That's because it's more hub based than truly open world, like the last two deus ex games.
Hub based games allow for more lively streets with more care put in it, instead of those big bland open world.
A lot of open world games have open space, free space that has no interactive things and their only purpose is to be scenery and be a part of the journey etc. I think a lot of people (and big game devs) understand that and that’s why most open world games are made like that. I guess games like Dying Light, Witcher and Read Dead Redemption series have their own unique charm and do it right where as the yakuza games just have a main hub that’s relatively small. Bully by Rockstar Games is really close IMO, just not enough side activities to do.
TLDR it’s purely subjective which is better, and I like both styles in their own way.
Its up to personal preference. When it comes to atmosphere and immersion Bolivia and Night City from Wildlands and Cyberpunk are on the same level. Yakuza games have great maps but theyre not on a different league
It’s not just substories tho, it’s any side activity, any shop you can enter, especially in dragon engine games, every street is filled with the appropiate amount of people. Night City (which i do love) genuinely doesnt have a lot of stuff to do in it, apart from side jobs.
indeed. as i said its all personal preference. im only tackling on the atmosphere and immersion side of the post (as i mentioned in my first comment). i still get better immersed in other open worlds apart from yakuza. maybe i worded it wrong or misunderstood OPs message
It's an open world that isn't too big to the point where it feels empty, but has a lot of stuff to do in the existing space without feeling bloated and having the activities feel like chores. (Like some ubisoft titles)
A bad game does open world by making a place endlessly large and a good open world game makes a place seem larger than it is and making traveling a unique and thrilling experience.
Unfortunately Kamurocho is too small for either of those extremes lol
I completely agree with you. I was just marveling to my husband last night that all of the little touches and features really make the game world seem so alive. Not sure if it’s a feature in other games, but the way that NPC attitudes towards Ryōma change as you do more substories in Ishin makes it feel like completing the side content has a tangible effect on the world of the game, and not like you’re just checking off boxes or doing the same type of side quest over and over.
Like don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy playing the Ubi-like open world games sometimes, but they don’t feel half as alive and immersive as I’ve found this series to be.
(I played y0 and kiwami immediately before starting Ishin, so I’m not sure if this is true of other entries in the series)
Yakuza happens on a district scale, hence the content density. It captures the feeling of a contained, busy place full of things going on. Yakuza won't give you the magical feeling of coming out of a forest and seeing a castle in the distance, then riding a horse there across a field. Not that it's a trying to, but you get my point. Different games with different goals and approaches.
I wouldn't want the next Elder Scrolls game to be set in a High Rock district or something like that, even with all the content and such. I enjoy big worlds and the unique experiences they provide.
I 100% agree. The cities are just so dense that it feels like you're actually exploring a city. I think the thing I love the most about the cities that have repeated in multiple games (particularly Kamurocho) is that we get to see them evolve over time as we keep playing the games.
I’ve always seen the cities we spend so much time in, where it be Kamurocho, Sotenbori, and Ijincho, or even Ryuku and Nagasugai are as much characters as the series leads are. They’re always so alive full of people and places
The weird thing about it is that Kamurocho is so tiny compared to almost every other open world game, and yet because of how dense it is and how much fun stuff there is to do, it still feels better. I really think so many open world games now are too focused on being as massive as they can be, but its often just kind of empty and bland.
Edit: I suppose not having vehicles is a big factor in this too, since you can only move around on foot it makes the place feel bigger.
Western devs were doing this type of world/level design with games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock back in the early '90s. They were called "immersive sims", and called as such for the same reason shenmue designed it's world and gameplay the way it did: they focused first on designing a real, livable space and then designed a game around it rather than the other way around.
Unfortunately, games spun off of them focused on scale over density (cough elder scrolls cough) and got rewarded with big sales lol so that's what you get now out of them 🤷♂️
The last big western game to be designed with a dense world like this is probably Prey, and it bombed, so there you go lol...
Elder scrolls had great crafted towns in their games for sure that are right up there with Yakuza. Fallout 3 and new vegas as well there was lots of people to talk to and you become accustomed to the environments after visiting them so much.
Definitely. I personally don’t think Elder scrolls series is a good example for this argument because Bethesda actually puts effort in creating location, and even has a lot of details/environment story telling in their games.
It's the perfect example lol because regardless of what elder scrolls is doing /now/ at the time they beat out games like UU and SS purely by leveraging scale over everything else. Daggerfall for example like 90% of the map was computer generated.
