Open World
Ongoing coverage on Open World.
Latest coverage
Assassin's Creed Odyssey Review
Assassin's Creed Odyssey offers a vast open world set in ancient Greece, expanding on the RPG formula of its predecessor, Assassin's Creed Origins. While the game provides a massive amount of content and a compelling protagonist in Kassandra, its overwhelming number of objectives and repetitive side quests can lead to a bloated and uneven experience. Despite its flaws, the game features spectacular moments and a beautiful rendition of its historical setting.
Forza Horizon 4 Review | Giant Bomb
Forza Horizon 4 builds upon its predecessors with a more lively open world enhanced by active human players and dynamic seasonal weather changes. The game balances its core racing mechanics with sillier, more customizable elements and endearing emotes, though some repetitive events and less engaging showcase races detract slightly. Performance is strong across PC and Xbox One X, with options for frame rate or resolution.
Forza Horizon 4 Review
Forza Horizon 4 builds upon previous entries with a more lively open world enhanced by active human players and dynamic seasonal weather effects. The game balances its core racing gameplay with sillier, more customizable elements and engaging activities, though some events can become repetitive. It offers strong visual performance across PC and Xbox One X, with frame rate options catering to different player preferences.
Marvel's Spider-Man Review | Giant Bomb
Marvel's Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 is a highly polished superhero game that excels in its traversal and combat mechanics. While some stealth sequences are less successful, the game generally handles the Spider-Man canon with care and raises the bar for licensed open-world titles.
Marvel's Spider-Man Review
Marvel's Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 offers a polished open-world experience with fun traversal and engaging combat, reminiscent of the Arkham-style brawlers. While some stealth sequences are less successful, the game successfully pushes the boundaries for licensed superhero titles.
Far Cry 5 Review | Giant Bomb
Far Cry 5 offers a promising setting with a cult preparing for the End Times, but the narrative ultimately fails to deliver a compelling story or memorable villains. While the gameplay loop is familiar to the series, with improvements in organic mission discovery, the game suffers from weak characterization, repetitive dialogue, and technical glitches. The progression system and weapon variety are also noted as steps backward from previous entries.
Far Cry 5 Review
Far Cry 5 offers a promising setting and premise but ultimately fails to deliver a compelling narrative or memorable villains. While the gameplay mechanics are generally functional and some improvements have been made to mission discovery, the story is weak, characters are flat, and the overall experience is undermined by pacing issues and a lack of conviction. The game also features a map editor and a separate 'Far Cry Arcade' mode for user-created content.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War Review | Giant Bomb
Middle-earth: Shadow of War expands upon its predecessor's Nemesis system, offering a dynamic AI experience with personalized orc enemies and engaging fortress sieges. However, the game suffers from an overwhelming number of quests and mechanics, a repetitive main story, and an overly long endgame that diminishes the impact of its core strengths.
Agents of Mayhem Review | Giant Bomb
Agents of Mayhem, developed by Volition, is a disappointing open-world action game that fails to live up to the legacy of the Saints Row franchise. Despite a diverse cast of unlockable characters and a robust upgrade system, the game suffers from unrewarding progression, a lifeless city, technical jank, and a relentless stream of boring mission objectives. The humor is lazy and repetitive, and the overall experience is described as boring and disappointing.
Mass Effect: Andromeda Review | Giant Bomb
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a visually impressive action RPG with improved gunplay, but it suffers from a weak story, unengaging characters, and a significant number of technical issues. The game's open-world design features bland quest design and tedious travel, while numerous bugs and glitches undermine the overall experience. Despite its flaws, BioWare has pledged to address the game's technical state in future updates.
Mass Effect: Andromeda Review
Mass Effect: Andromeda offers improvements in graphics and gunplay, utilizing the Frostbite engine for visually impressive alien locales and more nimble shooting mechanics. However, it falls short in character development, storytelling, and suffers from significant technical issues, including numerous bugs and poor animations, making it a disappointing entry in the series.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands Review
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands is best experienced with friends, as its single-player and public matchmaking modes are less engaging. The game features a standard open-world structure with repetitive missions and a weak story, but offers decent shooting mechanics and effective co-op gameplay. While visually passable on PlayStation 4 Pro, the audio and character models are weak points, ultimately making the game most enjoyable in a cooperative setting.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review | Giant Bomb
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reinvents the series with a vast open world, freedom of exploration, and a departure from traditional Zelda mechanics. While some elements like weapon durability and occasional framerate dips are noted, the game offers a profound sense of discovery and adventure, making it a standout title for the Nintendo Switch.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reinvents the series with a vast open world that emphasizes player freedom and exploration. While deviating from many traditional Zelda mechanics, it successfully recaptures the series' iconic sense of discovery. The game offers a massive map with numerous shrines, optional dungeons, and emergent gameplay opportunities, providing a profound sense of wonder for players.
Dragon Age 3 Features More Open World
BioWare is incorporating open-world elements into Dragon Age 3, drawing inspiration from titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The developers aim to combine innovations from Dragon Age 2 with player expectations for a more expansive experience, while also reintroducing character customization options absent in the previous installment.
By: Jameel Aboulhosn
The author expresses a desire for more intricate combat mechanics in future Mega Man X titles, suggesting a blend of weapon and melee attacks. They also hope for a more open-world design, drawing a loose comparison to Assassin's Creed, and a reduction in missile-based enemy attacks.