I’m not really one for exploring in games, for the most part. I get lost far too easily, and when an in-game map isn’t up to snuff, it’s a recipe for largely self-inflicted disaster.
One of my favorite features a game has ever had was the filler-free Dead Space’s navigational tool: Press the stick in and boom, Isaac Clarke creates a glowing light path on the floor that absolutely literally points you in the right direction.
Back in the day, I can remember getting utterly lost and frustrated in Doom’s large levels, failing miserably to find the right exit from some of the multi-storey, enormous rooms in the rather brilliant Batman: Arkham Asylum, and that sort of thing.
Good old trusty linearity, that’s what I’ve long craved. Take the Crash Bandicoot games, for instance. Super tricky platformers in places, yes, but at least I could always tell which direction I was supposed to be going in. Even if I lost 17 lives and got the free Aku Aku mask of incompetence several times trying to get there.
As a result, I was concerned when the whole open-world thing started to become the norm in video games....
