What do you think non-violent open world games should do about pedestrians?

As a long-time fan of driving and racing games, I've never really been satisfied with how pedestrians are represented in open worlds. Of course game like GTA and Saints Row can have them walk around freely as they are able to be interacted with/run over/attacked etc, but what about non-violent games?When I drive around the cities in Forza Horizon games I can't help but feel that they're a bit empty. In those games they just place pedestrians behind walls and bollards so they're unreachable, but it means that all of the sidewalks and streets are empty and feel dead. From memory, Driver: San Francisco and Midnight Club LA both had pedestrians walking the streets that would jump out of the way of your car if you drove towards them. I quite like this solution but I can see how it's a bit weird when you drive full speed down a sidewalk and every single person perfectly leaps out of the way. Maybe there is no true way to make an open world feel lived in without having NPCs be properly interactable.Are there examples of this being done better? What's the ideal solution to making a non-violent open world feel alive? via /r/Games https://ift.tt/3CENAoA