Argument On The Topic of Open World Game Design: A response to a negative criticism of Mafia III's mission structure

On a post related to a potential Mafia II remake, an individual named NorthernPunk posits this:

 

"I'm just gonna come out and say I hope Mafia 2 never gets remade. No point at all.

People are so spoiled now with games, everyone wants remakes and open world games.

I'm sick of the open world crap. Semi-open is fine, but Mafia 3 was a *CENSORED* chore to slog through, all because they listened to the complaints of younger generation gamers who were butthurt that Mafia wasn't like Grand Theft Auto.

Game developers need to go back and re-assess the things that made classic games so great. Nobody ever played Half-Life and complained it wasn't open world. Bah. The world is going to hell LOL"

 

 

 

Tiny Dog responds:

 

"I don't remember anyone complaining then or now about Mafia II not being an open world game. Also, the game was originally an open world game with a GTA-style mission structure during most of its development. It was advertised that way for years until the final release, when open world content had to be scrapped to meet release deadlines.

Even the original Mafia game had an open world function to it, the Free Ride mode. If both Mafia and Mafia II had been released a few years later than they had been, it would've been highly likely that they would have incorporated an open world structure.

Mafia III's problem wasn't rooted in its open world structure, but instead in its lack of variety among missions and world interactivity. It also lacked the straightforwardness and polish that its predecessors had. Quite the contrary to your statement, Mafia III would have sold better among general audiences had it not incorporated an open world structure.

I do agree that a lot of open world games are rinse-and-repeat today, and lack the detail of games in the Mafia/GTA/Red Dead franchise. The flaw of most open world games of the 2010s, just like the flaw of Mafia III, is that they don't have enough content to make up for their size. I believe the industry has begun to notice that people have become dissatisfied with this, which is why more non-open world games are being made and selling better today, and ones that are open world are being packed to the brim with content, a la Red Dead Redemption II. I firmly believe the age of Assassin's Creed mission structure dominating the industry is over, and it died with Cyberpunk: 2077.

By the time the Mafia II remake releases, if it ever does, the developers will either recognize how effective its original mission structure was and keep it, or will make it open world and follow the same principles of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - it's better to have a small world with a lot of content, than a big world with hardly none."