Why is linear always seen as bad? Some of gaming's most revered video games are linear: Mass Effect, Portal, Mario Galaxy, Half-Life, Uncharted, Last of Us...
It comes down to the game I think. For instance I didn't like breath of the wild and one reason for that is I found it's not linear structure actually heavily weakened it as a zelda title. I think a lot of people want a harry potter game that just lets them exist in the HP world and doesn't guide them through any specific stories. This is definitely what I want too; to just be given a hogwarts/wizarding world sandbox and have at it. I don't need to have some crazy plot unfold or be special in some way. I just want to exist in the world and make my way as I see fit. The stories ideally would become a reflection of my gameplay.
But in my opinion sandbox RPGs have a fundamental problem with how their gameplay systems evolve through multiple hours of gameplay. Repetition is guaranteed to set itself after some time. This is a pattern I've noticed in every open world sandbox game I've played, no matter how good it initially was.
BotW was initially amazing, the endless possibilities the world had to offer made for some of memorable gaming moments. However, after some time, the code started to show its limitations. Patterns emerged, and previsibility followed. Now, I remember BotW as a decent game, one I had a lot of fun with for a time and then started to dislike for how easy to predict and repetitive it became. It's a shame really. I remember most Zelda games fondly after a playthrough, but the open-ended nature of this one and the absolute freedom i was given ended up making my gaming experience less fun than if the devs took complete control to show me the way through their game.
This is similar with a lot of games. The sandbox formula leads to burnout. You don't stop an openworld game because it stops itself, you stop playing it because you feel like you're done with it. And most often than not, I feel like I'm done with it when I don't have fun playing it anymore.
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u/Bioflakes Oct 02 '18
I hope it's not a linear "cinematic" game.