Assassin’s Creed’s shift to open-world RPGs would never have happened at many companies, Alex Hutchinson says
Literally everyone and their mother could have expected this change. It’s literally the one single way AAA studios have been padding gameplay and time for a decade and a half now.
Ubisoft codified a certain style of open world design that many other AAA releases were using as a template. He’s right, you can’t deny the impact the franchise had.
It WAS a good idea when first used. And, when imported across to Far Cry, they also tried to come up with new forms of climbing and even puzzles to get you up. Then, simply because the internet made memes about it through repeat emphasis (repeating an old mechanic alone isn’t necessarily a bad thing) they responded, took the system out, and even lampshaded it in Far Cry 5 - WHILE other devs as far as Nintendo/Zelda were copying it.
Theres a lot to condemn Ubisoft for, but the towers thing always irked me. Call open worlds as a whole boring, but it suggests it’s not the sort of game to keep your interest anyway.
You say that and I can kinda agree with it, and I can see them agreeing with it… but I recently got FC5 on a discount and despite it all - it still felt like the exact same game as every previous one. So artificially gamey and forced in some interactions, so predictable in its plot and map exploration structure…
I don’t think it ends up feeling that different at all. Maybe you zipline up the towers today and they just discover POIs instead of removing map fog, but it’s still the same crap, just served differently
Literally everyone and their mother could have expected this change. It’s literally the one single way AAA studios have been padding gameplay and time for a decade and a half now.
Ubisoft codified a certain style of open world design that many other AAA releases were using as a template. He’s right, you can’t deny the impact the franchise had.
Oh yeah, climbing a tower to unlock a part of the map is so innovative, especially after the 15th fucking time they used it.
I’ve always felt the tower thing was unfair.
It WAS a good idea when first used. And, when imported across to Far Cry, they also tried to come up with new forms of climbing and even puzzles to get you up. Then, simply because the internet made memes about it through repeat emphasis (repeating an old mechanic alone isn’t necessarily a bad thing) they responded, took the system out, and even lampshaded it in Far Cry 5 - WHILE other devs as far as Nintendo/Zelda were copying it.
Theres a lot to condemn Ubisoft for, but the towers thing always irked me. Call open worlds as a whole boring, but it suggests it’s not the sort of game to keep your interest anyway.
You say that and I can kinda agree with it, and I can see them agreeing with it… but I recently got FC5 on a discount and despite it all - it still felt like the exact same game as every previous one. So artificially gamey and forced in some interactions, so predictable in its plot and map exploration structure…
I don’t think it ends up feeling that different at all. Maybe you zipline up the towers today and they just discover POIs instead of removing map fog, but it’s still the same crap, just served differently
Ii didn’t use the word innovative, mind you
Even From and Zelda went open world.
Zelda is classically open world though - since the og nintendo