Games Inbox: What is the best open world game of 2024?

The Friday letters page has more suggestions for what the Switch 2’s mystery button is for, as a reader lists The Witcher 4 improvements he wants to see.

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PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing our content for over the Christmas period and will need a number of Reader’s Features, so if you’ve been meaning to write one but never quite got round to it we could do with as many as possible before Monday, December 23.

Closed worlds
I’ve been trying to work out what game I’ll play at Christmas, on my Steam Deck, and I usually like to get stuck into a good, epic open world game. But there haven’t really been any lately. All I can think of that’s recent is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Indiana Jones And The Great Circle.

I’m not even sure they are actually open world though, as I think Final Fantasy and Indiana Jones have an open world but also linear sections? I just want to get lost in a classic open world map like Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption 2.

It seems full-on open world games are getting rarer nowadays. Probably because games are more expensive to make now, but it’s a shame.
Kobold

GC: None of those games are entirely open world (and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth isn’t on PC until January). They all have open world areas, but none are what you seem to be looking for. How about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, though?

Kraven more
I’m fine with Sony controlling FromSoftware, even if they don’t technically own it. Seems like it amounts to the same thing if they’re the majority shareholder. I’m not anti-Xbox in general but Microsoft owns too much of the games industry now and I am for anything that keeps important developers like From out of their hands. I don’t care whether they say (or vaguely hint at) going multiformat or not.

It doesn’t sound like Sony’s new status is going to change anything about how From work so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. In fact, it doesn’t sound like Sony was particularly interested in From at all, beyond wanting to make movies with them.

What I do question though is why Kadokawa wanted the deal? Have they not seen a Sony movie before? Did they watch Morbius and Madame Web and think: those are the people we want to make our Elden Ring movie! That goes double for Nintendo and the Zelda movie.
Soapy

Important questions
Although The Witcher 4 trailer was all well and good, the problem with the way games are unveiled nowadays is that you don’t get any of the important questions answered almost until their released, and sometimes not even till after.

As long as the writing remains as good as before it doesn’t really matter who the main character is. What does matter, is whether they’ve improved the combat and if the story is going to be better than the non-event of the last game. Can anyone actually remember what The Witcher 3 was even about? (Funnily, I’d say the same for Skyrim, so I guess it’s a common problem for open world fantasy games.)

I’d be much more excited if they’d announced they’d hired the guy who did God Of War’s combat, or something similar. Them getting someone unrelated company to make a CGI trailer doesn’t really tell us anything.
Rendell

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Not a mystery
So, I’ve decided to write this before the latest rumoured date for the Switch 2 ‘reveal’ on Christmas Day. I’m so confident that this won’t end up being true I’m sending this in now with the hopes you’ll publish it after the holidays.

I seem to recall a similar deluge of speculation and scuttlebutt before the original Switch reveal, basically none of which ended up being accurate. I believe there was even a mystery button that ended up being the NFC reader (or maybe that was the 3DS… my memory is terrible).

My point is, trying to predict Nintendo continues to be a fool’s errand. These interminable leaks don’t make me more excited for the official reveal, it just winds me up that Nintendo still haven’t ripped the band-aid off. I can’t wait till we’re through this and have the actual specs, games, and release date to discuss instead of this tiresome guesswork.
noisecat

GC: It’s a little more than guesswork at this point; there were never any leaks like this for the original Switch. We have less faith in the random leakers, including the one talking about a Christmas Day reveal, but there seems little doubt the photo leaks from peripheral makers are real.

DC Legacy
Saw the teaser trailer for the new Superman movie and was relatively impressed. It was a bit of an odd trailer, but I do like all the things in it. But it made me question whether Warner Bros. is going to do anything to support it with a game?

We’ve been hearing about cancelled Superman games for decades now and still nothing. James Gunn said new games would be in canon but as far as I know the only one in development is the Wonder Woman game – which we haven’t seen a single thing for and was announced before Gunn took over.

