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Capcom's upcoming and expansive open-world RPG, Dragon's Dogma 2, is one we're eagerly anticipating getting lost in, due out on PS5 on 22nd March, and getting off the beaten path and following the road less travelled is part of the appeal of a game like this. Director Hideaki Itsuno isn't a particular fan of fast travel as a mechanic, as it turns out, and has some advice for designers who think players hate hoofing it across the map.
Speaking to IGN, Itsuno explained his stance on exploration in games and offered some helpful advice to the industry at large: "Travel is boring? That's not true. It's only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun.” It's simple, see?
Itsuno expounded, detailing the ways in which players can expect Dragon's Dogma 2 to differ: “That's why you place things in the right location for players to discover, or come up with enemy appearance methods that create different experiences each time, or force players into blind situations where they don't know whether it's safe or not ten meters in front of them... we decided to design the kind of map where players will make the decision for themselves to travel by bike or on foot in order to enjoy the journey.”
It's some pretty ambitious talk, and we certainly hope that DD2 lives up to the hype. IGN has been a font of information all month, featuring the title as part of its ongoing First coverage, detailing Pawns, character creation, and the insidious Sphinx encounter.
What's your take on fast travel, a way to bypass boring content, or a modern convenience expected in game design? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 68
It seems like Itsuno must have played Starfield for saying this
Yup exactly
Nothing worse than fast travel, or any other "fast food" mechanic which makes a game less interesting
Instead of making everything bigger because quantity!!1 and therefore more boring, make it smaller, more grounded and more interesting
@Generiko1999 Sure, and pretty much every open world game - including Eldenring with its awful (spawn everywhere) magic horse
I couldn't agree with him more for saying this. We've seen when traveling can be fun with Death Stranding, Skyrim, and Elden Ring. Hell even survival or survival horror games like The Forest, Dead Space Remake, Evil Within 2, and Resident Evil because they rely on the player to make careful planning on their limited resources to use on the way to their objective and on the way back which makes it feel satisfying.
I get what he's saying but that being said I still use fast traveling in games like BotW, ER or TotK despite those games having good and fun exploration imo
I love the exploration in games like dragons dogma,skyrim,elden ring but I must admit I do like fast travel for when I'm not feeling particularly enamoured with the prospect of running 30 mins across the map again. Fast travel is particularly useful in NG+ runs and for those not in the loop NG+ is a....only kidding folks 👍
Funny people saying oh i love travelling across the map, " yeah sure...just like everyone else the novelty quickly wears off when you get a quest for the 15th time on the other side of the map..so no, fast travel is perfectly fine in games, especially if DD2 is a big as they say, and I can't wait to see how interesting the world is considering Itsunos comment
I have no problem with fast travel, but if you are using it on your first blind playthrough then something has gone seriously wrong.
Confirmed : Dragon's Dogma 2 has bikes!
I’ve tried to play more immersive characters in Skyrim, where I use the signposts and follow roads and paths. Then I get twelve quests in a row that are designed to basically wander off in every possible directions, clearly to get the player to explore and open up the map. By the time I’ve done all of that I get sick of traveling everywhere by foot or by carriage and start fast tracking everywhere. And that’s Skyrim, a world that is an absolute delight to wander through. The nature is beautiful and often relaxing, but pick and direction and you’ll find something interesting within the next few minutes.
So, yeah, I’ll be very interested in seeing if this claim turns out to be true! I’d love for it to be.
Big talk. He better deliver now!
If I have to go from one end of the map to the other just to grab one collectible or complete one mission my ass is fast traveling no matter how good the game is. Ain't nobody got time for that.
I understand where he is coming from but yeah after a while even the most interesting, detailed world needs fast travel. Can I have it in the real world plz?
@glassmusic You should try Morrowind.
While I understand what he is trying to say but…no.
After the first couple times exploring the map it gets old fast for me.
And as much as I enjoyed Dogma dark risen, traveling and lack of fast travel spots made it a bit of a slog when you saw your quest on the furthest side of the map and you have to get there on foot…
Mostly true. If a game is fun enough, I don't miss fast travel. For Spider-man 2, I could probably count on one hand when I used the Fast Travel and it was all near the end when the story had escalated so much, I wanted to get to the marker as fast as possible to see what happened next. Otherwise, I never got bored swinging
Nope. Big disagree. Traveling is cheap game design meant to increase play time. If i want to go explore, i go explore. When i want to get from A to B for the 10th time, there is nothing enjoyable about it. It's boring.
