Gamers have fallen in love with expansive and immersive worlds that are filled with life, lore, and likely a ton of side quests to keep them from remembering that there is a story in there somewhere. However, not every game features an open world to explore, some are just simply level by level experiences that keep everything self-contained.
This works in many cases but there are times where gamers make the comment: “If this world was explorable, this game would be even more perfect.” So which linear video games would have profited by making it an open-world adventure to explore?
10 Turok (2008)
The dinosaur hunter and intergalactic monster slayer made his biggest and most ambitious return with a reboot in 2008. While it was visually stunning and featured solid gameplay, many agreed that the campaign was way too short and it felt too narrow and too linear.
How could this be fixed? Well, the whole concept is that the player controls a rough soldier on an alien planet still in its prehistoric age with dinosaurs. This premise could have easily lent itself to an open-world shooter in the same vein as the Far Cry games but even scarier since the player would have to be leary of a giant T-Rex or hordes of Velociraptors.
9 Aliens: Colonial Marines
There are a lot of ways Aliens: Colonial Marines could have been an improvement over the disastrous final product gamers finally got in 2013. Actually delivering on promised aspects would have been nice but what else could have helped? Well, if the entirety of the campaign takes place on LV-426 and the Hadley’s Hope colony, why not let players explore it?
Taking pages from the likes of Dying Light, Colonial Marines might have benefitted from embracing an open-world horror-RPG where instead of zombies, it’s a bunch of xenomorphs trying to kill the player. This all would have been better than the extremely bland and broken mess that gamers got.
8 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Many fans can agree that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was vastly superior to its movie counterpart; often considered one of the best Marvel games ever made. However, it does not feature tons of replayability other than the slight joy of hearing Hugh Jackman’s voice emanating from the classic yellow Wolverine skin.
With the vast amount of X-Men characters at one’s disposal with maybe a vehicle for long traversal like Logan’s motorcycle, an open-world with multiple villain/hero quests across an entire countryside a la Red Dead Redemption 2 meets Batman: Arkham could have made this brutal game even better.
7 Ghostbusters: The Video Game
As is, the Ghostbusters game starring the original cast is one of the most beloved movie-licensed games of all time; for some people is the true Ghostbusters 3 they had been wanting since 1989. So this is not critiquing the nearly perfect attempt at turning the Ghostbusters franchise into a linear action-shooter.
However, it wouldn’t hurt to think of a game where the player can control and drive the Ecto-1 across New York City and respond to different side quests where different locations are being haunted by ghosts. This could have lead to other storylines besides the main Ivo Shandor plot and more lore to the Ghostbusters mythos.
6 BioShock Infinite
BioShock Infinite is another praised game that features one of Troy Baker’s best performances, beautiful visuals, and easily, and stellar gameplay. However, there is no denying that every single time the game takes a break to let the player bask in the beauty of the floating city of Columbia, it can make one ponder.
Columbia is one of the best fully realized locations in gaming: it is absolutely stunning to look at so a game where Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth were forced to trek back and forth across the city freely? Everyone would love that. Maybe add more sane NPC’s to provide missions and it would rival the likes of Skyrim.
5 Titanfall 2
Respawn Entertainment vastly improved over the predecessor with a very memorable campaign that suffered from one giant flaw: it was way too short to the point that gamers felt they only played maybe the first half of the story. Now it’s not uncommon for first-person shooters to have somewhat shorter campaigns but there is a way to improve it.
Multiple alien planets, different factions, crazy villains, and giant AI-powered giant mech suits? This concept is begging to be turned into an open-world game that mixes the high-octane shooter gameplay with tons of traversal puzzles and side quests to accomplish like their most recent game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order mixed with Borderlands.
4 Yoshi’s Woolly World
This could be a case for all the Yoshi games that spawned from Yoshi’s Story. The games are colorful and adorable with some tight gameplay perfect for the whole family but it’s shocking that nearly every game in the series has stuck with the same style of gameplay.
Imagine experiencing the fabric-created world of Yoshi but from an open world collect-athon perspective in the same style as Super Mario Odyssey or Banjo Kazooie games. If the Wii U was capable of running a port of Breath Of The Wild, a cute and cuddly open-world Yoshi game could easily be done.
3 Friday The 13th The Game
Playing as one of the most indestructible slasher villains of all time? Gamers were ready to line up for this game but it received mixed reviews. The less than stellar graphics, tons of glitches, and slow gameplay didn’t help and many gamers were not fond of it being a Dead By Daylight-esque multiplayer game only.
With a famous setting like Crystal Lake, Friday The 13th The Game was ripe for RPG material; Jason can fully explore to take out trespassers in his infamously brutal style, Friday The 13th could have been the anti-Batman: Arkham mixed with The Witcher and it would have sold faster than tickets to another Freddy VS Jason movie.
2 Bloodborne
One of the most difficult RPGs in recent years that can give Dark Souls a run for its money. That being said, how did Bloodborne miss the opportunity of turning the dark of Yharnam into a fully explorable world? It’s like if Tim Burton and James Wan made a horror game set in London, the potential is there!
Sure, it’s big enough to meet the Dark Souls style of gameplay but one look at the city and a gamer is begging to explore the whole thing. Taking out monsters, zombies, and every other ye olde Gothic horror creature happens to cross their path. Gamers likely would enjoy this concept if used in a sequel.
1 Final Fantasy XIII
Taking a famous series in a new direction to keep things from getting stale is understandable. However, stripping what made everyone love the series in the first place after thirteen entries? Not a wise decision. Everything from the characters, the lore of this new world, and the visuals were great but it suffered from being too linear.
The open-world aspect that Final Fantasy practically revolutionized was removed in favor of a more straight forward structure. Many gamers and fans felt that this turned Final Fantasy XIII into a boring and tedious mess. It’s a perfect example of if something is not broken, don’t try to fix it.
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