Thoughts on Ubisoft's take on Open World?

Do you like the way Ubisoft makes open world games? I think all of them are full of mindless grinding and repetitive tasks, with no quality or variety. Sure main missions can be fun and some hunting mechanics in Far Cry games are really cool but mostly it's all about doing fetch quests, climbing towers, performing extremely basic melee attacks, poor optimization and so on.

What you think? Do you think that Ubisoft makes quality products? If they don't then how can they improve their open world games? Is it even necessary to make open world games and not something like Crysis or first Far Cry (sandbox levels)?

they make most boring open world games. FC3 was only decent.

Ya to much copy/paste

If Ubishit really cared about PC community, they should've dropped the uFail long time ago. Or at least, dropped it if Steam version is running.

In short, uFail = no buy.

I liked AssCreed 2 and Brotherhood's open worlds, and I liked the first AssCreed simply because of how atmospheric it was (as an open world it was nothing special). Far Cry 3 was okay, but I preferred Far Cry 4 because of its mountainous landscapes. But the one issue Ubisoft's open worlds almost always have (even more so in their recent games) is the sheer bloat that they're guilty of. Too much meaningless filler crap to fill up their game worlds. Almost feels more like a chore than anything else, gets in the way of your enjoyment.

So short answer- not particularly, no. They do a good job of building their worlds, but they're terribly inept at filling those worlds with proper content.

They are shit at open world games. They do, like, 5 different missions in their games. Then they let the players do these missions thousands of times. It was OK in Assassin's Creed 1, I thought. Then they made AC2, AC3, AC4, AC whatever, FarCry 2, 3, and 4 with the exact same crappy formula. All games equally shit.

the only game I liked was far cry 3

They're awesome at building the worlds. All the cities they've created are uniquely awesome.

BUT, i barely play the side quests and i just mainline their games ...maximum playtime of 30. To be fair here, except a few gems like TW3 all the open-worlds tend to be boring ....it's not just Ubisoft.

Indeed !

They really don't know how to use the open-world to its full potential. They're mostly filled with copy-paste mini-games.

Which is sad because a lot of them are really well designed.

What can I say? Crap.

They actually aren't that different from how everyone else does open world games, what bugs me more is how poor their gameplay mechanics can be beyond ass creed parkour system (which is admittedly really well done), and how horrible their mission designs are. Otherwise the entire open world genre has been built on brainless banal bitch work, because gamers got fooled into thinking about how long a game is, and not how good a game is.

Far Cry 4 took the open world to the vertical even more by making mountain climbing easier and providing a number of aircraft (hang glider, Buzzer, wing suit). That makes the pagoda towers easier to forgive not that I had problems with them.

I don't care much for AC and the other Ubisoft open-world games. But, FC4 ranks at the top for me compared to other open-world games. GTA V would have to come 2nd followed by TW3 (FC3 comes at 4th).

Edit:

The top three open-world games for me above each have a uniqueness I like. TW3 ties in well to the story. GTA V has the most variety of sights to look at. But, FC4 is the most versatile. I go back to it the most....in a The Sims kind of way when I just want to roam around and shoot at something.

I haven't tried JC3 yet. So, that one is a question mark.

I find most of Ubisoft's open worlds to be a hit or a miss but for the most parts, they could do better but it really depends on the game that takes advantages in open worlds. Watch Dogs is a good example, it felt like I was playing Assassin's Creed only in the future era [well present day actually] that I think Ubisoft got it right for a open world how it should be done. I felt like Watch Dogs open world was done right and other games like FC4 was also cool.

+1 ,couldn't have said it better myself ... I think Watch Dogs is the living proof of that

Too formulaic.

I thought the AC open world was so atmospheric, along with the story it made the game for me but locking sections away was a bit weird. Now they are a bit copy and paste as others have said.

I like them, but I don't like worlds like Black Flag or some sidequests in Watch_Dogs. Still prefer their worlds over Bethesda's, by far.

I'm not sure what they did with Syndicate, but Ubisoft really should pursue the open ended mission structure they tried to implement in Assassin's Creed Unity. It was a structure that played to the strength of the open world setting.

Far Cry 3 was fantastic. But other than that...meh.

The themepark design?

Cant really say I like it. The only times I really like Open World design is when it is designed through a sandbox mentality.

