Ubisoft is effectively dead
(twitter.com)
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Ubishovel has deserved this for far longer than most people here have been mad at them for. Their idiotic open world design has had a negative effect on games for more than a decade.
Hopefully they just collapse entirely.
I still think that open world is one of the worst fads in gaming over the past 15 years. Once Skyrim blew up, everyone needed to make open world games. For every gem, there are heaps of games that are worse off. I'll take the old hub system with content dense levels in most cases over a world that has some hot spots mixed with vast areas of nothingness that's pretty to look at.
Here's the thing though. Ubisoft was making shit tier open world mechanics well before Skyrim ever came out.
Why the hell you want to return to the days of the play once corridor shooters? 5 hours of gameplay for $70-$100 is insane.
Sure, Ubishit open world games are shit, but that is because it's Ubishit, not because they are open world.
There's middle ground. 100-hour JRPGs that aren't open-world.
Those are the worst. They're exactly like ubislop just differently made. If 10hr tutorials aren't enough to clue you in on this is wish you a very happy time wasted.
Agreed. The best open world games are great, examples are like Just Cause 2, WB open world games (Mad Max, Arkham Series), Saints Row series, Mafia 2, heck I even like Mafia 3 despite the wokeness and I don't understand the complaints about how you progress the world in that game; to me it's satisfying. Almost every open world game I consider one of my favorites, like none are Ubisoft. I think the first Watch Dogs is excellent however, so they sometimes have exceptions. But I could go on with stuff like Fallout 3, Infamous, etc.
These are all amazing open worlds. Why? The open world plays to the gameplay strengths.
Ubisoft is just copy and paste. It feels like filler. When I'm 100% Mad Max, none of the activities feel like filler. It feels like I'm becoming the legend that is Mad Max. With Ubisoft, everything feels like filler. I don't know why it's such the case with them as opposed to others. Other companies also have many collectibles. Other companies also have repeating side activities. But there's something about Ubisoft where it all runs together and you feel like you're in gaming Limbo where other games pull it off somehow.
You only played through the Mass Effect games once? I know I played them multiple times. The Witcher 2 was a game I played through probably 10 times, but only played through TW3 once. I played Dragon Age Origins multiple times... and I'm sure I've played through many other 15+ year old RPGs multiple times.
Even if you want to be more generous and mention more semi/smaller open world games. I've played through the Yakuza games multiple times, which features smaller hub based cities. Kingdom Come Deliverance (1) is an example of a smaller open world that I enjoyed replaying, but that was at about the limit of what I would want to deal with in an open world. IMO, big for the sake of big is just stupid and a waste of time/resources. I'm not against smaller open world games that can keep the world dense and interesting.
For RPGs, if you make the player's choices matter, and have decisions change the world then you can play easily make hub based games replayable. If you must have an open world style game, then making the world smaller and more intimate is a better design choice. Filling open world games with countless travel hours does nothing to improve the experience to me. I'd rather spend hours exploring every inch of a city than going there just to receive some quests, then being forced to go somewhere else, come back, get a new quest, on repeat. For example, Citadel in Mass Effect is probably one of the most memorable RPG locations I can remember. I can also probably play through Flotsam in The Witcher 2 or even Vizima in The Witcher 1 blindfolded (exaggerating obviously). There's nothing like that in these open world games.
I find that most of these larger open world games lack any memorable locations because every new location is just another quest giving hub with little to do because the game requires you to experience the rest of the world that the devs spent countless hours building. It also ruins the focus of the game. I'm not saying some devs don't ever pull it off, but it's rare IMO. Everyone wants to try to do it, but most can't.
You aren't asking for once a generation series like Mass Effect. You are asking for more games like Max Payne (10.6 hours on a blind playthough) Max Payne 2 (7 hours), The entire FEAR series which are all less than 5 hours. Or the Original Ghost Recon series which are also all less than 5 hours.
Also you contradict yourself
The Citiadel is exactly that kind of location.
Open world, if done correctly, is a blast. Especially if at least 2 of your crew have had a few beers on Friday night.
"Fuck the mission, let's just blow shit up."
Deus Ex IS a corridor shooter. It is just another of those play once and never again games. Sure they take a bit longer, but they have no replay value. The levels don't change so there is nothing new to find. It's the same story every time. Meanwhile games like Kenshi are the peak of gaming.
Unfortunately, companies don't collapse anymore. They just get bought out and the industry subsequently gets more centralized (and worse).
But do consumers have to play along? No. The winning move in a rigged game is not to play. If that means buying 1 or 2 title a year and spending rest of your time at the gym or private servers then so be it.
It doesn't matter if you buy or not.
It always matter on a individual level. You can not be forced to participate at gunpoint.
Apologies, hijacking this post for a poignant thought.
Like, 98% of Ubisoft's catalogue are Games As A Service games.
If stop killing games takes years to get traction in the bureaucratic red tape, ubisoft will be able to slip out the door into chapter 11 and shut down all their games.
The exact company that started Stop Killing Games might be able to get out before anything can be done to stop them.