I’ve recently found that big (mostly open world) games tend to overwhelm or even intimidate me. I’m a big fan of the Rockstar games and absolutely adored Breath of the Wild, but my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom has been a bit rocky from the get-go.
As soon as the game let me explore all of its content and released me from the tutorial island, I was able to roam the lands of Hyrule freely as I once did in Breath of the Wild, but I’ve come to a sort of paralysis. I feel like there’s such an enormous amount of content to see that I’m constantly anxious to unintentionally skip content or to not make the most of my experience. I did not feel like this back in Breath of the Wild, and I’m not really sure why. I did, however, have this same sense of FOMO when I first played Skyrim. That game also made me feel like I was constantly missing stuff which left me kind of unsatisfied.
This is not a big problem and all of the games I listed are great games. I’m posting this because I unconciously took a two week break from ToTK in order to alleviate that feeling but when I came back to the game today and still felt the same, I thought of posting here and maybe hearing your opinions on this thing.
Have you ever felt the same in big open world games? Do you feel like this in more linear games with multiple endings? (I do) Do you think I’m an overthinker and should just rock on? Looking forward to your comments!
I thought I was alone with that feeling. I’m in exactly the same boat as you.
For me, it’s a tiny bit different, because I played BOTW shortly before my daughther was born in 2017. I still had time for games like that back in the day. Now I don’t only have a daughter, but a son as well.
When I grab the controller and start playing something time intensive like BOTW and now TOTK, I usually feel really guilty really quick, because there are so many other things to do, that in theory should have a higher priority.
Just do what I do. Split your time between family, work, house projects, errands, and play a little of each backlogged game you have. Get absolutely nothing in your life done by trying to do everything 24/7. This way you get the benefit of feeling like you have no free time while also having the benefit of getting burnt out and overstressed. It can’t backfire. 100% sustainable.
Help me.
Don’t forget taking so long a break between games that you completely forget what you’re supposed to be doing, and if the game offers no sort of recap/hand-holding quest system - you have to start from scratch.
At which point the daunting nature of that overwhelms you and you just sit there browsing your catalog for something new to play/continue until you’re 15 minutes past your allotted time - and you’re now even further behind.
Win/win all around.
This is my biggest issue with open world games I always forget what I’m doing
Right?!?
I’m trying to play Elden Ring, Last of Us Part I, Diablo IV, Stray, BOTW, SW: JFO, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider-Man: Remastered, Hogwarts: Legacy, Atomic Heart, It Takes Two, Luigi’s Mansion 3, and more.
I’m not going to beat any of these before Starfield comes out, of which I will surely add to my catalog of “actively” playing games. I’m currently working on D4, but I did go back to BOTW briefly and get the third devine beast done, because my kids got me TOTK for Father’s Day, so I feel compelled to not sleep on it because I want them to play it with them.
I haven’t even finished Skyrim yet. How do people do it?
I think they skip the “have kids” part of life.
Like I enjoy games, but I’d rather spend time with kid and spouse than play them. Like I almost feel guilty taking time for myself to actually play them.
The spouse isn’t so much an issue to gaming, as separate work schedules gave ample time to just game. Kids on the other hand, and a special needs one for me, as the at-home parent take up almost every waking second of my day, from 7am to 8pm - 9pm if you count cleaning up the days activities.
My backlog is similar to yours - with the same “gotta get them in before Starfield comes out”. And I know it’s not gonna happen.
It was a much simpler time when you only had one console - and like 2 games + whatever you rented for the week.
For me, TotK has been great for forgetting what’s next. The whole game is chunked into small little tasks that string together. It’s rare that I’ve managed to set a goal and gone straight to it. It’s usually “warp to x in order to do y but now, z is on the way and it says to go to b. But b redirects me to do g,h, i, and j before I can fight my way to c. Aaaand whoops I just finished temple and I was just trying to deliver eggs to the shop keep.
That may not be to your taste, but I’m enjoying the happy accident moments of the game. I feel like a diagram of the quest flow would look similar to a technical diagram for the whole us postal system. Just play in the sandbox and have fun. You’ll eventually get where you’re going!
