Sandbox games are here to stay and I’ll never get tired of them

Welcome to No Shame November! This week we’re diving into the pop culture we love that society tells us we shouldn’t

Ever since the free-roaming adventures of the silent protagonist in Grand Theft Auto III (2001) sent the industry into a conniption of three-dimensional gameplay possibilities, open world games have arrived on store shelves with alarming regularity. Superhero fans got the Batman: Arkham trilogy and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Fantasy-heads have The Elder Scrolls, the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor series, and The Witcher III, history buffs have Assassin’s Creed, shooter aficionados have Far Cry and the rest of the Grand Theft Auto series, cowboys have Red Dead Redemption, Japanese cinephiles have Ghost of Tsushima, classic gamers have Breath of the Wild, people whose only dream is to physically fight a robot T-rex have Horizon Zero Dawn… and the list goes on. 

Open world games, also called sandbox games, present players with a fictional world and let them do whatever they want within it. These games often have strong main quests, but the imperative to proceed through them is lower than in other games with more linear storylines. In the best open world games, the player can drop in and out of the main quest at will, sometimes ignoring it entirely to spend tens of hours playing with everything else the game has to offer. These offerings can include collecting random garbage for almost no in-game reason, clearing out camps of enemies because they were highlighted red in the HUD, treasure hunting because shiny stuff is awesome, or hunting and gathering in virtual tribute to our early hominid ancestors. 

There’s a lot to do in open world games, but more doesn’t always mean better. If there’s one thing these disparate sandbox series have in common is that many, many people are sick to death of them. 

Googling the phrase “open world fatigue” brings up countless opinion pieces, forum threads, and general complaints about how exhausting open world games are and whether to bother buying the next one coming out. Unlike most complaints about video games, which usually stem from unintentional crappiness like bugs, lag, crashes, bad AI, or poorly designed interfaces, open world fatigue exists because developers now intentionally include way too much of the stuff that used to guarantee a huge, immersive hit. 

On the one hand, I get it. Things that used to be innovative and cool, like Assassin’s Creed’s map-unfogging towers, eavesdropping on NPCs who are living their own little digital lives, and galloping (or driving) into a seemingly endless horizon, are now passé because they’re predictable and stale. The other hand, however, holds the knowledge that I personally am immune to open world fatigue and will play as many of them as developers choose to make. This is not a cool opinion, nor is it a healthy one for encouraging change in an industry that needs innovation more than it does iteration. I don’t care. Give me a sandbox and my uncultured gamer ass will roll around in it like a just-groomed dog on the beach. 

Give me a sandbox and my uncultured gamer ass will roll around in it like a just-groomed dog on the beach. 

The primary beefs that constitute open world fatigue are with their time commitment, overwhelming size, and repetitive side tasks that do more to pad the length of the game than contribute to its enjoyability. None of these things are a problem for me. As long as a sandbox game delivers main quest plot points at a pace that keeps me interested, I’ll stick with the story for however long it takes to hit the ending. I’ve spent a literal decade waiting to find out what happens in the sixth of seven A Song Of Ice And Fire books — putting 50+ hours into Horizon Zero Dawn to learn why the world’s mammal machine broke after reinventing raccoons is comparatively fine.

As for huge maps and repetitive side quests, I understand the criticism conceptually but still don’t see where I’m meant to get fatigued. The inflation of playtime with traversal and side tasks is annoying from a “state of the gaming industry” standpoint, but if I was voluntarily doing things I don’t enjoy for hours at a time when no one is holding a gun to my head or paying me…wouldn’t that be a me problem? I’ve hit 100% map clearance on many open world games, but not the ones that required me to, say, stack rocks on a cliff for hours (seriously, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla?) or listen to anything that comes out of The Riddler’s mouth (I watched Arkham Knight’s Riddler ending online, it was fine). Playing video games is literally my job and I still don’t feel obligated to do all of the open world side stuff. Ergo: No fatigue.

Once I’ve skipped the tasks I don’t want to do, I’m left to enjoy the ones I like, which leads to the biggest reason open world games have a permanent place in my game library and my heart: I really, really love homework. As someone with ADHD, my brain craves novelty, stimulation, and external reward while also making me hyperfocus only on the things that interest me. I don’t get fatigued with open world games because they give me the option to only do the homework I want to do, and in turn are the novelty-producing dopamine machines I crave to keep me mentally stimulated for hours at a time. 

I don’t get fatigued with open world games because they give me the option to only do the homework I want to do

The same unyielding checklist of small, discrete tasks that burns players out on open world games is the mental equivalent of a tropical meditation retreat for me. When I am anxious, sad, or experiencing the racing thoughts that categorize my type of ADHD, I know that snapping myself out is as easy as booting up an old save and brute-forcing the return of my feel-good chemicals by getting some virtual homework done. I do have to be careful — that dopamine machine can suck me in and put me in a place where I neglect my responsibilities — but the fact that these games exist, are huge, and practically never end means I always have them as an option when the going gets mentally tough. 

In 2022, I’m going to play the heck out of Horizon Forbidden West, Forspoken, Elden Ring, Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, Breath of the Wild 2, God of War: Ragnarok (not really open world, but you know what I mean), and who knows, maybe even that wacky Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora game that I legitimately thought was a late April Fools joke but is apparently real, go figure. Just the fact that I have all of those choices next year means that open world games are here to stay, no matter how many people cry headache at the mention of another sandbox title. Here’s the thing though: even the fatigued folks will probably play a few of them anyway. What are they gonna do, not play Breath of the Wild 2 and have nothing to talk about for the next four years? Come on. Pop an ibuprofen and meet me in Hyrule. I’ll be the one collecting every last Korok seed.