I can understand why both this game and galaxy have more linear worlds then say 64, Sunshine, or Odyssey Reason: the controller What I mean is For Galaxy the controls had to be mapped to a Wiimote and that thing only had 2 buttons, even with the nunchuck it still was pretty limited so making the levels linear makes sense. That's why most 3D games used the classic controller or the classic pro controller For 3D World, u COULD make the argument that since the Wii U gamepad had analog sticks and 4 buttons then they could have made it open world but that's where ur wrong 3D world is all about the 4 multiplayer action Yeah one person gets the gamepad, other 3: the Wiimote Not even with the nunchuck but with the wiimote on it's side So that's why they needed to map it to 8 directions because the Wiimote has a dpad. Even tho the Gamepad has analog. For the switch, Odyssey was more single player based (the second player was a HAT) so they didn't worry about extra controllers so open world got to be back in with all it's 360 movement