Yup. I still remember running Morrowind for the first time. My jaw dropped.
Arena and Daggerfall (the two predecessor games) were procedurally generated, and just felt "more of the same" after a while. My understanding is that the world in Morrowind was lovingly crafted by hand. This might have resulted in a small in-game world—but each inch of that world felt special.
Interestingly, the Witcher 3 is probably the one other game that gave me the same "this world is handcrafted" feel (dunno how that was built though).
I think this is why the Hogwarts Legacy game is doing so well. The story is fine I guess, and the combat is polished but not particularly deep. But the recreation of the castle and Hogsmeade are so painstakingly detailed and well thought out. It's easy to get lost for hours just exploring, something most other open world games of the last decade really struggle with.
The illusion starts to fade when you wander further away from the school, but the game smartly keeps most of its critical path around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is another example of an open-world with ridiculous attention to detail. It's certainly rare to have such a detailed open-world and a really good story.
The Witcher 2 was the first game I remember really blowing me away in that regard. Sure, it's not quite fully open world (more of a series of small open worlds), but the design is immaculate. To make up for space constraints they definitely leaned into the whole "Disneyland sightlines" thing, where you'll turn a corner and suddenly be a in a new area, with all sorts of fascinating nooks and crannies to check out.
I'm very much in the minority in that I actually prefer The Witcher 2. It's not open-world, but it's immersive. The world design is superb, and the characters are well-written in a way I haven't seen an open-world game achieve (not even The Witcher 3). I remember feeling guilty for pilfering some coins from someone's house, and then realising I'd never felt that guilt in a game before.
Ever play Riven? I remember reading that "every pixel was crafted by hand" (which probably wasn't quite true, but, probably not enough to matter. That game was a work of art)
I'm, ah.. I'm gonna go over here with my eager anticipation and prior excitement over literally this. Although I know you're not actually referring to these kinds of remakes, if only because these are much more "labor of love" than "cash in on a known thing".
(Dungeon Keeper -> Dungeons 2; more than a straight remake)
(Master of Magic; dec last year; nearly an exact remake - switch to hex grid, few other tweaks, maybe more down the road :hopes:)
(Pharaoh, A New Era - tomorrow, possibly an exact remake?)
Hell if I could get a Metroid Prime Remastered-type remake of every game from my childhood I'd never need another new property again. Better than playing a new game that takes up 120GB on my drive of which 80GB is microtransaction textures so some bro can have anime girls on his M-16.
I cannot damn wait until the Banjo-Kazooie decompilation project is complete and someone starts working on a Render96-esque version of it.
