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Sure, you can look around, but don't go TOO far.
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00:00So what's the one word that most people associate with open-world video games? Bloat? Ubisoft? No,
00:06it's exploration. Because what is the point of open-world video games if they don't grant the
00:11player the opportunity to freely explore their beautiful, expansive world as they see fit?
00:16But you know what? Some of these games will actually punish or straight-up mock those who
00:20get a little overzealous with their wandering. So let's have a chat about them. As I'm Jules,
00:24this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Open World Video Games That Mock You For Exploring.
00:2910. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
00:31Bread and butter of the Grand Theft Auto franchise has been the appeal of giving players a massive
00:36open-world sandbox and just letting them tear it up however they see fit. Except, in San Andreas,
00:42Rockstar had an odd, slightly hilarious punishment for anyone who got a little bit over-ambitious
00:47and attempted to access areas of the game world that hadn't been unlocked yet through the story.
00:51If you're playing the game as Rockstar intends, you need to complete 27 missions in Los Santos
00:56before accessing San Fierro, and 64 before unlocking Las Venturas. But that doesn't mean that you can't
01:02just swim to these places before that. However, doing so will result in you instantly receiving
01:06a four-star wanted level, ensuring the near-full might of the San Andreas police department quickly
01:11comes crashing down on you. Granted, cops like Tenpenny and Hernandez tell you not to leave Los
01:16Santos in the early stages of the game for good reason, but when Rockstar dropped players in the
01:20middle of such a rich, gorgeous world, did they really expect them to be patient and wait for it all to
01:24open up organically? 9. Fallout 4
01:27Fallout 4's unforgettable opening sequence sees the protagonist forced to take shelter in Vault
01:32111, once the bombs start dropping. But what about those adventurous players who wanted to take a peek
01:37around their suburban neighbourhood of Sanctuary Hills before it's forever transformed into an
01:42irradiated wasteland? And, more to the point, what about those who want to see what lies beyond the
01:46confines of this town? The game is generous enough not to strictly funnel you towards the vault,
01:51but for anyone who attempts to leave Sanctuary Hills and go further afield, they're met with
01:55perhaps the most cruelly mocking invisible wall in video game history. If you thought that a four-star
02:00wanted level in San Andreas was bad, in Fallout 4, walking past a certain invisible boundary will
02:05trigger the nuke's detonation, instantly killing the player. Basically, you're forced to either
02:09progress the story forward by heading to the vault, or hang out in a small patch of your neighbourhood
02:13until the end of time. It's tough to decide which sounds more nightmarish, honestly.
02:178. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild
02:20On the face of it, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is a game that absolutely rewards
02:25players who venture off the beaten track and explore every last square inch of Hyrule's
02:29lovingly rendered open world. Hell, the game even lets you make a beeline straight to the
02:33final boss, Ganon, immediately after the brief opening prologue section. But this is also a game
02:37that, for all its apparent celebration of player freedom, has a rather perverse, even cruel regard
02:42for those who wander off from the very start. You see, players who extensively explore the
02:46game's first area, the Great Plateau, are likely to find themselves soon enough getting
02:50summarily spanked by grossly overpowered enemies. In the early going, you've got just a few
02:55hearts of health to your name, and you're going to die a hell of a lot, which is effectively
02:59Nintendo's way of not so subtly nudging you towards shrines to help build out your character.
03:03As inviting as the game's world might seem, it's surprisingly punishing of players who just
03:07want to take a stroll in a random direction and soak in the sights. That is to say, prepare to die.
03:137. Far Cry 6 Much as the Far Cry games are all about exploring
03:18vast locations and ticking off everything on the Ubisoft open world checklist, Far Cry 6 had a
03:23ridiculous surprise for those who attempted to see how far away from the Caribbean island of Yara
03:27they could actually get. In step with the series' many alternate or joke endings, Far Cry 6 allows
03:32players to get in a boat and just, well, they can just sail away from the area before they've bothered
03:36to confront the local dictator. But in order to hammer home that the game really, really doesn't want
03:41you to sail off the map into the endless expanse of the Caribbean Ocean, as beautiful as it looks,
03:45you'll receive an on-screen warning that you are leaving the area and urging you to turn around.
03:50If you ignore that message, though, you'll be treated to an ending cinematic set three months
03:54later, where the protagonist is shown relaxing on a beach in Miami, beer in hand, while a radio news
03:59report reveals that the dictator has defeated the guerrilla uprising and solidified his iron grip over
04:04the nation. Basically, this thoroughly tongue-in-cheek ending gently shames you for taking the easy way out,
04:09showing you what will become of the area without your committed intervention.
