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People appreciate the good level design procedural generation can't provide.
Image credit: Moon Studios | Ori and the Blind Forest
Nowadays, you see the words "open world" in half of the games released, so developers love huge areas you can possibly explore, but what about players?
Thomas Mahler, the director and designer behind the Ori series, believes gamers experience "open world fatigue" at the moment as procedural generation, used in most such games, is "not good enough to actually create good level design." Some creators think it's easy to make huge terrains and then use some Perlin noise height maps to create valleys and hills, but this simplicity comes with a cost: it's just boring, and experienced individuals can spot it from miles away.
"The problem with this approach is that you get vast stretches of emptiness that just aren't fun to traverse through. And you can see that in almost all open world games out there. Vast stretches of nothingness that were never touched by a designer to create really interesting moments."
Image credit: Moon Studios | Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Moon Studios, the developer of Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and the upcoming No Rest for the Wicked ARPG, has a different idea: the team hand-crafted every inch of its game worlds, stitched everything together, created intersections and constantly iterated on the moment to moment gameplay.
"The goal in our level design department was that there would never be moments where in order to go from point A to point B, you'd simply hold the analog stick forward for 2 minutes. We don't think that's fun, that's just turning your game into a walking simulator at times."
Mahler believes most players appreciate good level design even if they can't explain why typical open worlds bother them. We "don't need 10.000 planets or a quintillion areas in our games: we just need one big, intricately designed space that actual designers put their blood, sweat and tears into creating!"
This said he admits AI might be able to improve its generations in the future, but for now, it can't compare with actual level designers.
When met with generic AI-made landscapes, a good designer immediately wonders if they can add caves and points of interest to them, some NPCs and interactivity so the player doesn't have to walk in silence passing boring views. "Procedural generation per se is not a bad thing, but it should be treated as the starting point instead of the end point!"
Mahler is disappointed that level design is becoming less important to the game industry, but "you get what you pay for, which is just not very enticing, not very fun, not very interactive and I think gamers have also grown tired of this practice."
What do you think about procedurally generated worlds? Where are they implemented well? Read Mahler's thoughts here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.