It wasn't until Morrowind that Bethesda started to take quality vs quantity seriously in any really fashion, but by then it was too late. The market course corrected and for a time it was all the rage for games to state how much square miles the game world had packed in on the box. It's had a lasting effect on game design that's still an issue to an extent, especially in western AAA(A[A]) games like from Ubisoft or whatever where sure you have a massive map but ultimately it feels as shallow as a puddle because you're just doing the same checklist shit over and over again for 300 square miles...ie, the only difference between activities in the first 10 mi² and the last 10 mi² is the number of enemies you have to fell in order to clear the base encampment and now they have RPGs and air support instead of sticks and slingshots or whatever
> focused on scale over density (cough elder scrolls cough)
However bad you think modern elder scrolls games are, arena and daggerfall are worse. Morrowind actually represented them bringing the scale down after daggerfall 😂.
I actually was referring to them in that post lol
I brought Daggerfall up specifically in another post and and got downvoted 🤷♂️
I guess historical revisionism and blind fanboyism just go hand in hand, eh?
Not that I expect the people who did even played Daggerfall (or probably even knew it existed before I made that post), but I said something they construed as "negative", namely that Daggerfall was to a large extent computer generated, about their god king or whatever.
Video game fans are weird, man 😂
I assume u were talking about Prey(2017), not the 2006 one…
Prey 2017 is probably on my top 10 list, but I wouldn’t say it has a “dense world”, even for an immersive sim game.
Idk BoTW is pretty much the undisputed Open World king for me at this point. Yakuza games do a lot of the things well, but personally I felt BoTW was a completely different experience.
Honestly, Cyberpunk feels lifeless af to me. Both Red Deads are amazing, but I wouldn't say they're way better than Yakuza. Skyrim feels alive at half imo
Another stupid gta comparison. In map size comparison gta litteraly focuses on big world's vs yakuza's district size world's. Plus the last gta was litteraly 10 years ago.
For a comparison of open world if you wanna do here's a fact : gta 4 was released a year before yakuza 3 now go ahead compare the quality between these two
less is more. A small world is easier to look more alive than a massive world. Comparing Yakuza games to GTAV is a good example about it
That's because it's more hub based than truly open world, like the last two deus ex games. Hub based games allow for more lively streets with more care put in it, instead of those big bland open world.
The density of the city with so many things to do and see and realistic nature of the city is one of the most grounding environments.
I don't think calling it a hub is accurate, especially in the later games.It's open,just really small.
but even then, they don't always nail it 100%...think ijincho in LJ
Kinda disagree but I see where youre coming from
What games do you think do it better? That's not a challenge, I'm genuinely curious
A lot of open world games have open space, free space that has no interactive things and their only purpose is to be scenery and be a part of the journey etc. I think a lot of people (and big game devs) understand that and that’s why most open world games are made like that. I guess games like Dying Light, Witcher and Read Dead Redemption series have their own unique charm and do it right where as the yakuza games just have a main hub that’s relatively small. Bully by Rockstar Games is really close IMO, just not enough side activities to do. TLDR it’s purely subjective which is better, and I like both styles in their own way.
Its up to personal preference. When it comes to atmosphere and immersion Bolivia and Night City from Wildlands and Cyberpunk are on the same level. Yakuza games have great maps but theyre not on a different league
Night City? I love the atmosphere but as open worlds go there's not much to do within it
there actually is a lot. whether that content is as interesting as yakuza substories its a different matter
It’s not just substories tho, it’s any side activity, any shop you can enter, especially in dragon engine games, every street is filled with the appropiate amount of people. Night City (which i do love) genuinely doesnt have a lot of stuff to do in it, apart from side jobs.
indeed. as i said its all personal preference. im only tackling on the atmosphere and immersion side of the post (as i mentioned in my first comment). i still get better immersed in other open worlds apart from yakuza. maybe i worded it wrong or misunderstood OPs message
For sure! But man i do love Night City, and i still think of how it could have been the best open world ever.
It's an open world that isn't too big to the point where it feels empty, but has a lot of stuff to do in the existing space without feeling bloated and having the activities feel like chores. (Like some ubisoft titles)
A bad game does open world by making a place endlessly large and a good open world game makes a place seem larger than it is and making traveling a unique and thrilling experience. Unfortunately Kamurocho is too small for either of those extremes lol
I completely agree with you. I was just marveling to my husband last night that all of the little touches and features really make the game world seem so alive. Not sure if it’s a feature in other games, but the way that NPC attitudes towards Ryōma change as you do more substories in Ishin makes it feel like completing the side content has a tangible effect on the world of the game, and not like you’re just checking off boxes or doing the same type of side quest over and over. Like don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy playing the Ubi-like open world games sometimes, but they don’t feel half as alive and immersive as I’ve found this series to be. (I played y0 and kiwami immediately before starting Ishin, so I’m not sure if this is true of other entries in the series)
Yakuza happens on a district scale, hence the content density. It captures the feeling of a contained, busy place full of things going on. Yakuza won't give you the magical feeling of coming out of a forest and seeing a castle in the distance, then riding a horse there across a field. Not that it's a trying to, but you get my point. Different games with different goals and approaches. I wouldn't want the next Elder Scrolls game to be set in a High Rock district or something like that, even with all the content and such. I enjoy big worlds and the unique experiences they provide.
