Open world video games have revolutionized the gaming industry. Where once players were limited by technological restraints to whatever boundaries created a level, now they the have the chance to go off beyond the beaten path. However, players can only help so many settlements and acquire so many mythical beer stein plus-ones before such filler quests lose their appeal.

At one point, open world games were rare - but many of them have traditionally been well-known. The Legend of Zelda, for instance, enables players to explore much of the map and finish the game nearly however they choose, and games in the Grand Theft Auto series allow players to explore the open world at their leisure between story-focused missions.

Related: The Rise of Open World Games

Open world games have continued to expand and improve over time, but some issues persist across all of them. They do a lot of things right, but each and every one has the potential to succumb to staleness.

Open World Games' Side Quests Could Use Work

Preston Garvey

In 1994, Bethesda made a major mark on the future of open world games by releasing the first Elder Scrolls game: Arena. It's considered the skeletal structure of most open world games. The main questline is interesting but short and the majority of the game is some version of kill something, escort someone, rescue someone, deliver this, and fetch that. If this sounds familiar, it's because this is practically the routine in every open world game. Generally, there's a lot to do, but much of it is hollow. Gamers are becoming increasingly aware of the formulaic approach to questing in most open world games. There's a reason Fallout 4's Preston "Another Settlement Needs Your Help" Garvey is one of the most hated figures in gaming.

Players hate when grinding replaces content, yet so many games rely on that philosophy to artificially pad out the game world. The only ways to truly fix this problematic cycle are for players to avoid purchasing games like this altogether and for development companies to see the value in prioritizing quest quality over quantity. DLC can help with this, if companies abandon the idea of releasing self-contained mini-stories filled with these same tropes and instead truly expand upon the game world by adding less mundane quests.

Related: 15 Best Open-World Games, Ranked

Another feature that could improve upon questing is the acceptance that the player character can't do everything. Instead of creating a checklist of quests to complete, these games should emphasize the fact that the main character is only one person and the time spent completing one quest might cause another to fail because "be there at midnight" doesn't mean "be somewhere else at midnight then catch up with me tomorrow." Sure, sometimes stuff can wait, but there's something to be said for adding a degree of urgency to the overall game where both choice and timing matter.

Open World Games Don't Have To Be About the Hero

Hyrule Castle from Breath of the Wild

Almost every open world video game shares a common theme: even if the protagonist starts as a nobody, he or she is one of the most important people in the world by mid-game. The character is thrust into every major issue straight out of the early levels. Being the hero (or in some cases, villain) is fun, but why does every character have to become so important?

Games can advance beyond the cliche of a hero-for-hire who vanquishes the Lizard King of the Third Realm and saves humanity. Perhaps it's time for games about a protagonist whose personal odyssey doesn't ultimately merge with the fate of all existence. Instead of having his or her actions change the world, the game can explore how the journey is affected by the changing world instead.

Open world games are often filled to bursting with interesting environments. Many, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Skyrim, and Fallout: New Vegas, are considered some of the best games of all time, but no matter how interesting they are, the actual content easily becomes formulaic. The Witcher 3 slightly improves its open world formula by tying many of its side quests into the main story, but it still has the generic fetch content that plagues the genre. The most important thing developers can do is replace the formula with fresh and interesting ideas. This will likely increase the game's budget and production time, but when the end result could be a truly revolutionary open world title, the effort is well worth it.

Next: The Elder Scrolls: 10 Hidden Side Quests Worth Finding (And 10 That Are A Waste Of Time)