RPGs have and will continue to enrich our lives immensely. Because when an RPG fulfils our wildest expectations, we're not just sitting on the sofa, mourning tomorrow's seven am start for the weekly slog. We're commandeering our own ship and crew across the universe. We’re stalking dragons amid ruined castles, on the way to becoming grand ruler of all we survey. We’re utterly invested in fighting for a cause, with the future of an entire, carefully crafted universe dependent on our actions; both good and bad.

However, throughout the course of enjoying epic adventures through hours of innovative open-world gameplay, I have, on occasion, been dragged crashing back to reality. The cause? The odd incoherently lacklustre areas, popping up to take the sheen off even the mightiest of RPG worlds. From the likes of the Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls games, to lesser known but equally brilliant titles, such as Divinity: Original Sin and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, there is one common thread. All of these games are great, but, thanks to one bad-apple location, none of them is perfect. So what’s wrong with them, exactly? How and why do these dull areas detract from our overall RPG experiences? Here are six games that pose the dilemma.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a great big magnet of character attachment. Falling in love with characters is unavoidable. You can even possess your own castle-come-love-mansion where everyone just adores you and thinks you're great. And the open-world exploration throughout is beautiful, varied, and did I mention beautiful? But as the hours trickle on, a sense of deja vu begins to settle in. It's not that the areas suffer from visual similarity, since BioWare has done an excellent job of moulding diverse landscapes. It's the open world gameplay that feels stuck on repeat.

This is especially apparent in the later stages of the game, in areas such as The Hissing Wastes. As a wasteland, we’re understandably faced with a barren expanse of land to explore, but with set-dressing greatly reduced, the game’s underlying structural issues are accentuated horribly. Repetitive fetch quests, 'blank spaces' that offer no reward for exploration, easy battles, too many rifts to close… It’s all too obvious. Essentially, we’re faced with open-world gameplay experienced as copy-and-paste, and while DA: I saves itself from any grievous damage thanks to a gripping storyline and extremely well crafted characters, this structural stuff potentially hinders any yearning for future replay.

There are many, many great things we can say about Oblivion. Massive and addictive open-world? Check. Gripping storyline? Yep. Diverse character development? Of course. But do you want to go back and close that gate? Nope. Not even a little bit. While not quite as bad as ironing, closing the oblivion gates to keep the baleful Daedra at bay seems to be a universally hated chore. The gate destinations themselves are well crafted, in terms of their vibe, at least, owning a suffocating presence of death and despair that only increases our urgency to close them. However, in terms of structure and design, navigating your way through dead-end passages, caves and identikit rooms, in a realm where everything relentlessly wants to kill you rapidly loses its appeal.

When you eventually do the deed, the return of those verdant, deer-filled fields evokes an overwhelming sense of relief, if only because it’s over. Except that it’s not. More gates open up, in addition to those needed in to increase the haul of sigil stones. Exploring otherworldly new areas has never felt so tedious, rendering the gates of Oblivion places we are desperate to forget, rather than powerful experiences to remember.

I like Final Fantasy 13… don’t look at me like that - I really do! The game’s linearity, while heavily criticised, suits the pace of the storyline in many respects, and the environments explored along the way are magnificently eye-catching, married with tough battles involving plenty of trial and error strategy. Saying that, by the time we enter Gran Pulse, expecting a vast and dangerous plain appropriately feared by the people of Cocoon, we’re more than ready for some addictive open-world exploration.

Gran Pulse is certainly vast and dangerous. But unfortunately, also painfully boring. Sighs could be heard from across the globe, as wandering RPGers first plodded from battle to battle, plain to plain, like lost souls searching for meaningful NPC relationships and butterflies to chase. Instead, after such a long and ominous build-up, the disappointment is overwhelming. Once Final Fantasy games open up, the usually explode with character and content, filled out with bustling towns and cities, fun and urgent side-quests, and many a mystery to investigate along the way. Without this to break up the monotony of random enemy encounters, Final Fantasy 13 becomes, well, just random enemy encounters, really. It suffers heavily, leaving us truly not wanting to come back for more. Not that there is much more to be had in the first place.

From the multi-cultural Citadel and the beloved Normandy, to moons, planets, space stations, asteroids, starships and really scary reaper nest monstrosities, Mass Effect offers vast scope on a munificent sci-fi level. So why is one of the best RPGs ever skulking around on this list? Because of an exploration feature I choose to forget. Or try to. But can’t, because it’s terrible.

