Free-roaming: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Before we get started, let me share my definition of free-roaming with you - the semblance of freedom in a game, brought about by giving you access to an open game world or a large portion of a game world open for exploration. This does not necessarily mean that the mission structure of the game has to be free-form. This does not mean that the game has to be non-linear. The gameplay, on the other hand, should preferably be non-linear.__STARTQUOTE__Free-roaming: The semblance of freedom in a game, brought about by giving you access to an open game world or a large portion of a game world open to exploration.__ENDQUOTE__

While we're at it, let me clear a popular misconception - a lot of gamers mistake free-roaming for sandbox games - they're not the same. The difference between them is that a free-roaming game gives you access to a fixed game world that you can explore freely, while a sandbox game give you an open slate, where you can reconstruct the game world to your liking. Let me give you a few examples to get things a bit clear. Free-roaming games include S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, the Grand Theft Auto games, FarCry 2 and Assassin's Creed, while Sandbox games include the tycoon games, such as Railway Tycoon, Theme Park Tycoon, etc.

What makes a good free-roaming game?

Just giving you access to an empty game world doesn't make a free-roaming game good. Take a look at this year's post-apocalyptic racing game for example - Fuel. While the game didn't pivot around free-roaming (since missions could be picked up from a standard load-out screen, unlike Burnout Paradise), the game's expansive free-roaming mode was boasted of and ended up being one of the most boring and pointless features in the game. While free-roaming in Fuel, you lacked any sort of purpose; you would occasionally come across upgrades scattered around the game world, but that's all the reward you'd gain for exploring. The game world felt empty, since you lacked any sort of incentive to explore.

So if there's nothing that beckons you to explore, such as rewards, mission progressions or side quests/missions, free-roaming falls flat on its face. Look at Assassin's Creed for instance. While I really loved the game, I found the free-roaming bit that allowed you to move between cities pretty pointless. There was nothing to be gained out of riding your horse from point A to point B. The free-roaming bit was just used as a mode of transition between missions, making it unnecessary and redundant. The only possible thing you could do is hunt for collectibles (flags) along the way, which again, is something not everyone would opt for.__STARTQUOTE__So if there's nothing that beckons you to explore, such as rewards, mission progressions or side quests/missions, free-roaming falls flat on its face__ENDQUOTE__

The reason why games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl did free-roaming really well, is that you'd be encouraged to explore. Even the desolate post-apocalyptic region of  'the Zone' brimmed with life and was littered with settlements of mutants, mercenaries and stalkers. Each settlement had rewards for those that ventured into them, be it in the form of weapons, ammo stashes, or great equipment. Even the feeling of systematically infiltrating abandoned factories filled with heavily armed mercenaries was a ton of fun.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R's world was littered with settlements, and mercenary hideouts.

Apart from that, the game offered a brilliant free-form side-mission structure, where you could speak to various NPCs (non-player characters) in the game's different bases to pick up missions to win the favor of the game's different factions and earn great rewards. A game that took side missions to the next level was Fallout 3, which gave you access to the entirety of the wasteland, which was riddled with intricately woven side-quests and rich sub-storylines. In fact, the stories and missions were designed so well that they could easily be compared to most MMORPGs, where a lot of emphasis is laid on the script, dialog and lore-rich stories. Also, the fact that Fallout 3's vast expanses required you to hike through different towns and settlements that were laid far away from each other, meant that you'd invariably end up stumbling across abandoned factories, crumbling buildings and ravaged houses, that were inviting abodes ripe with adventure.

Traveling between regions never became a chore in Fallout 3 like it did in Assassin's Creed, which can be credited to the game's amazing atmosphere, inviting landscape, and believable game world. With the amount of variety provided where side-missions are concerned, unlike Assassin's Creed (where's you'd save beggers, assassinate targets, and do the same things over and over again), it was hard to get bored of doing side quests, or just exploring.__STARTQUOTE__What makes a good free-roaming game? The answer in my opinion, is a believable game world, adequate rewards/incentive to explore, non-linear gameplay, and a rich-setting.__ENDQUOTE__

Moving back to the question at hand - what makes a good free-roaming game? The answer in my opinion, is a believable game world, adequate rewards/incentive to explore, non-linear gameplay (where you can go about doing things in your away; for instance, with a stealthy approach or upfront, guns-blazing), and a rich-setting. Forcing a free-roam element into a game just for those who like non-linearity, is not the way, and I sure hope that studios would stop doing that.