"The main goal for Avalanche's future projects hinged on player freedom."
"In a world of tightly crafted corridors and minutely tailor-made cutscenes and scripted sequences, a great big sandbox which lets you make it your own, without any one right way to play it, is about as unique and memorable as a game could be."
"The idea started to pour in like having fire trucks respond to fires and then being able to steal those fire trucks, switch on their sirens, and clear traffic."
"GTA gives players all the tools to wreak havoc across its three available cities in any way that they see fit."
"Nintendo has really mastered how to use expressive mechanics, mechanics that can be used in a lot of ways and give players the freedom to improvise and adapt to a variety of scenarios."
"We've created a rich sandbox where you can define your own win condition."
"Red Dead Redemption 2 is the perfect example of a game which both has a complex story while also giving the player the right amount of freedom for an open world game."
"The game is a foray into player options, boasting a huge amount of freedom to become powerful within a player's preference."
"Play the way you like. Develop your own style with deep character customization and abilities."
"What are the Elder Scrolls games at their core? It's this idea to play who you want to be, be who you want to be."
"There really is no one way to play Neo, there's a reason we have all these weapons and all these skills and all this build potential."
"You could play this game any way you wanted to."
"At the end of the day, play the game the way you want. That's ultimately going to provide you with the best experience."
"The strength of a true sandbox campaign: varied experiences with genuine unpredictability."
"Balers Gate 3 is the cow and they have given you the ability to carve your steak out of it."
"Never put the players in a situation where you're taking their agency away from them."
"Wildlands is a game geared towards completionism but not really one that even requires it."
"Elden Ring gives players more options than ever before."
"It's all about letting players play the game the way they want to play it."
"The point of a thief's game is to feel like a thief but how can you feel like a thief when the first three hours of before is just you traversing city streets with one or two paths to choose from."
"The sandbox element is what makes it so great."
"There's a type of emergent storytelling, which can unfold when a player is left at their own devices."
"You can customize your units and redefine them."
"It's definitely not perfect, but Dishonored 2 is simply an incredible advancement of the Dishonored mechanics, world design, player freedom, and so much more."
"What you don't want is for players to feel stuck and out of ideas."
"Dishonored gives you a huge amount of freedom."
"RPGs is the freedom the player has to complete objectives in creative and interesting ways."
"Breath of the Wild was willing to let the player roam free and tackle Hyrule however they wanted."
"Never let someone, even the dungeon master, tell you a paladin wouldn't do that or an elf wouldn't do that or a wizard wouldn't do that. They don't get to choose. That's my character, and that's what I'm going to do."
"Every environment that features enemy combatants is designed around multiple play styles."
"At a macro level this massive World exists to be explored...it's no longer about what can I do it becomes about what do I want to do."
"There is no single video game I have ever played where I have felt like I've had more freedom to fight explore and solve puzzles however I chose to then tears of the Kingdom."
"I wanted to make a game that let players explore a world at their own pace."
"The non-linearity of New Vegas is amazing. You can just go past deathclaws and get to New Vegas immediately."
"There is an amazing amount of freedom with this quest, and I believe it to be one of the best designed and fun quests in the entire mod."
"It's really about this idea of choice. Playing your games wherever you choose to play them."
"There is no objective in the game, you really can do anything."
"Minecraft is a simple game but a game which allows you the player to make it as complicated as you would like to make it."
"People say they want open world and free choice but they also want to be told where to go."
"Not a single player in this game would have experienced this expansion in a less profound way if they could freely choose their covenants."
"You don't get to tell another player how they enjoy the game."
"The overworld should serve as a complement to the intensity of dungeons where you can explore freely and do whatever you want."
"EverQuest gives you a huge amount of depth and control and freedom."
"This new equipment, along with various new weapons, opens up more freedom and flexibility for players to showcase their own play styles."
"Runescape dominates MMORPGs because there are many ways to play the game, and none of them are wrong."