Yeah that’s fine and all, it’s basically the same formula Bethesda uses - and a formula I love for gameplay. The issue is coming back 6 months to a year or more later and then trying to get back into it. Which is a struggle with games like that.
I usually keep handwritten notes about quests and activities, but sometimes even then I still cannot get back into them because they rely on intricate knowledge of gameplay mechanics I’ve forgotten over the timespan of absence.
I love Zelda, and have been slowly working my way through my catalogue of unplayed titles in the series. A Link to the Past was actually the first game I got with my SNES. But I skipped out on the N64 and GameCube ones. But I don’t have the time for TotK just yet. I did get BotW at launch - and it was fun - but the final boss fight was rather underwhelming.
But to be fair the only Zelda boss that hasn’t been a real pushover is the original NES one where it will let you fight the final boss without the item you need to defeat him. And in no way tells you this.
Anyway I still need to beat Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Odyssey (all launch purchases) before getting yet another Switch game. TotK is on my radar, but Starfield looms ever closer and I know I’ll never beat TotK in time. HLTB puts it at like 58 hours just to do the main story. That’s a daunting amount of time at my point in life right now.
happened with me and new vegas. I did it in the spring of 2021 and did everything but the dlcs and the final confrontation at hoover damn.
Started Dead Money, hated it, and quit it and started old world blues. After this I was burnt out so I just stopped playing NV, and wanting to come back recently I tried to resume in the DLC.
I have no idea what the hell is going on so I have no idea if I’m going to continue where I left off or start the game over, only to miss the DLC content again when I inevitably get bored after the main game
Oh I want to go back and actually finish NV. I bought it at launch and played, but when I actually got to NV it was such a disappointment that it took me out of the entire game, and I didn’t get much further than that. I guess I got caught up in the in-game hype of New Vegas so much that I ended up with Paris Syndrome when I actually got there.
So I know I’m gonna have to restart, even if my save is somehow in the cloud because I have zero recollection of that game - having been nearly 13 years since I played now. And I don’t have the time to start a Bethesda game and finish it so close to another one coming out.
Ha! Thats the first time I’ve heard of someone getting Paris syndrome in a game. It is definitely an overhyped location in game, but it probably doesn’t help that its an overhyped location IN an overhyped game.
New Vegas is definitely a roleplaying masterpiece with great writing, but the actual level design and gameplay loop are mid af. It’s great for when you wanna go around and kill some time/relax in a desert wasteland where you occasionally shoot mutant critters or Roman cosplayers while listening to some of the best Jazz and Country Western of the era, but outside of that it isn’t the most fun world to explore and the gunplay is mid.
Also see: taking so long between games that a save breaking update is released that ruins your 30hr save game. At that point just closing the game and browsing Lemmy instead.
i remember this overwhelming feeling when first playing Witcher 3. At some point I just said f it, ignored the thoughts and had a blast
Yep, Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games despite not having tons of time. Whenever I play it, I just dedicate all my gaming time to it. With smaller games I play 2 at the same time. Quick Resume.
That’s probably the best way to go about it!
The game would be better with 75% less of the random map markers. I find them hard to ignore even though they’re often not worth getting.
I spent so much time trying to clean up map markets that I was not high level enough to deal with
This! I had to turn off most of them to make the game enjoayable.
I’ve gotten to the point where if somebody tells me that a game is 100+ hours, I consider it a con. I don’t want to dedicate the next 3 months of my gaming to a single game. And in my 20+ years of gaming, I’ve learned that no game truly has 100+ hours of content. Rather, they have 20 - 40 hours of content, stretched over the remainder of the filler in bullshit ways. These days, I’m ecstatic when I find a game like Guardians of the Galaxy. Tight, well written 20 hour experience that know what it is an what it wants to be. One and done. Love that game.
Yeah its the time wasting that can drive me nuts. A game that is paced well goes down easy. Too often im playing a game and there comes a point where i feel like im getting bored and need to railroad the main quest to get it done.
I find that I totally switch off as soon a game starts to feel like a big checklist of “Content” to check off. For open world games, this is usually as soon as there’s a fast travel feature. For me, it’s not that I’m overwhelmed, I just feel that this framework makes for an incredibly samey experience.
