Fun Club Let's assume that the next 3D Mario game is open world. What structure does the game use and how does the world work?

[Magic-Man]

Both Pokemon and Zelda have gone open world recently, and both have been to great success (except SV technical failures). 3D Mario going open world is inevitable, even if it's just for one game. We know the team is experimenting with the concept due to Bowser's Fury.

Keeping this is mind, I'm starting to wonder how 3D Mario will make the jump. What the structure is like. How you get around. Stuff of that nature. I doubt the transition will be easy, and I don't think the structure of Bowser's Fury would hold up over an entire game.

I'm imagining something like this:

• The world is split up into eight sections, each about the size of a Super Mario Odyssey kingdom. The Mushroom Kingdom will be the starting point, Koopa Kingdom will be the end (duh). The world is roughly diamond shaped, with the top and bottom points being the starting and ending areas.
• In order to access Koopa Kingdom, you need a certain amount of Power Stars to open the bridge. You can collect these from any of the other seven kingdoms.
• The eight kingdoms of the game would have the basic themes: Grass, Desert, Forest, Mountain, Snow, Fire, and Water. Normally there would be an Underground kingdom, but I'm not sure how they would handle that in an open world sandbox so I imagine that gets swapped out for a city kingdom. This might seem basic, but these are only the basic ideas. A lot of areas in Odyssey seem basic on paper.
• You can get around in a Kart or on Plessy. These would have their own challenges tied to them.
• Each area has a boss. You're encouraged to defeat each one, because if you don't you'll have to face them before fighting Bowser.
• This is more about the journey than the destination. That's the only way this type of game can work. There are no Power Stars in Koopa Kingdom. It's just one long platforming and boss battle challenge all the way to the top.
• The game uses the Bowser's Fury powerup system in a more limited fashion. Mushrooms are the only powerup you start with. Each kingdom would have their own unique powerup that could not be used outside the land until defeating that kingdoms boss. This gives you different ways to tackle each kingdom and Bowser. For example, the city kingdom could have Cappy. You use them to beat the boss. You could then take Cappy into other kingdoms and tackle challenges in a whole new way.
• You can collect coins by normal exploration or beating challenges. This allows you to purchase cosmetic items and grow the places you visit (sorta like the Mario Maker 2 story mode). This could open up new paths or expand towns for more cosmetics.
• Each kingdom has around 15 challenges for Power Stars and several mini challenges for coins.

What are your thoughts?

 

[VolcanicDynamo]

This could make for an appealing structure.

I actually do think that the Bowser's Fury structure can work - not the Fury Bowser aspect specifically, but the idea of linear platforming stages placed within an open world, a mix of course clear and sandbox exploration on a large scale. I would like to see an iteration on that. But more than anything, what I'd like to see is something similar to what you stated but a bit looser. You start here, Bowser is there. Get to him by any means you can. But your concept has a more concrete structure to it, haha.

 

[Bowser Sr.]

See that beanstalk? You can climb it.

 

[meatbag]

See that beanstalk? You can climb it.

10/10 Game of the Generation!!1!1

 

[Magic-Man]

I'm not letting this thread die.

 

[Dekuman]

SMW2 Bower's Fury seems like a test run for the open world sandbox Mario game. Or maybe it's just a fun experiment.

But assuming the next Mario is on new hardware, they can pull off the open world.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

They gotta keep it significantly smaller than other open worlds for starters. And they shouldn’t be scared of using more soft and hard locks than something like BotW would. The point of making everything seamless should be to add verisimilitude, reduce annoying menu usage, and give players who want to push the game to its limits more unique opportunities. It should not be used as a way to give players the ability to completely circumvent challenges by walking around them or flying over them like other open worlds. This is something odyssey and bowsers fury and generally good at. You have a lot of chances to tackle a problem in different ways, but thankfully, avoiding the main path will often lead to more interesting platforming.

Heavy use of peaks and valleys and hazardous terrain in order to funnel (but not force) players down certain paths. For instance, if you took something like the lost kingdom in odyssey, and planted that into a seamless world, you wouldn’t lose any of the great platforming because a high mountain peak surrounded by a poison swamp still forces the player to engage with the meaningful level design. They should also layer the world more vertically than horizontally so they we can platforming from one area to the next with some clever tricks.

Continue odyssey and BF’s trend of transportation having its own unique controls and challenges that can come with that. As well as having fast travel points and shortcuts be more active. Using plessie’s high jump to start challenges from different points. Using combinations like the tanooki suit and the propeller block to travel bigger distances at higher speeds. Using springs to fling yourself from one point of the level to another. But make sure the relative power of each option is low enough that you can only bend the game, not break it (ie no revali’s gale plus hang glider plus infinite stamina, please).

Most importantly, use the new format to twist our expectations of what a Mario world can be. Like, show us a giant stone ? block resting on top of a mountain like an ancient ruin. And when we finally get to that mountain we go inside of it and it’s a volcano. Then when we reach the top (from the inside) the volcano erupts and shoots us upward to hit the giant block, which un-petrifies and drops stone blocks around changing the world state, and then a giant bean stock grows out of it that we can climb to a new cloud area we didn’t even know existed.

 

[MusicProposition]

Really dig the concept! I just hope that they, as you say, make use of power-ups instead of the fun but much inferior capture mechanic. So no Odyssey 2 please

 

[Aether]

The proposal is fine, but im honestly struggling to see a benefit compared to the open zone format it had in Odyssey. You have to render way further out, but the challenges being self contained (see BFs islands) means, the Gameplay is not that affected by it. Yeah, you don't have menus ... but then again, you have to run to the next fast travel point it seems ... making it kinda the same. or you run for a while.
The exploration and traversal is a big part of open world games, but even if Odyssey had a lot of exploration, i feel like it works better contained.
And the benefit of keeping it open zone is that more processing can go into those zones, for spectacle. More hot and bubbly looking lava, lusher forests, some weird effect, physics that are weird and fun to interact with. having an open world makes that all harder, since you have to think how it interacts with every other element and how it tanks performance. But with open zones, you can contain one weird thing in one zone and another in another zone.

Its possible that they find ways to make it have a real benefit, and even if they go open world it will probably be a great game. but i feel mario is not benefiting enough from that, so that it would maybe be one of those "open world for open worlds sake" games.

I also think mario has a different Rhythm/tempo in its moment to moment Gameplay then usual open world games. Kinda like: bayonetta CAN work in an open world game... but then you loose the nonstop action and the spectacle to a degree.