g-man reviews

Games, like any art, give the consumer a choice : the liberty of “playing the game however you like” within the confined limits that the developers have created. But the freedom to do busywork however you want isn’t the same as the sensation of agency gained from truly immersing oneself in the game-play and themes of a game. Screenshots from  Watch Dogs Legion 's and  Cyberpunk 2077 's Interactive Maps  with only Side Content turned on.    This is how modern open-world games have come to look like. A “checkpoint open-world”, often blamed on Ubisoft’s increasingly formulaic game design. The tasks are simple, repeatable (see collectibles) and involve little freedom in how they are achieved. Given this design choice, players, moving like water, have sought the easiest ways to complete these objectives in order to “finish” the game. Go collect that, upgrade this, find that weapon, complete this side mission (most often repeatable content like "kill X" or "steal Y”)...