"Runescape is actually very close to being a sandbox."
"Arcanum not only gives you the freedom to roleplay, it also offers a world in which you’ll want to get into the roleplaying spirit."
"Breath of the Wild lets you play however you want, setting your own pace."
"Let people play the characters they want to play."
"Breath of the Wild" lets you do things your own way.
"It's fully okay to leave the floor. It's what makes this game-mode so engaging."
"It's all about letting the player inflict whatever personality they want."
"You can play it your own way, and I think that's what's important."
"The whole point of this game is to make up your own stuff."
"The fact that you can bum-rush straight to the final boss is fantastic."
"This is after all a series that extol the virtues of player choice."
"The lack of a traditional dungeon system? That's just how the game was designed."
"Having loadouts is probably the biggest thing that any VR could ever do because it's like you know what you're getting you know what class stuff you made and you're like racing to get it before other people get their loadouts."
"Sometimes developing a deep and rewarding system and then dropping the player into an area to run wild is a formula for success."
"You should not limit the imagination of your players."
"Playing WoW on my own terms... I can play multiple alts, go out with farming mounts and transmog, have fun in BG's."
"Thank you everyone not just for today but also for last night that golden you made the Golden Globes tolerable."
"You gotta have that freedom for Paul Pogba to allow him to play his game."
"Profane is a sandbox MMORPG focused on freedom, adventure, and territorial domination."
"The reality is that this may be the best Pokemon game in terms of its open-ended structure near Limitless convenience."
"Super Mario 64 offers the player far more freedom in Mario's movements."
"I look forward to ditching its scenario campaign restrictions for the sandbox of the combined world map."
"In The Phantom Pain, however, there was a constant desire to mess around with more strategies than the game seemingly wanted me to."
"In the glory days of Overwatch 1, the game felt like it was truly accessible to all gamers... you could do what you want and get the result you wanted."
"This mod does several things in the game, the main thing it does though is it gives you the ability, no, the lore-friendly privilege to dress your character any way you [__] please."
"Good game design allows you to play the game in different ways."
"Trust players to find the fun in your fun stuff without forcing them into very restricted versions of it."
"They didn't have to do any of that, but they did."
"The game doesn't reprimand you or anything for doing anything wrong because there's pretty much no wrong way to do anything in the game."
"There's no end to viable strategies in Halo 3. It's the most fun to experiment with."
"I want you to be able to play the way you like."
"This is one of few franchises in all of video games where not only can you blow up kids."
"The fact you can just kill somebody outside of town for whatever reason is definitely very cool feeling that you don't get a lot of in RPGs."
"I think really that's kind of what game design is all about, you know? Letting people enjoy it the way that they want to."
"It's like a wonderful game of just so many people are going to play it a huge different ways."
"We like to support as much play styles and freedoms as possible, keeping the sand in the sandbox."
"Pick who you want to pick, pick who you're gonna have fun with."
"The game is one large open sandbox and it's really up to you to make your own fun."
"GTA 4's gameplay isn't where it shines; it's more in how it puts you in a place where you can create as much havoc as possible."
"I like giving people the options if they want to play around with it, you know that's what's fun about these games."
"You're much better off just going out and exploring than trying to take the story really seriously."
"The game just confidently lets me live within it and that's really impressive."
"Games that win big are the ones that don't force players into a box."
"While a lot of their ideas and open-world design would come at the sacrifice of graphical fidelity and having to implement a lot of fog, the ability to let players tackle missions in whatever way they wanted was profoundly liberating."
"Everyone should be allowed to play the best thing is for as many people as possible being able to play in the way they like."
"Players could feel rewarded for playing the way that they want to and would have a more positive playing experience."
"Elden Ring is an open world game where you have an entirely free world to farm with players who can arrive at bosses dungeons and enemies in thousands of different states of power and orders."
"I really did not expect that from a game from the time, but it felt like I had so much freedom."
"Letting the campaign breathe and go where it goes."
