Is It Weird That I Try To Avoid Using Mounts In Video Games?

thegamer.com:

Modern open world experiences are often designed with the mindset of quantity over quality. Games like Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, and Days Gone all present sprawling landmasses filled with things to do, but so many of these tasks can be narrowed down to completionist busywork that seldom have fascinating stories to tell. As a result many players skip over them, while others on the opposite side of the spectrum seek them all out to really get their money’s worth.

I understand both these perspectives, but for me it’s only in masterful games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Breath of the Wild where stopping to smell the roses and take in the majesty of these respective worlds justifies itself. Virtual environments and the immersion they are capable of shouldn’t be undervalued, even if developers themselves throw such brilliance away in favour of gamifying the whole affair in order to keep our attention no matter what. Expecting us to analyse these places and find value in them without a helping hand isn’t easy, all but requiring an element of roleplay on behalf of the player to become the protagonists they virtually inhabit.

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It’s a hard thing to do, even more so in Horizon Forbidden West. Guerilla’s Zero Dawn follow up exists within a stale open formula despite its otherwise brilliant ideas, but one stipulation has allowed me to fall in love with this vision of the apocalypse more than I ever could have expected to. I said goodbye to mounts and taking control of machines, abandoning a core mechanic so I could navigate this world with nothing but my own two feet. This decision was initially made because the horseback controls are awful and exploration with