Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 738: Open World

"Teacher Takayuki is so detailed! Why divide things up this finely? Aren't there some jobs that could be handled together?"

In every hall, the attendees—now divided into even more specific roles—wore labels on their chests indicating their assigned job. Some of the job titles were ones they had never even heard of before.

For example, in the first hall, some writers originally assigned to be lead scriptwriters were further broken down into roles like "background character narrative designer."

What kind of job was that?

According to Takayuki's description, it involved designing the day-to-day behaviors of background NPCs—work typically deemed unnecessary and often cut altogether by other game companies to save on resources and manpower.

After all, for companies obsessed with profit, wouldn't it be better to use that time to make more games and earn more money?

But here, they didn't have to worry about a company boss breathing down their necks. They only had to follow Takayuki's guidance and unleash their creativity to the fullest.

...

As for those repetitive tasks—like redundant coding—they didn't need to worry about that either. Everyone was only responsible for their part of the process, and all they needed to do was focus on their section and offer ideas for improvement. Someone else would handle the rest.

In the first hall, Takayuki focused on explaining the narrative structure. On the main screen behind him, a single line was prominently displayed: "History is our playground."

Writers were tasked with drawing inspiration from the events of the Third Crusade, using real history as a foundation to create an immersive player-driven story.

In the third hall, dedicated to programming, Takayuki unveiled the still-in-development Unreal Engine 4.

Originally, this was meant to debut at a major developers' conference, but to help everyone grasp the concept of industrialized game development, he brought it out early.

This could be considered an "Unreal 3.5."

This version of the engine included a much more intuitive game editor—many gameplay elements were pre-built, allowing developers to simply call up modules and slot them into their games.

The third hall was the most crowded of them all, packed with programmers.

After all, code is the true core of game development.

Other halls sent their gameplay needs to Hall Three, where programmers worked in teams based on specialty. However, they didn't need to write every line of code from scratch. Much of their work involved retrieving, tweaking, and validating existing modules—turning them into refined, bug-free systems.

At that moment, each person truly became a cog in the machine. It might have seemed mechanical, but it was also bursting with energy.

Everyone gradually came to understand the benefits of such detailed task separation.

But then they did a headcount—there were over two thousand people working on a single game.

That kind of workforce was unimaginable in a traditional game company.

In most studios, minimizing staff is the top priority. Fewer people means higher profits. One person doing the work of three? Even better.

But that approach leaves developers buried under work, with no time or energy to think creatively.

Here, even with twice the normal load, everyone could still keep up—and even come up with new ideas on the fly.

And so, Assassin's Creed slowly began to take shape.

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The artists quickly produced hundreds of sketches—from environments to characters, weapons, clothing, and more. They, too, discovered the benefit of specialization.

Just focus on doing one thing really well.

It might sound dull, but it prevented mental burnout.

While everyone was immersed in their roles, Oda Atsushi finally mustered the courage to approach Takayuki.

"Teacher Takayuki, I noticed you listed this game's genre as 'open-world.' I think this is the first time I've heard that term. Is it a new kind of game?"

Takayuki, reviewing a side quest design at the time, didn't look up. He nodded as he continued monitoring the project.

"It can be considered a new genre, yes. But similar games have existed before. My old title, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, could be considered an early form of open-world. You've played that one, right?"

Atsushi nodded eagerly. "Of course! That's one of my favorite games! Riding across that wide-open land on horseback... is that what you mean by an open-world game? That sounds amazing!"

Takayuki replied, "No. Ocarina of Time wasn't a full open-world game yet—the detail wasn't quite there."

"Huh? Not even that counted as full open-world? Then what is a true open-world game like?"

"In simple terms, it's about building an actual world. That's the goal of open-world design—giving players the freedom to do anything they want. As long as the developers can imagine it, and the programmers can make it work, the possibilities are endless."

"Think about what you can do in real life—play games, work, fall in love, get married. In an open-world game, you could turn all of that into gameplay. Some of it might be tedious, sure—but it's still gameplay. Have you ever thought about what kinds of systems you would add?"

Atsushi replied instantly, "I'd want all kinds of adventure stories, like the classic RPGs I used to play! That can be included, right?"

"Of course," Takayuki said. "That's just the starting point. Open-world games aim to create deeply immersive worlds with internal logic and insane attention to detail. Even an unremarkable corner of the map might hide something special. That's the beauty of open-world games. Oh—and by the way, my upcoming game Monster Hunter: World will also explore open-world design. You'll see what I mean when it's released."