As the saviour of multiple universes, it’s your responsibility to harvest precious materials to ensure full competency in the end-game. In the first ME, this means taking your crew for a joyride in the Mako buggy, dropping in on a planet, and scouring the environment using a radar. Despite the awful car handling, this is passable the first time round. The second, third, fourth and fifth times, however, demonstrate three specific things: That alternative, off-track exploration results in sheer nothingness, that getting stuck up mountains due to horribly springy physics (a lot) is furiously dull, and that seeing rocks and then more rocks, over and over again, forever, truly dampens our yearning to explore the majesty of the universe. BioWare misses an opportunity here, and this is a feature I hope to see improved in ME4. It’d be epic to carry out such tasks, and even side quests, on a vibrant and fully realised alien world. Mass Effect is a universe of brilliantly crafted cultures, so can we make it a bit teresting to explore please?

With its bold, chunky production design, shot through with vibrant colours and textures, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning almost feels like the offline version of World of Warcraft, delivering a stunningly spirited world you really want to explore. Its vast array of caves, ruins, magical forests, towns and cities positively burst with life. And like the Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls games, it delivers huge scope, easily containing 50 hours of exploration in addition to the main storyline.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all those hours are exciting. Akin to Dragon Age: Inquisition in this respect, the open-world areas, while diverse, offer exploration that sometimes feels strained. I started to feel this in Klurikon, a region entered after a memorable battle with the hideous (and enormous) Balor. Sadly, a little inadvertent grinding at this point saw the game deem me over-levelled, detracting from the importance of side quests, and making me feel punished for my earlier enthusiasm for exploring its world. Simply, Klurikon just wasn’t designed to accommodate my wandering. Massive nerd tears were shed as this pattern increased in intensity towards the end of the game; the growing tedium emphasised without the strength of a ‘good-enough’ storyline.

As if in answer to our prayers, Larian Studios put major focus on its game's environment, not just in form, but in terms of making the fabric of the world an engaging game mechanic in itself. There are four main regions to explore as you progress through the game, with busy fishing towns, forest villages, and secret-filled dungeons en masse. But in addition to delivering the expected looting, lock-picking, object-moving, lever-pulling and trap-triggering, Divinity: Orginal Sin’s environment is design to be a weapon in its own right.

Whether you’re creating volatile surfaces to trap enemies, or setting off deadly substances for game changing damage, using the environment to your advantage is a table turner, and often the most effective way to win the game’s uncompromising battles. So what do we actually have to complain about? The problem, alas, is the environmental structure around the action. The difficulty of battles and abundance in loot necessitates far too many repeat visits to towns along the way. Quests work similarly, to the point where toing and froing from place to place, repeating conversations with the same vendors and characters, feels like a tedious mess of bureaucratic busywork. Get it all cleared, and then you’ll find that the next area brings all of that again, but it’s tougher. Talk about making a rod for your own back.

Aaand here we are. The final part of out marathon series of predictions articles for E3 2015. is done. Who's left? Everyone else. It's not all about the platform-holders, after all. Those guys make the boxes, and push the shiniest, tentpole games, but we have a whole industry of other, friendly global megacorps vying for our attention each and every day. So let's give them a bit of attention, shall we?

EA? Ubisoft? Square-Enix? What do you guys have for us? What's that? You're not going to answer until the show? Well, we're just going to have to throw out some ideas of our own then. Really good ones, that everyone should read.

The conference will go off without a hitch, complete with pulse-pounding cinematic trailers and polished demos touted as being available on the show floor. For the finale, the presenter announces that the Doom beta will be immediately available to the public, and walks off stage as a five-second promo video for The Elder Scrolls 6 appears on screen.

The conference concludes to the sound of rapturous weeping. Some chairs are thrown in hysterical fervor. One person leaves the room on fire, and doesn’t even care.

Towering over Yves Guillemot and using her well-earned credibility to protect the Ubi CEO from his own awkwardness, Aisha Tyler tries her best to act like everything is perfectly normal, as several overweight Ubisoft producers try to breakdance to a song from Just Dance 43 (or whatever we’re on now).

As one of the ‘dancers’ spasms wildly around on the floor to All About That Bass, like a cow that’s fallen onto an electrified fence, the audience prays for a yawning chasm to open up under their seats and swallow them forever.