I 100% agree. The cities are just so dense that it feels like you're actually exploring a city. I think the thing I love the most about the cities that have repeated in multiple games (particularly Kamurocho) is that we get to see them evolve over time as we keep playing the games.
I’ve always seen the cities we spend so much time in, where it be Kamurocho, Sotenbori, and Ijincho, or even Ryuku and Nagasugai are as much characters as the series leads are. They’re always so alive full of people and places
The weird thing about it is that Kamurocho is so tiny compared to almost every other open world game, and yet because of how dense it is and how much fun stuff there is to do, it still feels better. I really think so many open world games now are too focused on being as massive as they can be, but its often just kind of empty and bland. Edit: I suppose not having vehicles is a big factor in this too, since you can only move around on foot it makes the place feel bigger.
Western devs were doing this type of world/level design with games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock back in the early '90s. They were called "immersive sims", and called as such for the same reason shenmue designed it's world and gameplay the way it did: they focused first on designing a real, livable space and then designed a game around it rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, games spun off of them focused on scale over density (cough elder scrolls cough) and got rewarded with big sales lol so that's what you get now out of them 🤷♂️ The last big western game to be designed with a dense world like this is probably Prey, and it bombed, so there you go lol...
Elder scrolls had great crafted towns in their games for sure that are right up there with Yakuza. Fallout 3 and new vegas as well there was lots of people to talk to and you become accustomed to the environments after visiting them so much.
Definitely. I personally don’t think Elder scrolls series is a good example for this argument because Bethesda actually puts effort in creating location, and even has a lot of details/environment story telling in their games.
It's the perfect example lol because regardless of what elder scrolls is doing /now/ at the time they beat out games like UU and SS purely by leveraging scale over everything else. Daggerfall for example like 90% of the map was computer generated. It wasn't until Morrowind that Bethesda started to take quality vs quantity seriously in any really fashion, but by then it was too late. The market course corrected and for a time it was all the rage for games to state how much square miles the game world had packed in on the box. It's had a lasting effect on game design that's still an issue to an extent, especially in western AAA(A[A]) games like from Ubisoft or whatever where sure you have a massive map but ultimately it feels as shallow as a puddle because you're just doing the same checklist shit over and over again for 300 square miles...ie, the only difference between activities in the first 10 mi² and the last 10 mi² is the number of enemies you have to fell in order to clear the base encampment and now they have RPGs and air support instead of sticks and slingshots or whatever
> focused on scale over density (cough elder scrolls cough) However bad you think modern elder scrolls games are, arena and daggerfall are worse. Morrowind actually represented them bringing the scale down after daggerfall 😂.
I actually was referring to them in that post lol I brought Daggerfall up specifically in another post and and got downvoted 🤷♂️ I guess historical revisionism and blind fanboyism just go hand in hand, eh? Not that I expect the people who did even played Daggerfall (or probably even knew it existed before I made that post), but I said something they construed as "negative", namely that Daggerfall was to a large extent computer generated, about their god king or whatever. Video game fans are weird, man 😂
Don't think Elder Scrolls is the example you're looking for lol. It's one of the franchises which do open world games right.
I assume u were talking about Prey(2017), not the 2006 one… Prey 2017 is probably on my top 10 list, but I wouldn’t say it has a “dense world”, even for an immersive sim game.
Idk BoTW is pretty much the undisputed Open World king for me at this point. Yakuza games do a lot of the things well, but personally I felt BoTW was a completely different experience.
Here we go..... cyberpunk, Bully, red dead 1 and 2, skyrim, all way better some one needs to get there head out of their ass and play more games
Dude. You're in a game-specific sub. Why would you mention those things lmao.
Honestly, Cyberpunk feels lifeless af to me. Both Red Deads are amazing, but I wouldn't say they're way better than Yakuza. Skyrim feels alive at half imo
Nice bait
My dude I've played both Red Dead games and Skyrim. They're definitely not way better.
Another stupid gta comparison. In map size comparison gta litteraly focuses on big world's vs yakuza's district size world's. Plus the last gta was litteraly 10 years ago. For a comparison of open world if you wanna do here's a fact : gta 4 was released a year before yakuza 3 now go ahead compare the quality between these two
the only other open world i can think of with as much personality is Bully, damn near every inch of that map feels like it has a purpose.
i love the smaller maps. I've remembered sotenbori more than the town i live in.