Open worlds: A curse or A blessing?

Now that 2015's over, I looked back at how the video game industry fared and the first thing that popped up into my mind was that a plethora of titles followed one trend that has been growing in popularity in recent times: open world. Love 'em or hate 'em open world games are becoming more common nowadays. You'll get games filled to the brim with content like the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 who make really efficient usage of their vast open worlds. On the other hand, you have games like Mad Max where vast swaths of land are just filler; terrain for you to merely traverse. The side activities on such mediocre open world games aren't that good either.

At the end of the day it comes down to what we, the gamers, want. Nowadays, games following linear level design are criticized. Developers should strive to have enough meat on the game's skeleton so that the experience doesn't feel stagnant.

– Shahrukh Ikthear, Sub-editor, SHOUT