Deconstructing Open-World Game Mission Design Formula: A Thematic Analysis Using an Action-Block Framework

TL;DR

This paper presents a new framework and tool for systematically analyzing and visualizing open-world game mission design, enabling designers to understand pacing, variation, and balance across large mission datasets.

Contribution

Introduces the MAQV framework and an LLM-assisted parsing pipeline to analyze and visualize large-scale mission design data in open-world games.

Findings

Identified common design trade-offs and pacing patterns.

Validated the pipeline's accuracy and usability with designers and players.

Revealed systematic differences in mission design across franchises.

Abstract

Open-world missions often rely on repeated formulas, yet designers lack systematic ways to examine pacing, variation, and experiential balance across large portfolios. We introduce the Mission Action Quality Vector (MAQV), a six-dimensional framework-covering combat, exploration, narrative, emotion, problem-solving, and uniqueness-paired with an action block grammar representing missions as gameplay sequences. Using about 2200 missions from 20 AAA titles, we apply LLM-assisted parsing to convert community walkthroughs into structured action sequences and score them with MAQV. An interactive dashboard enables designers to reveal underlying mission formulas. In a mixed-methods study with experienced players and designers, we validate the pipeline's fidelity and the tool's usability, and use thematic analysis to identify recurring design trade-offs, pacing grammars, and systematic differences by quest type and franchise evolution. Our work offers a reproducible analytical workflow, a data-driven visualization tool, and reflective insights to support more balanced, varied mission design at scale.