History Main / QuicksandBox

** GM's attempting to give their PC's multiple missions and sidequests to choose from often find this. If the PC's are more used to linear plots and the idea of everything must tie together, throwing multiple, often unrelated or only tangently related plot threads/missions at them can lead their players to spending way too much time on a side quest type plot (thinking it must be the main plot) or attempting to tie various threads together that were meant to be separate. A good GM can gently drop hints to steer them the right way when this happens, or simply right out hint/tell the players.

*** This is not helped by the sheer size of the map. You can wander in the direction of the map and go on for hours never finding an end to it all; in one interview Notch said the potential size of the gameplay world can go up to eight times the surface area of '''Earth itself''' (although there isn't any major difference between different sections of the map). Not to mention the various environments all over the place (it isn't impossible to see a snow biome right next to a desert in this game) giving you a variety of resources to use in building your desired constructions.

->''I have a hard time with [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto GTA]]. I find the total freedom paralyzing. When given the opportunity to do anything, I tend to do nothing.''

* ''Riven'', the sequel to ''{{Myst}}'' was intentionally designed this way to satisfy two kinds of gamers. The sightseer could get to four of the five CD discs in the set without difficulty, but only the insanely dedicated puzzle solver could get to the fifth disc. And if they weren't insane before, they certainly were after.

** Fallout 3 makes this worse by connecting locations through a maze of subway tunnels, although once through the firt time you can usually find a fast travel marker on the other end.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', the first explorable zone, the Hinterlands, is also the largest, with tons of side quests, landmarks, and other stuff to do. This has been known to cause players to lose sight of the next main quest and completely immerse themselves in exploring every nook and cranny of the zone, and then complaining that there is too much to do and the plot is moving too slowly (especially if they forget what the next main quest even ''is'', having set a side quest as active by accident). "Still in the Hinterlands" has become a meme. What the game actually expects you to do is to clear the low-level areas of a zone first, do a main quest, and then comes back at higher levels.

** Fallout 3 makes this worse by connecting locations through a maze of subway tunnels.

* The first Detective Barbie game, especially for the target audience, girls in single digits. You're alone in a carnival, there's no lines, all the rides and attractions are working... mystery, what mystery?

* ''NeedForSpeed Underground 2'', after you're stuck into searching for secret races or [[EventFlag need to complete specially hard DVD/magazine covers]].
* [[BurnOut Burnout Paradise]] suffered from this a fair bit. You're tossed into a large open world where events are unlocked at every intersection with traffic lights, and drive-throughs like Junkyards, Billboards, Shortcuts, Auto-Repairs and Paint Shops to find (not to mention the Speed and Crash Road Rules on all 70+ roads on the map). The entire game world is unlocked from the start. It can be a nightmare to navigate the game world when you're unfamiliar with it, as events often finish on the other side of the map from where they started. To cap it all off, after finishing a licence, all events are reset and you can win them ''again''.

* ''SecondLife''. When the question to "what can I do?" can more or less be answered by "anything", this is a big stumbling block for newbies. It also gets overwhelming when you look up tutorials on how to even build things from prims or how to make a script. And then there's the in world currency (mostly gotten with real money) where you can use it for almost "anything"... God help us if ''Second Life'' and ''{{Scribblenauts}}'' have a child.
* ''EveOnline'' has been described as a sand box with land mines. There are few over arching quest and most of the content is player generated. Leaving many newbies completely at a loss for what to do next. Expect everyone else to repeatedly kill you while you decided what to do for yourself.

* ''Videogame/EverQuest'' was very much like this in the early days. The process of receiving quests was not at all intuitive, completing them even less so, and often the only guidelines a player had as to where he was supposed to be was the level of the roaming monsters.
* ''RuneScape,'' full stop. Fortunately, there is an in-game list of quests that help newbies explore the areas.
* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' has ''become'' this due to the sheer amount of content added over its expansions. Players can easily reach max level before doing most of the main questlines and most players are likely to not experience all of them before quitting. This is actually fairly typical of [=MMOs=] that follow the traditional structure as they may start off with a single linear main path but will over their lifetimes grow extremely diverse in terms of endgame alternative content as developers are forced to give maxed veterans new things to do. This also tends to make the path to max level more like a pre-sandbox tutorial.