I never fast travel in games that allow me the option not to. I find them infinitely more engaging that way. Skyrim got it just right with their well-balanced mounts.
I played through most of Horizon: Zero Dawn before I realised it even had fast travel. It was that moment that I realised I’d been enjoying traversing through the game world even if it meant everything took a lot more time. Since then I’ve used fast travel less in games.
@joelfromaus This reminds me of my first time with Skyrim where I was buying huge quantities of food, potions and other supplies as “preparation” for travelling to other places.
The best example I remember was the first time I had to travel to Riften and I was going through all these supplies on my horse and it was so fun!
I came to this conclusion after asking myself how would I be doing it in the time period set by the game.
TOTAL IMMERSION!!😍I think I was 16 back then.
@joelfromaus @Stalinwolf spiderman was the one game where I refused to use fast travel I didnt care how far I had to go web swinging was just that fun
I liked the silt striders in Morrowind. You had to pay them to fast travel to a certain destination. That seems realistic to me and doesn’t break immersion.
I’m with you on that too. I was thinking more “click on the map and appear there” kind of fast travel, but stationary transit between hubs is fine by me. Awesome you mentioned Morrowind anyway since I just started modding it again this week for a new playthrough.
Morrowind’s fast travel was the best execution ever, yeah. It’s like, paying for a journey as you would in real life, often to new locations entirely, rather than magically teleporting to the middle of a city.
Final Fantasy XI (an MMO) has something that feels spiritually similar to me, in that you can ride airships and ferries to different cities; but it’s real time, and some people use ferry journeys for fishing for example.
I have slowly realised that Fast Travel ruins games for me
Oh god, a game without fast travel is an instant con for me.
Go ahead and miss stuff. It’ll be more fun on subsequent plays-through if you’re still discovering new things. It’s also more enjoyable to come across stuff organically than if you turn it into a chore.
I used to be a completionist; it made games less enjoyable. If a game is good enough to make missing some content a loss there’s a strong chance I’ll want to replay it in a year or two anyway so I’ve learned to let some things go the first time around.
100% agree with you, being a completionist also sucks the enjoyment out of games for me. I feel like I’m not as far along as you and still have to “get” that I don’t HAVE to explore and find everything. Just takes a while, probably. :) It’s hard for me to decide whether a game is worth exploring extensively or not.
It’s a good attitude – “if it’s that good I’ll replay it one day anyway” – though easier said than done sometimes. (Particularly in a game like, say, Dying Light 2, where you can lock yourself out of tons of sidequests by simply progressing the main story.
I really loved Divinity Original Sin II, but I’ve never finished it. At a certain point I lost momentum and afterwards the idea of trying to pick back up where I left off is just too daunting, and the idea of starting over again is even more daunting.
I feel this 100%, I’m also currently playing it with a friend (well, we’ve been at it for more than 6 months) and I’m so so glad he’s pulling me through the game, I’d never ever finish it on my own.
Absolutely. I hear Witcher 3 is good, and I believe that it is… but after playing it for 5 hours and feeling like I got nowhere, the next day I just genuinely didn’t feel like playing it as I’d felt very little character progress, and zero story progression.
Games are continuing to market towards younger people - especially kids - with spare time to burn. They consider their 120+ hour playtime to be a selling point, but at this point that’s the reason I avoid them. If I’m going to play for an hour or so at the end of my day, I want that game to feel like it meant something.
I prefer my games to feel dense, deliberately crafted, minimal sawdust padding. I’ve enjoyed open-world in the past but the every-increasing demand for bigger and bigger maps means that most open-world games are very empty and mostly traversal. Linear worlds aren’t bad - they can be crafted much more deliberately and with far more content because you can predict when the player will see them.
Open worlds that craft everything in it deliberately are very rare, and still rely on constraints to limit the player into somewhat-linear paths. Green Hell needs a grappling hook to leave the first basin, Fallout: New Vegas fills the map north of Tutorial Town with extreme enemies to funnel new players south-east.
And what really gets me is that with microtransactions, the number of games that make themselves so big and so slow that they’re boring on purpose, so that they can charge you to skip them! Imagine making a game so fucking awful that anybody buying a game will then buy the ability to not play it because 80% of the game is sawdust: timers, resource farming, daily rotations, exp grinding. Fucking nightmare, honestly.
