Open world end of map boundaries. Your thoughts, preferences, what game does it well, etc.

[ZedClampet]

TLDR: What are your preferences regarding open world boundaries and what games have done it well.

I suppose it's human nature. Of all the places I can go, it's the places I can't go that fascinate me the most. Of course wondering what's beyond a map boundary is mostly nonsense. There's nothing back there at all except what you can see from where your character is standing. But that doesn't mean I don't wistfully try to break through whatever is keeping me from this forbidden Shangri La. Of course. some times I succeed at crossing that barrier and promptly fall through the map, which in itself is often fascinating except that you wonder when the last time the game saved.

I suppose the worst way to implement these unfortunate boundaries is via invisible walls. Unfortunately that's also probably the most common way to deal with it.

NO WAIT. I just remembered that in World's Adrift you just blew up and lost everything you owned. That, I think, is worse.

I think one of the best implementations of the boundary was in Enshrouded. You are already used to dying if you walk into an area with deadly shroud, so it comes as no surprise to you when that's what happens when you try to leave the game world.

Of course, AAA companies usually just try to cleverly block your path.

 

[mjs warlord]

HA HA .. you just know whats coming dont .......

My go to game ( satisfactory ) has some very strange borders markers , anyone who has used this will know that you have reached the edges of the games playing area because you suddenly get a message showing huge radiation and you literally have seconds to move back. I would love to see a map of the official playable area because i have studied the areas a lot and it does strange things.

When i first started the game many years ago on my first playthrough i built a long walkway from the grassy fields to an island BELOW the waterfalls , some players told me i was wrong as the island i spoke of never existed so i just posted a screen shot of the walkway and an old screen shot of the island before it was removed from the game , they also moved the border markers inwards because i could not go out far enough to delete the walkway.

On my second playthrough i made a hypertube around the entire map and it took 20 minutes to travel a full circle inside it. Where it goes past the dune dessert i made some power station on the shore line , the tube is a long way out from the power stations without me hitting the edge of world markers but at ground level i cant go out as far as the tube so it seems the maps border markers are not a vertical box.

They recently moved map border markers again because on a recent trip round the map in my hypertube i died inside it. Some players have reported they cant access some factories because of the moved markers and i have a fleet of trains that still work but i cant ride shotgun on them because the tracks are now over the border makers.

For one of satisfactory " achievements " i built a huge tower as high as the game would let me until i hit the sky border but on another area i tried to do another tower and could not go as high as my first one.​

 

[ZedClampet]

HA HA .. you just know whats coming dont .......

My go to game ( satisfactory ) has some very strange borders markers , anyone who has used this will know that you have reached the edges of the games playing area because you suddenly get a message showing huge radiation and you literally have seconds to move back. I would love to see a map of the official playable area because i have studied the areas a lot and it does strange things.

When i first started the game many years ago on my first playthrough i built a long walkway from the grassy fields to an island BELOW the waterfalls , some players told me i was wrong as the island i spoke of never existed so i just posted a screen shot of the walkway and an old screen shot of the island before it was removed from the game , they also moved the border markers inwards because i could not go out far enough to delete the walkway.

On my second playthrough i made a hypertube around the entire map and it took 20 minutes to travel a full circle inside it. Where it goes past the dune dessert i made some power station on the shore line , the tube is a long way out from the power stations without me hitting the edge of world markers but at ground level i cant go out as far as the tube so it seems the maps border markers are not a vertical box.

They recently moved map border markers again because on a recent trip round the map in my hypertube i died inside it. Some players have reported they cant access some factories because of the moved markers and i have a fleet of trains that still work but i cant ride shotgun on them because the tracks are now over the border makers.

For one of satisfactory " achievements " i built a huge tower as high as the game would let me until i hit the sky border but on another area i tried to do another tower and could not go as high as my first one.​

Speaking of sky boarders, I may have mentioned this before, but Satisfactory is the only game that activates a fear response in me when I build up high or am on the edge of a hole in the world. No idea why it does this. It's not like dying in the game is catastrophic. And with the jetpack, as long as you haven't used all your fuel before you get to the ground, it's nearly impossible to die from fall damage. Of course, the mist shrouded holes in the world are different.

 

[BeardyHat]

Probably my favorite was the double-layer of wall in Motocross Madness. They had a huge mountain that was virtually impossible to get up to, but if you were clever/good enough, you could jump your dirt bike up there and then it was just a flat plain stretching to infinity. If you decided to drive that way, you'd get shot back hundreds of miles into the course by a cannon; it was pretty neat.

As for games these days, I'd rather some artificial blockage than an invisible wall. Invisible walls just feel annoying, but I don't mind an arbitrary road block, especially if it looks obvious that I couldn't get past it with a simple jump or something.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm not the kind of person that tries to escape the world's borders. I never even saw the World Edge in Subnautica.

I don't really mind invisible walls if they're somewhere you're not going to accidentally stumble into them.

 

[Colif]

Sacred 2 had a wall of mountains around the edge, was impossible to get over them. Though with mapping in that game, it paid to try as you never know if there wasn't a hidden path to a dragon and it helped with map discovery percentage.