"You can literally see strong name, yeah thank you. You can literally kill every single character no matter what and I think that's really good as well."
"We're trying to make the game really non-linear."
"We're also making a big change coming up which will loosen the stacking restrictions on armor 2.0 mods."
"Any game that gives people the creative space to exercise their inner sociopath is just fine by me."
"The thing I like about the Dishonored series is that they are designed for experimentation and multiple playthroughs, so there's never really one proper way to go through a level or beat a specific thing."
"My god, you could really make whatever you wanted to."
"Just being able to play wherever you want to."
"Something that we all do when we get into these games we'll just do the Jarek stuff that they tell us to do we always try and create our own modes."
"Let people play the game for what they want to play the game for. Don't try to make people do a bunch of [__] that doesn't matter."
"They wanted to give players more choice when it comes to the combat system."
"I honestly think there's no problem with enjoying your games how you like, especially if you're trying to commentate over them at the same time."
"Halo Infinite may just be an open-world game that will be doing a lot of roaming, a lot of traveling, and exploring."
"Bring back master loot for guilds and let people trade whatever they want. It's very simple with no bullshit."
"Over a decade since its release, Fallout New Vegas remains one of the best examples of player freedom in an open-world RPG."
"Despite this vast range of player freedom, New Vegas still manages to tell a complete and cohesive story—one that starts with a bang: you're shot in the head and dropped in a shallow grave in the outskirts of Vegas."
"How do you guide a player through a linear narrative that culminates in a final climactic battle while at the same time offering a radical level of player freedom and choice at every step of the journey?"
"My take on this and any other ttrpg stuff is that you and your friends can do whatever you want forever as long as it helps you have more fun."
"Ultimately though, please pick whatever you think looks coolest and be reassured there is no bad choice."
"There was really only that one ending we liked... not having multiple ways to complete the game was pretty contrary to the spirit of Fallout."
"Taking the number one spot is something that has been needed in Pokemon for a long long time... more freedom and exploration."
"There is no correct way to play Undertale, and that's one of the game's strengths, promoting an air of freewill and independence, making the outcome all the more potent for the individual player."
"Players get told freedom. If it's possible within the game's system of rules and interactions, you're basically free to do whatever you want."
"Gaming in 2020 is all about open-world sandboxes where I can play however I want to play."
"The world is still enjoyable without engaging with the narrative."
"Annie is incredibly diverse; she can be played so many different ways. It's awesome because you can play her however you want."
"The absolute best part of the game is when the player is allowed to freely explore the ship and track down all the items they may have missed."
"You can play however you want, it's really thinking about customizing how you want to play the game."
"The beauty of this game is you can customize things however you see fit."
"Let players choose what they want to do with it, whether they just want to hang out, create a farm, or create a mining outpost."
"It gives the player more freedom to play the way they want to play."
"This just leads to a lot more customization within the game and I think this was an excellent change."
"It really lets player creativity and player play style preference dictate how they want to play the hero." - Jeff Kaplan
"We're adding a lot more freedom in what types of traps can be built, and along with the other building improvements, we hope this will give players a lot more creativity."
"A real basketball banter, basketball chatter, and basketball play, stop getting in the way, let them go."
"There's no right or wrong way to play the game."
"You can kill literally everyone and then still complete the game."
"The way that the original games were designed lends itself more to player interpretation."
"Avoid the cutscene... Let the players have their freedom."
"If you want to curse things, you want to hex them, Warlock is the play."
"They were just so cool because first person, they were open-world, you could go do whatever you want."
"Druids may soon choose bear and cat forms separately. Freedom at last!"
"Bruno, he's like a dog in a cage, you let him out and he just runs off."
"Any game that limits the way that you play is inherently going to do less successfully than a game that allows you to do pretty much anything."
"It's repetitive for repetitive sake. I shouldn't have to do the seasonal story on every character if I don't want to."
"It's just fun, a bit of everything I enjoy. It's got RPG elements and the exploration over the world, you can make your own story."
