My favorite trend in the last decade has been armchair developers crying and bitching about gameplay and design decisions in some of the best received and loved games of all time, and claiming they could do better without some very integral things that make those games exactly what they are. We have multiple examples of this kind of decision, of course. We have people who bitch about the deliberate controls and cinematic stylings of Red Dead Redemption 2. We have people who bitch about weapon durability in Breath of the Wild. We have people who bitch about difficulty levels in the Dark Souls games (plus Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne).
Those last two are especially prevalent everywhere. It's impossible to talk about Elden Ring or Zelda without some "ackchually" keyboard warrior coming in to hijack the discussion and tell us about why the games are terrible because they lack difficulty options or because they have weapon durability, both of those decisions ones very deliberately made by the developers to make the games they wanted to make.
These games are ones that thrive on friction for the player. They're not meant to be polished to the extent that they tell the player everything and are afraid of the player ever feeling lost or frustrated. They're not like modern Ubisoft or Sony games, that mark everything on the map and tell you how many collectibles or quests in a region are left, that shout out the solution to a puzzle or encounter right away because they are so afraid players will get annoyed at the game and stop playing. Being annoyed and trying to figure out how to conquer the thing that annoys you is a huge thing in these games.
I don't know, to me a gamer who truly appreciates the art and craft of game development should be appreciative of how well put together the FromSoft Souls game, the open world Zelda games, or the utter masterpiece that is RDR2, are. Yes, they have their design elements that are controversial, and yes there are some players who can't handle any inconvenience working on ludicrous mods or cheats that add difficulty levels or better controls or unbreakable weapons or what not, but that's very much not the point, and against the entire design philosophy of these games.
Maybe I am rambling, but what do you think GAF? I figure if there is any one place that would understand what I am saying, it would be this one.
Those last two are especially prevalent everywhere. It's impossible to talk about Elden Ring or Zelda without some "ackchually" keyboard warrior coming in to hijack the discussion and tell us about why the games are terrible because they lack difficulty options or because they have weapon durability, both of those decisions ones very deliberately made by the developers to make the games they wanted to make.
These games are ones that thrive on friction for the player. They're not meant to be polished to the extent that they tell the player everything and are afraid of the player ever feeling lost or frustrated. They're not like modern Ubisoft or Sony games, that mark everything on the map and tell you how many collectibles or quests in a region are left, that shout out the solution to a puzzle or encounter right away because they are so afraid players will get annoyed at the game and stop playing. Being annoyed and trying to figure out how to conquer the thing that annoys you is a huge thing in these games.
I don't know, to me a gamer who truly appreciates the art and craft of game development should be appreciative of how well put together the FromSoft Souls game, the open world Zelda games, or the utter masterpiece that is RDR2, are. Yes, they have their design elements that are controversial, and yes there are some players who can't handle any inconvenience working on ludicrous mods or cheats that add difficulty levels or better controls or unbreakable weapons or what not, but that's very much not the point, and against the entire design philosophy of these games.
Maybe I am rambling, but what do you think GAF? I figure if there is any one place that would understand what I am saying, it would be this one.
