I don't truly count myself as an expert on game design, but I sure like acting like one.

But one thing I've noticed as of late that in most modern 3D games there tend to be design trends. For the most part most 3D games have layouts that can be classified under 3 basic groups which I call "Sandbox", "Theme Park", and "Tour".

One of my personal favorites are the "Sandbox" layout games. Sandbox layout is classified as a game that drops you into a big open area, gives you a few toys to start out with, and allows you to move at your own pace. You can do whatever you want when you want depending on the game's own sense of reason. These games usually feel pretty free and you have room to explore and experiment between mission set pieces. Popular games like this include Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row, Just Cause, newer Elder Scrolls/Fallout, many MMOs, and Minecraft. These games are essentially made for freedom and feel really good, I mean how could you go wrong with freedom? Well... sometimes Sandboxes aren't well impelemented. Like Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts for example, had many, MANY insulting issues, but the glaring issue from a pure design perspective is its massive empty sandbox with nothing in it. You can go around doing missions, but between missions there might aswell be no gameplay, just space. Batman Arkham City, a game praised for its sheer perfection has the same glaring issue that pretty much ruined the whole game for me. It's just so empty and boring that I miss the claustrophobic "Metriodvania" layout of the other game... speaking of which.

The "Theme Park" layout is a great layout for 3D games. What makes a "Theme Park" layout good is it gives you a small sense of freedom allowing you to go to certain locations and levels at your own will and, dare I say, "ride the rides". Now where it breaks your sense of freedom is where it gives you little to know incentive to go back to old locales after you've seen them, some maybe even blocking off earlier segments entirely. Its kinda a false sense of freedom. It seems open, but really is designed to force you into a linear path. Its a bit of design trickery, but I wouldn't say its bad. A lot of RPGs have this design. They give you openess, but some sections might be too difficult to complete at your current level, or you may not have a certain ability yet to gain acess somewhere. Its free, but very linear at the same time. Other examples of this type of game are many of the N64 era 3D Platformers like Banjo Kazooie and Mario 64. They use a free hub world which gives you a bit of freedom, but really has a linear path to follow. "Metriodvania" style games are also in this section as well. Freedom of exploration, but linear path of tools and power ups to complete your journey.

The last layout style are the more linear "Tour" games. They give little freedom of what you can do and force you around to its locales. I really don't like this style, but I suppose its not bad. Certainly a game like Call of Duty might tug you around linear paths to see what neat spectacle blows up next, but sometimes a linear style is needed to fit the game. A game like Heavy Rain for example would make little to no sense having openess since its a storyline. If we had 3 hours of Ethan driving around his car for no reason it would make Ethan seem like quite the bad father not sticking to what is urgent for him to do. Still I wish more shooters could follow a more Metriod-y style of campaign and allow my a bit of freedom. Sometimes Halo likes to fake freedom giving you a big level with multiple paths, but not in a sense that feels free but rather choose-your-own-adventure with the only options being right path first or left path first.

So anyway that's a bit of insight on what I've been seeing in most singleplayer campaigns in the last few years and then some. Its not perfect, but it does give a general view of general layout of most game campaigns.

Next time I'll compare multiplayer game trends.