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PaperclipPerfector  27d ago (text post)   2823 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 18, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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One of the fantasies I have for a game is some kind of big budget story-game that is set in a truly huge open world.

A problem I find in things like GTA, Skyrim, Red Dead, WoW, Breath of the Wild is that to provide a certain ‘content density’ to the easily distracted player they all have these toy worlds, where towns have ten houses and cities have fifty, where travelling from the capital of one region to the capital of the other takes five minutes by horse but the characters talk about the huge distances in the world. It’s not that I can’t suspend my disbelief, it’s that I imagine sometimes what it would be not to (in this specific way).

I imagine a huge world, maybe fifty or a hundred times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2. The vast majority of it would be empty, the amount of content would probably similar. The major settlements would be mostly the same size, but the smaller ones would be more realistic than a thriving town that has like six buildings. There would be no instantaneous fast travel. You might be able to sail along rivers or the coast, ride a horse, whatever, but these things would all happen without ‘skips’.

Large amounts of the player’s time would be spent travelling, although there would be a lot of dialogue, camaraderie, interesting conversation choices on the road, while sailing, in a caravan, some random events. The game would take the player on a journey around the map, such that you would really feel, when looking at it, the distance traversed. If you wanted to backtrack to a city you were in at the start of the game, it might take several hours of real time to get there, which would require a difficult trade off.

There would be a lot of downtime to get to know companions, or maybe other players if it was multiplayer. You would feel, at times, truly far from civilization, have to prepare for excursions. In remote corners of the world there would be secrets to find that would feel off the beaten track, not like those RPGs where the secret dungeon entrance is spookily signposted fifty feet outside the entrance of the capital city.

I sometimes launch The Hunter: Call of the Wild to walk across one of its massive maps. However, there's a reason why Skyrim is so packed with landmarks or why Firewatch has a tiny map: the walking experience is just not the same.

Modern technology can get your sight and your hearing if not fooled, then reasonably convinced to make the sensations enjoyable. But when you are walking for hours in real life, your other senses are engaged as well:

  • the sense of smell, of course: meadow grasses, pines, wet dirt on the bank of an ice-cold creek, or even the briny smell of the ocean...
  • the sense of temperature: hot sun, cold wind from the glacier, a warm stone you're taking a break on...
  • proprioception: you're walking uphill, then downhill, pebbles working themselves loose under your feet, your muscles slowly growing tired...
  • the senses of thirst, hunger and taste: small sips of water, a protein bar, a warm sandwich from pack

Without this a long in-game walk will feel closer to Desert Bus in experience.

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