With the dawn of 3-D games on home consoles, new buzz words and selling points like draw distance, open worlds, and free roaming worlds were birthed. Games grew in size and linearity become a negative point on many reviews. Bigger, however, is not always better, and great games should never be docked points because they proceed in a linear fashion. Content is king!
It has always been an enigma to me why linearity has developed this stigma. Why it should ever be considered a negative while wide open, sandbox, free roaming aspects are typically considered a good thing. Let's ignore the entire history of gaming greatness that existed in the linear majority of 2-D games and just look at some samples from my 3-D library. Some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played have been knocked in reviews for their linearity, while other games have actually used their wide open dead space as a selling point.
I've picked on the Zelda series before by calling out the vast emptiness of Twilight Princess' Hyrule Field, but the first 3-D Zelda to offend here was the first 3-D Zelda. Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time was huge for its day and a technical feat. How long it took to cross on foot was talked up as a selling point but the field was basically bare, offering no real reason for its existence other than “Hey, look what we can do!”. Super Mario Sunshine also suffered from the vastness of its game worlds. Unlike Zelda's field, the areas in Sunshine were loaded with stuff and felt terribly cluttered and chaotic. I found them too large and disorganized with too much going on to be as inviting as the comparatively simple, but focused worlds of Super Mario 64. Finally, one of the most gratuitous examples of a game world that was too big for its own good was the city hub world found in Jak 2. This maze-like metropolis was filled with mindless pedestrians and crawling traffic. Once the gee-whiz factor wore off, I filled with frustration and despair as I was forced to criss-cross this giant pacing tar pit to get to the points of interest. Don't even get me started on Star Fox Adventures. That game deserves a post all to itself.
Okay, so we know big, wide open, free roaming game worlds can be mishandled and drag down an otherwise good experience, but what are the advantages of a linear design? Games that force a generally straight path to the goal corral the player. From a design perspective, you always know where the player will be at because the player can only move forward or back. This makes it easy for the designer to set up game events like dominoes for the players to knock down. It can help to keep the pacing fast and ensure a constant stream of content for the player to experience and always provide a definite goal: reach the level end. These sorts of achievements act as consistent milestones and encourage players to keep going.
The Ratchet and Clank series arranged most of its localities into corridors that the player must fight through. This set up lended itself to a constant pressure of enemy ambushes and firefights. Every step landed the player into the next piece of action. The first Sly Cooper game also followed a corridor format to handily set up acrobatic platforming elements as Sly raced from goal to goal with nary a dull moment as he scrambled up pipes, bounded over rooftops, and leaped through forests of laser arrays. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was mostly paced more slowly, using a linear game world to present clever environmental challenges to the player. Each area of the game had one exit, and figuring out what combination of the Prince's acrobatic repertoire would get him to the end was nothing short of a joy to play.
The wide open sandbox may be the hot trend in many games today, and that this wide open style can lead to a fantastic experience when built with purpose is undeniable, but equally undeniable are the merits of more enclosed, linear designs. To those who have ever sneered at a game because it was “too linear”, you might be seeing a negative where there isn't one. If the experience works, if it's enjoyable, what's the problem?
Related Links:
End Game: The Necessary Evil of Boss Fights
Gimmick: not a dirty word
Philosophy? In my Zelda?