Afghanistan may have cliffs and canyons, but it's essentially just one great big open space. Open-world game design usually adopts a flat model, however. This results in an open world with lots of choices in how you approach the game and the story, but one that isn't flat or only truly traversable via fast travel. You have to overcome unique obstacles and enemies along the way, and you unlock shortcuts and new paths as you go. As you depart Yharnam and pass through the Old Cathedral, or wander off into Hemwick Charnel Lane or the Forbidden Woods, you traverse clearly distinct areas. Bloodborne is an open-world game, but you clearly progress from one stage to the next. Some games manage to make a big open-world while still creating a sense of place and progression. But this isn't simply a fault of open-world game design in and of itself. There isn't the sense of environmental progression here that you find in more linear games. The first time you go into a village on a mission in The Phantom Pain, it's pretty cool. What happens in both games is a sense of tedium and repetitiveness that's hard to shake. But again, the same design concept applies: Asking people to actually traverse these distances without the chopper's aid would be crazy. Fast travel is more labor intensive than sign-posts, requiring you to call in a helicopter and make landing zones safe. Side missions and main story missions unlock as you go rather than as you encounter NPCs and quest-givers, but the same basic form occurs. Sprinkled across this huge map are enemy outposts, villages, and fortifications. Like The Witcher 3, it's quite beautiful, though even more photo-realistic. Afghanistan is a great, big sprawling environment to explore. ![]() The Phantom Pain is quite similarly designed after you escape the prologue.
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