As the title suggests: I’ve had it with open worlds with dozens of things to do and checklists to complete. What are your favorite, delightfully simple, linear games?

This question is sparked by the discussion in the Final Fantasy thread, were I disclosed that I actually kind of like XIII because of its linearity. Other linear favorites of mine include: Half-Life series, Portal series, Uncharted series, some COD campaigns, Undertale, Journey, Super Mario 3D World, Plague Tale, Spec Ops: The Line

A shout out to A Way Out in the co-op catergory!

  • AnEilifintChorcra@sopuli.xyz
    9·
    2 months ago

    American Arcadia

    Quantum Break

    Hellblade

    God of War series

    Sniper Elite series

    Talos Principle

    I found out recently that Portal has some free mods, I’ve just started reloaded and its pretty good so far.

    • Portal Reloaded
    • Portal Stories Mel
    • Thinking with Time Machine
    • CharlesReed@fedia.io
      3·
      2 months ago

      I second Quantum Break. When I first started that game, I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but it was fantastic!

      • DdCno1@beehaw.org
        1·
        2 months ago

        I’m currently playing through this game. At one point, it totally hit me that the non-linear structure and even the way secrets are scattered throughout the world is very reminiscent of Super Mario 64.

        • dwindling7373@feddit.itEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          You are not wrong… I guess in both instance they came from the desire never to break the immersion through any kind of loading.

          The weirder think to me is that it was made by the guys behing “Serious Sam”, that basically mastered the open field shooter genre, which is kinda like the opposite of this game?

          • DdCno1@beehaw.org
            2·
            2 months ago

            Yes, exactly! Coming from one of the best-made mindless game series to essentially gaming high art is quite the transformation. There has always been a lot of talent at Kroteam, but I’m glad they have finally found their true calling.

            The small handful of nods to Serious Sam in The Talos Principle are quite amusing, by the way. I almost got a heart attack from suddenly hearing the sound of the headless kamikaze…

    • blindsight@beehaw.org
      2·
      2 months ago

      Portal Pro I remember being great. So good that Portal 2 was a disappointment for me when it landed.

      I needed to cheat (watch the YouTube solution video) on a few solutions, iirc, too; not because they’re badly designed, just because I couldn’t wrap my head around the solution.

      It should be noted that a couple of the portal solutions need reasonably quick portal placement, so I don’t think it would be as good without KB+mouse. It took me a few tries to nail one of the techniques.