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 tried Fallout Las Vegas and I was already overwhelmed by the open world choices from the beginning. Do I loot some of the unpermitted stuff from the guy who saved me? Do I loot every house in view?
I prefer a game to tell me what to do or what to be, like reading a book. Fallout tells me of course but I’m still a bit of a hoarder.
Ah man I feel you. As I grow older, I notice that I’m more drawn towards linear games rather than open world for this exact reason
Truee, Fallout also made me feel like this! I’ve only ever started FO4 but I had to return it within the first two hours of playing because I felt forced to loot every house and find every little story in that giant world. Too much for me!
New Vegas is a weird one, in that it’s much closer to a genuine, old ‘choices matter’ RPG, and a pretty far cry from FO3 and 4. Hardcore RPG fans love it for that reason, but if you grew up on Skyrim or similar it’s going to be jarring and overwhelming.