Here is my secret: I don’t care if I miss something. It’s not a problem if you miss a side quest or intentionally skip something (especially if you don’t enjoy it, it’s an annoying side quest). Completing a game can be quite enjoyable, but as soon as it becomes a chore or you see it as a todo list, that’s where I personally back off.
For example in TOTK, I really enjoy my time just exploring here and here. I didn’t like the abyss at first so I played 30h+ hours before starting exploring it, and now that I feel more confident, I am passing most of my time there (that’s why I have played 70h+ hours with only one dungeon completed 😅). I knew about a 4th power, but I didn’t find it until very recently. I was enjoying my time with what I got, extrapolating about what it could be, but it was not a problem not to have it.
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I feel the same way about big games, and just yesterday I was feeling the same anxiety after the tutorial island in TOTK. I usually feel I need to find every secret and every korok sees etc. But this time I’m trying a new strategy - letting the game lead me. Some NPC says “go do this now”, OK I do that and try not to get side tracked. Supposed to visit a certain town next? Then I go there! The game (so far) does seem linear or at least it offers that option*, so when I’m overwhelmed, I follow that line.
TotK is a bit of a weird game. I’m still not sure what the “correct” way to play the game is. I did too much of the underground at first because I got a lot of maps. But when I had gotten all the treasures that I found the maps for, I had already explored a lot of the depths. Then I found up I could upgrade my battery more than 30 times, but I still had only five hearts, so I felt like I was playing the game wrong. So up to the surface I went. I thought I will mainly explore the underground after getting the map in that area. But after I learned how to make a aerial vehicle and the fast-building mechanic, I now feel like I skip everything, even places where I feel like I’m supposed to do something clever. But at the same time, I already explored this world by horse in the previous game, so perhaps skipping every obstacle by flying is what I’m supposed to do? Unfortunately, flying from shrine to shrine is pretty boring, and the shrines are ridiculously easy. Not sure where I’m going with this, but I think my point is simply that after probably a hundred hours I’m still confused about how to play this game in a meaningful way, even though I like this game a lot in many ways.
I think there’s no real “correct” way to play TotK. The game almost always gives you one obvious way to accomplish a task but puts very few guardrails to prevent you from bypassing things. It’s definitely a challenge for me to get out of that mindset of trying to guess the intended route so I don’t miss things and instead just enjoy encountering whatever content and situations arise from playing the game the way that I want.
Glad to see you’re also a bit confused about TotK! It definitely feels like it has less of a direction it pushed you in than BotW. There was another comment that suggested completing a bit of the main story first, I think I’ll try that for now.
I used to have this feeling often with open world games, and it put me off playing them for a long time - it was just too overwhelming, and an activity that was supposed to relax me was having the opposite effect. Now when I play them I don’t care so much and just enjoy whatever I come across.
So what changed? I started taking medication for my anxiety, which I never thought was an issue until a few family members gave me a gentle nudge to talk to someone about it.
Not saying you’re in the same boat, but thought I’d share my story in case it’s helpful.
Off topic, but can I ask how & what about the anxiety meds? I deal with it all but it’s exhausting sometimes. The last time o spoke to a GP about it (5 years ago) they talked me out of taking things any further because of impacts to insurance/etc.
I’m not OP, but I started taking paroxetine (Paxil in the US) for social anxiety disorder in 2010. It took a few weeks for it to take effect, and I had some side effects for about 90 days. However, ever since then, I have had zero anxiety issues for the rest of my life, and I no longer have any side effects. I take 20mg once daily.
I know SSRIs are a controversial topic, and some people don’t like them, but for what it’s worth, it changed my life for the better.
I may have to look into treatment for my own anxiety issues. For me, they’re quite annoying and get in the way of my relationship and my enjoyment of everyday activities that should be fun, like video games and going to hangout with friends.