I would rather have a linear, tightly paced game over loads of pointless travel.

I personally do. I LOVE farcry 3 and 4 and really liked Black Flag and Unity. I thought the architecture inside and out was brilliant with Unity.

To me they're the worst in the gaming industry. Some developers try (not always succeed) to make an interesting world with lots of things to do. Ubisoft's goal is to put towers to climb, unveil copy/pasted chores and get to the next tower that unlocks more chores. Laughing stock if you ask me.

Watch Dogs was pretty good visually and so was the recent assassins creed for design, but they are boring. I'd much rather have a smaller world that is of quality/less filler like the yakuza series.

all curb appeal to me.

They fucking suck. NEXT question

i agree

That's why I liked Witcher 2 last gen so much. It was linear but it was unique and is still unique in the series IMO. The game wasn't open world and it was short too, but was full of beautifully handcrafted quests and exploration elements (and a great story with multiple outcomes). I'd say if you can't handle it, make smaller game that is actually good instead of following open world trend and then filling it with fetch quests.

@Cloud_imperium: Watch Dogs and Assassins Creed are more fun to walk around like a regular person than to do the "side content", that's not good.

I spent far too long training disciples in a dojo the other day in yakuza =w=

I'm going to be going back to yakuza 4 but I'm 100% distrated by Folklore which I've discovered might be one of my favorite games of all time.

I wish the Far Cry series felt a bit more grounded, I miss some of the immersive/diagetic HUD stuff from Far Cry 2. They feel a bit too gamey for me compared to what the series has gone for in the past.

AC IV is probably the best open world thing they have put out, and I'd actually put Watch Dogs right behind it, the gameplay in that is underrated as shit. The hate band-wagoning around that game is out of control, the main character and plot is weak but the same is true for like every open world Ubisoft game around.

I'll say something really damn crazy: as a open word stealth-action game, I enjoyed Watch Dogs more than MGS V. Better balanced difficulty and smarter AI, more interesting setting, and it looks better as well once you get the PC mods rolling

Don't care much for them, they feel too formulaic....however, FC4 was super fun co-op campaign, and the Yeti DLC was also awesome coop with its tower defense mode. So boring alone, but great fun co-op for some of their open world games, is my conclusion.

I completely agree. Mindless repetitive and in the end boring games. The only exception imo was Far Cry 3 and Blood dragon

Climbing towers to unlock the map and secrets is super lame yet Ubi does it in all their games. They put towers in a racing game for crying out loud.

Far Cry 2 did have a nice UI that kept the player in the action all the time in addition to having a super-clean HUD. I wish Ubisoft would bring it back.

Have Far Cry 2's UI

Have Far Cry 4's versatility in the vertical, including the grappling hook and flying vehicles.

Have airborne enemies like the gunships in Crysis/Warhead and the ATACs in Killzone 2. In Far Cry 4, the only flying enemies were the eagles. It would be nice to have an assortment of bad guys sneak up via hang glider and wingsuit or come in guns blazing via the Buzzer. Oh. There were gunships too. But, they tended to center around fortresses and some of the outposts. I wish they'd rove around more.

Have more varied scenery on an island like in GTA V. Being able to circle the island gives a better sense of continuity than running into an invisible wall.

I'm not a big fan of the towers. But, I liked the ones that were heavily defended. Otherwise, a Buzzer made short work of most of them.

I think Ubisoft need to tone down the animal attacks. No more rhinos.

It can't be any worse than a Bethesda developed open world "RPG". Or can it? I refuse to buy any game from Ubisoft.

The good ol' "Ubisoft Open World" design. It was fine in Assassin Creed 1 and 2, fun even. Then they decided to use it for everything else. Worst is that a lot of their games ended up being basically linear experiences with an open world connecting it all. They filled the open world with the "Ubisoft Open World" mechanics (towers, collectables), but the actual missions are very linear.

So far it seems to have infested the Assassin's Creed series, Far Cry Series, Watch_Dogs, and The Crew. The Division looks safe from it (for now) but I'm sure it'll keep up.

I rarely say this about games, but that "Ubisoft Open World" design is just lazy. It's a lazy way to gate progression of the open world. All it ensures is that a game will be released on time and some people will find it fun. Enough to make sure the reviews are high enough and the sales won't a nosedive. It's really a classic case of corporate intervention in the creative process.