** The ''[[MetroidPrime Prime]]'' series try avoiding with an optional hint system that shows where the plot will advance.

* ''{{Scribblenauts}}''. You can create ''anything'' to solve your problems... which leads some players to just lock up. Should you make a bridge to rescue the penguin, or a boat, or a submarine, and how do I get the penguin to come on board, and what do I make to deal with the shark, and... you get the idea. Some don't lock up, but after experimenting, rely on a standard set of useful items that they know will generally work (Jetpacks, Ice, Cthulhu, Ropes).

* Most ParadoxInteractive games can be this to some degree. "You're now in control of Saxony, what do you do with it?" ''VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun'' is probably the biggest example.

* ''{{Minecraft}}''. You are thrown into an enormous world without any defined goals at all - players can build huge structures, mine valuables from the ground, slaughter monsters, explore landscapes, become nomadic, construct railroads, seek out the [[spoiler:Enderdragon]] or do practically anything else.

* ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram''. You have all the spacecraft and rocket parts you might need, all the eager pilots you may require to test them out, [[SurpriseDifficulty an unexpectedly realistic physics engine]] and an entire solar system. Everything else? Up to you. One of the stated goals for the recently introduced Career Mode (and the TechTree in particular) is to mitigate this by gradually and logically introducing new parts to the player as they progress.

* ''Videogame/KerbalSpaceProgram''. You have all the spacecraft and rocket parts you might need, all the eager pilots you may require to test them out, [[SurpriseDifficulty an unexpectedly realistic physics engine]] and an entire solar system. Everything else? Up to you. One of the stated goals for the recently introduced Career Mode (and the TechTree in particular) is to mitigate this by gradually and logically introducing new parts to the player as they progress.

* Capcom's ''DeadRising'' tries to avoid this with a strict timing for taking up missions, thus limiting the player's ability to roam blindly, but it also made some players frustrated at not figuring out which missions were more important, since missing a mission-time dooms the player to being unable to progress further with the story.

* Similarly to Burnout Paradise, Criterion's [[NeedForSpeed Need for Speed: Most Wanted]] has a very similar structure; an open world that is entirely available to explore from the start of the game, with Billboards, Shortcuts, Speed Cameras and Paint Shops. The difference is that events are organized by vehicle, and every vehicle is unlocked simply by finding it parked in the game world. This means that there is almost no sense of progression in the game, particularly when the same 15 or so events are spread out across the ''60'' cars that can be unlocked.

* Capcom's famed Keiji Inafune suggested that the effect of this Trope, combined with the Japanese desire to be guided, explains the relative lack of success that WideOpenSandbox titles have had in Japan. There was mention of Western attitudes towards free-roaming gameplay being similar to going deer hunting and bagging a bear instead. [[note]]''GTA'' on the PC does have some popularity with Japanese [[GameMod modders]]. Apparently the sandbox isn't so bad if you can make it look like the gamer's favorite anime. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Or least favorite:]] [[http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/09/24/gta-crazy-anime-mod/ Nothing like the scent of dead Pikachu in the morning]]. ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' is also fairly popular.[[/note]]

''"[[NoodleImplements I've got a brass key, an amulet, two plasma couplers marked #1 and #17-b, a map of a cattery, a codephrase, piranha treats, the second half of a warning for 'Kevin,' and no fucking idea.]]"''

OK! You just got a new game! It's huge, expansive, non-linear! You can do anything you want to, the world is completely open to you. So... what DO you want to do?

This is what happens when a player starts playing a WideOpenSandbox or {{Metroidvania}} game and ends up getting stuck. First comes surprise, then consternation, confusion, desperate flailing around, despair, [[VideogameCrueltyPotential pointless murder sprees]], and in the worst cases, death, quitting the game without having even left the starting town. This is particularly common when they [[NowWhereWasIGoingAgain start playing again after a long break]].

* The second ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' game has a more wide-open world because it is the whole rest of the world. However; there were players who wound up going the wrong way and getting themselves stuck (in Air's Rock) when they were supposed to have done another event first. With the ship you have to get to the other side of the world but are blocked by an obstacle in a canal and have to go elsewhere first, but there are obstacles there too. It can be refreshing to be allowed to do whatever you want but set the game down for too long and it will take awhile to figure out where you've already been if you pick it back up.

