I have always liked open world games as a concept, but I have a very bad sense of direction. So whenever I play open world games I keep getting lost and frustrated. Eventually getting bored and dropping the game. I am curious how other people with bad sense of direction cope with this problem.
Yes as long as the game has a good map system. I hate it when some games don’t have an option to rotate the map to where you are currently facing.
I’m we’ve opposite I want my map fixed north. It’s the only way I get around lol
This would be the worst tool for someone with poor sense of direction. The best would be a map fixed north to the top, so you don’t have to keep track of your direction at all. Spinning maps make even us peeps with a decent sense of direction a bad time
Maps. Compasses, mini-maps, world maps, map pins, GPS systems.
I have a poor sense of direction in real life, but games are workable with the same crutches that make real life workable, for the most part.
I used to make maps by hand. Over time I got better and better at holding on to where I was. I’ve read studies that playing 3d games increases spacial awareness, so it might get better over time.
Other options I do when I’m too meh to bother is mods to add maps and quest tracking if the game doesn’t already have it
Open world games usually give me a killer map that shows my exact location and heading. I can navigate the real world, too, when handed Google Maps. But I remember playing Minecraft back before the maps update and it was mostly just an exercise in nomadic survival. I’d leave my home for a 20 minute mining run and then never ever find the mfer ever again. Eventually I started a habit of creating a huge pillar of cobble near my home that stretched up to the map height limit and dumping lava buckets around it to make a literal glowing waypoint that I could follow back home.
Actually I have an excellent sense of direction in real life and a relatively poor one in games.
It’s okay though - being lost in a game is part of the fun for me.
I was going to say the same thing. I’ve always prided myself on being able to tell you the general direction anything was in, and could drive in a general direction (before Google Maps) and find my way. But I am complete crap at in-game directions even after really trying to get a feel for the surroundings.
Yeah - I’m not sure why it is.
In the real world, I just automatically keep my bearings. It’s like I have an internal compass that just tracks it all the time so I don’t even pay attention.
And for whatever reason, it doesn’t translate to games. If I get myself oriented in a game, I can keep it going for a while, but it never lasts.
I can only assume that there’s some physical aspect to it - that the part of my brain that’s keeping track of bearing relies on physical cues that I don’t get when I’m just sitting in a chair looking at a screen. So when I get my bearings in a game, then keep it going for a while, that’s some other part of my brain stepping in and taking over, and it never lasts because it’s just a stopgap measure.
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The two are surprisingly unrelated. I have an excellent natural sense of direction in real life, and I easily get lost in open world games if I don’t have a map.
Good question. I’m like you, I get turned around so easily, I just keep using the map systems and making markers to make my life easier. Markers being the most critical component. I start going in a direction and then I check again to make sure it’s the right way (often it’s not)
Especially when the map doesn’t orientate to the direction you’re facing, so I end up turning 90 degrees, checking map, turning another 90, checking again. I really enjoy when a game uses the Oblivion-style nav bar at the top that shows your markers at a glance as you turn around.
I LOVE them, but yes I am constantly lost. I have the worst time streaming because I get lost and feel bad about any viewers watching me wander around Vanaheim going “Where was that place again?”
I will say, the more distinctive the environments are from each other, the better off I am. In Stray or Ragnarok I’ve had a lot of problems. In Control, even though the map is weird (The map shows levels that are above and below each other by overlapping, so the lowest areas are the lightest color and the highest areas are the strongest color) I get around pretty well because every hallway and room is pretty distinct and unique.
In Spider-Man I barely notice I’m lost, travel is so fun.
I have a terrible sense of direction, so this is an important issue for me. Open world games usually do a decent job of providing a usable map, so they aren’t typically a problem. What I can’t stand is a where you reach a challenge or mission that consists entirely of figuring out where to go next, or finding some items while a timer counts down. They usually disable the map for these, and it makes me want to rage quit every time.
On the other hand, I love it when a game has some sort of option to show you where to go next, like in Hogwarts Legacy or Final Fantasy XVI.
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Usually with a mini map I’m good but all bets are off with Deep Rock Galactic and it’s 3D version. My friends can dig through a wall and pop out up in the right place were as I’m hopelessly lost as soon as I go in…
Yes. For reference, in my day to day, when I try to look into my mind for a map, it’s just a black space with a spinning compass and shifting points of reference. In open world games, there’s usually waypoints and I can open the map constantly. In games without these crutches, I do get your frustration, but I’ll find a YouTube guide or something to find my way. Subnautica was probably the toughest so far.
I probably owe most of my navigation skills to the original GTA games. I cannot orient myself if the map keeps spinning with me. It’s easier to me mentally keep track where everything is relative to each other on a stationary map facing north and I am the only thing moving and turning. Also when the originals had only a paper map where you had yo first find yourself and until San Andreas only showing your current location and the locations of points of interest on the separate map menu without any indicator of direction you should head while actually driving, I learned to prefer the simplest path instead of trying to find the shortest way. Least number of turns and clear landmarks where to take them is the strategy I keep utilising to this day in real life also, so I don’t need to keep my eyes or ears glued to the phone and blindly try follow it.
same with gps. i can’t understand people that use the option to move the map and keep the arrow static. But i see how confused they’re when it’s otherwise 🤷 i’m from the pacman generation i guess
For those that do have a bad sense of direction: I’m positive that you’d slowly get a better sense if you continued to play the games that trouble you and work through being lost. Most people aren’t great at something they don’t do often (or ever).
No offence intended to the afflicted but some of them are absolutely hopeless. My best friend is so bad with directions that despite having never left he goes around our hometown with a GPS because he gets lost. A few years ago, the main road through the town was closed and I ended up having to text him directions how to get home.
I enjoy the opportunity to try to navigate by landmarks, roadsigns, and other natural means of finding your way. Games like Skyrim are great for this, games like Mass Effect are understandably not. Unfortunately I am more of a sci-fi guy so I’m used to being railroaded through steel corridors anyway.