Dark Souls and its sequel are two of the biggest critical wins Bandai Namco has scored in years. We imagined all kinds of glum faces and desk kicking when it was announced that Sony had snagged From Software’ spiritual successor, Bloodborne, but we also expect that frown to be turned upside down at this year’s E3.

You see the thing is, for all of Bloodborne’s fantastic gameplay evolutions and entrancing, arcanely captivating new lore, the Souls fandom is still incredibly strong. Those games are so dense - and so different to Bloodborne, despite their philosophical similarities - that there’s more than enough room for both series to co-exist. Bandai Namco will not want to let a fanbase like that go, so do not at all be surprised to discover that it has commissioned From to make a new one, though do not expect ‘main’ series director Hidetaka Miyazaki to be at the reigns. He’s likely busying himself with Bloodborne’s expansions.

After the resounding ‘Yay! Wait, what? Ohhh...’ reaction to Hitman; Absolution’s ‘tweaks’ to the series’ classic formula, Square-Enix and IO will be eager to redress the balance and re-convince old slaphead’s fanbase that they’re still capable of delivering the Machiavellian goods (before walking nonchalantly away, unnoticed, as a huge explosion goes off, killing all the most vocal detractors).

Expect Hitman: Whatever This One’s Called to be revealed by way of a lengthy, in-depth demo showcasing the Blood Money-style focus on dynamic, mini-open-world plotting, and the multitudinous ways Agent 47 can off people undetected, while wearing a variety of goofy disguises. Though, this being E3, there will be at least one major shoot-out and cinematic detonation sequence, which IO will spend the next two weeks reiterating is not indicative of the way the whole game works.

Our first taste of was impressive, no doubt, but it was heavy on the highly choreographed, pre-rendered cyberpunk action. As in, zero gameplay footage was shown. Don't count on a live on-stage demo during Square-Enix’s press conference, either. What's more likely is a sizzle reel of the different approaches Adam Jensen can take to defuse the same one situation, intercut with cinematics filled with big orange explosions and golden bloom lighting. This trailer will be bookended by a way-too-self-serious developer positing questions about the morality of mechanical augmentation in the year 2029. Absolutely no mention of '#CantKillProgress' will be made.

In an ingenious marketing move, Square-Enix will hand out replicas of Jensen's trademark slide-in sunglasses on the show floor, dominating social media as fans take countless selfies while doing their best 'I didn't ask for this' pose. This will all backfire when one pair of these slick shades inevitably takes someone's eye out.

In lieu of actual gameplay, the trailer will consist entirely of slow, panning shots of stars. And planets, and general outer space stuff. Meanwhile, an old man with a really craggley voice will spout vague lines of narration about humanity transcending its limits and reaching the next stage of evolution, et cetera.

No one will have any idea what this is all about until the word "Shepherd" gets dropped in and the camera slow pans to reveal a broken down Mass relay - at which point the entire internet explodes.

While Star Wars Battlefront will absolutely be the golden child of EA's press conference, those context-free images will be more than enough to keep everyone ticking over until next year. Hey, it’s Mirror’s Edge. When have vague promises ever not worked for a fanbase that rabid?

As of now, the advertising for Assassin's Creed Syndicate has primarily revolved around its main character Jacob Frye, and largely ignored its other main character, his sister, Evie. Ubisoft has promised more of Evie in the weeks to come, and will certainly make good on that promise this E3.

Expect an effect-heavy trailer that confirms her existence with no hint of how her abilities will translate to gameplay, because that will be saved for the real Evie reveal. At Gamescom. But the soundtrack will be sick.

It will contain five minutes of footage from old Kingdom Hearts games, and twenty seconds from the actual game they're showing off. Not one of those twenty seconds will involve gameplay. The release date will be replaced with an illustration of Nomura flipping everyone the bird.

You know, like every other Kingdom Hearts trailer.

Since its announcement at Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference, Rise of the Tomb Raider has acted as one of MS’s signature exclusives, earning itself a feature spot in the most recent Xbox TV ad. Yet usual publisher Square-Enix has apparently forgotten that Lara exists, if its non-existent advertising campaign for Rise is anything to go by.

With titles like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 15, and Just Cause 3 on the books for this year, the chances are that won't change this coming E3. Looks like Lara will only be getting love from Microsoft. Millions of dollars worth of love.

Though afterwards they will not acknowledge that they have done this, and look with confused expressions at any journalist who asks about it. The game will continue to exist only in realms beyond our understanding for years, perhaps centuries, to come.

