Summary
- Map pins & filters in Elden Ring personalize the map, making it an evolving record of the player's journey.
- Story catchup text in Like A Dragon offers returning players a quick refresher on narrative.
- Skyrim's autosave system and multiple rollback points prevent frustrating moments from becoming maddening.
Given the enormous time investment required for getting into an open-world game, a gamer will likely find themselves performing the same actions, watching the same animations, and looking at the same interface for potentially hundreds of hours. To help minimize feelings of frustration, open-world games have adopted a series of quality-of-life features.
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These QoL features make themselves more known by their absence than their inclusion. Although they may not be flashy, the following additions are the unsung heroes in great open-world games, allowing players to enjoy their journey.
6 Map Pins & Filters - Elden Ring
Let Players Define Their Own Points Of Interest
Elden Ring
- Released
- February 25, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
In a genre centered around open-ended exploration, few mechanical omissions are as frustrating as the inability to mark the map freely. Most open-world games automatically highlight towns, treasure, and places of interest. If the player is not able to drop their own marker upon finding a spot they might later want to return to, they will instead have to rely on a mess of screenshots to find their way back.
Player-pinned locations also leave a more meaningful impression than the generic map markers placed without the player's input. Personalized custom map marking, as demonstrated by games like Elden Ring with its artful open-world map UI, besides offering an easy way to filter markers, makes adventuring feel organic, turning the map into an evolving, functional record of a hard-won journey rather than a trumped-up spreadsheet of to-do tasks.
5 Story Catchup Text - Like A Dragon
A Quick Recap After A Long Time Away
Yakuza: Like A Dragon
- Released
- November 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol
- Genre(s)
- JRPG
Not all gamers have the extravagant leisure time required to finish an open-world game across one or two sittings. Many will find themselves loading up a save file from months earlier with no recollection of their last actions, mission objectives, or current standing in the story. For this reason, a quick text recap for returning players goes a long way.
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Like A Dragon handles this gracefully by displaying narrative summaries during loading screens, providing returning players with a quick refresher while the world loads in. It is a subtle feature that those playing in long sessions may barely notice, but for those revisiting after a break, it’s an essential lifeline back into the incredible narrative of the Yakuza series for all those who have business to take care of IRL.
4 Fast Travel Options (Immersive Or Otherwise) - Grand Theft Auto 5
At Least BetterThan Leaving A Rubber Band On The Joystick
Grand Theft Auto 5
- Released
- September 17, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action
Backtracking over massive distances, especially when it takes hours to do so, can feel like a massive waste of time. Being able to jump from one spot to another in open-world games is now a must.
Many open-world fans will hold that fast travel, or the ability to eliminate miles of distance at the cost of looking at a loading screen, ruins the immersion that the massive world works to cultivate.
However, fast travel need not happen in a menu. Grand Theft Auto 5's cab feature allows players to decide if they want to travel in real time or (presumably) take a nap and arrive at their destination instantly. Planting realistic fast-travel in open worlds organically, or better yet, making it an unlockable ability, is a nice compromise between immersion and respecting the player's time.
3 Skipable Splash Screens & Pausable (Skipable) Cutscenes - Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Avoiding Repeat Viewing Burnout & Real-Life Interruptions
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
- Released
- October 20, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Blood, Drug Reference, Mild Language, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action-Adventure, Superhero
Throwing up publisher logos while the game loads in might seem like a win-win design decision, but unskippable splash screens, especially those with loud audio stingers or flashy animations, can easily become irritating. When booting up a game for the tenth or hundredth time, those few seconds start to feel like hours without some way to blast through them. It isn’t just the opening splash that benefits from a skip button.
Cutscenes, no matter how well-written or beautifully rendered, should respect the player's time by providing the option to fast-forward through the cinematic. Equally important is the ability to prevent interruptions from the real world ruining a cutscene. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 implements a clean implementation of cutscene skipping and pausing. Hitting the start or options button pauses the cinematic, and from there, the option to skip is clearly marked.
2 A Fair & Generous Autosave - Skyrim
And An Option To Manually Save, Too
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Released
- November 11, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol
Open-world games thrive on unpredictability, be it wandering into enemy territory, facing monsters well above the recommended level, or even getting caught up in a physics bug that sends the player flying skyward in a hilarious manner. Without a reliable autosave system, these moments go from memorable to maddening in seconds, and that's without mentioning power cuts or system crashes.
Skyrim handles this with a multi-layered save system, combining manual saves with regular autosaves triggered by actions like entering buildings, fast traveling, checking the inventory, or waiting. This gives players multiple rollback points to recover from mistakes, crashes, or experimentation gone wrong. Although Skyrim doesn't let players rename their saves, it does pair them with screenshots with more information about the save state for the player to identify.
1 Customizable User Interface & Controls - Assassin's Creed Valhalla
The Perfect Alignment Of Information With Aesthetics
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
- Released
- November 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
Getting UX/UI right in a game is an art form in itself, and while some players will complain that even being given the option to customize the way their interfaces look is clutter or "lacks vision," not having the ability to resize HUD elements (so they can actually see them, or see beyond them) can be a dealbreaker for many gamers.
Among other video games that feature fantastic accessibility features, Assassin's Creed Valhalla sets the bar for inclusive design. Having access to accessibility options, such as colorblind modes, remapable controls, subtitle customization, and contrast adjustments, may seem like thoughtful inclusions. However, they are essential to ensure that everybody can fully engage with the experience.
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