Meanwhile, in Star Wars:
“This is Snow World. It’s all snow there. That is Wet World. The whole planet is wet. Over there is Sand World. Nothing but sand everywhere.”
Behold Coruscant! The entire planet … is a city!
You’re lucky if the game has reasonable climate progression like this. Most games the frozen zone is right next to forest zone which is right next to the volcano zone.
Yes, and I love them for it. ^^
I don’t understand why the post is supposed to be funny or critical
It’s funny that a desire for biome diversity has led in a small way to a kind of sameyness. Not so much a criticism as an amusing little irony.
If a game is supposed to take after earth then ofc its gonna look like earth. I don’t really see the point here. The last couple open world game I have played are cyberpunk and satisfactory so I definitely don’t see the point here.
Satisfactory is a fairly good example of it (and also a game I am obsessed with). Games differentiate areas with biomes often, but the position of biomes often follows no climate logic. Having a rainforest and high desert and boreal forest, each maybe 1km x 1km within a 5x5 km area, with stark borders between them would be utterly bizarre on earth. Satisfactory does it’s part to hide this by having such a maze like layout, broken up by the steep karst landscape, with no clear line of sight across the whole map most of the time, but a lot of games just let that be something we suspend our disbelief for in order to have more variety in the game. Satisfactory also can do some hand waving of it through the implication that it’s some sort of alien garden world as well, and might be ecologically influenced by an entity which may be pursuing variety (that said I haven’t gathered all the mercer spheres, that’s just the vibe I get fairly early in the game). The bizarreness is reduced by not having a taiga or frozen desert in that same 5km x 5km region, something some games will include so they can have a snowy place as well.
That is something I am completely happy with. I certainly can’t think of a better way to implement the biomes and variety with the restrictions of game development and scope in mind.
But my main point was that the games doesn’t feel similar just because they all have biomes, not exactly on the feasibility which can’t really be put together logically within a small limited map. There always a balance between logic, practicality and entertainment value.
Name one open-world game from the past 5 years whose map looks like this. Seriously. I’d like to play it.
Wouldn’t it be kind of boring if it was just like the great plains for 40 miles with maybe a singular river on the far side?
Not enough caves.
People “this game is so unrealistic, there’s no way these biomes would be this close and distinct”
Also people “flying through space for weeks to visit a baren rock is so bullshit and biting”
