be said about the oft-unspoken tool of game design that helps maintain the fresh feeling of a video game; pattern breaks.
The notion of a pattern break is simple, throw a new mechanic or a deliberate change in pacing so that when the player returns to the core gameplay loop, they feel reinvigorated and re-engaged. Braid has several pattern breaks, some small, some pivotal to the plot, and others sprinkled throughout the game's layout ( source ). Pattern breaks are often crucial in keeping games from becoming stale, stodgy experiences where the collection of guns becomes boring. It avoids the game feeling like a mere shadow after the thirtieth hour of play. Simply put, the open, meandering nature of certain open-world games can occur because having substantial pattern breaks requires the game designers to identify proper spaces to insert refreshing or new gameplay mechanics. These mechanics can be deliberately engineered within a closed-world game.
It’s a little bit of silly nonsense, but Earthworm Jim 2’s spoof quiz minigame is a perfect example of both the carefree approach to design that made these games famous, but also a perfect example of a pattern break refreshing the player before returning to the core gameplay loop of jumping and shooting through stages.
Rowing in God of War is a pattern break from mercilessly carving up Vikings. Walking through Midgar during scenes of civil unrest is a pattern break from intense boss fights in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Pattern breaks don't have to be completely new gameplay elements or fun in a traditional sense. They can be as simple as the aforementioned "walk and talks" above or as emotionally bound to the story as playing the guitar in The Last of Us 2. They are a specific kind of spice that reinvigorates the gameplay experience while contributing to the overall essence of the game.
This isn't to say open-world games are utterly incapable of pattern-breaking. With the nature of open-world games being open to the user's choice, the player may often find themselves accidentally within the same gameplay loops to which they've become accustomed. Dungeons and temples in Minecraft serve as pattern breaks. Still, most players will continue to dig straight down until they hit diamond. Hunting towers and feathers in Assassin's Creed are essentially designed as pattern breaks from the main storyline. Still, as they're spread so evenly across the entire game, these elements become core gameplay loops instead of revitalizing breaks from the norm.
One major issue found in Zelda: The Breath of the Wild is the use of weapons breaking after extended use. This was deliberately implemented as a form of pattern break. It forces the player to try new weapons constantly ( source ). It was often a huge cause of frustration for players because of the nature of the game being built upon player choice. Destroying weapons to force players into cycling through their arsenal can be frustrating. No alternatives are presented to the player beyond one specific weapon that does not break for plot reasons. Players of open-world games often want to stick to their gameplay patterns and not realize the same loops result in the game feeling stale after hours and hours of play. It's a tricky balancing act that closed-world games have achieved far more efficiently.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s pattern break often fills players with a sense of frustration and dread whenever a piece of equipment they’re currently using explodes into particles. There is no way to repair favorite equipment and has often been considered one of the hindering elements to an otherwise stellar open-world game
And it's precisely for this reason that closed-world games also have problems.
Limited Player Choice: Player choice can often feel limited, as progression indicates a particular end goal regarding the player's plotline and gameplay choices. There will always be more optimized equipment for such games, which can often lead a player to want more from their playtime. Sometimes a player genuinely wants to meander in a forest, killing goblins and gathering loot for 40 hours. Sometimes the open-ended, vast but shallow gameplay found in most open-world games is precisely what the player wants. The desire for self-driven agency and fun can be just as rewarding for the player as a directed, meticulously planned grand tour of gameplay mechanics, storylines, and environments.
Gears of War 4 is relatively on-rails and directs the player through the game deliberately and without much in the way of player choice. This can be a positive for certain players, or a negative for others, depending on player preference.
Value per Hour Fallacy: One of the other significant elements that open-world games have over closed-world games is the average running playtime. Whether we like this or not, certain gamers value their games more based on hours of engagement versus the quality of the engagement itself. Compared to closed worlds, the average playtime is staggeringly high. Halo Reach has an average run time of 8 hours, whereas Cyberpunk 2077 can easily run into the 23-107 hour range ( source ). These metrics are (often sadly) considered by audiences as a crucial deciding factor for whether they purchase the game. They are a big proponent of why open-world games have gained such popularity. At the same time, this doesn't mean the death knell for deciding a closed world vs. an open one. There is a growing sentiment that older players want more concentrated, detailed experiences that are shorter ( source ).
Metal Gear Survive offers hundreds of hours of gameplay. Whether this gameplay is engaging or just padding is up to the player's opinion, but the reception of this project has been less than stellar. Regardless, the player may still value this product higher than a 2-hour-long focused closed-world experience.
Obsessions with Detail: The risk of dedicating too much development time to specific mechanics becomes more of a risk with closed-world games, especially with cinematic narrative approaches. Both developers and players can be more critical of visual glitches, graphical failings, or strangeness within closed-world games compared to their open-world counterparts. When an NPC clips into the ground and ragdolls intensely in Grand Theft Auto 5, it’s comedy. When another NPC starts falling into the same graphical glitch in a more serious narrative such as The Last of Us, it actively hinders the player’s immersion into the world.
