Show less, randomise more: a Cyberpunk 2077 designer on how to stop open worlds feeling exhausting
In the first post for my series on "saving" open world design, I complained that many of today's open worlds feel like checklists of formulaic tasks and rewards, their geography a vaporous staging ground for itemisable, cycling content-gathering opportunities, which flies in the face of the sense of freedom and wonder they're supposed to inspire. My interviewees, Elder Scrolls veterans Matt Firor and Nate Purkeypile, argued that this reflects the expense and scale of today's open world productions, which constrains experimental design both at a practical level and in terms of overall direction.
CD Projekt open world designer Jakub Tomczak doesn't, as far as I know, have an answer to the issue of production bloat, but he does have a disarmingly obvious solution to the 'checklist problem', based on his time creating missions for Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion: get better at hiding the checklist. Weave it into the landscape and setting more artfully, with an elegant balance of randomisation and responsiveness to the player's behaviour which keeps everything fresh.