Games That Just Dump You in the World.

[Alpha Six]

You said "so that by the end when I'm more familiar with the terrain, it's more explorable." This doesn't make sense. Once you go through the area, you have already "explored it." There's no more exploration to be had, other than to look behind the rock you couldn't get to before, for example.

actually, that only works for games like minecraft, in which the designer has actually put no effort into the world they've constructed, and the only encouragement for exploration is the fact that levels are generated randomly. if that's cool with you then whatever but that's not the actual definition of a "good exploring game"

most exploration games are actually smart, like the games you gave as an example. in Zelda games, you can explore as much as you want, and as you progress through the game, the areas you can explore increase. you can go into areas in Hyrule Field that you couldn't go before because now you have the item/equipment for it.

rarely can you ever just "walk around" and suddenly stumble onto a cool thing. if you do walk around and stumble upon a cool thing, it's because you probably finally have the equipment for it and you didn't realize it was there in the first place, which is what makes exploring Zelda games so much fun compared to others.

the world is DESIGNED so that you can't explore every nook and cranny immediately, and that is one of the reasons it's both a successful franchise and a fan favorite across video game likers everywhere. the fact that it's become more accessible with "real" dialogue systems ever since the first game has helped the series grow into the behemoth it is today.



onto the actual topic subject-- i don't like being dumped into a world where i'm basically supposed to just "Go With The Flow" because that doesn't really show any effort in a game's actual design. there has to be some sort of objective, and you generally should know what the objective is pretty quickly. there are lots of great games in the world that have vague starts, but too vague can be detrimental to the player unless the game is meant to curve to a specific niche (a good example being Dark Souls, which most people Hate or Love because of the way it's designed as a whole) or if the game is simple enough where you don't need to know exactly what's going on (but there should still be some sort of direction)


edit:
make a zelda game but you can turn off anything that could potentially even slightly hint you towards where you're supposed to go. congratulations you just made an exploration game that caters to both the guided and the un-guided player. give me your money