These days, open-world games are more plentiful than ever. Modern hardware makes crafting big worlds less of a challenge and the abundance of side activities developers can put into the maps extends a game's life by dozens of hours. However, certain games that opt for the format compromise their quality.
The following list details ten games which ultimately suffered by taking place in an open-world environment. While making these more linear experiences might have cut down the playtime significantly, it would have made each of those hours all the more enjoyable. Just because a game can be open-world does not mean it should.
10 Mass Effect: Andromeda
Instead of the tight balance of story, talking, and action-packed missions, Mass Effect: Andromeda lets players explore a number of large areas. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of interesting opportunities to run across on several large maps.
A bevy of technical problems also hamper the experience. Fans would have been just as happy with an experience more akin to the original trilogy.
9 Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Tony Hawk's Underground and its sequel feature the biggest maps of the series, so American Wasteland tried to top those by making an open-world skating adventure.
Unfortunately, doing this on the PS2 and original Xbox meant hiding load times behind long hallways and empty stretches without any fun trick lines. The next title in the series, Tony Hawk's Project 8, remedied all these issues for a more seamless open-world design.
8 Sniper Ghost Warrior 3
The first open-world title in this series was the best reviewed of the bunch, but that's not saying much from the Sniper Ghost Warrior franchise. Most felt the larger map added nothing to the experience. They probably would have been better off just chopping up the map into different sections and crafting levels from it like Burnout 3 or Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Fortunately, Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts faired better critically and returned to a linear structure.
7 Far Cry 5
Far Cry 3 and 4 have a solid open-world gaming structure, allowing the player to tackle side activities and the main story at whichever pace they choose. Far Cry 5 switches things up, instead forcing the player to do some side quests before unlocking a story mission.
Because of this, one feels some choice is taken from them, even if the world is still open. Maybe it doesn't have to a be a linear game, but allowing players to do only story missions would have been appreciated.
6 Mafia 2
The first Mafia game was a classic ahead of its time, focusing on realism and trying to recreate the era in which it is set. Mafia 2 takes place in the 1950s and '60s and does a similarly stellar job recreating its decades.
However, the world is not populated with side quests and diversions, mostly serving as a hub to traverse in order to reach missions. Cutting this out would have made for a more streamlined game.
5 Crash Twinsanity
This was the first time a Crash Bandicoot game tried for a more open 3D platformer, and a short development time made for wonky gameplay experience.
Not only is the jumping less tight than prior entries, but the game is made all the more difficult by an unwieldy camera. Perhaps they should have made smaller, more linear levels, making camera control a non-issue.
4 Rage 2
Driving is a big part of the Rage experience along with first-person shooter gameplay, but one can still have plenty of intense car chases in a linear action game.
The shooting is tight and the cars feel exciting, but the actual open-world is somewhat lacking. The game does not do anything particularly interesting with its setting, encouraging players to go straight through the story content instead of exploring.
3 Deadly Premonition 2
The sequel to the cult classic is a Nintendo Switch exclusive swarming with unforgivable technical issues. The frame rate constantly struggles to keep up but drops to single digits when exploring the outside environments and open areas.
It is a smaller map than other games not the list, but they should have cut out this part altogether to focus more on smoothing out the frame rate.
2 The Getaway
This PS2 crime drama took heavy inspiration from Guy Ritchie movies like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. It also focuses on realism with no hud and minimal health.
The story shuffles the player from mission to mission automatically for the most part, only unlocking a free roam options after completing one of the characters' story. The driving is the least enjoyable part of the game, so cutting it out altogether would not have been such a bad idea.
1 Wolfenstein: Youngblood
The series dips its toe into cooperative play with this spin-off title. The shooting remains as tight as ever and the story keeps a similar tone. Many of the side quests are underwhelming, and running through the same streets over and over quickly grows tiring.
The best parts are the story missions that take place outside the map, offering a more traditional Wolfenstein experience. Hopefully, the next mainline game does not opt for an open-world adventure.