Playing A Game Open World Game: The Open World Game PC

Open World Game: The Open World Game is about as subtle as you'd expect from the title -- that is, not at all subtle. It's a precisely-on-the-nose satire of the tendency for open-world games like Assassin's Creed or The Elder Scrolls to devolve into a checklist of flat and familiar objectives.

Open World Game is a 2D map with quest markers that you can complete by pressing a button. That's all it is. ... Well, that and text descriptions for those quests, which also take jabs at RPG tropes.

The surprising thing about Open World Game is that it's actually kinda good. Not just good for a free game, but also good by the standards of other satirical games like DLC Quest and Evoland.

The map is surprisingly big, with distinct regions; there are named characters, and their backstories intertwine with the political state of the world. Granted, your interactions with those characters are limited to reading text, and the plot is also heavily influenced by (sometimes practically copied from) well-known fantasy RPGs.

But my point is that there is more and better world-building in Open World Game than I would ever have expected. And in that way, it actually taps into the same conceit that makes a samey, repetitive game like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood successful: working through that quest-marker checklist is like an excuse to reveal more about the game's setting and lore.

The writing's sense of humor helps, too.

I don't want to blow too much smoke up this free game's skirt, and if it wasn't free I almost certainly wouldn't be willing to buy it. But I really admire the amount of effort that went into creating this world, even if it is ultimately just a 90-minute-long joke.

Better than: DLC Quest
Not as good as: well, Skyrim, I guess.
Higher-quality writing than: a depressing amount of paid, even triple-A, games.

Progress: 100%

Rating: Good