I feel like The Witcher 2 had a good balance. You’re instanced in a smallish but very meaningfully designed map that’s big enough to feel like you’re actually exploring a bit, but small enough to actually be hand-designed and decorated and feel like it too
Completing botw became more of a chore than anything else. I couldn’t get all the way through tears of the kingdom. The chores in that one just compounded. I managed to somehow light up the entire underworld and yet my gear was too fucking terrible to face the end bosses.
Botw was very cool at times, but it had a few things that made it utterly frustrating to play. The weapons breaking and having to watch Link go “uhh eeefff eeeff ooof” on the side of a cliff for hours was just painful and purposeless.
To your point, it seems like no game can manage to have an expansive, explorable world that’s actually rewarding to explore. Maybe there is an exception out there but I haven’t encountered it.
Elden Ring has done it best so far, particularly the dlc, but it also obliterated the replay value compared to other souls games with how much empty traversal it adds and now that you can go anywhere you know what’s available and wind up googling where things are instead of making do with your limited options as you go.
Speaking of botw, lots to explore and find… And none of it is worthwhile or actually affect the gameplay in any real way.
Especially when it’s the excuse for the massive world that takes forever to traverse.
And now let’s convince the entire industry that this blight is a good idea and shoehorn it in to everything
I feel like The Witcher 2 had a good balance. You’re instanced in a smallish but very meaningfully designed map that’s big enough to feel like you’re actually exploring a bit, but small enough to actually be hand-designed and decorated and feel like it too
I’ll have to take your word for it, I couldn’t stand witchers combat until 3. Heard nothing but good things about it otherwise
Completing botw became more of a chore than anything else. I couldn’t get all the way through tears of the kingdom. The chores in that one just compounded. I managed to somehow light up the entire underworld and yet my gear was too fucking terrible to face the end bosses.
Botw was very cool at times, but it had a few things that made it utterly frustrating to play. The weapons breaking and having to watch Link go “uhh eeefff eeeff ooof” on the side of a cliff for hours was just painful and purposeless.
To your point, it seems like no game can manage to have an expansive, explorable world that’s actually rewarding to explore. Maybe there is an exception out there but I haven’t encountered it.
Elden Ring has done it best so far, particularly the dlc, but it also obliterated the replay value compared to other souls games with how much empty traversal it adds and now that you can go anywhere you know what’s available and wind up googling where things are instead of making do with your limited options as you go.