Has the focus on "open-world" games been a mistake for developers over the past few years?

Over the past few years, the open-world genre seems to have gone from being a "sweetheart" to a "old hag."

On the R&D side, many developers who rushed into the market following the success of *Genshin Impact* have finally come to terms with their limitations after hitting a wall.

On the demand side, open-world games have also proven not to be a surefire success. As lightweight, bite-sized entertainment claims more of users’ time, the pursuit of high-quality, immersive open-world games seems to have lost some of its luster—some new titles would rather emphasize that they are creating “large-scale sandbox” experiences than risk being mistaken by players for “open-world” games; even a few successful titles have gradually realized that constantly expanding the scale and content of a vast world does not necessarily lead to a better player experience.

In reality, however, there is still plenty of untapped potential in open-world games. For example: how to enhance replayability by transforming one-time-use environments into spaces where players are willing to immerse themselves for extended periods; and how to create vast worlds that cater to the diverse needs of different audiences through the seamless integration of themes and gameplay…

For leading game developers, the open-world genre is ultimately a future direction they cannot afford to miss. After the dust settles, several open-world games that have been in development for years will be released one after another over the next year or two.

In this episode of "Game & Tea Roundtable," we spoke with industry professionals about the question: "Has the industry’s focus on open-world games over the past few years been a mistake?"

▍Chen Yuetian, Founding Partner of Fire Phoenix Capital

This is a particularly interesting question. I’ve witnessed nearly the entire process of miHoYo’s foray into open-world games—because Weiling Times, the cloud gaming company we invested in, was deeply involved in the development of *Genshin Impact: Cloud* from start to finish. As early as two years before *Genshin Impact* launched, I had been hearing bits and pieces of news about the project through our partnership.Based on these firsthand observations, I don’t actually view the open-world format as a trap; rather, it’s more of a “strategic opportunity that must be pursued.” However, too many developers misjudged its difficulty—especially the barriers associated with “multi-platform open worlds”—which is why most of those who jumped on the bandwagon ultimately failed.

First, let’s talk about why open-world games are so captivating. The earliest benchmark was undoubtedly Rockstar’s GTA, and later, *Red Dead Redemption 2* took the “virtual world” to new heights—not only offering a high degree of freedom, but also delivering a sense of immersion through “dynamic seamless transitions.”As you walk down a main street, you see pedestrians bustling about and cars passing by; look up and you’ll see birds soaring overhead, with light and shadow shifting as time passes. You can walk into any store you like—there are no black screens or loading screens to interrupt the experience. This feeling of “truly living in another world” is the core appeal of the open world.Earlier titles like *Assassin’s Creed*, on the other hand, were more like “pseudo-open worlds.” While the maps were vast, the jarring loading screens during scene transitions remained. Compared to “truly seamless” games like *GTA* and *Red Dead Redemption*, the immersion fell short.

But here’s a key point to keep in mind: an open world is by no means a requirement for a game. Take *The Last of Us*, for example—it’s clearly not an open-world game, but rather a linear progression through levels. Yet, thanks to its top-notch cinematic storytelling, it tells the story of Joel and Ellie with such depth that its immersion is every bit as compelling as that of an open-world game;Take *Uncharted* as another example: with its level-by-level scene transitions, it has nonetheless become a console classic thanks to its compelling storyline and gameplay. So there are many sources of immersion; the open world is just one of them—and a particularly high-bar one at that. Its demands on technology, assets, art, and optimization are far greater than those of linear games, and “multi-platform open worlds” raise that bar by another order of magnitude.

Let’s talk about why *Genshin Impact* dared to take this difficult path. To a large extent, it was influenced by *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*. Cai Haoyu is a hardcore console gamer himself; he’s played through classics like *GTA* and *Uncharted*. After *Breath of the Wild* launched, he undoubtedly sensed that “this kind of open-world RPG was the best form of gaming at the time.”Consequently, the first version of *Genshin Impact* clearly bore the hallmarks of *Zelda*. However, miHoYo’s ambition extended beyond simply “creating a console-style open-world game”; they aimed to build a “cross-platform open-world game”—a new frontier that no one had dared to explore at the time.

It’s important to note that open-world games used to be either console exclusives or PC-only titles; there were simply no viable open-world games on mobile, let alone ones that supported “cross-platform data synchronization between mobile, PC, and consoles.”To achieve this goal, miHoYo put in an enormous amount of effort: on the mobile side, they had to adapt to devices with varying specifications, ensuring both graphical fidelity and accommodating the fragmented nature of mobile gaming (such as players who might only be able to play during their commute); on the PC and console sides, they had to preserve the sense of free exploration inherent to open-world games, without compromising content just to ensure cross-platform compatibility.Developing *Genshin Impact Cloud* was even more challenging. Only after Weiling Era’s full involvement did we truly realize that there was no established precedent for delivering a stable, smooth cloud gaming experience across such a wide range of devices. Just resolving issues like latency, graphical optimization, and interaction refinement required overcoming countless technical hurdles—— after all, this is the industry’s first true multi-platform open-world cloud game, and every step has involved trial and error.

