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Image credit:Microsoft/DonGamers

Image credit:Microsoft/DonGamers

A top-down screenshot of a player-built maze in Minecraft

As such, I think they’re useful to reflect on at a time when the mantra of growth for its own sake has conquered the heart of videogame world design: bigger budgets for grander maps in terms of both explorable area and computational resource, all the way to Armageddon (did you know that SuicideSquad’s Metropolis istwice the sizeof Arkham Knight’s Gotham City?). But don’t take it from me, an armchair developer with armchair socialist sensibilities. Take it from The Legend of Zelda.

Image credit:Nintendo/TorinoGT

Part of the world map for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, showing several grassy, forested and mountain areas with watercourses.

Folds of a Separation from Studio Oleomingus |Image credit:Studio Oleomingus.

A maze amidst colourful architecture of towers and clocks in a screenshot from Folds of a Separation.