The Future of Single-Player Games (part 3)

It's interesting that story-driven singleplayer games once dominated the market. Massive role-playing games like the Final Fantasy series or action-adventure/survival-horror games like Resident Evil were the rage in the mid-nineties. Over the years, these franchises still remain, but they have undergone some interesting changes that reflect the general trend in singleplayer gaming. No longer are most games designed in a linear event-driven fashion. Instead, the story is told at a more relaxed pace while paired with open-world exploration, optional side quests, and random events. Massive open-world environments that allow for a “sandbox” style of gameplay encourage players to explore and play the game the way they want, rather than to follow a linear series of rail-roaded events. Gone are the days of static environments and camera angles. Instead, free-movement and open-roaming options allow players to wander and play the game entirely apart from the story if they choose. Games like The Witcher 3, the Farcry series, MadMax, Skyrim, and Fallout are singleplayer games that all involve open-world exploration with a variety of sidequests to choose from. Why is this form of singleplayer so successful?