Should the proper incantations ever be uttered however, it may actually, one day, cross over into our universe. It will release on the same day as the inevitable Prince of Persia reboot, and the cycle shall begin anew.

The company will hold a “live” Battlefront match on-stage, which will feature Y-wings dropping bombs on AT-ATs as Darth Vader and Boba Fett mow down legions of Rebel troops. It will be awesome, and cinematic, and rousing, and make everyone forget the truth that in real game conditions they’ll probably spend half their time running to somewhere, only to be sniped by an enemy miles across the map.

The presentation will also tease Visceral Games’ Star Wars entry via a trailer that shows a man strapping on various pieces of armor as a gravely voice states that he is “the last,” he is “the sword,” he is … a bounty hunter. Fade in on Boba Fett’s helmet being picked up. Cut to black. An EA spokesperson asks the audience, “How many of you out there liked Star Wars Galaxies?!” Three of us let out feverish hooting, our eyes wide. “...Nevermind!” say EA, as the show continues.

Remember Wet? The Bethesda-published game starred Rubi Malone, a “problem solver” whose favorite answer to a pop quiz was two smoking barrels and blood-soaked katanas? Sure the first game didn’t garner much praise from consumers or press, but it has a devoted fanbase, and with the recent rise of strong female action protagonists like Katniss Everdeen and Marvel’s Black Widow, there’s no better time for a comeback.

Come back to us, Rubi. Please. Some of us still care.

Aaand here we are. The final part of out marathon series of predictions articles for E3 2015. is done. Who's left? Everyone else. It's not all about the platform-holders, after all. Those guys make the boxes, and push the shiniest, tentpole games, but we have a whole industry of other, friendly global megacorps vying for our attention each and every day. So let's give them a bit of attention, shall we?

EA? Ubisoft? Square-Enix? What do you guys have for us? What's that? You're not going to answer until the show? Well, we're just going to have to throw out some ideas of our own then. Really good ones, that everyone should read.

The conference will go off without a hitch, complete with pulse-pounding cinematic trailers and polished demos touted as being available on the show floor. For the finale, the presenter announces that the Doom beta will be immediately available to the public, and walks off stage as a five-second promo video for The Elder Scrolls 6 appears on screen.

The conference concludes to the sound of rapturous weeping. Some chairs are thrown in hysterical fervor. One person leaves the room on fire, and doesn’t even care.

Towering over Yves Guillemot and using her well-earned credibility to protect the Ubi CEO from his own awkwardness, Aisha Tyler tries her best to act like everything is perfectly normal, as several overweight Ubisoft producers try to breakdance to a song from Just Dance 43 (or whatever we’re on now).

As one of the ‘dancers’ spasms wildly around on the floor to All About That Bass, like a cow that’s fallen onto an electrified fence, the audience prays for a yawning chasm to open up under their seats and swallow them forever.

Dark Souls and its sequel are two of the biggest critical wins Bandai Namco has scored in years. We imagined all kinds of glum faces and desk kicking when it was announced that Sony had snagged From Software’ spiritual successor, Bloodborne, but we also expect that frown to be turned upside down at this year’s E3.

You see the thing is, for all of Bloodborne’s fantastic gameplay evolutions and entrancing, arcanely captivating new lore, the Souls fandom is still incredibly strong. Those games are so dense - and so different to Bloodborne, despite their philosophical similarities - that there’s more than enough room for both series to co-exist. Bandai Namco will not want to let a fanbase like that go, so do not at all be surprised to discover that it has commissioned From to make a new one, though do not expect ‘main’ series director Hidetaka Miyazaki to be at the reigns. He’s likely busying himself with Bloodborne’s expansions.

After the resounding ‘Yay! Wait, what? Ohhh...’ reaction to Hitman; Absolution’s ‘tweaks’ to the series’ classic formula, Square-Enix and IO will be eager to redress the balance and re-convince old slaphead’s fanbase that they’re still capable of delivering the Machiavellian goods (before walking nonchalantly away, unnoticed, as a huge explosion goes off, killing all the most vocal detractors).

Expect Hitman: Whatever This One’s Called to be revealed by way of a lengthy, in-depth demo showcasing the Blood Money-style focus on dynamic, mini-open-world plotting, and the multitudinous ways Agent 47 can off people undetected, while wearing a variety of goofy disguises. Though, this being E3, there will be at least one major shoot-out and cinematic detonation sequence, which IO will spend the next two weeks reiterating is not indicative of the way the whole game works.

