Many game designers are torn between two extremes: providing players with a world to freely act in or presenting them a well-crafted narrative. This article explores this tension — and why both approaches can lead to brilliant games.
Have you ever thought about the key difference between the old and the new Zelda games?
The older entries in the series are built around dungeons with barriers, a certain type of puzzle, progression via tools and abilities — and a clear sense of direction.
On the other hand, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom and, to some extent, Echoes of Wisdom feature (relatively) open worlds, puzzles that allow for a variety of creative solutions, more versatile tools — and the freedom to decide where to head next.
The contrast is obvious in Zelda games, but it appears everywhere in game design.
- Some games throw you into a world, hand you some tools and say: ‘Have fun!’
- Other games are more like a path that is really quite beautiful, but must be followed.
One approach emphasises the ‘game’ in game design: freedom, agency, creativity. The other emphasises the ‘design’: structure, pacing, emotions.
Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.
Let’s have a closer took.
Type 1: Active/Open/Random Games
These games do not want to give you any direction at all. They prepare you as much as necessary to actually play the game, then step back.
Minecraft is the obvious example: You just appear in a world. What do you do? Well, you may start cutting down trees, building a shelter, digging into the earth. You will probably make your own plans, abandon them, get lost, discover stuff, see something interesting in the distance — and before you know it, you’re in the middle of your own little story.
This kind of freedom and just-letting-things-happen is the central idea behind active/open/random games. They treat the game world as a possibility space, a realm of potential, some of which may never be realised by any player, ever.
But that’s okay.
These games aren’t built as a sequence of levels and scenes the creator wants the player to see. They are built as elements in a system, as characters, objects, rules, tools — and often, there’s a large degree of randomness.
What’s the advantage? Well, this kind of experience certainly emphasises player agency, that is, things are left up to the player to decide. There may not even be a clear goal in the game at all, so the player has to make up their own. Problems can have multiple solutions. Stories emerge from what happens during play rather than from a script.
That means that in these games, the player basically becomes a co-creator. Meaning arises from choices and experiments, from accidents and surprises.
A bit like real life, right?
Type 2: Passive/Linear/Curated Games
Games of the second type tend to do the opposite of active/open/random games.
They do not ask you to find your own way through the world. They invite you into a carefully built experience.
In fact, most JRPGs are type-2 games. But Action, Adventure, Horror games, yes, even puzzle games can belong to this category.
Passive/linear/curated games are not about seeing what happens when elements within a system collide or when the player gets super creative. They are about pacing, tension and release, surprise, emotion. They are essentially stories written by the game designer plus some game mechanics.
The game designer always knows where you will go next. They will nudge you in that direction or straight-up tell you how to progress. They know what you will see — because they put it there — or when the music will change. They have probably thought a lot about when to throw in some action, when to provide the player with new tools, when to give them an illusion of choice.
That sounds restrictive, doesn’t it? Well, sometimes it is. But it also allows for precision — in terms of fun gameplay and/or emotional impact — that open games naturally struggle with.
In other words: A linear game can build towards special moments. In a non-linear game, moments like that may or may not happen.
On the other hand, the player is less of a co-author of the experience and more of a spectator with a controller.
So, what’s better?
Well, you may have guessed it: Neither type of game is strictly better.
The core tension is this: The more freedom a game gives the player, the less control the designer has over the experience. And vice versa.
Open games can appear aimless, repetitive, chaotic or emotionally diffuse.
Curated games can appear restrictive, predictable, over-scripted or too close to interactive cinema.
Which may or may not be your cup of tea as a player. And which may or may not be the right approach for the specific subgenre of the game in question.
In addition to all that, there’s also the aspect of replayability that must be considered. An open game can provide an interesting second run almost by definition. A linear game has to work much harder, because the designer’s surprises can only surprise you once. Therefore, it has to give you some meaningful choices along the way without altering the overall experience too much.
The best games find the right balance, of course. Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom, Persona, The Witcher 3: These masterpieces seem to know when to hand control to the player and when to take it back. That way, they try to combine the best of both worlds – and arguably succeed.
Planning the next Great Potion Game
If you’ve played any of my games, you may be wondering: Do these insights influence the development of Great Potion Game VI in any way?
The answer is …
Probably?
While the next game is still an early concept, I will definitely take the two game types discussed here into account.
Especially the aspect of freedom.
You know, JRPGs tend to be quite restrictive in certain ways. For example, in most games of this genre, the main characters have certain themes, which is cool, but it also limits the player in terms of builds and roles in battle. You have a knight who is supposed to be the tank, a priest who is supposed to be the healer and a mage who is supposed to be the damage dealer. And you can’t do much about that.
Maybe that’s not the way to go.
Maybe I should leave it to the player to decide who’s who? If you like the classic cast, you can have a knight, a priest and a mage. But if you want to experiment, shouldn’t you be able to do that as well?
Maybe you should let the player complete dungeons in any order and implement a different kind of level scaling.
Maybe the hero’s personality should actually change based on dialogue choices.
Maybe bosses shouldn’t have any resistance to debuffs at all, so your control and damage-over-time builds remain viable even in those battles — and bosses should just be much stronger to compensate for so-called ‘exploits’ like that.
Maybe there shouldn’t be any limit to growth items (that is, items to permanently increase a stat), so you can actually build a warrior with 999 ATK if you really want to do that.
Well, that’s just my thinking process at the moment. We’ll see what we end up with, right? But there’s a good chance the next game will be somewhat different in this regard.
Conclusion
Games are often discussed by genre, but another factor may matter more than any such label we put on them.
Some games seek to create meaning through the developer, some through the player. Neither is a lesser form of design — these are simply different answers to the same question: Where does the player’s experience originate?
From actions or from arrangement?
Many memorable games commit to one approach fully. Minecraft doesn’t apologise for having no emotional cutscenes. Skyward Sword doesn’t apologise for holding your hand to make sure you get through the story. They are confident in what they are.
But magic can also happen anywhere else on the spectrum between the extremes, where designers dare to blend both approaches: handing the player just enough freedom to feel a high degree of agency while quietly shaping the path in front of them. The right balance is difficult to find and easy to lose. When it works, it produces something neither a pure sandbox nor a pure narrative can achieve — a world that seems to be both authored and discovered at the same time.
In the end, the divide between the two game types reflects a deeper truth about why we play games at all.
Sometimes we want to get lost. Sometimes we want to be guided.
Sometimes we want to be creative ourselves, fully immersed, fully engaged — but that doesn’t necessarily mean we want to do any work ourselves. Sometimes we want to sit back to enjoy a well-told story — or see what happens when an enemy stumbles into a silly contraption we built.
Sometimes we want the perfect experience. Sometimes we want chaotic experiments.
That’s human nature, and I think that’s beautiful.
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What do you prefer: a world to freely act in or a well-structured plot? Where does your favourite game sit on the spectrum discussed here?