Any estimates on game world size?

[Zorro]

I'm a huge fan of open world games, especially when they try something new. This game looks intriguing so I've added it to the wishlist. Do you have any estimates on how big the completed game world will be (i.e. square miles or kilometers)?

[Eastshade Studios]

We went for density over size. Its something like a square kilometer or so. Sometimes we worry even that's too big. The land is carved up into impasses, so you can't easily b-line to any place. Its also quite diverse. We have forests, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, two cities, wooden ruins, stone ruins, hot springs, caves, unlikely dwellings, urban undergrounds, bridges, and more!

[Zorro]

Ahh. So I assume you're homing in on about 10 hours worth of content? (Not a problem; Journey and ABZU are some of my favorite games so I don't mind it being short.)

[Eastshade Studios]

Originally posted by Zorro:

Ahh. So I assume you're homing in on about 10 hours worth of content? (Not a problem; Journey and ABZU are some of my favorite games so I don't mind it being short.)

We don't quite know how long the game will take players yet. Could be anywhere from 6 to 12. We'll know more when we're closer to release.

[Zorro]

Originally posted by M:

Originally posted by Eastshade Studios:

We went for density over size. Its something like a square kilometer or so. Sometimes we worry even that's too big. The land is carved up into impasses, so you can't easily b-line to any place. Its also quite diverse. We have forests, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, two cities, wooden ruins, stone ruins, hot springs, caves, unlikely dwellings, urban undergrounds, bridges, and more!

1 km² doesn´t really sound like open world to me. more like small roaming area... which is very sad.

If it's detailed enough you might be surprised. That's roughly the size of 190 football stadiums.

[Eastshade Studios]

Originally posted by Eastshade Studios:

1 km² doesn´t really sound like open world to me. more like small roaming area... which is very sad.

Open-world isn't really a map size, its a style of play/game design. Our 1 km² feels very large to me and everyone who has tested the game. Its very dense content-wise and EXTREMELY dense in visual variety. If I told people it was 10 km² I don't think people would question it after playing it. We could have bloated the map to increase walk times between areas but I have too much respect for player's time. We wanted a compressed and interesting world, where every corner you turn you find something new. Eastshade has:

-29 quests
-52 fully voiced characters you can talk to
->100 ambient characters
-1.1 km² of massively varied and hand-authored explorable area
-2 cities
-4 inns
-11 vendors
-8-15 hours of playtime

Please pardon the passion of my defense here, but this is something I feel strongly about. I feel many consumers look at map size the wrong way. It would be trivial to make a 1,000 km² map. I can do that tonight. It would be endlessly monotonous and boring. Of course in the end, if physical space as it relates to walk speed is important to you, yes, then Eastshade is not for you. And that's fine! No hard feelings here. But to anyone else reading this: If you like free-roaming and finding something new around every corner, and aren't expecting the size and density of a canonical Elder Scrolls, Eastshade might just be your jam.

Furthermore, 1 km² may not be as small as you think. Skyrim is something like 6x6 km. Eastshade is 1x1 km. It would take you 1/6th the time to walk fully east to west in Eastshade as it would Skyrim. Mathematically it is 1/36th the area of skyrim, but practically, it feels like 1/6th the size, because of how the walk times relate.

[Zorro]

Maybe I'm too much of a realist, but I try to be practical in my indie game expectations (as is hopefully apparent by my earlier posts in this thread), and I have to admit that's actually a lot more content then I was expecting. Thanks for the update!