Highlights
- Seasonal changes in open-world games can add a fun and dynamic aspect for players, as it affects gameplay and world exploration.
- Games like Stardew Valley incorporate seasonal shifts, altering crops, and gameplay opportunities.
- Adding seasons to a game like Sons of the Forest can enhance the survival experience, with changes in enemy behavior and environmental challenges.
There are a huge number of games that try to change things for players as they continue moving through the game. While many open-world games remain relatively static as players continue running through every time, there are some fascinating ways that some games attempt to change things up for players as they move through the game.
One of the most obvious ways that a game can change the open world players are exploring as they continue is for the seasons to change throughout and affect parts of the world. A major change that is easy to add to a world and a really fun aspect for players that adds a lot of extra play-ability, dynamic seasons are a great idea for many games.
6 Stardew Valley
One of the most obvious examples of a game with seasons, Stardew Valley allows players to explore an open world, fight monsters in the mines, interact with neighbors and go to festivals, and most important of all, grow things and manage a farm. However, this last part changes the most significantly over the course of the game.
Players have 30 days to each season before it shifts, and the crops that can be grown in each season completely shift as well. Players that leave crops out too long will find them dead when seasons change, and to fill up the collections, players will have to wait to grow and gather different crops every year, making for an extremely different game each season. Players won’t even be able to grow much at all during winter, shifting their focus away from the farming aspects entirely for a while in one of the best indie games ever.
5 Pokémon Black & White
While there are complaints about the style of some newer Pokémon games, the fifth-generation games were much beloved by fans for taking some bold new steps forward and featuring some of the franchise's most ruthless characters. Using the Nintendo DS clock system, Pokémon Black & White would change the season in-game once every real-world month, making for some extreme changes to the gameplay.
Different seasons mean different Pokémon will appear and be available for catching, and also some areas that are inaccessible during other seasons can be reached during the winter due to snow build-up. These changes give the game a huge amount of extra play-ability, due to players having to wait for the season to change before they can catch every Pokémon they’ll want.
4 Sons of the Forest
While The Forest was already a brutal survival game that challenged players to survive on a terrifying, cannibal-infested island, the sequel Sons of the Forest makes the challenge even greater in survival terms by adding seasons to the game beyond the weather which could cause enough problems for players in the original game.
Sons of the Forest changes how enemies will react and change under different seasonal conditions, Winter leaves bodies of water frozen that the player may need access to, forcing players to prepare for that season by stocking up on various resources. This adds a whole new level of challenge and realism to the game while keeping the same style as the predecessor.
3 Persona 4
The Persona franchise only just about fits the definition of open-world, but there is no denying that Persona 4 is a great example of a game in this style that changes over the course of the year, and a beautiful open-world detective game. The story progresses as the seasons change, with important events happening around holidays like Christmas that can only be reached when the player progresses that far through the school year.
Everything from the clothes that players wear to the surrounding environment in the city of Inaba change with the seasons and the weather is spoken of throughout, making for a great feeling of change as the game goes on that most games aren’t able to achieve on such an intimate level.
2 Bully
In another game which takes place over the course of a single school year, players begin their Bully adventure in the Autumn and as chapters progress, they move through Winter and then into Spring. By the time they finish the main story of the game, it is Summer and will stay so forever as a reward until players restart a new game.
Over the year, there are again events that will only happen in certain seasons. Players change their clothes throughout dependent on the season, and in the Winter the ground is slippery which affects handling while on the skateboard or bike. Detention changes with the seasons and lawn mowing become unavailable in Winter, all making for a great feeling of change throughout the game, the map for this game is hugely underrated and fantastic to journey around.
1 Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
One of the most obvious games to focus on changing seasons being a significant factor was this handheld The Legend of Zelda entry, which paired with Oracle of Time, although they are quite different. In Oracle of Seasons, Link is transported to Holodrum, where he sees Onox capture the Oracle of Seasons and has to use the Rod of Seasons to get him back by collecting the eight essences of nature.
To do this, Link can change the season in Holodrum by standing on stumps throughout the game, completely changing the world in seconds and enabling Link to get to previously inaccessible areas. While this is a more significant part of the game than in some other season-changing games and can be changed on command, it still showcases how seasons can dramatically change gameplay.