Are Open Worlds Really "Open-World"?

But is the term "open-world" just an illusion, a half-truth, or, at worse, a lie? Sure, we can play petty semantics. Even the widest environments from Grand Theft Auto V or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have their limitations, and players will eventually hit a wall, a mountain, or some impassible border that removes the sense of freedom that an open-world design is meant to invoke.

~ Nick Tan, GameRevolution

[JonnyBigBoss]

Most of them aren't IMO.

[Ezz2013]

and all of them have linear story

for me it doesn't matter the game is open world or not
what i care aboyut in games are Story and gameplay as equal

pretty much most of my favorite games are not open world games
only few like RDR,Sleeping dogs,fallout 3,fallout:NV

[BX81]

True, infamous second son wasn't as open as I thought it was gonna be. I like a game where you can go into different places like gta. Also like read dead redemption.

[ScottyHoss]

What if there was an open world game which was a gigantic sphere? That would be a truly open world game, and there would be no walls.

[ReBurn]

Most games aren't fully open, but do give more freedom than others.

[knifefight]

I always want Yakuza worlds to be bigger and bigger.
They're usually big, but not big enough :(

[WeAreLegion]

Just Cause 2 is! :D

[TheEternalGamer]

well its kind of impossible to make unlimited amounts of space? But these Open World games do give more freedom then some of these linear games out there. so yeah you can't do the impossible but you can make them bigger especially with newer hardware

[Blacklash93]

If the world is open and lets you engage in a variety of activities from (or near) the beginning, it's open-world. If the world is mostly a guided experience through a linear series of corridors and challenges, it's not.

It's about the openness of the world, not the narrative. Thus the name.

[aLiEnViSiToR]

Well same as this Universe isn't really UNIverse :P

[clouds5]

No man sky is probably gonna be the first real open world game :)

[WeAreLegion]

What about Minecraft's infinite worlds?

[clouds5]

True! Never played mine craft so that didn't come to mind ;)

[HanzoHattori]

Untethered exploration is a more accurate description.

[saviin]

I agree its just a term, nobody claimed it actually had to be the size of a whole word. Otherwise mario galaxy and armillo could be considered open world and they're not

[stavrami-mk2]

It's as open as your gonna get depending on power of console. Just don't know what ppl expect sometimes?? Theoretically real life is an open world game soooooooo grab a gun and go crazy 😜

[ShaunCameron]

No. As with real life, there's only so much a person/player can do in it before it gets redundant, pointless and eventually limiting. Some things are just simply not worth doing since they serve no real purpose other than to compensate for its lack of content. And that's why I rarely play open-world games beyond the main story's final credits.