We went almost the entire DCEU without a new game, and none of those were tie-ins, so I’m not expecting Warner to be particularly quick off the mark this time either.
Casper

Pop culture reference
RE: Well, count me as another lover of Indy. Bought Midnight Suns just after Black Friday, cost me a fiver! Was quietly impressed and quite enjoying it… well until Dr Jones dropped that was. This game, as an Indy fan, (at least the original trilogy, watched them with my pa), makes you feel like you are the whip cracking, wise quipping, mumbling, hunky doctor of archaeology.

Some of the puzzles are real head scratchers and it will never get old clumping Nazis with sledgehamners or toilet plungers. Also, Gina is his best bird since Elsa and she didn’t kiss his dad, as far as I know! Loved the MachineGames Wolfensteins and this Is very reminiscent of those, but with enough Indy flavour to not be too derivative.

Speaking of, there is a part on the KMS Kommetz where Strumführer Gantz mocks Indy, ‘You have no purpose. What you have, is your stupid American cartoons. Choo-choo, choo-choo.’ Where he proceeds to dance and mock you like a loon! The point being, I swear I watched the pretty much exact scene where B.J. Blaskowich was being mocked by his Nazi tormentors in one of the Wolfenstein games. Help me, tell me I’m not just imagining it?!

Anyhow great game, highly recommended to all. Even you PlayStation lot…
big boy bent

GC: We don’t remember that in Wolfenstein (although you may well be right) but Gantz was mimicking Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie. Come to think of it, Mickey Mouse was also mentioned in The Last Crusade.

Narrowing field
I agree that Ubisoft going under, or being absorbed into some other megacorp, would be a real shame. Not because they’re great, or haven’t been messing up, but, as the other reader says, there’ll be virtually nobody left after that in terms of big Western publishers. Take-Two and EA and that’s you’re lot – neither of which release many games anymore and even less in terms of anything new.

I wouldn’t mind at all if that gave Japanese publishers a chance to become dominant again but somehow I don’t think it’s going to work out that way. There’s just going to be less options, less companies, and less variety in games.
Yoloda

Big fan
With all the recent rumours around Switch 2 being this button, I thought I’d throw my two cents in. It’s also kind of telling that with the design of the thing being so iterative the focus of any interest has become ‘what does this new button do?’… but moving on.

A cast function would be a great idea, making the dock some kind of gaming Chromecast or Fire Stick. However, I’m not sure how practical that really is? The dock in the original Switch is designed to allow the Switch unit to run at higher clock speeds to boost resolution and sometimes performance for TV play, its design providing more power from the mains than the battery and opening up the design for guaranteed air flow for the fans.

You’d think a Switch 2 would also need this for TV play with rumours suggesting a boost to some kind of 4K from the dock. So having the actual console in your hands when playing on the TV with air vents potentially covered up and running from the battery doesn’t sound like a good idea, units would be over heating left and right. Allowing a ‘third play option’ where you cast to the TV but only in portable power mode would be too confusing for users too, I think.

Of course, it’s possible Nintendo think portable mode can be upscaled ‘good enough’ for 4KTVs using the rumoured custom Nvidia DLSS tech in portable play mode, without worrying about power draw and thermals. Guess we’ll wait and see. If that’s the gimmick they’ve got for this one they’ve really pulled it out of the bag.
Marc

GC: We very much doubt the Switch 2 will be doing native 4K, it’ll almost certainly rely on DLSS style upscale tech.

Inbox also-rans
I saw the new Sonic The Hedgehog film last night and I’ve got to say it was actually pretty good. Or at least far better than I ever imagined a Sonic game with Shadow in it to be.
Johnson

Actually quite excited to play a new Virtua Fighter. GC talks about Daytona USA being their first glimpse of top notch 3D graphics but for me it was the original Virtua Fighter coin-op. Quite rare in the UK but it blew my mind at the time.
Rudie

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