Are All RPG Video Games Open World?
Role-playing games (RPGs) are video games in which the player is able control one or more game characters, develop these game characters, and immerse themselves in a game world through world-building and lore. There is a variety of different RPG subgenres, and there are many different RPG video games available, providing different and unique experiences to players.
The open world aspect of video games is often one aspect that causes debate among players, and there is not often a single definition of what open world game means to all players. Some players consider large environments to be open world, other players consider boundless environments to be open world, some players consider overworld to be open world.
Are All RPG Video Games Open World?
Not all RPG video games are open world, and most of them are not open world. Some video games, like Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout, Gothic, Risen, The Elder Scrolls, feature open game worlds because the player character is able to seamlessly travel in the different locations of the game world. Other games, like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, are not open world, but feature large environments in which the player character can adventure, and the transition ocurrs through loading screens and different forms of transportation. There are also some RPG video games which feature overworld, such as classic Final Fantasy video games and Dragon Quest video games, in which the party of game characters travels the overworld and is able to enter specific game world locations, and then the game transitions to a more direct control of the party in that location. These overworld RPGs are not open world in the same sense as classic open world video games such as Grand Theft Auto, but some players consider them to be open world. In this article, I do not consider these games to be open world in the same sense of open world such as Grand Theft Auto video games.
Open World RPG Video Games
Some franchises that traditionally featured open world RPG video games, or that eventually transitioned into seamless open world gameplay, include Cyberpunk 2077, Elex, Fallout, Gothic, Risen, The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher.
The first two Fallout video games featured an overworld gameplay, similar to the classic Final Fantasy video games. In this sense, the player character, or party of game characters, would travel the overworld until they reached specific locations. When a specific location was reached in the game, then the gameplay would transition into a more direct control of the party of game characters. After this transition, gameplay would be more similar to other RPG video games such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, and the player would be able to control the game characters to either interact with NPCs or fight enemeies. I do not consider these first Fallout video games to be open world, but rather, overworld RPGs, such as the classic Final Fantasy video games. Later Fallout video games, beginning with Fallout 3, and later Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, would feature a seamless open game world in which the player character is able to adventure and visit different locations without any transition besides the gameplay travelling itself, a gameplay similar to classic open world video games such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video games.
Gothic video games featured open world gameplay since the first video game, Gothic. In Gothic video games, the player character is able to seamlessly travel through the open world, interacting with NPCs, trading with merchants, fighting monsters and adventuring in the environment. The first Gothic video games already included a day and night cycle, which adds to the immersion of players. For these reasons, Gothic video games are often considered one of the major influences in open world RPG video games.
The Elder Scrolls video games have always feature open world gameplay, beginning with the first video game of the series, The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The Elder Scrolls video games feature vast game worlds in which the player character is able to adventure, interact with NPCs, and fight enemies, and the player character is able to seamlessly travel through these open game worlds. For this reason, The Elder Scrolls video games are often considered one of the standards of open world RPG video games.
The Witcher is an interesting case in which the first video games were not open world in the traditional sense of classic open world video games such as GTA, but rather, the first video games featured large environments, similar to RPG video games such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt featured a seamless open world in which players could adventure as Geralt of Rivia, and the mainstream success of this specific video game popularized The Witcher as an open world RPG video game franchise. However, as noted, the first The Witcher video games are not open world in the same sense as GTA, but RPGs with large environments, while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an open world RPG video game in the same sense as GTA.
RPG Video Games with Large Environments
Some RPG video game franchises that feature large environments, but that are not open world in the same sense as GTA, are Deus Ex, Dragon Age, Mass Effect. These video games feature environments in which the player character can adventure for a long time, interact with NPCs, trade items and fight enemies. However, in these games, the transition to different game locations is not seamless, but usually involves loading screens and often various ways of transportations. For this reason, I do not consider these franchises and video games to be open world in the same sense as GTA, as the 3D Grand Theft Auto video games, starting with Grand Theft Auto III, do not feature loading screens when traversing different environments.
Deus Ex video games in general feature hub areas. While there are players that consider hub areas to be open world, in general, hub areas in video games are areas that add to the player immersion, offer various services such as finding quests, trading items and learning more about the game and the game world, but these areas are generally of a limited space, not offering the same vastness of adventure that open world video games provide such as Grand Theft Auto video games. These hub areas connect other game environments, generally through different means of transportation and loading screens, and this is a reason why Deus Ex video games are not open world.
Dragon Age video games, like the Deus Ex video games, feature hub areas. Like in Deus Ex video games, these areas connect the player characters to other environments of the game, and allow the player to choose where to travel to. However, these transitions often feature loading screens and different means of transportation, which are not seamless in the gameplay, but instead present a break through the loading screen, a reason why I do not consider Dragon Age video games to be open world. However, Dragon Age video games feature large and immersive game environments, in which players can adventure for a long time. For this reason, Dragon Age video games may not be open world, but they are immersive RPG video games.
Mass Effect video games, like the Dragon Age video games, feature hub areas. Most often than not, the main hub area of the game is the starship through which the main game characters travel. Through the starship, the player is able to choose where to travel to in the game world. After a destionation is chosen, the game characters transition to this environment through some means of transportation, accompanied by a break in gameplay through the loading screen. As the change of environments in these games is not seamless such as in Grand Theft Auto video games, I do not consider the Mass Effect video games to be open world video games.
RPG Video Games with Overworld
Some video game franchises that feature overworlds, but that are not open world in the same sense as GTA, are most Final Fantasy video games, most Dragon Quest video games, Mount & Blade video games. The overworld is perhaps one of the oldest forms of open world in the video games industry, and quite present in some RPG video games franchises. Although some players consider overworld to be open world, I describe overworld as an ancestor element of the open world genre. While there are similarities between overworld video games and open world video games, there are also many differences in the gameplay. In overworld video games, the transition between environments is seldom seamless. For this reason, I do not consider overworld video games to be open world according to the current definition of the open world video game genre, which are, in general, video games that provide a seamless transition between environments, such as seen in most GTA video games.
The overworld design, as an ancestor of the current open world video game genre, was an important design choice in the history of the video games industry as it allowed developers to create vast and expansive game worlds using the technology available at the time, allowing players to adventure in these game worlds and provide a sense of freedom and expansive game environment.
While most Final Fantasy video games featured an overworld, such as most Dragon Quest video games, later these two franchises adopted a seamless open world gameplay such as seen in Grand Theft Auto video games in some of their video games. In the case of Final Fantasy, this is especially accurate for the video game Final Fantasy XV.
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