How Big Is The Game World?

[Trussblink]

Relative to let's say, Guild Wars 2 perhaps?
I've ran through North, East, South and West Shrouds-
Same with Thanalan areas
There's way more than this right, because the game honestly feels quite small and it's kinda depressing .-.

I haven't got Heavensward though, and would like to ask how much content that adds as far as exploration goes

[Sigmar_Heldenhammer]

From what I read on other forums it is smaller than GW2, eos, or WoW.
But it does have room to grow as eorzea is one continent on the planet.

[Dement]

Relative to let's say, Guild Wars 2 perhaps?
I've ran through North, East, South and West Shrouds-
Same with Thanalan areas
There's way more than this right, because the game honestly feels quite small and it's kinda depressing .-.

I haven't got Heavensward though, and would like to ask how much content that adds as far as exploration goes

There are also 5 or so zones in La Noscea. Coerthas Western Highlands and Mor Dhona in the base game. Heavenward added 2 city zones and 7 other zones with the 7 outside zones being about twice the size of the ARR zones.

Additionally the new Expansion next Summer will undoubtedly be adding more zones.

[Deathgiver]

It's definitely smaller than gw2, but since the end game focus is all instanced it makes sense.

[whiskeybravo]

The new HW areas are much bigger than shroud/thanalan/la noscea, but they're like 1 giant zone instead of 3 or 4 smaller zones. If you took all the maps and added them together it would probably be comparable to some of those other games, but it does feel smaller since they are all broken up into smaller zones. Plus, you have to count all the dungeon areas, which are relatively decent sized. Looks like you're still pretty new, the game will open up quite a bit more so just stick with it if you enjoy it so far.

[Niwashi]

... but it does feel smaller since they are all broken up into smaller zones.

Though players have tried to claim all kinds of different things as being due to PS3 limitations, one of the few things that SE themselves acknowledged as being due to the limitations of the PS3 platform is that they had to keep zones fairly small (and therefore more subdivided than they would have liked). With PS3 support being dropped when the next expansion comes out, I'm expecting Stormblood's new regions to be larger (though that might also mean fewer of them).

[whiskeybravo]

Though players have tried to claim all kinds of different things as being due to PS3 limitations, one of the few things that SE themselves acknowledged as being due to the limitations of the PS3 platform is that they had to keep zones fairly small (and therefore more subdivided than they would have liked). With PS3 support being dropped when the next expansion comes out, I'm expecting Stormblood's new regions to be larger (though that might also mean fewer of them).

They say that, but.. Why was it a problem for ARR but not for HW? Seems a bit contradictory.. Though I suppose they could've got more efficient with programming and design to allow for larger zones on the ps3. Either way, I wasn't necessarily complaining about the divided zones, just commenting that the world map feels smaller as a result, but in total it's pretty large.

[Pintsized]

Though players have tried to claim all kinds of different things as being due to PS3 limitations, one of the few things that SE themselves acknowledged as being due to the limitations of the PS3 platform is that they had to keep zones fairly small (and therefore more subdivided than they would have liked).

While V1 was trashed by many for using 'cut and paste' too much there were only three 'zones' basically, one per city-state, you could run from Gridania to Limsa Lominsa via Ul'dah and only see two 'zone load' screens for the open world and one for the real ferry zone.

Maybe V2's graphics are superior, though the horrible anti-aliasing which causes grass to 'flicker' says otherwise, but I've always missed V1's feeling of a big world.

[Niwashi]

In the original A Realm Reborn portion of the game, there are 3 main cities and 17 other regions, 4 in the Shroud, 5 in Thanalan, 6 in La Noscea, and 2 other independent regions. I'm pretty sure the North Shroud is the smallest of them, with maybe Southern Thanalan or else Coerthas Central Highlands being the largest. Sounds like you've been to about half of them so far, though at your level I doubt you'd have been able to fully explore them yet.

I believe I heard that Heavensward adds another 9 regions (I think that includes the city), but they're 1.5 to 2 times the size of Realm Reborn regions, plus they allow flying, so there's vertical space and multiple levels.

And of course as more expansions come out, it will keep growing. What we've got in-game so far is still just a small portion of the world.


So overall, a bit on the smallish side perhaps, particularly if you compare it to older games that already have a lot more expansions out, but still plenty of room for a lot to happen.

[Yawnie]

I was always a bit confused at to why people want extremely large areas. Could just be me but players are rarely if ever outside of a major city. Only time is when there's some sort if event or for a quest. Idk I just don't get it :?