During a masterclass lecture held at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, Red Dead Redemption Lead Game Designer and Co-Writer and Shadow of Mordor Co-Writer Christian Cantamessa talked about what he sees in the future of open world games.

Cantamessa mentioned that open world games are now a genre of their own, and they are a great way to give agency to the player, tell a story, and offer multiplayer on top of content that players can consume whenever they want. Besides that, they also have a great sense of place, and more than any other game they make you feel like you're inhabiting a certain location.

Those elements are going to stay and evolve, incorporating more multiplayer and more ways to manipulate the story and add to the story content in a way that feels closer to the player.

According to Cantamessa, at the moment there is a certain disconnect between story moments, multiplayer moments and dynamic moments. He feels in the future that those elements will be better integrated with each other.

As an example, he brought up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, where developers gave properties to items and the elements of the world, allowing the players to just play with those possibilities. He thinks that some of these elements will bleed into other games of the genre.

Innovation is also going to come in the dynamic aspects of gameplay, like the Nemesis system of Shadow of Mordor, while multiplayer content like Grand Theft Auto Online is going to become borderline MMO-like in terms of involvement. There will be more co-op, more story, and more "roleplay" even in those multiplayer-only sessions.

Of course Cantamessa admits that he doesn't have a crystal ball (and if he did he'd just play the lottery), but he feels that it's easy to see that the genre is going in this direction

The Video Game masterclass event in Paris was organized by Jeux Vidéo Magazine and Cité des Sciences.

[On-Location Reporting: Morgane Bouvais]