OPEN WORLDS? SHUT IT DOWN! I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF TRIPLE-A CHECKLISTS.

Triple-A open world games need to step out of their (and our) comfort zones more often

Usually, I like to get my Christmas shopping done long before Halloween is a too-distant memory, but in early November I found myself asking my best friend which game I should get her. The last half a decade of gift giving has seen me hand over a robust list of titles, but this year the candidates were met with indifference from both of us.

I had thought The Outer Worlds would be a shoe-in for Christmas 2019, having grown up watching my BFF tear through Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, and the Ezio trilogy. But that’s just the problem: we’ve both been there and done that.

TAKE ME HOME

It’s no secret that Triple-A open worlds often leave me despairing. In The Outer Worlds I enjoyed recruiting a crew of miscreants, helping them with their personal problems, and eavesdropping as they gush about their favourite serials. What I enjoy a lot less in it and many of the games that inform its design is the compulsion to hoover up a mountain of consumables I’ll never use.

The titular planets exist as little more than colourful backdrops for looting and shooting. It’s not just the fact my crew says nothing as I scavenge the belongings of their fallen comrades whereas I’d have to talk my way out of attempting to steal faction-owned property; in this and too many other games, the expansive locations lack a genuine sense of place even as their stories revolve around the communities depending on them.

It’s comforting to work through a list of objectives, but often I find myself engaging less with what I’m actually doing or what that means and more with just meeting whatever target I have. It’s difficult to pinpoint the origin of this disconnect but my estimate would be around the time I came into possession of a never-ending mental checklist of crap I need to get done before the heat death of the universe (or Brexit. Whichever comes first). I’m not knocking the sense of achievement games can impart but I just wish I got more than that from modern open world games – or at least that it didn’t all feel quite so hollow.