Linear, linear, linear

[thevanguard]

Wow that's a bold opinion. I felt that a lot of the changes that came with HW were good ones and that the expac was a huge step up from ARR overall.

HW started the trend of horrible open world design and has probably the worst open world maps in this game. Azys Lla, half of Sea of Clouds, half of Dravanian Forelands, basically the entire Coerthan West; they all are incredibly empty and pointless, and many are just huge squares.

HW maps are practically just ARR maps except you stretch the points of interest far apart and color the void with AI-generated terrain paint. All the subsequent expansions are no different. I would say it's the worst open world maps I've ever played but that would be a lie because there's Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

There is literally more lore, ambient NPCs, points of interest packed in an ARR map vs. HW despite the HW one being like four times larger or something. ARR maps feel like places people lived in and engaged with (like hot springs, empty huts, cerulean pipe lines). HW maps feel like going to Antarctica and being disappointed it's literally just a blank void.

If they can't fill the open world with enough points of interest just make the map smaller and denser and spend more resources on making interesting terrain (like Eureka Pagos)