Perhaps try not to make fetch quests, but we all know you got them by the dozen.
I was hyped for DD2, but the more i hear about things like this and the pawn system, the more i remember the things that dragon's dogma did that were boring and they are doubling down on them. I'm not sure i'll be getting it anymore. I will wait for reviews.
Sounds to me more like that's padding more than anything
Comical he says this when the first DD was one of the most blandest and horribly designed open world games that’s ever released.
He does have a point but I think he oversimplified the problem of an open world a bit. Even if you make your world interested, some people prefer to play games on a more focused goal oriented manner where fast traveling cuts down a lot of the fat. Also on repeat playthroughs you're avoiding seeing a lot of the same places you've seen before and focusing on what you like the most.
The problem is when developers use it as a cop out for a poorly designed world. Some games would die if they didn't have fast travel because the open world is repetitive and it only serves as a means to travel from point A to B. Yet, I think the option to fast travel should be available even in well designed worlds since it gives the players more agency.
But my main problem with the first one was that travel WAS really boring! At least liven the overworld up with some Skyrim style music..
I mean I hear what he's saying. However, I remember traversal of the empty corridor like map of the original dd was Very tedious....
My time is limited. I often fast travel in games. Especially if I’ve already been through that area of the map.
I've never liked fast travel, might as well fast travel the entire game to the end and don't bother playing. It just fits in certain situations and feels fake in others. For example it makes sense to pick a taxi in GTA4/5 and skip the journey. It doesn't make sense in other games when you just pull up the map and teleport magically from place to place. I only do it it when there's no other way like The Institute in Fallout 4 and the Roundtable Hold in Elden Ring, in the latter's case I usually return to the last site of grace visited. When I find myself trapped in Stormveil, I find the challenge and fun escaping out of the there than just cheaply fast traveling my way out.
If AC Valhalla hadn’t had fast travel the platinum would have taken me 400 hours instead of 120 so…
The obvious but boring answer is of course to give me the choice between traveling and exploring your world or a good fast travel mechanic if Im not in the mood for it. Games like Skyrim or Avatar are an absolute joy to explore but that doesnt mean I always want to go on foot/horse/whatever from one end of the map to the other when I have to.
I played DD for maybe an hour. Made my character, did some exploring, walked for maybe 20 minutes, got killed by something and it inexplicably spawned me at the start of the level so I had to do the 20 minute walk again.
I didnt, I uninstalled it and moved on.
I dont want to waste time I don't have a lot of it. Why is having a option to fast is bad thing really don't know. If I need 30 minutes to from place to place every time I would quit the game quite fast.
A lot people complain about having options as a bad thing why is that if you want to travel over the map it's always a option and if you have little time you can do some cleanup with smaller fetchquests.
I would love to see what he will do to keep the game fresh if u have to walk to the same place several times. And I better hope for him he won't be doing fetch quests then with no sidestory even on the way to your quest otherwise it will become boring really fast.
If you take away fast travel from something like Skyrim it would be a boring as hell game and that game is quite solid for a lot of people.
@mac_da_man If i would have to walk everything on Skyrim I would be done with it quite fast.
@TheArt You're excuse is quite weird so only if it makes sense quick travel is a good thing? Some people have way less time to play a game sounds like a solid reason to me. If i get trough Demon Souls for three times through new game plus I really don't feel the urge to go through every dungeon or place every time. It can be fun to do when I have the option but I don't want to do it every time over and over again.
Some of us have a life, and don't have all the time in the world, to waste on walking for 30 minutes to reach the next quest location, and then 30 minutes to walk all the way back again.
Itsuno is an all time great but I strongly disagree with him here. Fast Travel is there so you don't have to see the same environment over and over again. I think the approach of only being able to fast travel to places you have already been to is perfect. You get the best of both worlds. You get the satisfaction of traveling into new territory and if you make it far enough, you unlock a Fast Travel point so you don't have to see that same environment over and over again.
