Games provide a variety of experiences for players. Currently, research focuses either on games as undifferentiated wholes, or on a feature-level basis where findings are difficult to generalise. However, specific gaming experiences cannot be explained from these approaches. Open world games in particular are a popular game type known for giving players high levels of choice over what they do, thus enabling uniquely different experiences. Current approaches cannot capture what about this gaming experience players enjoy or why. To do so requires a ‘contextually-specific’ approach, demonstrated in this paper by interviewing eleven players of open world games about their experiences. A thematic analysis showed what they believed the open world to be, as well as how the experience is enabled. Five concepts interlock together to enable the final theme; (1) players are situated to scale within the world, (2) the world is large, connected and accessible, (3) the main goal does not restrict players from engaging with other activities, (4) content density is more important than world size, and (5) players self-pace gameplay through engaging/disengaging with tasks at will. This study highlights how the use of a contextually-specific approach provides insight into specific player experiences, and why players enjoy them.

游戏为玩家提供了多种体验。当前，研究要么集中于游戏的整体，要么集中在难以概括发现的特征层面。但是，无法从这些方法解释特定的游戏体验。尤其是开放世界游戏，是一种流行的游戏类型，以给玩家提供高度的选择余地而闻名，从而带来独特的不同体验。当前的方法无法捕获玩家喜欢的游戏体验或原因。要做到这一点，需要采取“针对特定上下文”的方法，本文通过采访11位开放世界游戏玩家的体验来证明这一点。主题分析显示了他们认为开放世界是什么，以及体验是如何实现的。五个概念相互关联以实现最终主题；（1）玩家位于世界范围内的规模，（2）世界广阔，相互联系且可访问，（3）主要目标并不限制玩家参与其他活动，（4）内容密度比世界更重要大小；以及（5）玩家通过随意参与/脱离任务来自我步调游戏玩法。这项研究着重说明了如何使用上下文相关的方法来洞察特定的玩家体验，以及为什么玩家喜欢它们。