I love exploration-based games, I really do. I would just like to get that out there before the following statement: Sandboxes have become a plague on the industry.
They're everywhere, even when they are completely unnecessary. Steep is the best recent example that comes to mind. It's not my thing, but it looked fine as a standard collection of sporting minigames ala SSX Tricky. The sandbox component feels about as out of place as a treadmill in an iHop.
Sandboxes should only exist if they benefit the game in some way and actually make sense. I didn't buy The Witcher 3 just because it was an open-word game, I bought it because it was a good game. Adding a sandbox will not make your game sell. It's the concept of your game is what sells it. You didn't buy Assassin's Creed 2 for the open world, you bought it to bring out your hatred of people with un-stabbed necks.
There are games where the sandbox benefits the gameplay, like Just Cause, or Skyrim. But an uncessary or lazy open world is just the worst. This is something that needs to end. Publishers, Ubisoft especially, need to learn that a sandbox is not a selling point. I will not buy Days Gone because it's an open-world zombie game. That's like trying to sell me a cucumber sandwich made from Coles-brand white bread. I would buy if it had, say, unique gameplay, or a good story. But at the current rate, there is no sign of that. It comes across as "buy this game because it has a sandbox and zombies".
We don't need a generic sandpox, we need more games that aren't afraid of perhaps having a world that has structure and is not the size of Galatus' balls. Remember Half-Life 2? Or Mega Man X? Or any game that didn't require a sandbox to "make it fun"? We need more games like that, and less forced sandboxes.
Don't make them too linear though. I still have a bin full of the "linear empty spectacle" line of games.
They're everywhere, even when they are completely unnecessary. Steep is the best recent example that comes to mind. It's not my thing, but it looked fine as a standard collection of sporting minigames ala SSX Tricky. The sandbox component feels about as out of place as a treadmill in an iHop.
Sandboxes should only exist if they benefit the game in some way and actually make sense. I didn't buy The Witcher 3 just because it was an open-word game, I bought it because it was a good game. Adding a sandbox will not make your game sell. It's the concept of your game is what sells it. You didn't buy Assassin's Creed 2 for the open world, you bought it to bring out your hatred of people with un-stabbed necks.
There are games where the sandbox benefits the gameplay, like Just Cause, or Skyrim. But an uncessary or lazy open world is just the worst. This is something that needs to end. Publishers, Ubisoft especially, need to learn that a sandbox is not a selling point. I will not buy Days Gone because it's an open-world zombie game. That's like trying to sell me a cucumber sandwich made from Coles-brand white bread. I would buy if it had, say, unique gameplay, or a good story. But at the current rate, there is no sign of that. It comes across as "buy this game because it has a sandbox and zombies".
We don't need a generic sandpox, we need more games that aren't afraid of perhaps having a world that has structure and is not the size of Galatus' balls. Remember Half-Life 2? Or Mega Man X? Or any game that didn't require a sandbox to "make it fun"? We need more games like that, and less forced sandboxes.
Don't make them too linear though. I still have a bin full of the "linear empty spectacle" line of games.