Our first taste of was impressive, no doubt, but it was heavy on the highly choreographed, pre-rendered cyberpunk action. As in, zero gameplay footage was shown. Don't count on a live on-stage demo during Square-Enix’s press conference, either. What's more likely is a sizzle reel of the different approaches Adam Jensen can take to defuse the same one situation, intercut with cinematics filled with big orange explosions and golden bloom lighting. This trailer will be bookended by a way-too-self-serious developer positing questions about the morality of mechanical augmentation in the year 2029. Absolutely no mention of '#CantKillProgress' will be made.

In an ingenious marketing move, Square-Enix will hand out replicas of Jensen's trademark slide-in sunglasses on the show floor, dominating social media as fans take countless selfies while doing their best 'I didn't ask for this' pose. This will all backfire when one pair of these slick shades inevitably takes someone's eye out.

In lieu of actual gameplay, the trailer will consist entirely of slow, panning shots of stars. And planets, and general outer space stuff. Meanwhile, an old man with a really craggley voice will spout vague lines of narration about humanity transcending its limits and reaching the next stage of evolution, et cetera.

No one will have any idea what this is all about until the word "Shepherd" gets dropped in and the camera slow pans to reveal a broken down Mass relay - at which point the entire internet explodes.

While Star Wars Battlefront will absolutely be the golden child of EA's press conference, those context-free images will be more than enough to keep everyone ticking over until next year. Hey, it’s Mirror’s Edge. When have vague promises ever not worked for a fanbase that rabid?

As of now, the advertising for Assassin's Creed Syndicate has primarily revolved around its main character Jacob Frye, and largely ignored its other main character, his sister, Evie. Ubisoft has promised more of Evie in the weeks to come, and will certainly make good on that promise this E3.

Expect an effect-heavy trailer that confirms her existence with no hint of how her abilities will translate to gameplay, because that will be saved for the real Evie reveal. At Gamescom. But the soundtrack will be sick.

It will contain five minutes of footage from old Kingdom Hearts games, and twenty seconds from the actual game they're showing off. Not one of those twenty seconds will involve gameplay. The release date will be replaced with an illustration of Nomura flipping everyone the bird.

You know, like every other Kingdom Hearts trailer.

Since its announcement at Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference, Rise of the Tomb Raider has acted as one of MS’s signature exclusives, earning itself a feature spot in the most recent Xbox TV ad. Yet usual publisher Square-Enix has apparently forgotten that Lara exists, if its non-existent advertising campaign for Rise is anything to go by.

With titles like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 15, and Just Cause 3 on the books for this year, the chances are that won't change this coming E3. Looks like Lara will only be getting love from Microsoft. Millions of dollars worth of love.

Though afterwards they will not acknowledge that they have done this, and look with confused expressions at any journalist who asks about it. The game will continue to exist only in realms beyond our understanding for years, perhaps centuries, to come.

Should the proper incantations ever be uttered however, it may actually, one day, cross over into our universe. It will release on the same day as the inevitable Prince of Persia reboot, and the cycle shall begin anew.

The company will hold a “live” Battlefront match on-stage, which will feature Y-wings dropping bombs on AT-ATs as Darth Vader and Boba Fett mow down legions of Rebel troops. It will be awesome, and cinematic, and rousing, and make everyone forget the truth that in real game conditions they’ll probably spend half their time running to somewhere, only to be sniped by an enemy miles across the map.

The presentation will also tease Visceral Games’ Star Wars entry via a trailer that shows a man strapping on various pieces of armor as a gravely voice states that he is “the last,” he is “the sword,” he is … a bounty hunter. Fade in on Boba Fett’s helmet being picked up. Cut to black. An EA spokesperson asks the audience, “How many of you out there liked Star Wars Galaxies?!” Three of us let out feverish hooting, our eyes wide. “...Nevermind!” say EA, as the show continues.

Remember Wet? The Bethesda-published game starred Rubi Malone, a “problem solver” whose favorite answer to a pop quiz was two smoking barrels and blood-soaked katanas? Sure the first game didn’t garner much praise from consumers or press, but it has a devoted fanbase, and with the recent rise of strong female action protagonists like Katniss Everdeen and Marvel’s Black Widow, there’s no better time for a comeback.

Come back to us, Rubi. Please. Some of us still care.