It's barely April, but the video game of the year is probably predetermined: Aldon Ring. It sold 12 million copies in its first 4 weeks, making it one of the best-selling small club open world games . The CEO of a major video game company ran into the creative director's office and yelled, "Let me play like Aldon Ring!" It's not hard to guess what he asked. It hurts a lot, I'm afraid, because "playing a game like Aldon Ring" can easily turn into a terrible mistake.
Since the release of Aldon Ring, there have been many flashbacks comparing it to regular Ubisoft Open World games. There is some truth to the fact that an open world game like Ubisoft (not all are made by Ubisoft) provides the player with too much information, diminishing the joy of discovery. But imagine the games you have played and try to narrow down all that info, quest index, minimap, HUD and more. Of course not. So while it's easy to identify the features of some good games that aren't in Alden Ring, it's very difficult to identify the features of The Secret Diploma that made Alden Ring so successful. And no, that's not a problem. Better a poor horse than none.
Another big problem is that 10 out of 10 results suggest flawless play. This is not the case. The Alden Ring is a game with deep flaws, but it's also a game that appeals to a large number of players, at least to the extent that those players are willing to see those flaws. If a small game comes out with some experience but the same bug as Eldon Ring, the reviewers will completely delete that game for a bug.
The last problem has to do with history, or you could call it inheritance. The Alden Ring works because *the story is similar to a Dark Souls game. Had Ubisoft released the same game under Assassin's Creed: Lands Between, the reception would have been very different. Aldon's ring does have pain aspects, but if you start the game early in the game, they will deal some damage.
I think you need to learn at least a few hit open world games to make a new hit open world game, including Eldon Ring, Wild Breath, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Skyrim. And even that does not guarantee success. But if you take Aldon Ring as a model for the next multi-billion dollar game, the result could be total disaster.
