Endless Errands

(Red Dead Redemption 2 Official Cover. Property of Rockstar Games)

In today’s gaming landscape, The competition isn’t limited to who can create the most life-like graphic, but also the game’s world that is expansive and larger than previous titles. You will get 500 hours out of this game (according to Dying Light 2’s marketing)! The game has the whole map of England (according to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla)! 500 hours out of a $60 purchase seems like a steal. But does bigger always mean better? How many of these game worlds are actually interesting and worth playing when the world is so jampacked with endless errands that aim to create an “unfinishable” game?

An example I’ll use is Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2), an excellently reviewed sequel to the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption (scored 10/10 by IGN, 9/10 by Gamespot, 97/100 on Metacritic). The game is loved not only for its tear-jerking tragic storyline but also for how the player interacts with the environments so immersively with realistic animations for skinning animals, looting containers, and eating. Also, the map is gigantic. According to this video, it takes 35:46 minutes to ride a horse from one end of the map to another, so you can expect a lot of distractions and sights to discover on the road.

Unfortunately, the mixing of many mechanics and the large map I’ve praised in the last paragraph doesn’t make the game deserve a 10/10 for me. In this article, anything that asks for my time and input but doesn’t give me a satisfying end result is an “errand”, including traversing the map. When the game makes me bored or go to the toilet while waiting for my horse to run (very slowly) to the marked destination, then it is kind of a problematic design choice. It’s not like a fun experience after 10-20 hours when everything was new and exciting. My time isn’t spent on interesting sights, but instead on galloping down the same old roads for the 50th time in my 60 hours of play time just to turn-in animal skins. The world becomes a tedious obstacle between me and my objective (usually story missions, where the meat of the game is). The highlight of the whole game is the storyline, but I have to endure many minutes of staring at empty desert and plain to get to them. Skinning animals or looting corpses multiple times make those activities boring instead of being immersive, thus making those errands too.

Another problem is how side missions are fetch-quests. In order to 100% complete the game, you absolutely have to look up a guide to find 100+ obscure collectible cards scattered on the map. How is this fun? I don’t think video games are supposed to feel incompletable. Are these collectibles supposed to be fun and engaging? How engaging is it to look up a guide on Google? Should I restart my 60 hours campaign because I missed one frog from an unreturnable location for the bestiary? Anyone can do that, but it is a boring task put in just to say the game has a lot of content, busy works for the sake of making the player busy. Game mechanics and systems should work together, not retracting enjoyment from others. Filler collectibles just make me don’t want to play the game after reaching the ending, knowing once started, I will feel forced to finish it.

(God of War 2018 Official Cover. Property of Santa Monica Studio)

Maybe focusing on the sheer amount of landmass in an open world isn’t the answer. have larger interconnected maps when compared to their predecessors, not exactly the open-world-go-wherever type, yet large enough to feel like lived-in environments. These games managed to do open world right by not having millions of side content to do or collect, but make those side missions matter. For example, in Metro Exodus, I don’t need to find a guitar for my squadmate, that doesn’t matter to the overall plot. But at least it tells me that the character has other traits outside of the main story with extra scenes. The side missions in God of War further develop Kratos’ bond with his son, while offering more unique areas to explore, stories to see, and new craftable gears unseen in the main storyline. It’s true that God of War also has the “annoying” kind of collectibles, but these collectibles will grant me permanent buffs, money, or even extra lore, way better than some random cigarette cards without any gameplay feature in RDR2. I won’t say RDR2 doesn’t have interesting side missions, but these games manage to populate their smaller maps with good quests, compared to miles of nothingness in RDR2.

So what is fun in RDR2 then? For me, it’s hunting legendary animals. It’s basically the same as hunting for cigarette cards, I go to a location to get something, except it doesn’t feel like an errand because it’s fun, engaging, and rewarding. What can I do with these cigarette cards? Absolutely nothing except a tiny percentage towards 100% What do I get for hunting legendary animals? Cool new outfits and more percentage. It’s the gameplay and reward, the journey and the goal. If the journey is boring and the goal is also boring, why bother?

Ok. I think “busy work” collectibles are fine when they tell engaging stories you want to follow, not random pictures or petty things that don’t have an effect on the game. That applies to all activities that should be part of the game, to create a coherent experience, to immerse, not detaching the player by making them look up guides online like studying for an exam. Though this point might be a bit hard for big developers to roll back on their efforts to create the biggest open-world map. One, because it is an eye-catching tagline, big maps = more content, worth the money. Two, when game worlds look so good, having so many square miles, reviewers and players often get distracted from other issues. Three, it extends the game lifespan by giving minimal effort. It’s like asking Hollywood to cut out high-budget explosions or stop using CGI in blockbusters, that’s not gonna happen very much. So in the end, I reckon it might be easier to convince players to stop trying to get 100% if the game starts to get annoying or ask too much with little in return. You gotta recognize that these things are put in the game just to make sure your time is wasted. If you enjoy seeing percentage goes up to a 100, then power to you. But if not, don’t do an extra job when games are supposed to be fun.

What's your opinion on open world games? Are they getting worse or better?