Let's say you develop massive games at a rapid pace using thousands developers from studios all over the world. To be able to do that you need to have a well established formula, blueprint if you will, so that the global factory can run smoothly. Unfortunately there's a massive creative cost. This is exactly why Ubisoft is suffering imo. They have scaled up in an impressive way, but it has been at the expense of rather soulless games. There are a couple of aspects of the formula I find particulary annoying.

First off there's no attempt to make the factory made content feel organic. On the contrary the games frequently highlight it by flagging the content as much as they can (filling out the maps) and adding lists of chores. If Ubisoft tried to cover it up more I think they could get away with it better. I mean what's the bloody point of marking chests on the map? Do you really want to scream "BLOAT" at the face of the player?

Secondly it's not just that the activities are repeated, they are way too short and extremely shallow to begin with. Take FarCry 4 for example. There are missions where you support a truck. What's fun about that mission type? Or the hunting missions? Or the races? At least try to hit a higher benchmark before starting the copy-paste process. The collectibles can go burn in a figher.

Thirdly their games are mechanically weak. FarCry 4 is actually a fine stealth/guerilla game imo, but perhaps not the strongest shooter. The core gameplay loop of taking over an outpost is fun though imo. Assassin's Creed on the other hand is just pure trash from a mechanical standpoint (last I played was 4). The combat is shallow and yet it's clumsy as f*. Even something like Ryse: Son of Rome is massively superior. Stealth isn't functional. The AI is broken. Detection rules inconsistent, there's a lack of fun tools and so on. The parkour is ok to casually explore, but when put under pressure (chase for example) it breaks down. If the mechanics were much stronger the repetition wouldn't be so bad.

I just can't get into them.

The obvious feeling of repetition in open world games is something I'm used to. It's why I don't dig most open world games. But with Ubi that repetition is often supported by lack luster gameplay which is a big no for me. Mechanically, these games are abysmal at times. I don't even give them a chance anymore, but when I did, I'd usually get bored after a few hours.

My only hope is that the Splinter Cell series doesn't get butchered by this template. Blacklist was no Chaos Theory, but it still felt like a nice bounce back for the series. If they go and give it the open world fetch quest treatment, or basically turn it into modern Ass Creed, I think I'll actually cry.

They tried to do that by adding some generic sidequests for the various characters on the plane and some daily challenges or wtf it was. They weren't totally capable of ruining the game though :). Blacklist was great all around imo. It's a comptent stealth game. Amazing it can be made by the same devs as AC.... (not the same studio though).

Well, that took some courage. i liked Watch Dogs and stealth sections were kinda like SC so it pretty much grabbed me.

I like far cry 3 and 4 but i'm tired of the ubi formula. Too many icons on the map and uninteresting missions and side stuff.

The ironic bit is that so far my experience with uPlay has been a lot better than Origin. At least uPlay WORKS at a basic level, lol.

Blood Dragon was fantastic.

I really liked the naval open world in AC IV and the world in general in Far Cry 4.

The problem with Ubisoft's open worlds these days is that they are all based on the same tired formula, and most of the "activities" are go climb this tower, and then collect all this useless stuff to fill up checklists.

I tend to just ignore most of that and focus on the main story, and any actual side missions that have stuff to do, instead in their games these days.

The sad part is, after the success of Phantom Pain, Ubisoft are probably gonna slap the open world template onto Splinter Cell, and I just don't think it'll work, especially if its open world is the exact same as, well, every Ubisoft game in the last decade.

You can bet your ass that's going to happen in the future at some point. Lol. As mentioned earlier, Blacklist was no Chaos Theory but it was still a small step in the right direction compared to Conviction but I am getting this feeling that the series will go downhill from now on.

Lol, same here.

I'm worried Splinter Cell is dead? I mean just as AC replaced Prince of Persia, I have a feeling WatchDogs may replace SC.

Pure canned shyt most of the time. Copy, paste; copy, paste; copy, paste...

Ability thwarting ambition.

lol people like you guys make me laugh, you bitch and moan about Uplay to no end and for what? It's a non-intrusive platform and has minimal interference with anything related to playing your games.

Also why should Ubisoft drop their own platform if a game is on Steam? It's their platform, Steam is just a storefront for their games, not the platform for them.