This is the main problem of closed-world games; the expectations of quality are much, much higher than that of open-world design. By nature of this, the audience expects closed worlds to be better designed, more polished experiences, and more akin to movies or serious narrative presentations. Open-world games are often treated as they are, video games that aren’t meant to be taken with as much critical consideration. This isn’t to say it’s impossible for open worlds to be taken as serious experiences, but the expectations are different between these play spaces.
The Last of Us 2 is a darkly grim exploration of revenge and loss. An exploration that can be hindered for some players in the event of an errant ragdoll flailing or animation glitch taking them out of their immersive experience.
The requirement to focus on more details and presentation results in larger development times focused entirely on making closed-world games more polished. As a result, the notion of scope creep can occur, as well as becoming fixated on specific elements of gameplay or presentational nature. These can lead to frustrating pipeline blocks in development, and naturally exploding budgets, development times, and frustration for the entire team.
Closing thoughts
This is where the bullet points and pros and cons end. This is where the real deal starts and why there's been such a massive rise in open-world games. Still, the results may surprise most of the conventional wisdom on why open-world games are popular. Designer instinct would indicate that, as the video game industry grows and age ranges increase, so will the audience numbers. Each age range will generally skew towards a specific type of gameplay. While this may be true based on many anecdotes of older players wanting shorter experiences due to having adult responsibilities, there is a wrench in this general conceit.
Research states that while these values are valid when playing open-world titles, younger players prioritize the campaign. In contrast, the older player ranges tend to focus more on the open-world aspects ( source ). At first, this may be a surprising tidbit of information, but the logic is sound when viewed through a different lens. Older gamers are already established and experienced in the genres they play. They are looking for drop-in and out gameplay to frame around their lifestyle. In contrast, younger gamers are less exposed to these cinematic, more guided experiences. They are more willing to digest these elements; it's an entirely new experience that is fresh and engaging. In contrast, older and more experienced players tend to have a familiarity with story archetypes and narrative tools, which lessens their impact over time. These players, still passionate about the craft of video games, often look more for emergent gameplay as these are unique to the player and thus connect on a more personal basis than following the campaign through and through.
Red Dead Redemption 2 manages to straddle the unforgiving challenge of telling a cinematic narrative within an open-world setting.The developmental costs for Red Dead Redemption 2 are staggering, but with over 45 million copies sold worldwide, the focus on narrative as well as player freedom seems to have played out well for Rockstar Games.
So what's the conclusion of this? Is there truly a better option out of the two for smaller development teams? The answer is no, absolutely not. What it depends on entirely relies on the team's core strengths and the desires of the target audience.
The use of play space structures is crucial. The main point of consideration is knowing as designers precisely what your audience wants and if you can provide this within the skillset of your teams. The nature of "broad but shallow" game design in open-world games has the potential to be a benefit and not entirely negative. This can be positive for players who want to jump in and out whenever it suits their busy schedules. Any small studio tackling open-world design should play to the strengths of minimalism and emphasize exploration. Build on a quick, efficient art style and spread enough interactivity throughout these massive worlds to engage with and play at the player's leisure.
Try to force too much design work into these areas and implementing incredibly deep mechanics throughout can run the risk of over-scoping. Keep focused on the main drawing points of open worlds, exploration, and discovery; the game will find its mark.
It is entirely possible to design open-world games with an indie-sized team and still convey a captivating storyline. Hollow Knight achieves this in spades, but only through deliberate and careful aesthetic scope choices and a focus on environmental storytelling as opposed to cinematic, grandiose narrative structures
If, however, the notion of cinematic experiences or hyper-focused intricate gameplay is the main goal for your indie outfit, play to that strength. Build upon those elements and keep the game space focused on these elements. Build too sprawling a world, and the risk of over-scoping becomes a genuine possibility; these are two sides of the same coin, after all.
This isn't to say that open-world games are best left entirely simple. Closed-world games are where hyper-detailed, multi-tiered, and developed game design choices should always be. Still, the main points of consideration always boil down to the capabilities of the team and the ability to stay within scope. We're developers, and we love to think that more game is always better; we want to present our players with the best experience we can achieve after all. But, there is a physical reality to any project, and to ensure our projects shine, we must be aware of our abilities. Otherwise, we risk over-scoping content creeping ourselves into a frustrating, over-tooled development process. A process that becomes more and more difficult to get right the more we add to our projects.
More and more people are playing games and making this their main hobby. More and more of us are becoming design literate and conscientious of choices made in the creation of games. There are always concerns about which type of play space to choose for a project. The notion that open-world games are the new big buzz is genuine, but the same can be said of closed-world games as well; there's money to be made and people to reach out to with these projects.
The design sensibilities of play space depend on where the team's main strengths lie and whether or not the potential challenges of each play space listed above are addressable for the studio as a whole.
To summarize, if you're an indie developer, full of vim and vigor, wanting to change the gaming world, go for any play space you desire. Just avoid trying to cram a massively detailed 10-hour cinematic experience into an open-world play space that requires more than 100+ hours of engaging but straightforward gameplay for players to hop in and out. Know your team and your audience, write all of these points down and compare the pitfalls and potentials and the decision will become clear.
Of course, there is another type of world that video games often employ for their structure. One that marries both approaches together, but we can talk about those Playgrounds sometime soon.