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Opinion – Just Tell Me What To Do
After playing through Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in its entirety and more or less jumping right into Fallout 4, I have found that – for the moment – I am burned out on open-world games.
It really set in as I made my way into Fallout 4. I did the first few opening missions, found a weapon or two I liked, and decided to place an arbitrary marker on the map and just start walking toward it. I reached my destination, exploring some random buildings along the way, and as I stood in the open area I thought to myself, “What am I even doing here?” I realized I craved some direction, a semblance of structure. I wanted to be told what to do, and maybe watch a cutscene.
I decided to put down Fallout 4 and pick up Rise of the Tomb Raider, and it’s exactly what I wanted and needed after so much aimless exploring. Rise of the Tomb Raider is not an open world game. It has large, connected areas worth exploring. They’re dense and their rewards are delivered much faster than Fallout's action-RPG character build-up. There is no trickle of experience and leveling, and the prizes for reaching certain milestones have a larger effect on the game. Exploring a tomb will net you a specific new skill, and getting a new weapon instantly changes how you approach a battle. It’s not an occasion to pause, enter a menu, and compare statistics.
I also have a much better sense that I am building toward something. Lara’s goal is my goal, and we make specific progress toward that goal every few minutes. It’s a familiar experience in the world of video games, but after games like Mad Max, The Witcher III: Wild hunt, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Fallout 4, I am happy to just see a path in front of me and a directive to go there, do this, and then we can move onto the next part.
I love open world games and can’t wait to blow stuff up in Just Cause 3 in December, but at this moment, after back to back to back open world games, I embrace the structure and direction offered by Lara’s latest journey. I can see the finish line and am always in a position of knowing exactly what needs to be done. In Fallout 4 as well as Phantom Pain, the finish line is as far away as I wanted it to be. I could certainly move the finish line closer and focus on the core story missions, but that defeats the purpose of entering an open world. I can’t help but feel like bee-lining to the credits ignores a large portion of what makes open world games engrossing and interesting.
It’s undoubtedly a matter of ever-shifting taste and mood. Right now, I want structure and instructions: Here’s your challenge and now you need to overcome it. I have had plenty of structure-less experiences this year, and have enjoyed them immensely, but with so many in a row, Rise of the Tomb Raider is exactly what I need right now.
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