"Given that the last three 2D Metroids have felt linear in their progression, it’s refreshing to see Dread take inspiration from Super Metroid, a game that didn’t hold the player’s hand at all."
"Minecraft because it is just, you know, like, you know, it's as chill or as vibrant as you want it to be."
"Cheats add a lot to open world games. Like, they're supposed to be sandboxes, so let us knock over the sandcastle time to time, right?"
"We want to let you play the way you want to play, but if you're crazy, you can break free. You sure can." - Greg Peng
"If you really want to have a lot of freedom of player movement in your world...just ask the players what are you going to do next."
"We're not going to build the game world in such a way that it confines you."
"Our biggest goal is to support player agency."
"You can take as long as you want and play and experiment with the character build of your choosing, all without being punished."
"The fact that you could do build mode or creative mode is huge."
"The type of freeform design present in games like Elden Ring appeals to multiple kinds of players, it lets them experiment and seamlessly flow between different types of experiences."
"But the sheer potential of the game and what it could allow players to do is astronomical."
"The part of the fun of Dungeons & Dragons is that the players can do anything."
"Freedom of actions... what makes the game one of the best RPGs ever made."
"Our core pillars of Guild Wars 2 have not changed: support player autonomy, focus on horizontal progression, and strive for the fun."
"Everything you need to understand the story is in the game, and whatever players take from it, their interpretation is right."
"Embrace player agency: let them solve the mystery their own way."
"Just having those different options to be like 'oh maybe I will just take it on the chin this time' or insult them... it's really refreshing and fun to finally have a game that really gives you that freedom of choice again."
"Being able to use any type of archetype without badge grinding or spending tons of VC feels good."
"That's the beauty of Elder Scrolls online is it's really up to you you know we don't have arbitrary level gates that prevent you from playing with your friends."
"This game is set to offer an amazing level of freedom for dribbling that will truly let you shine on the court."
"Every single individual element is driven by player freedom and discovery."
"It's exciting seeing a game that has such a diversity in the ways you can play it out in the way things play out."
"The spacing for James Harder became so good that James was able to do whatever he wanted."
"Here's the thing though regardless of that, the story, the grandiose feeling of a finale, if this is the finale for Agent 47, the way the levels are made and the various different things you can do are insane."
"Garry's Mod capitalized on the idea of emergent gameplay, giving players tools and letting them loose in a sandbox environment."
"What if instead of building a linear game with goals and checkpoints, gamers were given a sandbox to explore in a way that they wanted?"
"You don't have to have the mega players that you don't have to chase the mega players that you can have fun in this game with players like this."
"With a plethora of weapons and armor sets, the player can play in almost any style they want."
"Past Fate: an open world MMORPG focused on player freedom."
"Fallout 3: Broken Steel DLC allowed players to continue exploring after the story."
"Exploration freedom makes gaming experiences more important."
"When Overwatch 2 comes out, for the first six months, people are going to be so bad that you can do whatever you want and it's going to be great."
"Make Beyond Good and Evil 2 your own space opera where you embody a space pirate captain and develop your legend."
"Weird West leans into letting you do and try whatever you want by also letting you quick save as much as you want among other things. There's no real wrong answer to any of the mission objectives."
"Blaming players today for having the flexibility to leave a team is a terrible way to criticize."
"I think we shouldn't forget that the players of the games that we design have a freedom and a capacity to express themselves simply by choosing what to pay attention to next."
"We are now a company making a narrative adventure game type thing with high player freedom."
"Let Justin Fields play, take the guard rails off and let him play."
"Skyrim understands that you're not going to want to do the same thing forever."
"Anything that puts more flexibility and adaptability and choice into player hands, I think always gonna lead towards people feeling immediately more fun, more agency, more authority, over the world and their character."
"What we learn from this is, once we remove the competitive aspect that forced the player into overcoming these goals and trying to beat the system, we got a better response."