04:136. Prototype
04:14Cult-fave action-adventure game Prototype takes place in the virus-obliterated Manhattan,
04:19where the US military attempts to contain the outbreak by blocking all exits from Manhattan
04:24Island. But nobody could blame you for paying a visit to one of Manhattan's most iconic landmarks,
04:28the Manhattan Bridge. But if you dare to get close enough, you'll find yourself bombarded with a
04:33battery from the assembled marines, who have set up base on the bridge and really,
04:36really do not want you to cross it. Yet given that protagonist Alex Mercer is himself a superhuman
04:41shapeshifter, the player is absolutely able to vault past the military blockade and try to cross the
04:46bridge in order to reach downtown Brooklyn. To stop players from doing this, though, you won't
04:50merely be assailed with an increasingly aggressive barrage of missiles, the camera will also shift to an
04:55awkward distant-angled perspective, where you take up just a small portion of the screen. Evidently, this is a
05:00rather passive-aggressive move by developers' radical entertainment to try and coax you back to
05:05Manhattan proper, by simply refusing to let the camera play ball and follow you to the end of the bloody bridge.
05:105. The Crew
05:11For all of its many issues, The Crew features an impressively scaled-down open-world rendering of the
05:17United States, naturally prompting many players to ponder what might happen if they attempt to cross the
05:22border. Though the game doesn't feature a Canadian border crossing, there is one for Mexico. And alas, Ubisoft
05:27understandably appreciated that players might try to cross it. And so, beyond merely erecting a border crossing
05:32area that is just impossible to penetrate, they had a little extra fun with it at our expense.
05:37You see, if you try to drive through the barrier, FBI agent Zoe Winters will pipe up and throw some
05:42shade at your greediness, asking you, what, the whole USA isn't big enough for you? Come on, people were
05:48just trying to go there, right? Besides, that slightly catty message from Zoe didn't stop some players from
05:52figuring out how to glitch their way past the barrier and drive around in the out-of-bounds regardless.
05:564. Ghost of Tsushima
05:59Ghost of Tsushima's eye-wateringly beautiful Tsushima Island just begs to be explored. And though Sucker Punch
06:05certainly permits that to a point, they don't want you to visit certain story-related camps too early and risk
06:10breaking the game. And so, if you reach a camp that's going to be featured later on in the campaign, you'll
06:15receive a message warning you that you are entering an area of overwhelming enemy forces. Hilariously, this
06:20generally amounts to the game festooning you with an unrelenting flurry of arrows from all directions, seemingly fired
06:26a fleet of invisible officers. As some players have discovered, though, if you're unlucky enough to
06:30jump into an offending camp while equipped with a certain set of armor and restorative charms, you
06:35might get catapulted into the air by the arrows and juggled there, in perpetuity, unable to die.
06:41This is all just the game blatantly telling you to stay out of this area and come back later, but there
06:45surely had to be a less mean, less immersion-breaking way to do this, right?
06:493. Sunset Overdrive
06:51Sunset Overdrive actually boasts one of the most amusingly creative and self-aware implementation of
06:56invisible walls in video game history, given that company Fizco erects an in-universe barrier in
07:02Sunset City to try and contain the outbreak of mutant overcharged drinkers running riot there.
07:07Hilariously, if you bother to reach the end of the game's map, you'll be met with an invisible wall
07:11that's literally Fizco branded, with the message, Invisible Wall, security provided by Fizco, emblazoned
07:17on the transparent boundary. The invisible walls also get a memorable mention in the game's main story,
07:22where ex-Fizco security guard Walter attempts to escape the city via helicopter and, uh,
07:26while crashes straight into the wall, killing himself in the process. Clearly, the message from
07:30Insomniac Games here is, have fun, but remember, there are limitations.
07:342. Anthem
07:35Much has been written about how Bioware's much-anticipated shared world action RPG Anthem
07:41was rushed out of the door by EA long before it was done cooking. The game was sold on the thrill
07:46of getting to don an Iron Man-esque armored suit with three of your pals and fly around the game world
07:50defending humanity from monstrous forces. And yet, the game's aggressively restrictive design felt
07:55like a slap in the face to anyone actually keen to explore. Despite offering up a lush open world,
08:00Anthem's multiplayer gameplay was massively undone by a tethering system, where while teaming up with
08:05other human players, you're forced to maintain close proximity to them, fear of a warning message
08:09being displayed. Couple this with a totally pointless overheating mechanic, which limits the
08:13amount of time you can spend flying in one go, and it feels like Bioware were actively trying to
08:18stop players from doing the very thing this game was marketed upon. Oh, you want to fly around this
08:22gorgeous world that we've made? Totally unrestricted? Yeah, nah, that's not going to
08:26happen. That Anthem was ultimately a critical and commercial flop is, well, the least surprising
08:30thing ever. 1. SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated
08:35Now, SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated is admittedly a game that you're not in
08:40any way supposed to take seriously, and in that stead, players who got a little overzealous with their
08:45exploring and ventured too far off the beaten path will get a literal helping hand from the
08:49game itself. While playing as SpongeBob, Patrick, or Sandy, if you reach the boundary of the game
08:54world, the human hand of Sailor Hands, a character who appeared in the first few of the show's
08:58episodes, though is never shown as more than a hand, will slide onto the screen and drag you away,
09:02forcing the game to restart from the nearest checkpoint. It's a pretty clever and distinctly
09:06SpongeBob way to implement invisible walls without straight up having the player just collide with them.
09:11Acknowledging both the game's limitations and the player's over-enthusiastic inquisitiveness,
09:15in one funny fell swoop.
Recommended
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