* ''The Saga of {{Ryzom}}'' has a relatively wide-open tutorial area, and you can do the four or five quest chains to learn the game's various skills in any order you like. Then you go to the mainland, which is ''huge'', and some players are just so awed by the hugeness that they make a new character and stay on the tutorial island for a while longer.

Efforts to avoid this in sequels may actually be [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks seen as overly-pampering.]] [[TropesAreNotBad Openness is not bad]], some players prefer the risk of getting lost to being railroaded. Compare AltItis, which largely focuses on differing character abilities and options, and SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer, which may overlap. Contrast NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom.

* ''Videogame/KerbalSpaceProgram''. You have all the spacecraft and rocket parts you might need, all the eager pilots you may require to test them out, [[SurpriseDifficulty an unexpectedly realistic physics engine]] and an entire solar system. Everything else? Up to you. One of the stated goals for the game's work-in-progress Career Mode (and the TechTree in particular) is to mitigate this by gradually and logically introducing new parts to the player as they progress.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' for the most part attempts to give you many different ways to locate your next target such as hint markers, objects, and a list of missions, however this won't aid you if any of the game's bugs kick in, such as the "Keep Your Insides Inside" glitch which will stall a player at a dead stop in the story, making it impossible to play online with people and progress.

* VideoGame/SaintsRow2 is this to a rather good degree. The game starts with the requisite tutorial missions, but then to progress in the story, you are required to earn "respect". It does tell you how to earn respect, but the various methods are so numerous it can lead some players to being distracted before even attempting any of the many mini games to earn said respect.
** The story itself can actually be this as it is very non-linear in it's progression, allowing you to start any of the three basic gang story events at any time (with enough respect). And that doesn't even count the "stronghold missions" that have elements of story in them as well.

* Once the ''SaGa'' games went onto consoles, every single one suffered from this. ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'' actually used AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent to partially avert this - Lute and Blue had the most "open" quests (and Blue had "Learn magic" as a guidepost), while the other five playable characters had relatively linear stories. Depending on who you chose to play as, you had your pick of linearity.

** Despite statements from the developers on making it easier to find out where to go and fan fears, [[VideoGame/DarkSouls2 its sequel]] is much worse than the original when it comes to this, as all the player is told is to find the four Old Ones and kill them for their souls. Where the player goes from there is up to them, though most get confused as to where to go after defeating the first boss in the starter area, as it gives no indication of what do next.

** Despite statements from developers stating otherwise and fan fears, ''DarkSouls2'' is much worse than the original when it comes to this, as all the player is told is to find the four Old Ones and kill them for their souls. Where the player goes from there is up to them, though most get confused as to where to go after defeating the first boss in the starter area, as it gives no indication of what do next.

* ''DarkSouls'' throws you into the land of Lordran with no clear goal beyond "ring the two Bells of Awakening". You don't know what will happen when you do, or even where their locations are. At the very first stages you can find yourself in locations that have enemies you can't possibly damage without fulfilling special conditions that you're not told. Generally the game doesn't give the player any hand holding, expecting them to read through item descriptions to get hints of where to go next.

* [[BurnOut Burnout Paradise]] suffered from this a fair bit. You're tossed into a large open world where events are unlocked at every interection with traffic lights, and drive-throughs like Junkyards, Billboards, Shortcuts, Auto-Repairs and Paint Shops to find (not to mention the Speed and Crash Road Rules on all 70+ roads on the map). The entire game world is unlocked from the start. It can be a nightmare to navigate the game world when you're unfamiliar with it, as events often finish on the other side of the map from where they started. To cap it all off, after finishing a licence, all events are reset and you can win them ''again''.

* Capcom's famed Keiji Inafune suggested that the effect of this Trope, combined with the Japanese desire to be guided, explains the relative lack of success that WideOpenSandbox titles have had in Japan. There was mention of Western attitudes towards free-roaming gameplay being similar to going deer hunting and bagging a bear instead. [[note]]''GTA'' on the PC does have some popularity with Japanese [[GameMod modders]]. Apparently the sandbox isn't so bad if you can make it look like the gamer's favorite anime. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Or least favorite:]] [[http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/09/24/gta-crazy-anime-mod/ Nothing like the scent of dead Pikachu in the morning]]. ''VideoGame/{{Skyrim}}'' is also popular.[[/note]]