I’ve recently found that big (mostly open world) games tend to overwhelm or even intimidate me. I’m a big fan of the Rockstar games and absolutely adored Breath of the Wild, but my playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom has been a bit rocky from the get-go.
As soon as the game let me explore all of its content and released me from the tutorial island, I was able to roam the lands of Hyrule freely as I once did in Breath of the Wild, but I’ve come to a sort of paralysis. I feel like there’s such an enormous amount of content to see that I’m constantly anxious to unintentionally skip content or to not make the most of my experience. I did not feel like this back in Breath of the Wild, and I’m not really sure why. I did, however, have this same sense of FOMO when I first played Skyrim. That game also made me feel like I was constantly missing stuff which left me kind of unsatisfied.
This is not a big problem and all of the games I listed are great games. I’m posting this because I unconciously took a two week break from ToTK in order to alleviate that feeling but when I came back to the game today and still felt the same, I thought of posting here and maybe hearing your opinions on this thing.
Have you ever felt the same in big open world games? Do you feel like this in more linear games with multiple endings? (I do) Do you think I’m an overthinker and should just rock on? Looking forward to your comments!
It’s nice to know I’m not alone. I really like Tears of the Kingdom but can barely play it. I thought it perhaps had to do with depression but I’m just overwhelmed. (Though it might still partially be depression.)
Not only that, but I could never get into open world games outside of the Zelda series. I tried Skyrim so many times and put it down every time. There’s just something about it that won’t click with me even though I recognize it as being a good game.
Tbh, I have had this feeling so many times over the years, makes me curious about the reason for it. So many objectively great games, that I recognize as such based on my own inspection (vs just parroting what others say or believe), yet just can’t get myself into.
There are so many factors. It could be an objectively good game that you just don’t like. No big deal, there are lots of 6 or 7/10 games that I absolutely love too. Or it could be you’re burned out on games or not in the mood for that particular thing, and you can come back to it.
TOTK for me was the latter, I am just not in the mood for a huge open ended game right now. Skyrim was the former, I never got into it. Dunno how old you are, but over time you get a feel for whether you’re going to like something and learn to trust the review scores less and less.
I hear you on depression and anhedonia. It sucks. I wish I had an answer for that.