KoA: Reckoning - "comparable in size" to Oblivion and More

GamesRadar has excerpts from a conversation with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's Craig Krstolic, talking about the size of the gameworld:

“How big is the game world overall?” we asked as he showed off the game’s map. At a glance it looked very large and open, unlike Fable's, which was broken into small segments.

“I’ve looked at this, and if I look at something like Oblivion, it’s very comparable in size,” he said, though we shouldn’t expect the worlds to look all that similar, even if they’re approximately the same size.

The article has a screenshot of an in-game map.

Over at GamePro is a piece titled Five Objections to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Overruled, written by Tom Chick. Since the "open-ness" has been a topic of conversation on our forums, here's a snip on that:

1) It Won't Be As Good As Skyrim/Diablo III/Mass Effect 3.

If there's one thing I came away with after playing Kingdoms of Amalur for a few hours, it's that it doesn't really compare with any of those games. The closest analog I could come up with was Divinity II​. You probably didn't play that, so it might not help.

Think of Kingdoms as an in-depth RPG in the style of Fable with a free-form character development system in which everyone -- even spellcasters and stealth-oriented rogues -- gets to partake in some hearty toe-to-toe combat. A God of War comparison, which the developers have made, isn't bad in terms of describing some of the moment-to-moment gameplay. But that completely misses the flexibility and depth in the character development. As a detailed action-oriented RPG in a fully realized world, Kingdoms of Amalur seems to have its own niche.

2) Eww, the World is All Corridors.

This is certainly the case with some of the areas, particularly early in the game. The first few lands between loading screens are definitely canyons, even though they're supposed to be magical forests with magical forest type names. But if you push eastward far enough, you'll come to a place where the landscape opens up considerably. A town called The Wold is actually a town, and not a set of canyons. This was the first place I felt like I wasn't in hallways anymore. North of here is The Foresaken Plains, which are definitely plains, albeit pretty modest. Don't expect gorgeous vistas, but don't worry about being hemmed in the entire time.