If you asked me between 2015-2020 why I loved The Witcher 3, ID card have probably compiled a very long list of things. In 2021, however, after the release of both Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, that list is a lot shorter. It’s really just “the wind” and “the sun” now.
In earlier, more carefree times, I thought The Witcher 3 was exceptional for a number of reasons, most of which were probably the same as you mentioned. Things like his clever writing, memorable quests, consistent choices, and loving main character. So if the same team is responsible for creating The Witcher 3 was set to release a new game last year, that’s the kind of thing I got myself excited about. More sad Barons, more babies in the oven.
Cyberpunk 2077as you no doubt know, has failed to perform on those fronts, or many others, to the point where playing felt like playing something from a completely different studio. I had started the game expecting to feel the same Temerian magic, and deleted it after not finding a single drop of it.
Moving bummed from Cyberpunk, then was literally the next game I played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and whaddya knows. It turned out that I was starting to feel that Witcher 3 magic, after all, just in someone else’s game. And that my Witcher 3 worship (or at least its core) hadn’t had that much to do with consequences and storylines; I was just in love with a beautiful forest and a quick sunrise.
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I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m an open world game designer. That must be difficult. But I’m a seasoned enjoyer of them, and if an entire life spent playing them has taught me anything, it’s that my appreciation for their worlds – not the games themselves, but the places where they are – often has little to do. how “busy” they are.
If big single-player games are a thing, they’re a form of escapism, and so my favorites tend to be the ones that really let me escape. Using Cyberpunk As an example, if only because it is so recent, it takes place in a huge, bustling city, full of cars and pedestrians and advertisements and shops. That’s not an escape! That’s the life most of us already live every day!
No, if most of us live city life then it’s a natural environment that is a real escape. And The Witcher 3’s was such a beautiful world, where you could almost smell the wet grass and feel the wind on your face, and it’s one of the few open-world games where I ever wanted to reach every corner of the map, not to achieve goals , but just to see what it looked like and record everything.
A vibrant, living world like this is so much more enticing than a concrete jungle. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s a little more primitive in all of us, a call to nature that only becomes more apparent as many of us get further out. I have previously written about virtual tourism in Yakuza, but that’s a specific place. This is more of a state of mind, a love of nature wherever it is, be it a fantasy world or a historical caricature.
Other games I loved for this reason are Oblivion and the Far Cry series, while Assassin’s Creed Odyssey got really close a few years ago, even as the Mediterranean coastlines and clear blue waters got closer to my love for Wind Watcher then The Witcher.
Valhallabut, oh boy. Her exactly what I’m looking for. The idyllic caricature of 9th-century England is like a weekend getaway in a nature reserve, albeit with quite a bit of murder and climbing in between. Not my ideal vacation, but they are part of the package.
While Valhalla’s Norway’s opening sequence is breathtaking in its own alpine way, once I got to England it took about three seconds for that feeling to start tingling. That old one Witcher 3 hum. The Oblivion fever. Long grass. Big trees. Falling leaves. Chirping birds. Running water. A gentle breeze. Sunlight penetrates branches, bathes a campsite in an amber morning glow.
Ah, this is the shit. This is escapism. Not in action, but in setting.
Valhalla shows that some of the most memorable open worlds are not defined by their density, and that crowding is not the same as credibility. The England has some points on the map where things happen, sure, but for vast areas there is nothing to do, and so like all the best road trips there is nothing to do but enjoy the breathtaking scenery which is a pleasure that resonates with me so much more than boring open-world printing.
While it can be tempting to pack a video game world with as much noise and anger and stuff as possible, like Cyberpunk seemed so focused on, sometimes it’s best to just leave an open world open, and let us enjoy the sights. In these cases, as with Valhallanothing is no problem. It’s the best of the game.
