Why Nintendo's open worlds feel so empty
With games like Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart World and Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo has gone all in on open world gaming. But while some of these open worlds are great, a lot of them seem to feel... empty. Driving round Mario Kart World's huge network of roads feels somewhat meaningless, like there's nothing much to find in this big world.
So in this video I want to explore why Nintendo fell in love with open worlds, what makes some of them so great, and others feel dull and empty.
PATREON - / thomasgamedocs
BLUESKY - https://bsky.app/profile/thomasgamedo...
SOURCES
https://shmuplations.com/zeldalttp/
https://xtrend.nikkei.com/atcl/trn/pi...
https://www.famitsu.com/news/202309/0... The Depths interview
https://archive.ph/Iy3T4 Mario Kart World developer interview
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/News/2... Mario Kart World developer interview 2
https://www.famitsu.com/article/20251... Metroid Prime 4 open world dev discussion
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/202... Future of 3D Zelda
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
1:19 Part 1: Why Nintendo went open world
5:20 Part 2: Zelda's influence
14:45 Part 3: Open isn't always best
19:41 Outro