Wow - We did go outside the map on occasions but this was 17 years ago before any expansions were released, we visited the world tree before it was opened up.

I remember motorcross madness, it was half the fun of the game really.

I don't recall many trips outside of the games, but I have seen enough speedruns to know its used a lot. Then there are portal speedruns. Very confusing.

 

[mjs warlord]

Speaking of sky boarders, I may have mentioned this before, but Satisfactory is the only game that activates a fear response in me when I build up high or am on the edge of a hole in the world. No idea why it does this. It's not like dying in the game is catastrophic. And with the jetpack, as long as you haven't used all your fuel before you get to the ground, it's nearly impossible to die from fall damage. Of course, the mist shrouded holes in the world are different.

In real life i have something called tinitus and when it is bad it effects my balance , when i started this game i would make what looked like scaffolding to surround me because even though its only a game i would wobble in my chairs but then i got a different approach i build a column out of wall panels and go up inside it to add a floor to a factory ..... who said real life dont enter games lol

 

[Frindis]

I like boundaries that gives the illusion of being unlimited, like in No Man Sky or Minecraft or when you have scripted events that happens if you cross over like in WoW with the fatigue system ( you die if you swim in deep water) or in GTA V online where you get eaten by a shark. Some games have funny Easter eggs in these locations, like in Duke Nukem 3D with plenty of "You are not supposed to be here" markings on walls and such.

I also like when you have the ability to use spells or items in the world to get beyond boundaries, like how you can use crates in BG3 to get through to other Acts or just jumping really far.

 

[Johnway]

there is a right way and a wrong way to make out of bound areas. I think the biggest cardinal sin devs can make is when the game teases stuff outside of the gaming world you can't touch. you know, distant islands or vast city scapes etc.

Case in point Yakuza series. if you go across the edges of the play area, it feels like that there could have been potential for more exciting content or areas to explore. Y3 okinawa town center feels like there could have been more. Batman arkham asylum series doesn't make a misstep with everything taking place on island or walled off areas, but the problem is when i see all the bright lights of the distant city it kind of depresses me. Arkham knight especially. the small play area only to be teased to see stuff in the distant. if Gotham play area was increased to encompass more of the surrounding areas, it would have been nice.


Invisible walls are lazy, but sadly the easiest and clearest way to tell people the map boundary. Immersion breaking absolutely, but its most effective. Pair it with decent pathing and flow and its fine.


Ideally, the best boundaries are the most immersive ones. high walls, the play area is an island and /or something to deter players from trying to go out of bounds. prototype had an air carrier that would shoot the player down, in Arkham series as soon as batman hits the water or moves too far away in the wrong direction, batman will automatically shoot bat claw out of there. Failing that, player just dies. case in point Mass effect.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, I was going to mention No Man's Sky. You will probably hit a bound at some point if you just start flying away from a star without warping - or maybe it just acts like you're moving but you aren't. I've never played it, but Elite Dangerous should do a good job, too.

Most impressive border walls were in City of Heroes. Keeping heroes contained takes some serious walls, like you can see in the background here:

They dumped them for City of Villains, making sure everyone played on islands.

As to my preference: whatever. If an invisible wall stops me when I'm trying to run from something, that would be bad, but I don't remember it ever happening in a game.

 

[Colif]

Here are some

Only knew two of them. Perhaps not really related.

 

[mjs warlord]

In the first far cry game they somehow forgot to put end of world markers on it.
If you did not want to fight your way across the entire island all you have to do was swim away from the island and eventually you would come ashore on the opposite side.

 

[DXCHASE]

Avowed, with its parkour system, allows some really crazy out-of-bounds exploring that you can find on reddit or youtube.

This one is in the middle of the one map lol, but i think its all perfectly fine.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNHwuvrCaA

 

[mjs warlord]

Avowed, with its parkour system, allows some really crazy out-of-bounds exploring that you can find on reddit or youtube.

This one is in the middle of the one map lol, but i think its all perfectly fine.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNHwuvrCaA

In both satisfactory their is a cave you can slide into but cant get out of , in warframe if you just into a certain river you fall into green screen and die , in one of the half life their are certain doors that a slightly open and if you go through them you fall into green screen and die , on horizon zero dawn frozen west their are some cliffs that you can go down onto the ice but their is no way back.

I guess it could be that as players we take our characters into places the programmers did not expect us to go.

 

[neogunhero]

I think the best way to implement this is a reasonable physical boundary. High cliffs full of trees making it inaccessible, road blocks, debris blocking your path, etc., all of these are fine to me if done well. What I don’t like is invisible walls. At some point I’m going to get curious about trying to reach the skybox or exploring a large empty field, but you ruin my curiosity by implementing an invisible wall.

In multiplayer games like Battlefield, having a timer countdown when you get out of boundary makes sense. After all, that game has helicopters and ground vehicles so you’re gonna wanna explore, but at some point you get too far and have to turn around before you explode and die.