- 1 hour ago
Sure, you can look around, but don't go TOO far.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00So what's the one word that most people associate with open-world video games? Bloat? Ubisoft? No,
00:06it's exploration. Because what is the point of open-world video games if they don't grant the
00:11player the opportunity to freely explore their beautiful, expansive world as they see fit?
00:16But you know what? Some of these games will actually punish or straight-up mock those who
00:20get a little overzealous with their wandering. So let's have a chat about them. As I'm Jules,
00:24this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Open World Video Games That Mock You For Exploring.
00:2910. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
00:31Bread and butter of the Grand Theft Auto franchise has been the appeal of giving players a massive
00:36open-world sandbox and just letting them tear it up however they see fit. Except, in San Andreas,
00:42Rockstar had an odd, slightly hilarious punishment for anyone who got a little bit over-ambitious
00:47and attempted to access areas of the game world that hadn't been unlocked yet through the story.
00:51If you're playing the game as Rockstar intends, you need to complete 27 missions in Los Santos
00:56before accessing San Fierro, and 64 before unlocking Las Venturas. But that doesn't mean that you can't
01:02just swim to these places before that. However, doing so will result in you instantly receiving
01:06a four-star wanted level, ensuring the near-full might of the San Andreas Police Department quickly
01:11comes crashing down on you. Granted, cops like Tenpenny and Hernandez tell you not to leave Los
01:16Santos in the early stages of the game for good reason, but when Rockstar dropped players in the
01:20middle of such a rich, gorgeous world, did they really expect them to be patient and wait for it all to
01:24open up organically? 9. Fallout 4
01:27Fallout 4's unforgettable opening sequence sees the protagonist forced to take shelter in Vault
01:32111, once the bombs start dropping. But what about those adventurous players who wanted to take a peek
01:37around their suburban neighbourhood of Sanctuary Hills before it's forever transformed into an
01:42irradiated wasteland? And, more to the point, what about those who want to see what lies beyond the
01:46confines of this town? The game is generous enough not to strictly funnel you towards the vault,
01:51but for anyone who attempts to leave Sanctuary Hills and go further afield, they're met with
01:55perhaps the most cruelly mocking invisible wall in video game history. If you thought that a four-star
02:00wanted level in San Andreas was bad, in Fallout 4, walking past a certain invisible boundary will
02:05trigger the nuke's detonation, instantly killing the player. Basically, you're forced to either
02:09progress the story forward by heading to the vault, or hang out in a small patch of your neighbourhood
02:13until the end of time. It's tough to decide which sounds more nightmarish, honestly.
02:178. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild
02:20On the face of it, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is a game that absolutely rewards
02:25players who venture off the beaten track and explore every last square inch of Hyrule's
02:29lovingly rendered open world. Hell, the game even lets you make a beeline straight to the
02:33final boss, Ganon, immediately after the brief opening prologue section. But this is also a game
02:37that, for all its apparent celebration of player freedom, has a rather perverse, even cruel regard
02:42for those who wander off from the very start. You see, players who extensively explore the
02:46game's first area, the Great Plateau, are likely to find themselves soon enough getting
02:50summarily spanked by grossly overpowered enemies. In the early going, you've got just a few
02:55hearts of health to your name, and you're going to die a hell of a lot, which is effectively
02:59Nintendo's way of not so subtly nudging you towards shrines to help build out your character.
03:03As inviting as the game's world might seem, it's surprisingly punishing of players who just
03:07want to take a stroll in a random direction and soak in the sights. That is to say, prepare to die.
03:137. Far Cry 6 Much as the Far Cry games are all about exploring
03:18vast locations and ticking off everything on the Ubisoft open world checklist, Far Cry 6 had
03:23a ridiculous surprise for those who attempted to see how far away from the Caribbean island
03:27of Yara they could actually get. In step with the series' many alternate or joke endings,
03:31Far Cry 6 allows players to get in a boat and just, well, they can just sail away from the area
03:35before they've bothered to confront the local dictator. But in order to hammer home that the game
03:39really, really doesn't want you to sail off the map into the endless expanse of the Caribbean ocean,
03:44as beautiful as it looks, you'll receive an on-screen warning that you are leaving the area
03:48and urging you to turn around. If you ignore that message, though, you'll be treated to an
03:52ending cinematic set three months later, where the protagonist is shown relaxing on a beach in
03:57Miami, beer in hand, while a radio news report reveals that the dictator has defeated the guerrilla
04:01uprising and solidified his iron grip over the nation. Basically, this thoroughly tongue-in-cheek
04:07ending gently shames you for taking the easy way out, showing you what will become of the area
04:11without your committed intervention. 6. Prototype
04:14Cult-fave action-adventure game Prototype takes place in the virus-obliterated Manhattan,
04:19where the US military attempts to contain the outbreak by blocking all exits from Manhattan
04:24Island. But nobody could blame you for paying a visit to one of Manhattan's most iconic landmarks,
04:28the Manhattan Bridge. But if you dare to get close enough, you'll find yourself bombarded with
04:33a battery from the assembled marines, who have set up base on the bridge and really,
04:37really do not want you to cross it. Yet given that protagonist Alex Mercer is himself a superhuman
04:41shapeshifter, the player is absolutely able to vault past the military blockade and try to cross
04:46the bridge in order to reach downtown Brooklyn. To stop players from doing this, though, you won't
04:50merely be assailed with an increasingly aggressive barrage of missiles. The camera will also shift to an
04:55awkward distant-angle perspective, where you take up just a small portion of the screen.
