Gamasutra's opinion on Open Worlds...

I'm not a video game developer. I know absolutely nothing about the best or most efficient or most cost effective way to make a game. However, for me if I was thinking about the best way to make an open world game, it would probably be the opposite of how they (probably) do it now. It seems that they create a vast landscape and then attempt to fill it with content. I think they should start with making everything they need for the main storyline. Do everything except voice-acting. After that, branch off of those areas with companion-missions/loyalty quests. Find where they logically fit along the main story and put them there, make them connect and make sense in the story. Then start adding side content. Grow out from what was made for the main story and the loyalty quests. Expand only when necessary, and always make sure everything feels organic. Once you have as much good-quality side content that ties into the loyalty-quests and main story and overall feel of the game, if you still have enough time, money, and ambition, expand further to more open-world stuff. Cool vistas, hunting animals, fun stuff to do in the vehicle, etc. But only after everything else is quality, both in terms of animations and story content, and without bugs (or at least very few bugs). I feel that is the best way to help mitigate the "wide as the ocean, deep as a puddle" situation we have going in many open-world games. It's probably not feasible at all, but I think it could make for better games with a tighter story and more meaningful content.

Me: A isn't really an open world game

MEA is a hub based game. Open world implies no loading screens and one giant map like Skyrim and Fallout 4. Sandbox is like terraria and Minecraft.

I'd read it but I doubt the author says anything different or constructive from what has been written before.

I find myself wondering if all these mag's aren't attempting to ride some kind of reverse hype train.

problem with this is...and since i have studied game design i should know a bit...that game design tends to be ass backwards. You start with your game design stuff first and then usually a company says to the writers 'find a way to make it work' granted i think Bioware is a bit more collaborative but gameplay is still king.

All I know is that BioWare is still too stuck in their KOTOR-ways of making hubs and NPCs to be good at making these grand "systematized" open world areas. They aim for what Ubisoft and Rockstar and CDPR has been doing but the result is almost embarrassing. I'm sick of these hub zones where all NPCs just stand in place like window dressing. At least they don't fly all around as much as in DA:I. That's one area that felt polished this time.

The problem is that BioWare has not really evolved since ME2 when they made Omega and simultaneously they've lost talent and I doubt they're making up for it with the amount of new recruits so really it's BioWare stuck in their ME2 Omega days of making open world zones but they try to make 10x the amount of stuff. It just falls flat completely and they HAVE to scale it down or actually grow as a studio if they want something good.