They are talking about this game like it's going to fundamentally shift the way open world games are designed going forward. It sounds like they're almost certainly breaking from their own structure of open world games by opening up more of the side content earlier, but it also sounds like they're trying to make side quests a more organic part of the gameplay rather than a checklist the way Ubisoft games, The Witcher and God of War did it.

God of War let you find things for yourself, but the structure of the Lake of Nine still made it feel, for a player like me, like you were supposed to do a big circle around the central structure and visit every shore before you progressed the story. It was better than the anxious, gotta clear 'em all vibe the question mark-riddled maps of Horizon and The Witcher had, but it was still implied the game would be more enjoyable if you put the main game off until all the side stuff was done.

Rockstar seems to be trying to root everything in your base and spin out from that based on the needs of certain communities and characters which in turn is based on what you're doing in the game. It doesn't even sound like you'll be accepting quests so much as being told by someone they need or want something and then you just either remember to do it or don't.

I'm not all the way in on everything they were saying; not sure I want a basebuilding sim ala Metal Gear 5 in my Rockstar game, and there's obviously a lot of opportunity for them to expand on the microtransactions from GTA Online in the offline game with this sort of system. But it's very interesting to me that Rockstar seems to be trying to shake things up in a way they haven't really done with the single player side of their games since the light RPG mechanics of San Andreas.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/05/03/worlds-first-look-at-red-dead-redemption-2


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