Plus if you REALLY don't want to use Fast Travel you almost never have to use it in every game with only a few exceptions like The Round Table Hold in Elden Ring. Having options is not a bad thing.
@Steel76 if you actually enjoy the process of getting from one place to another (i.e. the games constantly gives you different and exciting things to do), then it doesn't feel like a waste of time. The same way that you wouldn't mind a game being longer (e.g 70 instead of 60 hours), if you're engaged the entire time.
Personally, I only enjoyed walking from one place to another in Ni no Kuni. In all the other games I've played, I've used fast travel when possible and hated it when it wasn't an option.
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Having option taken away always sucks and with fast travel you can always choose not to use it.
This is partly why i never finished playing DD, it wasn't just the lack of fast travel. It was how quickly enemie respawned on the roads.
Sometimes i fought my way past bandits or wolves, realised i had gone the wrong way the had to fight through them all again.
It just got too much.
The rest of the game is fantastic.
For all the haters of fast travel. The beauty of it is that it’s an option. If you don’t like it then don’t use it. I’m a player who always has to unlock every nook and cranny of a game. However, after I’ve done so, I like having the option to quickly bounce from one point to the next. Why would you wanna have to travel by horse from California to Maine every time you need to go from California to Maine?!
I gotta admit once I put all the port crystals down that I needed, I kept using the eternal ferrystone lol. Itsuno's got his heart in the right place but there wasn't much variety in enemy encounters in DD1, just day/night variations and post game. Here's hoping that's been improved in DD2. I'd also like there to be more things to do and better side quests this time around. Definitely lacking in that department last time, still ended up being one of my favorite games in spite of that.
I agree with him. Traveling is part of the fun in games like RDR2, DS, Elden Ring, the Switch era Zelda games, etc. Getting lost is essential to the experience of some games, the best open world games. I agree with him on this, as much as I do like fast travel being an option either way, just in case.
He's not wrong, but I'd counter that interesting means different things to different people, and could even change over the course of a game. In S-M, I don't think I fast-travelled at all except to pop the trophy for taking the subway, swinging was just too much fun. RDR2 started off like that for me, but by the time I felt the story was starting to drag I did use it just to get to the next mission marker sooner.
Good to have fast travel as an option, and let players make up their minds. At least trying to make moving around your game's spaces interesting should be a minimum requirement.
Kingdom Come: Deliverence
A happy medium. You can fast travel, but you have to watch a little map animation, and you might get ambushed by Cumans and bandits en route as you aren't paying attention to the roads 😁
After playing the new Zelda games I agree. I still find myself traveling normally to many places instead of using the fast travel system as much. It really is about immersion and distraction. Same with the Spiderman games.
I wouldn’t last very long or get very far in an open world type game without fast travel. (crosses game off the “to play” list)
I loved dragons dogma,but you know whats worse ,having a fast travel system, but locking it behind stupid hard to find ferrystones ,they knew it was an issue so introduced eternal ferrystones in dark arisen ,fellas spouting shi*te ,why does there have to be one or another ,can we just not have both.
It depends.sometimes i fast travel.sometimes i dont.especially if you want to finish the game.its all good.word up son
I don't entirely agree. Some games fast travel is the only thing that keeps things sane! I recently played Lies of P, for example, and would use fast travel all the time. Sure, you could trek back to level up at the Hotel, or speak with someone there, but then you ran the very real risk of dying, particuarly if there were some painful enemies between you and the Hotel, for example.
I love to explore games fully; go everywhere and experience everything, but sometimes you just want to get somewhere quickly. So often games seem to deliberately put the quest on the far side of the map, and trekking back and forth can quickly lose its appeal.
As an example, traversal in Spiderman 2 is cool to start with, but after a while you just want to get to where you need to quickly, and I found myself longing to unlock fast travel to make the game more interesting. Spending 5 minutes to get across the map, to do a mission that takes 3 minutes, soon becomes uninteresting...
I agree with him. I rarely travel in elder scroll oblivion or skyrim since it's really fun to just walk from place to place finding new content, either new cave, dungeon, bandit encounter, or another side quest 😃
Of course the option to fast travel should be there in the game since sometimes you just want to clear that one quest without getting distracted by other quest/cave/dungeon etc.
