These open-world games are different from the rest because they have changing seasons.
A lot of games try to change things for players as they go along. There are interesting ways that some open-world games try to change things up for players as they move through the game. Many games stay pretty much the same as long as players keep running through them.
One of the most obvious ways that a game can change the open world that players are discovering is by letting the seasons change different parts of the world. In many games, adding changeable seasons is a great idea because they make the world more interesting, are easy to add, and are fun for players. They also make the game more playable.
Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is one of the most obvious games with seasons. It has an open world that players can explore, fight monsters in the mines, talk to neighbors, go to events, and most importantly, grow things and run a farm. This last part, on the other hand, changes the most as the game goes on.
Each season lasts for 30 days before it changes, and the foods that can be grown in each season are also completely different. If players leave crops out for too long, they will be dead when the seasons change. To fill up their collections, players will have to wait for new crops to grow and collect every year, which makes each season a very different game. In one of the best independent games ever, players won’t be able to grow much at all in the winter, so they can take their attention off of growing for a while.
Pokémon Black & White
Some people don’t like the style of some of the newest Pokémon games, but fans loved the fifth-generation games because they were brave and had some of the most cruel characters in the series. Using the Nintendo DS clock system, Pokémon Black & White would change the season once a month in real life. This would make the game play very different.
In each season, different Pokémon will show up and be able to be caught. In the winter, snow can cover places that aren’t reachable in other seasons, making them possible to reach. Because players have to wait for the season to change before they can catch all the Pokémon they want, these changes make the game a lot more fun to play.
Sons of the Forest
The Forest was already a tough survival game where players had to stay alive on a scary island full of cannibals. The sequel, Sons of the Forest, makes it even harder to stay alive by adding seasons to the game, which were already present in The Forest and caused enough problems for players.
Sons of the Forest changes how enemies act and behave depending on the season. For example, in winter, bodies of water that the player may need to reach freeze over, so players have to get ready for that season by gathering different resources. Along with making the game more difficult and realistic, this keeps the same style as the last one.
Persona 4
There aren’t many games in the Persona series that really fit the meaning of “open-world,” but Persona 4 is a beautiful open-world detective game that shows how this style of game can change over the course of a year. As the seasons change, the story moves forward. For example, important things happen around holidays like Christmas that the player can only reach after the school year has gone that far.
Everything in the city of Inaba changes with the seasons, from the clothes players wear to the buildings and streets. The weather is also talked about a lot, which gives the game a great sense of change that most games can’t match on such a personal level.
Bully
Some other games take place over the course of a school year. In Bully, players start their adventure in the fall and move through winter and spring as the stories go on. When players finish the game’s main story, it will be summer, and it will stay that way until they start a new game.
There are also things that will only happen at certain times of the year. Flappy Bird players change their clothes depending on the season. In the winter, the ground is slippery, which makes it harder to control a skateboard or bike. The seasons change detention, and in the winter, you can’t mow your lawn. This adds a great sense of change to the game. Also, the map is incredibly underrated and a lot of fun to explore.
Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
The mobile version of The Legend of Zelda, which went with Oracle of Time, was one of the most obvious games to make changing seasons a big part of the story. Link is taken to Holodrum in Oracle of Seasons, where he sees Onox capturing the Oracle of Seasons. To get him back, Link must collect the eight essences of nature and use the Rod of Seasons.
To do this, Link can change the season in Holodrum by stepping on sticks during the game. This changes the world in an instant and lets Link get to places he couldn’t get to before. This is a bigger part of the game than in some other season-changing games, and you can change it whenever you want. However, it still shows how seasons can change gameplay in big ways.