However, *Genshin Impact*’s success did not happen overnight—when it launched in October 2020, its performance was actually rather unremarkable. Its true breakthrough came in 2021, when its annual sales soared to tens of billions, stunning the global gaming industry.More importantly, its explosive growth directly disrupted the industry landscape: at its peak, Genshin Impact’s revenue was nearly on par with NetEase’s top-tier games, and even showed signs of overtaking them. At the time, NetEase’s innovation efforts were somewhat lacking, which was the core reason Ding Lei later chose to return to the front lines—as China’s second-largest gaming company, he keenly felt the threat posed by miHoYo. Meanwhile, Tencent also felt the pressure.

It was precisely this groundbreaking success that sent the entire industry into a frenzy of analysis: everyone believed that miHoYo’s triumph stemmed from its perfect combination of “open world + multi-platform + anime-style” elements. Consequently, they dissected its art and gameplay mechanics, arriving at a simple conclusion—“just copy it.”This was also the core logic behind our decisive investment in cloud gaming infrastructure at the time: we predicted that if miHoYo could create a multi-platform open-world game generating over 20 billion yuan in annual revenue with a 200-person team in just three years, then given the intense competition in China’s gaming industry, giants like Tencent and NetEase would certainly pour even more resources into following suit—for instance, deploying teams of 400 or even 600 people to attempt to replicate *Genshin Impact* within two years.As a company that was fully involved in the development of “Cloud Genshin,” Weiling’s technical expertise would have even greater scope for application and innovation.

But the way things have unfolded has completely exceeded our expectations: aside from *Genshin Impact*, no major studio has yet managed to create a truly mature, fully-fledged multi-platform open-world game. Tencent and NetEase, as industry leaders, have poured massive resources into this, yet they have been slow to deliver a competitive product;Perfect World’s *Tower of Fantasy* was arguably the first to hit the market, but objectively speaking, it can only be described as “half-baked”—whether in terms of seamless gameplay, content polish, or revenue performance, it falls significantly short of *Genshin Impact*; it wasn’t until last year that Kuro Games’ *Tidehunter* truly launched, but its revenue figures are roughly only one-quarter to one-fifth of *Genshin Impact*’s, falling far short of *Genshin Impact*’s scale.

It’s also worth noting NetEase’s *Infinite World*. What many people don’t realize is that a significant portion of its core development team comes from the PJSH team, which miHoYo had to cut with a heavy heart back in the day. Even with such an experienced team behind it, it remains to be seen whether this game can reach the heights of *Genshin Impact*. This clearly demonstrates that the industry has severely underestimated the challenges of developing a cross-platform open-world game.

In fact, it’s just like when *Honor of Kings* popularized mobile MOBA games, and every developer had to jump on the bandwagon; later, when *Escape from Tarkov* popularized the “search, shoot, and retreat” gameplay style, everyone flocked to that genre as well—the open-world genre itself is a strategically significant category; it’s not an “optional” choice, but a “must-have.”No major studio dares to abandon this sector; after all, everyone wants to be number two or three, and no one is willing to sit idly by and watch the market get monopolized by others.

So, in the end, the open-world format has never been a trap, but rather a strategic opportunity that must be pursued. The real “trap” lies in the industry’s misjudgment of the challenges involved in creating open-world games across multiple platforms—a short-sighted mindset that “sees only the success of *Genshin Impact* but fails to recognize the three years of refinement, technical breakthroughs, and team development that went into it.”miHoYo’s success is nothing short of a miracle. It stems not only from its core founders’ console-game aesthetic sensibilities and long-term technical expertise, but also from their determination to tackle the tough challenges of “multi-platform adaptation and cloud gaming,” as well as their patience to meticulously refine their products—qualities that many copycat developers lack.

The open-world genre is a promising field in itself, but what it requires is not blind bandwagoning that relies on throwing money and manpower at the problem, but rather a long-term approach that respects the challenges and focuses on honing core competencies. Those who view it as a “trap” have, at their core, failed to recognize the fundamental barriers to entry in this genre and have not taken the time to prepare properly.

▍Zhihu Author: Game Designer Ani

Is the open world a trap?

Yes, a group of developers working on “card games”—not even CCG or TCG, but “multi-character progression” games—couldn’t even figure out real-time interaction. They spent four or five years developing an “open-world” project, poured hundreds of millions into it, and outsourced a ton of art work. In the end, they were left with dozens of gigabytes of unoptimizable environments and 3D character models, so they scrapped the project and went back to making card games, or launched a few idle MMOs to make some quick cash and recoup their losses.

Not really, because even though we're all equally clueless, everyone's giving it a shot—what if someone else actually pulls it off?

So they had no choice but to launch a "preemptive initiative."

