There was some debate raised over ' claim that it was the franchise's first open-world game but speaking to Screen Rant, Wilbert Roget, the game's composer, thinks the comparison to other titles doesn't make sense. The video game industry has long struggled with the idea of genre, with some experiences overlapping across multiple styles and tropes. «Open-world» has become more of a mechanical description than any kind of had-and-fast genre, but that hasn't stopped some fans from bringing up ,which also featured an expansive world for players to explore.
Speaking to Screen Rant, Roget explained that and are fundamentally different games that take a different approach to open-world design:
" I don't really understand exactly where that criticism is coming from. Obviously, the team at BioWare EA did such an incredible job with The Old Republic, so I'm sure that they're not in any way trying to diminish that. But, I mean, there's a world of difference between a massive MMO title and an open-world title in the style of Outlaws. I never would've considered them to be anywhere near the same genre. So, I'm not really sure where exactly the criticism is coming from, but that's just me."
Roget's point is salient as the style of open-world offered in is less of a sandbox experience than what's seen in . Both encourage players to make their own path and adventure across the map, but one is more geared to responsive, emergent gameplay while the other wants to present a solid framework littered with micro-stories and mini-narratives.
Roget continued on to say that the kind of open-world gameplay seen in is much closer to the likes of Sucker Punch's , so while may have also been classified as «open-world,» it's a fundamentally different experience:
" I play a lot of open-world titles. One of my favorites was Ghost of Tsushima or the Infamous series, and you can see a lot more in common with those than you can see with the Old Republic, which is a totally different style of
Read more on screenrant.com