What we as game devs can learn from LEGO City Undercover's open-world design

Many fears from Zelda franchise fans and perspective buyers and persistent hype-rs of the upcoming Nintendo Switch launch title and last big Wii U game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, were extinguished recently by Game Informer magazine. The magazine's website is running a series of themed content revolving around their March cover story, Breath of the Wild. So far, this has included, unknown details about game mechanics and the story, exclusive screenshots, as well as an adorable interview with legends in their own right, Shigeru Miyamoto and Zelda series director Eiji Aonuma.

One of the fears of this historic, first open-world Zelda game was that the world would be empty. I don't mean devoid of objects and scenery in the environment, rather a design kind of empty-- lacking notable things to do and places of note worthy of exploring.

Too many open-world games boast huge, expansive landscapes to venture through, yet are pretty barren content-wise. What's the point of all of these great expanses if traveling through the world is just a means to get from point A to point B, a means that just takes longer to do because it's an open-world game!?

I'd like to bring up an example of a game that I think did open-world design really well before I jump into how I'm relating these concepts to my game, Legends of Adrigal. This is a game that you wouldn't think would have such an impressive (well, by my standards) open-world setting with a lot of content to be found. I'm talking about the current Wii U exclusive, LEGO City Undercover, (The game will be coming to other platforms including the Nintendo Switch later this year, so I'm really happy more people get to play this great game.)

He might be yellow, but LEGO City Undercover's hero, Chase McCain, is no coward.

LEGO City Undercover not only is the best LEGO game on the market to date (a fact supported by yours truly... possibly some gaming outlets somewhere... and of course, GOD), but it offers a sizable world to explore.

Do you think a ball drops at New Year's Eve or a sparkling LEGO brick instead?

What makes this world work well is that: 1) It's quite varied. There are specific districts in LEGO City, from the San Francisco-inspired Cherry Tree Hillsand the adjacent industrial district of Auburn to the Times Square-inspired Bright Lights Plaza and Miami Beach-esque Paradise Sands. Each has its own unique personality, aesthetic, and character. 2) There is no shortage of things to discover and collect.

"Ah, Venice..." Sorry, I slipped into a line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade just now. Regardless, this district is modeled after the famous Italian canal-centric city.

This is where LEGO City Undercover greatly succeeds in executing a dense world. While Grand Theft Auto V is a tremendous, living, breathing world to explore, there isn't really much to do in the actual world. There's a gigantic attention to detail, whether it's how meticulously crafted each building is and how much personality is displayed through this. However, you can't really interact with these buildings or have a real excuse to explore them in a way that separates them from just eye candy.

Grand Theft Auto V's Los Santos is a mightily impressive, detailed beast. It succeeds in being varied, but falls short in having reasons to really explore the world. Though, I do just love driving around anyway, so maybe with this example that isn't so important.

LEGO City Undercover avoids this through placing an abundance of collectibles and tasks to do. You see, each district in the game has the same set of tasks for our hero Chase McCain to perform. Optionally, of course. Whether it's chasing aliens, stopping vehicle robberies, extinguishing out of control fires, planting flags as if he conquered the district on certain buildings, destroying ATMs, or a myriad of other tasks, there are genuine reasons to meticulously explore every inch of the city. That's not all the player can do, as hidden in the various districts are secret character and vehicle tokens, unlocking new skins and cars to play with, as well as special free run obstacle courses to complete. All of this adds to the overall completion percentage of the game.

Exploring the city's alleys and such reveals spots to perform
platforming stunts to reach otherwise inaccessible areas.

It's difficult to remember any block of LEGO City that DIDN'T have something to do or something hiding around a corner or in a secret alcove or compartment. Sometimes you need to perform special tasks to get tokens to appear, like painting a series of special flowers-- all near one another, or build three sand castles out of broken LEGO blocks. It's fun and provides a satisfying sense of discovery without being too overwhelming.

Yes, you can even channel your inner Michael Jordan to earn a nifty collectible upon a successful shot.

So, how does this all relate to Legends of Adrigal, and how could it perhaps relate to your games if you ever find yourself wondering this?

Well, let's talk about my first point on LEGO City Undercover, and that had to do with how each district was varied in form and function. Again, one district was an industrial one, one was similar to San Francisco, one to Miami Beach, and so forth. My game doesn't feature a world map like many JRPGs do. Instead, it's a series of interconnected areas. Many of these are open routes to other areas. Think of it sort of like Pokemon's various routes. The important thing to consider here is not just how you design these structurally, but how to make each route distinguish itself from others.

I remember in Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, there was a route south of Lavender City (the eerie town with the tower dedicated to deceased Pokemon) that was surrounded by water and made up of various docks-- a fisherman's paradise, if you will. (Had to double check, and thank goodness I did because I thought this route was originally north of Lavender City.) Earlier in the game there is a rocky road that leads to Mt. Moon. Thus, we have two routes that distinguish themselves from one another. One being a watery route while the other is full of mountainous terrain.

If I recall correctly, a Snorlax lazily laid about at this intersection. Reminds me of my Sunday mornings as a child, sleeping in the intersection of Manchester and Big Bend roads.

What I want to do with Legends of Adrigal's routes is similar to this and similar to the different districts of LEGO City. Each needs to have its own personality. I haven't fully explored this to the level I want yet, as I have two routes so far: Mabel Road and West Adrigal Road. The one is a vertical road with a small river running through pretty much its entirety, while the other is a horizontal one with a large river running along its north end and a plateau running throughout most of its middle. A modest farm rests to the east adjacent to the protective walls of Adrigal City.

West Adrigal Road. Don't mind the bare north section. The player won't be able to reach that until later in the game, and I haven't a good idea on what I want there until I reach that point in development.

While there is some variety here, I want to do more on later routes. Perhaps make one more forested, one with lots of elevation differences, something that neither current roads have as they're both flat. There are a lot of things I can do, and I want to do them to make each road feel special and unique.

Moving on, for the second and final point regarding density in LEGO City Undercover's open-world setting, I want to have plenty for the player to do on these roads and routes in Legends of Adrigal. It's pretty easy to do this initially in this type of setting for now, as I've sprinkled treasure chests throughout the maps, though at strategically placed locations. (As a side note: Make sure if you do treasure chests that the player finds what they receive from them [typically] worthwhile. If it's just a worthless doodad most of the time, they may not have the desire or motivation to keep searching for and opening treasure chests... unless they're a staunch completionist.)

However, there is more that can be done to make for a dense map other than littering it with treasure chests. I want to (but have not come to this point in development yet, however) have plenty of side attractions. Perhaps secret caverns off the beaten path leading to interesting mini dungeons or worthwhile locales. Perhaps characters that initiate quests for the player to interact with the world even more. There is a good deal of ideas I have. It's just that working by myself, I don't want to overwhelm myself or make too much work that I never finish the game.

Wrapping things up; 1) Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma are adorable in that Game Informer interview, 2) Many open-world games may not fit your project's scope, but you can very much learn from the best open-worlds themselves to generate ideas and inspiration, 3) LEGO City Undercover's world features a multitude of unique districts each with their own personality, character to them, and aesthetic to distinguish them from one another well, 4) LEGO City Undercover's open-world also features an abundance of things to collect and do in its world, and 5) Myself and GOD both agree that LEGO City Undercover is the best LEGO-branded game ever made.

I hope this article helped generate some ideas with you, helped you get an idea on how to build your game worlds with distinct areas to them as well as filling them with enough content to make them interesting and fun to explore. By no means am I an authority on this, so I'd love to get your thoughts on what I've shared. For now, take care and thanks for reading!