▍Planner: Wang Xinran

When a company develops an open-world game, it starts by defining a 3- to 5-year strategic plan from the perspective of business expansion. Based on this strategy, each department begins to break down objectives and tasks; the R&D and HR departments handle the bulk of the work, with the R&D department taking the lead.

However, most developers lack experience with open-world games. They simply saw the success of *Genshin Impact* and realized there was potential in the anime-inspired market, so they geared up to make a big splash. But their companies lacked the necessary talent in-house. The HR department went to great lengths to poach a few key personnel, and so the developers charged into the open-world arena with their existing MMORPG development teams.

During the process, we realized something: developing an open-world project requires a robust pipeline. Simply recruiting a few key personnel isn’t nearly enough; you need a complete, end-to-end pipeline. So the HR department stepped in again and recruited a middle-platform lead from another company. After working on it for a while, this lead developed a whole suite of pipeline tools and established a set of pipeline management guidelines, which were then rolled out to all departments.

The process stalled at the department level. Each department had its own established workflow, and when the new pipeline was introduced, they were reluctant to adopt it. Experts from various departments and divisions began offering their opinions on the pipeline, which led to a blame game. After a long period of open and covert conflicts, the departments finally agreed to use it, and the company then began staff training.

Since pay and benefits at established MMO developers were low, trained staff would often be poached by other companies. To retain employees, these developers began raising salaries, causing production costs to skyrocket. After some time, however, the performance metrics of their existing MMO projects began to decline, and the company’s revenue could no longer cover the costs of developing open-world games. Consequently, the company demanded that the project team work overtime to rush the project to completion.

With tight deadlines, a heavy workload, and no established technical foundation, the project team realized that the only feasible approach was seamless world map stitching. The visuals were inherently pixelated due to low frame rates, and the character animations were still based on the standard MMO models—they couldn’t even handle re-targeting. Then the project leader fired up *Genshin Impact* and played a couple of rounds, thinking to himself, “Isn’t this just a matter of placing a few treasure chests and enemy spawn points on a large map, then throwing in some story elements?”Then, in a flash of inspiration, they turned it into a low-spec, open-air roguelike, using the old-school combat mechanics from MMOs.

In a very short time, I cobbled together a low-spec, open-world roguelike MMO. Full of confidence, I launched a closed beta, only to suffer a crushing defeat: the monetization model failed, and the churn rate was sky-high. My boss dragged me into his office for a dressing-down, and the annual company party turned into a public shaming session.

After returning, the leader went to the balcony on the second floor of the office, lit a cigarette, and sat there quietly, pondering: Who am I? Where am I? What does the boss want? What am I good at? In the end, the open-world game’s final destination was an MMO. After introducing a pay-to-play model and overhauling the gameplay to make it an MMO, revenue did indeed rise. It lasted a few months before it crashed and burned again.

▍Zhihu Author Robert Seff

If a game’s only selling points are its “open world” and “role-playing” elements, then it’s not worth playing. In fact, in many cases, the open-world aspect actually detracts from the gameplay experience.

There are many different subgenres of role-playing games, and some of them aren’t well-suited to “expanding game worlds.” Some open-world games face the following issues:

1. Players spend too much time traveling. Commuting to and from work or school is already a real drag, and now I have to commute in the game as well. (Minecraft, the Assassin’s Creed series, the Tom Clancy’s series, the Horizon series, Halo Infinite, etc.)
3. Expanding the game world hasn’t led to greater variety in gameplay; on the contrary, developers have simply repeated the same missions over and over again within these vast worlds. (Assassin’s Creed series, Tom Clancy’s series, Horizon series, Halo Infinite, Neptune series, Monster Hunter series, Atelier series, etc.)
5. The character progression system was poorly designed, resulting in the game’s core gameplay becoming a loop of “grinding monsters/gathering resources → leveling up → grinding higher-level monsters/gathering resources” (e.g., the Horizon series, the Neptune series, the Monster Hunter series, etc.).

These issues are common in open-world role-playing games. Reducing the size of the world and shortening the game’s length is actually a simple way to alleviate these problems.

An open world is the icing on the cake—it’s a way to deepen player immersion after a game already possesses compelling qualities like “excellent storytelling” or “excellent gameplay.” For games lacking these qualities, it’s better not to adopt an open-world format at all, as it actually becomes a drawback.

▍Game Designer Who Plays Games Well

If you fill an open-world game with trash content, you’re falling into a productivity trap.

If the open-world format was chosen simply because there was too much content to fit elsewhere, that’s the answer.

To put it simply, the open-world genre is like a giant basket—you can throw just about anything into it. The framework is vast enough to accommodate any genre or scale. So, those powerhouse developers have either voluntarily or reluctantly chosen this container. Those who bite off more than they can chew struggle desperately but can’t fill it up—and that’s exactly how they get stuck…

P.S. The previous fad was called "MMO," and the next one will probably be the "metaverse." History really is just a series of boring cycles.