08/29/2018
Is it possible for an open world game to have 100% explorable interiors?
We see a lot of "closed" in some open world games. Markets, gas stations, a building complex, all seem to be locked or boarded off. Have you often wanted to detour from a mission and wander a random building? How are people living? How are your actions impacting the open world? One of the reasoning for the lack of interior is the amount of work designing detailed interior of hundreds of buildings would be enormous (not to mention hardware concerns). They simply could be repeated, as an apartment building would have identical room layouts, but we all don't "live" the same.
What about a Hub World?
In a Hub World, the player has a central start point, let's say a subway station. At this starting "hub", the player may traverse to different levels or worlds. When the player is finished with that level, they return to the subway station. The player may go back to that world at their will.
The locations in hub worlds are usually smaller, sort of like a yummy slice of an open world. You can sometimes have more variety (snow world, jungle world, desert world, etc) and more details, since everything isn't connected together into one giant, seamless location like an open world. Larger amount of explorable interiors in a hub world game is a possibility.
What are you getting to?
One of the many goals of Our Good Leader(wonderneer.com/our-good-leader/) is to have a large amount of explorable interiors with a hybrid hub world design. Admittedly, some will repeat, for example when entering a hotel or business building, you'll see repeats of floors and rooms design wise, but not as much repeating in the personality (the inhabitants, who WAS there, etc). Will it be a 100%? No. Not naive to think that won't take a Gargantuan effort for a small team, but a "large amount" with interesting things seems to be reachable.
