I was looking around Steam when I found this really weird title: Open World Game the Open World Game. It sounded strange at first, but the name fits really well when you read the description, as the whole purpose of this game is to poke fun at the genre.
But does it qualify as a Free & Fun game?
What is the Open World Game about?
If you take a look at the intro, you will know everything you need to. The game starts you off in a 3D perspective, somewhere the middle of a forest. It then promptly guides you towards a question mark on your minimap. Then the narrator declares that things aren’t supposed to be like this, and zooms your view on the minimap. And that’s it, from now on the map will be the only thing you can play on. I personally found this pretty funny.
After that you need to complete quests by walking up to question marks and pressing the right arrows. This is the hardest part of the game, pressing 4 keys on your keyboard.
But you also have side quests, lovers, collectibles, fish and many more things you need to find to complete the whole game. 405 things to be exact. These are scattered everywhere and if you’re a perfectionist, you will not give up until you reach 100%. I thought I could stop, but apparently not. You also get an entry in your journal with each thing you collect, so you will have plenty to read.
You start in Arogania, but you can also visit Skyarche, Escia, Lidium and The Infinite Wastes. These places are just as detailed as you can see below. I wondered throughout the game how these would look like in the style that was presented at the start of the game.
There is also a skill tree. Most of the things you can unlock on there won’t do anything for you, but their descriptions can be pretty funny if you take the time to read them. Some of them do stuff like “Slightly increase some stats”. What stats? What do you mean “slightly”? These are very direct jabs at those open world MMORPGs that put zero effort into thinking about the world they try to portray.
But there are also a couple which will actually help you advance. For example, one will enable you to walk through water with the same speed as you walk regularly. Another lets you fast-travel. These are absolutely necessary if you want to complete the entirety of the Open World Game before you go insane.
What is good about it?
The Open World Game is great for those who want to relax and play something mindlessly. It doesn’t take a lot of energy or mental focus, so if you come home after an exhausting day, you can just sit down and spend an hour or two just tuning out.
The experience is also enriched by the soundtrack. Interestingly enough, each place has its’ own score, and all of them are pretty good. My personal favorite is the one in Escia, because it’s very relaxing and refreshes you a little bit, especially if you go there straight from Arogania, which has a pretty uptempo song. Lidium is also a great place if you just want to rest and listen.
The entries are also really fun to read as well. They tell tales about each little quest you went on, and I think more effort was put into these texts than the entire Open World Game. My personal favorite entry is about romancing the Leviathan who is very fittingly named “Levi”.
And finally, it’s very satisfying to get to see this on your own screen.
What’s bad about it?
The visuals aren’t very stimulating. Everything is quite blocky and pastel colored. So when I played this right before bed, it basically felt like someone was actually trying to make me fall asleep. The only thing that kept me awake was perfectionism and the music.
But that’s one thing. Maybe it was just because I was tired, right? Unfortunately, no. The game is very repetitive and it can get boring in a really short amount of time. If it was any longer than 2 hours, everyone would just leave it because their motivation would give in before they could complete it. You need some kind of drive to complete this game, otherwise it won’t be something you want to play, as it will just get way too boring. For me it was my obsession with finding everything.
Final thoughts
The Open World Game is for a very specific group of people. If you are not driven to fully complete ironic walking simulators based around genre commentary, that means you are not in this group. If that’s the case, you can skip this game for something more conventional, and luckily we review other fun free games here to make your selection easier.
