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Alan Wake II, a lesson for open world games (even though its not open world): NO MARKERS.
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View Reddit by cmndr_spanky – View Source
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Alan Wake II, a lesson for open world games (even though its not open world): NO MARKERS.
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View Reddit by cmndr_spanky – View Source
I recognize this game is being talked about to death, but I just think it’s worth recognizing the tiniest game design choice that makes such a huge difference in the feeling of “exploration” and enjoying the environment as much as the gameplay and story.
No Markers. When you’re forced to switch to a map to orient yourself, when you’re forced to understand landmarks and areas that are mentioned in hints and notes and goals, it means you actually have to take in the environment rather than just be on mental autopilot following a marker, or even worse, some kind of lame GPS overlay on your HUD.
I think a lot of open world games we consider “repetitive and boring” would at least feel more rewarding and force people to take in the beauty of the open world, if they avoided in game markers and GPS. Imagine in Cyberpunk if you’re told to meet NPC x and location y. It forced you to oriented via the map and compass, and actually recognize landmarks, street signs, etc. Maybe some would find this tedious, but I think it would allow people to enjoy a lot more of the game world, rather than mindlessly follow a blue line on the road.
People make a big deal about this, even calling it “non-western” as if America’s fast food culture means we can’t use a map… it’s so simple and stupid, it should be the default game design choice in ANY open world game.
How long do you think it would take for ppl to start complaining open world games have no markers and that searching for everything and googling where stuff is takes up too much time?
This debate has been had in world of warcraft since forever, use quest markers or not? When there were none ppl made mods to show us markers and basically everyone downloaded it. When we got actual built in quest markers people complained there is no exploration.
You will never win, the main reason ppl are screaming “no markers pls” is because at this particular moment most games have them and games without markers are “refreshing”. But the situation could just easily have been reversed
Sure some games work better with markers, some better without, large part is up to personal preference but mostly it’s about how saturated the market is with any type of exploration, neither is inherently better, one has become overused tho
Elder Ring did it too and it was Open World.
I like markers. I don’t want to spend half my playtime running around aimlessly trying to find things
Just make them toggle-able. Best of both worlds
No markers work fine in more linear games on open world games, not so much.
It works on linear games because there are only so many places to go and will eventually be retracked. On open world games, you could be trying to find a way to progress for hours because the dev didn’t properly state what you needed to do.
God forbid people be asked to just explore
This doesn’t always work well all the time in Allan Wake II, sometimes the game tells me to talk to someone or do something specific that I have no idea what it is, so I have to waste a lot of time going around the map aimless again and again, this type of design would work in Zelda or Elden Ringo because wherever you go on the map is the right place to go because there always cool things to do.
Player=Doctor
There is a reason GPS is superior to map when driving and its the same thing in videogames.
The easy solution of course is to give the player the option to have it or disable it because you cant please both crowd but as a whole the GPS is the best way to go by a huge margin and thats why they are in every game.
personally I like markers
You act like alan wake is the first to make priority over open world..
Deus ex has been known to have small or smaller areas since the first one yet it has plenty in them to do.
Probably why it can get away with having no markers….
Buy Valheim and start no-map world. Enjoy never finding your start location again, until you die and respawn there 🙂
In linear games it works but not in open world games as it might get frustrating for many players.
Best example for that imo was resident evil 2 remake.
In any case just make them togglable and let people enjoy whatever experience they fancy !!!
I like markers, and I don’t like that non-marker fans feel the need to speak for everyone.
Arent most open world games nowadays able to individually turn off markers in the setting menu?
lol yeah you should totally become a game dev – I’m sure they have never thought of this and your input would greatly increase sales/customer satisfaction
🙄
I would pay a very suspicious amount to make it so every game has very obvious markers that cannot be changed in anyway
Absolutely not.
I play to get a nice little interactive story. Not waste 50 extra hours wandering around playing walking simulators.
How ignorant and stupid can you be…
nah we need markers because ganers are a bunch of idiots with no sense of direction
Wait. Alan wake is open world now? Didn’t knew it could be worse. But here we are.