With Assassin's Creed: Shadows, Ubisoft remains the undisputed king of snackable open worlds

It feels like open world games have been having a bit of an extended, existential crisis these past few years. Like there's a sense that something within the classic formula of big maps, question marks and to-be-coloured-in icons that's served us so well, back through The Witcher 3 and Skyrim to at least The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, isn't quite working. That a change or evolution - if not outright ripping-up revolution - of some kind is necessary for the genre to thrive. But also, a bit of a problem: that the games wrestling with these bold new frontiers of mapmaking don't really know what that new, evolved form ought to be. Read more

Mar 23, 2025 - 10:02

With Assassin's Creed: Shadows, Ubisoft remains the undisputed king of snackable open worlds

It feels like open world games have been having a bit of an extended, existential crisis these past few years. Like there's a sense that something within the classic formula of big maps, question marks and to-be-coloured-in icons that's served us so well, back through The Witcher 3 and Skyrim to at least The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, isn't quite working. That a change or evolution - if not outright ripping-up revolution - of some kind is necessary for the genre to thrive. But also, a bit of a problem: that the games wrestling with these bold new frontiers of mapmaking don't really know what that new, evolved form ought to be.