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Coming back to a western open world game H:FW after Elden Ring is a massive whiplash

First hour of the game I googled “Aloy Talks too much”

I just finished the Elden Ring DLC and the Tomb Raider remastered trilogy. These games are 30 years apart but share the same mostly quiet protagonists.

Lara is alone, doesn’t try to solve the puzzle for the player in the first 5 seconds, let’s the player explore and figure things out and soak in the atmosphere. Aloy is as chatty as Nathan Drake but she’s just muttering to herself in the wild, she even narrates her actions like an audiobook

The constant hud and text over every in world item also ruins the immersion. Yes I get that you don’t see items in Fromsoft games, you get that streak of light. But Horizon firstly hides the item in their busy environment design then forces you to press a button to prompt that streak of light, for immersion!

De_Narm , (edited )

I had a similar experience of first finishing the DLC and then going into God of War (2018). While not open world, it’s the same type of AAA soup you get from most big studios. There are so many baffling design decisions, I cannot fathom why people love the game so much - the constant barrage of stories and small talk is the most engaging thing in there.

The combat is utterly boring. Increasing the difficulty only results in spongy enemies. Their move sets are boring at best and annoying at worst. They are all but helpless if you just keep them at a distance and throw your axe.

Even worse, your godly powers are cutscene only. If you don’t want to make your game challanging, at least make a fun power fantasy and Kratos is perfect for that. He kills giant enemies, tears the very ground asunder and moves the heaviest objects imaginable. He even has super healing. None of which are tied to actual combat mechanics.

Upgrades are meaningless. Early on, you unlock a smith. I got my axe from 5 to 40 damage. Guess what? The very next enemy took the same amount of hits as the same type of enemy did before.

Traversing is mechanically boring. Climbing just means you gotta follow the yellow markings - press in the right direction or do the indicated button press. You literally cannot fall. Everything else is just walking from combat area to combat area.

The game throws an endless barrage of puzzles at you, none of which are engaging. They are so watered down, there’s barely much more thinking involved than in climbing.

Even worse, major upgrades are placed in “puzzle” chests. The puzzle? Well, just walk around and rotate your camera for several minutes until you’ve found all three runes.

The game basically just feels like a very long cutscene with a lot of padding so you can press some buttons. You can play it just fine, but they removed everything that could make any one system interesting in favor of having nothing in there a player could be stuck at. I like the characters, but I’m better served just watching a cutscene compilation for the second one.

therealjcdenton ,

It’s when games aren’t talented enough to give you the info you need from environmental story telling, so they just tell you what’s happening

brsrklf ,

I’ve not played Forbidden West, but I’ve played all of Zero Dawn. I’ll just say, as much as I like the game (I do, quite a bit), it’s bad at being open-world.

Most narrow paths are only related to quests, and if you try exploring them before you need to go there the game punishes you by making it a chore to go and to leave for no gain. Also, the terrible message “you’re out of bound, turn back now or we reset to your last save” is one of the worst failure at world design ever. It pops up constantly if you’re just trying to explore.

And yes, I tried playing HUD-free for a bit (I had a great experience doing that on Breath of the Wild). As you said it’s almost impossible, the environment, while looking good, is way too messy to spot the small details you’re supposed to… Unless you turn on the magic compass and GPS.

In other games, paths and important items are highlighted with lighting and clear and functional visual cues. Beside the infamous yellow paint, HZD does almost none of that efficiently.

simple ,

I had exactly the same experience. I played Ghosts of Tsushima after Elden Ring and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, I was surprised how shallow the mainstream open world games are. I don’t hate them, but the gameplay really boils down to:

  • Walk slowly while characters talk to eachother for 5 minutes
  • Open the map, click on where you need to go, then walk in a straight line to your objective
  • Trail an enemy without being seen
  • Liberate an enemy camp (kill the same 3 enemies and collect the 5000 twinkly useless items in the area)

The Elden Ring withdrawal is really hitting me. Most AAA games are trying so hard to be cinematic and movie-like that it’s boring me to tears.

odium , (edited )

If you want good exploration, I would recommend:

  • witcher 3: good exploration and incredible quests
  • hollow Knight: 2d metroidvania so very different genre, but great exploration with no hints. Souls like fights, so similar there to some games you’ve played and liked. Metroidvanias in general are good at exploration.
  • genshin impact: most varied biomes I’ve ever seen. Will hold your hand first time you see a mechanic, but won’t tell you anything subsequent times. Cons: starting areas have the blandest exploration and quests. You need good willpower to not swipe. Combat is often very easy.
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