The importance of empty rooms & larger worlds

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I know that this is a very weird complaint to have (specially given the downright rotten state of modern gaming), but someone brought this up on a video a while back and I thought they had a decent point.

Basically: you know how every road and room you visit on modern games has a specific purpose and you are actively blocked from wandering outside of the intended path (either by invisible walls, bits of the scenario set-up as barriers or NPCs)? I hadn't thought about it before, but games are really hurt by this. Like, I remember straying into completely empty rooms and houses with no purpose in games like Quest64, Alone In The Dark, Zelda and countless JRPGs (even old Pokemon games) and never thinking that the devs were wasting my time, but that the game world felt lived-in by virtue of having locations in which life just happened "off camera", unwitnessed by the player.

Those bedrooms, hallways and fields, while pretty pointless from a pure gameplay angle, hinted at a much larger world that just isn't seen in the vast majority of modern games -- an impressive-looking collection of background buildings that you don't get to go to or a single, heavily-detailed location don't really trigger the same part of my brain that felt in utter wonder when roaming around a gigantic castle or a quaint town that I got to explore to my heart's content.

I guess it's something to ponder about.

Ever felt this way?

 

[UnDubious]

The reason I got into RPGs as a kid was because they let me explore a world. So visiting towns and exploring the world map was a big part of why I liked the genre. The world feeling lived it and the NPCs feeling like little characters with their own lives are as important as finding things that are useful for the gameplay aspect to me. Almost every other game in those days (late 16-bit era) was about going from left to right, so RPGs felt like an entirely separate thing.

The line got blurred a long time ago. I don't mind if a pure action game is all about action - in fact, that's great. But if it's action-adventure or a RPG, streamlining things too much hurts the experience a lot for me.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Some say that it’s empty because of some “limitations” and some says it’s part of the grand design. I usually encounter it in towns mostly in the inn of some jrpg. For me back then those portray what a typical place in time would be that a town how lively it may be there’s always a vacant space.

Those empty spaces/rooms are part of the set pieces even though their main purpose is to hinder or contain you in a specific spot.

 

[χKai]

I try to remove this in my Fallout gameplay; in Fallout 3 and Mew Vegas everyone is on a schedule, and makes their rounds or goes about their business in a timely fashion; everyone either has a place to be or some sort of path they're routed to. By implementing additional creatures and other NPCs, I can disrupt that order a little by adding activity where normally there is none.

 

[bjork]

I get why they try and keep it to a minimum as far as trying to keep the narrative tight, but being able to explore is also part of the experience imo, so it's good when a game lets you. My dream software is a fully explorable earth, so give me them empty buildings and caves!

 

[Jayonnaise6105 Jayonnaise6105]

I think it varies from game to game for me.

As much as I enjoy Elder Scrolls, it does annoy me when I hit invisible walls and there's text telling me I can't go that way. I would at least prefer more immersive reasons why I can't go that way, like being wanted in certain places in Red Dead Redemption.

As for the more linear RPGs, I get wanting to explore more. That's one aspect of more modern Final Fantasy games I don't enjoy. FF XIII, VII Rebirth & XVI all open up at points, but they still feel very linear. I'd say FF XV has the same problems, but it doesn't feel as restrictive to me for whatever reason. XV's world still feels lived in to me.

 

[qw90700]

I always cursed at developers when in games you can go "outside of where you should go to progress the game" without any reward, secret or anything interesting to find.

In old games when you go off the road it meant you are on the road to find something that matters, and then they just started to add extra trivial locations to make the game "enriched" but it actually make you feel how empty the world is.

So in one hand I feel like it's unnecessary when in Bethesda games you can enter most of the places despite their existence is trivial, in the other hand I don't wanna be able to enter any place if it doesn't have a purpose. Otherwise so many places you enter to find something but after hours of search yields nothing. I see it as big fail in video game development, and my greatest example is Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Silent Hill 3. In decent open world RPGs you enter a place and either way find something in most of the places, but for example in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time it seems like they forgot to add something into most of the games and when you find something rarely the items are very rubbish trivial shits. When it comes to Silent Hill 3 just because it's a short game they put tons of shit places to enter hunting for items you may need to progress and 99% of the time you find nothing and locations are just copy paste empty shit. Anyone who like this game is either a pervert or a masochist or both lol. It's honestly the worst Silent Hill game in existence and no one can convince me otherwise. And I'm always suprised there are people liking Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. The game is hot horse and bullshit. I get this is most people's first Star Ocean game but come on dude lol.