04:59Evidently, this is a rather passive-aggressive move by developers' radical entertainment to try
05:04and coax you back to Manhattan proper, by simply refusing to let the camera play ball and follow
05:08you to the end of the bloody bridge.
05:105. The Crew
05:11For all of its many issues, The Crew features an impressively scaled-down, open-world rendering
05:16of the United States, naturally prompting many players to ponder what might happen if they
05:21attempt to cross the border. Though the game doesn't feature a Canadian border crossing,
05:24there is one for Mexico. And alas, Ubisoft understandably appreciated that players might
05:29try to cross it, and so beyond merely erecting a border crossing area that is just impossible
05:34to penetrate, they had a little extra fun with it at our expense. You see, if you try to drive
05:39through the barrier, FBI agent Zoe Winters will pipe up and throw some shade at your greediness,
05:43asking you, what, the whole USA isn't big enough for you? Come on, people were just trying to go
05:48there, right? Besides, that slightly catty message from Zoe didn't stop some players from figuring out
05:52how to glitch their way past the barrier and drive around in the out-of-bounds regardless.
05:574. Ghost of Tsushima
05:58Ghost of Tsushima's eye-wateringly beautiful Tsushima Island just begs to be explored. And
06:04though Sucker Punch certainly permits that to a point, they don't want you to visit certain
06:08story-related camps too early and risk breaking the game. And so, if you reach a camp that's going
06:13to be featured later on in the campaign, you'll receive a message warning you that you are entering
06:17an area of overwhelming enemy forces. Hilariously, this generally amounts to the game festooning
06:22you with an unrelenting flurry of arrows from all directions, seemingly fired by a fleet of
06:27invisible officers. As some players have discovered, though, if you're unlucky enough to jump into an
06:31offending camp while equipped with a certain set of armor and restorative charms, you might get
06:35catapulted into the air by the arrows and juggled there, in perpetuity, unable to die. This is all
06:41just the game blatantly telling you to stay out of this area and come back later. But there surely had
06:45to be a less mean, less immersion-breaking way to do this, right?
06:483. Sunset Overdrive Sunset Overdrive actually boasts one of the most amusingly creative and
06:55self-aware implementation of invisible walls in video game history, given that company Fizco erects
07:00an in-universe barrier in Sunset City to try and contain the outbreak of mutant overcharge drinkers
07:05running right there. Hilariously, if you bother to reach the end of the game's map, you'll be met
07:10with an invisible wall that's literally Fizco branded, with the message, Invisible Wall,
07:14security provided by Fizco emblazoned on the transparent boundary. The invisible walls also
07:20get a memorable mention in the game's main story, where ex-Fizco security guard Walter attempts to
07:24escape the city via helicopter and, uh, well, crashes straight into the wall, killing himself
07:28in the process. Clearly, the message from Insomniac Games here is, have fun, but remember,
07:33there are limitations.
07:342. Anthem
07:35Much has been written about how Bioware's much-anticipated shared-world-action RPG
07:41Anthem was rushed out of the door by EA long before it was done cooking. The game was sold
07:45on the thrill of getting to don an Iron Man-esque armoured suit with three of your pals and fly
07:49around the game world of defending humanity from monstrous forces. And yet, the game's aggressively
07:54restrictive design felt like a slap in the face to anyone actually keen to explore. Despite
07:58offering up a lush open world, Anthem's multiplayer gameplay was massively undone by a tethering system,
08:04where while teaming up with other human players, you're forced to maintain close proximity
08:08to them in fear of a warning message being displayed. Couple this with a totally pointless
08:12overheating mechanic, which limits the amount of time you can spend flying in one go, and
08:16it feels like Bioware were actively trying to stop players from doing the very thing
08:19this game was marketed upon. Oh, you want to fly around this gorgeous world that we've made?
08:23Totally unrestricted? Yeah, nah, that's not going to happen. That Anthem was ultimately a
08:27critical and commercial flop is, well, the least surprising thing ever.
08:311. SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated
08:35Now, SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated is admittedly a game that
08:40you're not in any way supposed to take seriously. And in that stead, players who got a little
08:44overzealous with their exploring and ventured too far off the beaten path will get a literal
08:48helping hand from the game itself. While playing as SpongeBob, Patrick, or Sandy, if you reach the
08:53boundary of the game world, the human hand of Sailor Hands, a character who appeared in the first few
08:57of the show's episodes that was never shown as more than a hand, will slide onto the screen and drag you
09:02away, forcing the game to restart from the nearest checkpoint. It's a pretty clever and distinctly
09:06SpongeBob way to implement invisible walls without straight up having the player just collide with
09:10them, acknowledging both the game's limitations and the player's over-enthusiastic inquisitiveness
09:15in one funny fell swoop.
Be the first to comment