Not gonna lie - booted up Witcher 3 the other day, just to slow trot my way across the Kear Morhen map on Roach's back. Take in the sights, zen out with the incredible soundtrack. Masterclass.
I would argue that fast travel respects peoples time.
What if it takes 20 minutes to get to where you are going and only leaves you 10 minutes to accomplish anything because you don't have a couple of hours of downtime to play the game?
I don't care how exciting getting from point A to point B may be when all I want to focus on is what is at point B.
This guy is the man! Especially with next gen devices, traveling can be a ton of fun. My trip to Hogsmeade in Hogwarts Legacy is always a good time.
I’m trying to think of the last open world game I played without a fast travel system… I guess it was probably Dark Souls. Even then there’s a rudimentary fast travel that eventually unlocks, but exploring the world over and over is part of the game’s core design, with unlocking of shortcuts. I remember wishing that I had earlier access to a fast travel network, but I also appreciate the developers intent with forcing me to retread areas and level up.
It’s been a long time since I played Dragon’s Dogma, but I don’t remember being annoyed at the time. The map was fairly small by today’s standards though. Nevertheless, I like Itsuno’s confidence here by saying the game will have engaging design so we won’t miss having fast travel.
I couldn’t disagree with this guy more.
@GamingFan4Lyf Nailed it.
@Grimwood But what if you want to get a move on? I'm not wasting nearly an hour going to the other side of the map for a stupid mission.
@LifeGirl how?
@Grimwood hows greater mobility supposed to be "awful". Starting to think that open world games are just not your cup of tea AT ALL.
Fast travel is good, but placing limits on it can also be good for the most part. See RDR2, the first Dragon's Dogma, Morrowind, etc.
Some games just aren't meant to not have it and work better with it, like AC:Mirage, where exploration isn't part of the point like in DD.
I fast travel whenever available in games but funny enough I found myself recently not using the feature in Cyberpunk and I think that has to do with scenery and just all the random things that can happen, like choosing to take the train for no apparent reason. So, I can see his point.
And then they add trophies with like 500 collectibles or quests that take you back and forth constantly.I mean c'mon Fast Travel points should appear once you already discovered everything in a certain area, There's nothing more boring then having to grind through the same spots over and over again even if it "creates different experiences each time".
I was talking to a lad in work about the GTA6 trailer and he said he just hopes it has fast travel. I nearly slapped him.
Great poke into Ubisoft, especially Assassin's creed latest sequels. Ubi has invented another level of boredom in traveling.
In games like Starocean the Divine Force there is no point in walking, because areas are completed after finding all the treasure chests and when you are too strong for the monsters. there is then no point in crossing them anymore. fetch quests that force you quickly from A to B over great distances also require fast travel. However, in games like Dragons Dogma and Oblivion I like to walk for the immersion. it feels like a shame to use fast travel. That's probably also because I played Final Fantasy 8 in 1999, and in that game your salary went down if you ran.
It's time consuming. If you're in a hurry, it's nice to have fast travel. If you're not, then you have the choice of exploring.
I'd much rather just fast travel.
Just sounds like a way to make a game longer then it is
Please let the players choose what they want to do in the game! I did fast travel a lot in Elden Ring too and it has one of the greatest open world ever made
Yeah no crap, they make the map big as elder ring or whatever, the first game was a nightmare to travel between quests and the crystals were a pain to manage, I'm assuming this will be the same no doubt
@HeavymetalGordon elder ring now has fast travel? That is new to me
@JalapenoSpiceLife yes, once you find sites of grace and activate them you can then use them for fast travel
In general in games I'd way rather just get to the next mission and avoid the bloat getting there. If someone isn't a fan of fast travel they shouldn't have to use it but it should always if viable be an option. If you're into exploration for the sake of it, cool, but don't make the game a bore for the rest of us.
@ApostateMage Seems both a weird thing for someone to hope for and a weird thing to get mad at someone over. GTA4 and 5 both DO have fast travel in the taxis. ... And I always use them extensively.
Travelling should be fun, fun enough for the player to feel they don't need or want to fast travel. But fast travel should always be included.
People have different reasons for needing or wanting that. Especially trophy hunters. Travelling won't be fun for everyone even if it was the best designed travelling ever made. Burnout and bordom is a thing too
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