Absolutely! I spoke to my GP because I was completely functional with my stress and anxiety levels, but I just wasn’t feeling great - I was whiteknuckling my way through each work day, despite nobody knowing or my job performance being affected. I tried to justify the feeling to myself as “well, it’s just busy, I’ll be more relaxed once this rough patch is over”. But the “rough patch” would never end, it was like chasing a rainbow. Once I finally realised that it didn’t matter why I felt shit, if I still felt shit all the time, I spoke to a psychologist and tried some CBT. That didn’t make a huge difference, so my GP suggested trying out an SSRI. I’m now on a low dose of escitalopram and it’s been pretty life changing. If you’ve considered meds before, I’d highly recommend revisiting that idea. Modern anti-depression and anti-anxiety drugs are a lot more targeted than the older generations. You don’t need to be on them permanently either, you can try for 3-6 months and see how you go.
But you’re right - the one downside is potential insurance implications. For example, my life insurance no longer covers me for anything mental health related, which is quite a broad stroke considering I’ve got it under control and it was just garden variety mild generalised anxiety. I’m apparently one of “the crazies” now to them. But considering how much better I feel now, I’d make the same decision a million times over.
Happy to discuss more if you have follow-up questions, more people should chat about this stuff!
I call them “man on horse” simulators. I think open worlds have generally gotten a bit bigger than they need to be – I remember feeling like FFXV was actually very empty, despite being massive, and while Skyrim is beloved, so much of current replay has been slogging through massive amounts of nothing. I tend to wish open world games were somewhat smaller but denser, with more variety instead of huge, empty terrains of sort of bad-feeling, filler quests between the good ones.
I think the Yakuza games strike a great balance here. There’s an open city, rather than an open world. There’s something to do down every street.
Absolutely, would that more devs were inspired by Yakuza’s alive and dense little districts instead of competing with each other to see who can make the biggest, most boring open world.
Yep – I love that franchise for that reason! Instead of sprawling, they’re just dense and full of life. I still got lost even after playing five of those games in the same neighborhood but like, I wish more people looked at that density vs sprawl
They typically focus mostly on a single neighbourbood in a city too right? Further keeping things focused for the player. Granted, I’ve not actually played through 100% of any of the Yakuza games, yet, but that’s the impression I got in the time that I have played.
Aye you’re right. I’ve only finished 0 and kiwami, but honestly I could’ve spent 3x the time I did on them just walking about finding stuff to do. You can’t walk far without running into something.
They usually have two cities!
Yeah, one neighbourhood from one or two different cities. Kamurochō is based on Kabukichō.
I just wish they wouldn’t re-use the same area in every game. Tried to play Lost Judgement but I think I’m burned out on Kamurocho for the next 5 years or so.
I felt the same way when I opened the new Hitman reboot, and a bit when I opened TotK. What I like about BotW and TotK is that you basically can’t miss content. Some events are one-time-only but you have to experience them actively first. Quests and adventures will wait for you. I feel a lot more paralyzed and FOMO if the game just doesn’t wait for me to explore what I want in my own time.
Interesting that the Hitman games make you feel like this, I thoroughly enjoyed them because of the ability to replay levels endlessly, which made me feel like I can’t miss anything because I can just start over if I want to try a different approach.
It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.
Thanks for your perspective, that sounds like a good way to tackle that game. In my last session, I just felt that there was so so much to do and wanted to do everything at once. Maybe I’ll also focus on the main story for now and get to exploring a bit later. It’s like you said: We have all the time in the world, Hyrule’s literally sitting there waiting for us to come and explore.
Yes I have, but I have to remind myself that they have added way more content than they expect one person to engage with, and its on purpose. YOU know best what you are intrigued by and interested in, and for large open worlds can ignore as much as you want, but if you are enjoying yourself chasing the threads you find engaging then they have succeeded at what they set out to build.
Well said. What makes this game so special is the journey is your own. Part of the magic for me is watching others’ playthroughs and seeing them do something entirely different to what I did. It’s been almost two months and I’m still regularly surprised!
The thing is, often developers specifically don’t add content if they think a significant amount of players won’t see it (especially not unique content). I’m not sure where it came from originally, but it’s a particular dev philosophy that became popular among “AAA” devs in the past decade.
Very well said, you’re right! There’s definitely too much to see for a single person in a single playthrough.
