Chapter 871: Linear Game or Open World?
In the first half of this year, it wasn’t just the *Assassin’s Creed* series that shone brightly on the global gaming market.
Of course, *Assassin’s Creed: Origins* and *Assassin’s Creed: Revelations* were undoubtedly among the best-selling games of the period, but that didn’t mean they could completely dominate every other game released at the same time.
To put it simply, the *Assassin’s Creed* series had become an iconic game IP thanks to its compelling storylines, meticulously researched historical settings, rich cultural depth, and unique combat system. However, it wasn’t flawless in every aspect.
That’s why TGN gave *Assassin’s Creed* a score of 9.3, marking it as an excellent work.
Before *Assassin’s Creed* launched, a VR game called *The Traveler* earned an 8.8 rating. Then, two weeks after *Assassin’s Creed: Revelations* was released, a game titled *The Lost Fleet* burst onto the scene, also achieving a high score of 9.3 on TGN.
The strong emergence of this game seemed to declare to the world: The era of Serent’s dominance? Not yet!
Indeed, over the past two years, Thunderbolt Interactive and Chen Mo had been riding a massive wave of success. The appearance of a series of classic IPs had left many major foreign studios feeling suffocated, and players often sighed, “Times have changed.”
But the gaming industry isn’t a zero-sum game. When everyone can make good games, it’s a win-win situation. Your game scoring 0.1 points higher than mine doesn’t mean you completely crush me.
As long as developers put genuine effort into crafting games and truly adapt to market demands, every game designer can achieve success. It’s just a matter of sooner or later, more or less.
*The Lost Fleet* was a sci-fi FPS game set in the future. It told the story of a small interstellar fleet that, due to an accident, completely lost contact with its mothership and was forced to embark on adventures in a treacherous cosmic environment.
Throughout the process, players experienced the warmth of humanity in desperate situations and the cruelty of the laws of the universe. They went through a series of bizarre and unpredictable cosmic adventures, fought terrifying alien creatures, and felt the endless loneliness of drifting through space. By the time they finally returned to Earth, many players were moved to tears, like wanderers returning home after years abroad.
In terms of influence and buzz, this game wasn’t as big as *Assassin’s Creed*, but in artistry and gameplay, it was clearly an excellent work, earning it the same high score of 9.3.
Moreover, due to the game’s popularity, sales of the novel of the same name steadily rose, and plans for a film adaptation were already in the works.
For players, *The Lost Fleet* created a very realistic cosmic environment (or at least one that felt realistic, given that current technology can’t support human interstellar travel). It vividly portrayed the loneliness and despair of endless drifting in space, interspersed with thrilling spaceship piloting and gunfight sequences. From every angle, this work deserved its 9.3 rating without exaggeration.
However, discussions about *The Lost Fleet* didn’t stop at the game itself; they expanded into broader topics.
For example… the direction of the gaming industry’s development.
This situation arose mainly because two of the highest-rated games in the first half of the year, *The Traveler* and *The Lost Fleet*, were both linear games.
In other words, both games abandoned the concept of open worlds and followed the path of “cinematic gaming.”
As for why… it all traces back to last year’s *Uncharted* by Chen Mo.
Before *Uncharted*, the world’s major VR game blockbusters were mostly striving toward open worlds. Many people even felt that not making an open world meant falling behind the times.
The reason was simple: open-world design had an immediate effect on extending players’ playtime while making the game appear “content-rich” and “worth the price.”
In reality, many open-world games weren’t necessarily better than linear games, and many poorly executed open-world games were merely superficial. For instance, they’d cram the map with tons of collectibles, repetitive gameplay loops, and high-tier items with strictly controlled stats.
Players would eventually find such open worlds boring after a while. It was just running around the map, grinding over and over.
But it had to be said, the effect was immediate. Players loved collecting achievements and trophies. The numerical stimulation of grinding, though simple and crude, was very effective.
As a result, many major international game studios were addicted to the concept of open worlds, unable to break free.
However, *Uncharted* changed that. Through clever level design, high-performance visuals, meticulously crafted scripts, and other factors, *Uncharted*, as a linear game, successfully captivated a large number of players, almost wiping the floor with most open-world games of the same period.
Then *The Last of Us* came along and further fueled this trend. Clearly, a game like *The Last of Us* was best suited to a linear format. If it had been made open-world, it would have ruined the classic.
*The Last of Us* winning Game of the Year prompted many designers to reflect: Is an open world always better?
*The Traveler* and *The Lost Fleet* were the results of this reflection. Many designers stopped blindly believing in the open-world concept and instead turned to linear games, using compelling stories and precise pacing to firmly grip players’ hearts.
It had to be said, open worlds were good but unpredictable. In contrast, with a good script and careful polishing, a linear game could almost certainly produce a high-rated work.
Whether it sold well or not was another matter, but game media scores would definitely not be bad.
With decent scores, good marketing, and a bit of catering to market tastes, sales wouldn’t be poor either.
*The Traveler* and *The Lost Fleet* were born under this opportunity, and the facts proved that linear games could indeed work well.
This sparked discussions among many designers and players, centering on a core question: Given the current level of technology, is it still insufficient to make open worlds the best they can be? For the present stage, are linear games the better choice?
Of course, there were some good open-world games in the parallel world, but compared to the total number of open-world games, they were still a minority. In other words, if a parallel-world game was done well, it became a classic, but the vast majority failed to achieve that.
Conversely, linear games with strict progression and clear rules had become a very solid option.