Jonathan Blow Discusses His Thoughts on Open-World Games
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Jonathan Blow was recently interviewed by Edge magazine to talk about his new game, The Witness, and he expressed his thoughts on open world games. “I think games tend to try and tightly control what the player sees and does. So I wanted to take a different approach to that,” says Blow when discussing the amount of freedom players will have in The Witness. The free-romaing puzzle game has players wandering around an uninhabited island. According to Blow, the player will have a surprising amount of freedom being able to reach the end of the game without solving all of the puzzles. This gives him the freedom to make them extra hard, allowing frustrated players to move on. The game will feature no NPCs and rely purely on player curiosity rather than yellow exclamation points over stangers’ heads. “If you play a linear game where you pick up a key and then get to a door and use the key in the door, then the door might as well not be there.” By golly do I agree with that statement. The Witness is tentatively scheduled for release next year on Windows, Xbox 360, and PS3. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one. |
