2w ago

Fallout and RPG veteran Josh Sawyer says most players don't want games "6 times bigger than Skyrim or 8 times bigger than The Witcher 3"

www.gamesradar.com Fallout and RPG veteran Josh Sawyer says most players don't want games "6 times bigger than Skyrim or 8 times bigger than The Witcher 3"

Sawyer says most players, including himself, aren't "concerned with finishing games" either

Fallout and RPG veteran Josh Sawyer says most players don't want games "6 times bigger than Skyrim or 8 times bigger than The Witcher 3"

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8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled wilth Witcher 3 quality content would be a godsend. 8 times bigger than Witcher 3 filled with procedural generation and AI slop... not so much.
- I will argue that Witcher 3 did not have enough content for it's own world. Don't get me wrong, the content was great, but there's large swathes of emptiness inbetween. The devs tried to fill it with map markers that got repetitive very quickly (hello, random floating barrels).
  IMO, downscaling the world to 75% size and reducing the amount of non-quest content would have made the game better.
  
  The whole reason I burned out on W3 was trying to be completionist and doing all the map markers before moving to the next area.
  
  Honestly I think these games need more points of interest that are not marked on the map whatsoever, and don't matter towards 100% completion.
  I eventually went through the Witcher 3 post game and got every single marker but it was basically background work while I listened to audiobooks, I didn't come across anything interesting for hours. However I do acknowledge that those markers aren't necessary meant to be sought out, but stumbled upon.
  
  This is honestly what also happened to me. I did not finish the DLC.
- If we're copying Witcher 3 levels of content anywhere, can we leave behind like 95% of the ocean based points of interest? That was the absolute lowest point of the game for me by a mile.
  
  I would be happy if they never touched wayer again. Swimming and boating were awful in The Witcher series.
- Slightly OT, but I want to give a shout out to Witcher 3 as my favorite fantasy RPG.
  Early on in the game I kind of struggled with it. I found the UI and especially combat, to be 'clunky'.
  After I mastered the combat UI enough to survive, I started to wander and explore. In this wandering I found some old cave filled with some decent (but not overpowered) gear. As far as I know, there was no quest that would have sent me to this cave. Also, if I hadn't been pointed in the exact direction I was going, I never would have seen the cave entrance. These little details made the world feel 'real' and lived in.
  Later in the game, when I was much more experienced, I was following a faint path, in the snow, over a mountain and I see another cave entrance. I go inside the cave and I hear voices. I sneak closer and I hear a fart, Then I hear a voice complaining about the smell of a rotten onion. (it was 2 trolls cooking something). This was totally unexpected and I literally LOL'd. Once again, this little bit made the world feel more real.
  In summation, I don't need games to be 'bigger'. They just need to be 'good'.
- I do think a huge world with an engaging and dense design can still be made worse with size. In some games like Skyrim, Breath of the Wild or GTA 5, you could probably drop me anywhere and I'd know where I was, half due to good and differing region design and half because the map isn't that big.
  Back in 2015 I'd dream of a GTA 5 expansion that adds San Francisco and Las Vegas to the map, turning the north and east of the map in to a 500 yard straight of water, but in reality, two more large cities and their surroundings suburbs and wilderness would have never kept it's memorability like the first region.

158 comments