When it comes to invisible walls I only hate it when there is a logical shortcut to take but no, game forces you to take the long road. I don't mean "story purposes", when the game is open world and there are invisible walls everywhere like in Bethesda games this is just shit yo.

 

[Heinzu]

I think in video games is empty rooms and large worlds are powerful tools for establishing atmosphere, controlling game pacing and enriching the player's sense of immersion. By using these concepts strategically the game developers can make a world feel more real and lived-in, rather than like a series of disjointed action sequences.

 

[Blamhammer]

Immersive sims would most likely require those spaces to exist. Deus Ex has the apartments and stores you can break into when you're in Paris (along with Helios commenting on your actions). Same with Mankind Divided, plenty of apartments that you don't need to interact with but can (along with security that will be called to apprehend you).

Shenmue 2 has the Kolwoon section and Yu Suzuki wanted all the rooms to be entered. That Magic Rooms system is just a random furniture placement system for each room. No need to go in though! It's all for the sake of immersion.

 

[Scotty]

I can kinda see where Waffles is coming from. Part of the reason why I love old JRPGs from the 80s & 90s is how they let you explore every nook and cranny of a town. It made each world feel lived-in and greatly enriched the player's immersion. Any time I step into a house that has maybe one NPC briefly chatting about their life, I never feel like I just wasted my time.

 

[iamthemilkman]

The last game that I played where the world truly felt lived-in was Deadly Premonition. Despite the graphics being dated, the world felt like a real place where NPC's had their own schedules. They'd wake up, go to work, go to eat, go to the bar, go to the grocery store, go to bed, and then do it all over again. And this was all done in a game that released for $19.99. Why can't $70 and $80 games be a bit more ambitious?

 

[Badseed Badseed]

In modern games you need to buy the DLC for "Empty Rooms and Larger Worlds"

 

[chxshire22]

completely empty rooms and houses with no purpose

i really like it if they add to the world for the world building aspect of the game, like oh someone lives here, or it adds to lore.

but empty open worlds make me kinda wna fall asleep xd

 

[Badseed Badseed]

The last game that I played where the world truly felt lived-in was Deadly Premonition. Despite the graphics being dated, the world felt like a real place where NPC's had their own schedules. They'd wake up, go to work, go to eat, go to the bar, go to the grocery store, go to bed, and then do it all over again. And this was all done in a game that released for $19.99. Why can't $70 and $80 games be a bit more ambitious?

I've never played Deadly Premonition, but I'm totally behind what you said about Developers ambition. But don't worry, soon AI will just program all the games anyway.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

The one example I had wanted to bring up (but couldn't because I was both high and drunk on World Series glory) was The Last Of Us.

In the prologue, you get to explore Joel's house semi-freely while playing as Sarah and it's utterly great, remarkably immersive and incredibly effective. But in the actual game, you are actively blocked from even looking too closely at things by NPCs (one of whom shoots your ass if you stay after getting told to GTFO). Since these happen nearly back-to-back, it's jarring and kind of insulting, too.

 

[qw90700]

The last game that I played where the world truly felt lived-in was Deadly Premonition. Despite the graphics being dated, the world felt like a real place where NPC's had their own schedules. They'd wake up, go to work, go to eat, go to the bar, go to the grocery store, go to bed, and then do it all over again. And this was all done in a game that released for $19.99. Why can't $70 and $80 games be a bit more ambitious?

It's also done in a PS2 game called Radiata Stories. You should play it if you never did or I'll send Jack on you so he'll scream you in Naruto voice all the time until you play the game!!!

And this is da Jack!!!:

lolol