As someone who’s been playing all kinds of video games for over 25 years, I have a bone to pick with video games in general. Modern developers tend to put features in their games that usually get blown out of proportion or just don’t make sense. They invest countless hours in making something that many players find redundant. Instead those hours could have been better used on polishing other parts of the game that actually matter. There are also features that should never be in games but that’s just my personal opinion. After extensive research, these are top features that I and millions of other players find overrated:
Huge Open Worlds
What I found that keeps happening at an alarmingly increasing rate is that many developers are putting huge open worlds in their games. Before you say anything, open world games are one of my absolute favorites. Well, at least when done right.
The times where the open world feature feels like it’s done for marketing purposes, just so they can advertise it to a large group of audience. All of them have the same things in common: they’re huge but mostly empty or filled with copy-paste enemies that are as fun as stepping on a Lego barefoot.
They’ll also have you running the same side-quest but in different regions, all that while making you long travel with teleport being as far as possible. You know what? Now, that I think about it. Once I reach mid-game I want an option to have a teleport on every corner. It takes 100h+ to finish the game because 80% percent of it you spend traveling around and finding your way to 1 minute objective.
The funny thing is that players aren’t as stupid as developers think and they notice these sorts of things almost immediately. And it always leads to a mountain of negative reviews. Even funnier is that if they only stuck to a great story/gameplay the success of the game would’ve been enormous.
Crafting Systems In Every Game
The second biggest thing I’ve seen people complain that I completely agree is those pesky crafting systems.
They seem to be a mandatory thing now. It doesn’t matter if it fits the game or not. Yes, please. Let me spend an hour collecting 99 sticks, 99 stones, and 99 herbs in order to craft something of absolutely no value to me. Thank you very much. Even if it’s something necessary for quests and I can’t get rid of it, guess what?
My inventory with a very limited space gets even more cluttered. And again, nothing against crafting systems when they fit the game. If I play a game that you specifically advertised as an action-adventure RPG featuring magic, wizards, and dragons, do I really need to spend the whole day farming mats? It just ruins the experience.
Skill Trees That Give Tiny Bonuses
I’m gonna come out and just say it. If it doesn’t have real skills, it’s not a skill tree. If it has a feature where you can get 1% damage and 2% health increase, it’s not a skill tree, it’s a stats tree. There, I said it. You can hate me all you want.
The point is that more and more games have these sorts of trees where you have to grind all month in order to get a 3% stats boost. Which doesn’t help anyone. For most gamers, it’s the equivalent of one extra FPS at 200 FPS: technically measurable, but practically irrelevant.
I’m one of the schmucks that fall for this constantly and always end up regretting it. I especially regret it when it’s paired with an atrocious open world and I end up chasing a 5% speed running boost. Tell me why I do that? IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER.
Ray Tracing
Ray Tracing isn’t a particularly bad thing and it’s great technology but it’s not meant for most players. Yes, the screenshots look much better but at what cost. Your FPS is down in the gutters. As much as I appreciate good lighting and the next level of detail, it has no place in games that have a ranked system.
Anything that requires your fast response needs to have ray tracing off. At least for a foreseeable future, until everyone gets on a similar playing ground. The best example of when it’s okay to use is if you’re playing Cyberpunk 2077 or just this one time, Minecraft RTX.
Battle Passes
Battle Passes is something I went over in multiple articles and if you want to read more, this one is the latest. The issue that I have with Battle Passes isn’t that they cost money. It’s that they’re such a time obligation that it transforms a fun game into something that feels like a second job.
They offer such premium shiny rewards that are only available now and never again but only if you reach lvl 100 of battle pass. For that you’ll need to log every day, play for at least a couple hours and finish numerous tasks. Don’t get me started on how many times I bought it and couldn’t finish them in time.
Hundreds of Side Quests
Can we all agree that devs are getting out of hand with the side quests? Most of them don’t even make any sense. Yeah, I’m an all powerful knight who has to fight Demon Lord and save millions of people but first let me make sure that Petunia has enough Dandelions for her recipe that she won’t even share with me.
Don’t worry though, I’ll get 10 gold from it. Who even comes up with these quests? Better yet, what person in charge thought that it was a good idea? I swear, they have some sort of national database of side quests and they just import as much as they can without even looking at what they’re about.
I don’t know about you but I’d rather have 10 really good, detailed, fun, and memorable side quests than to do 300 quests of playing errand boy.
Loot Everywhere
I probably won’t be the first to say it but loot in games is getting out of hand. On a small chance of sounding like a boomer, in my days loot was something meaningful and game changing. Getting good loot used to mean something. I know that once I got something, it felt like I’d won a lottery.
Now, it turned into something that makes you feel like you’re playing an inventory management simulator most of the time. After 30 minutes of playing, your inventory is full, you’ll have to go through to see if there’s anything good, then you have to dismantle some because you need parts for the crafting and rest you have to sell. There’s zero excitement tied to this sort of gameplay and after an initial hit of dopamine, games turn into second jobs.
Realism For The Sake Of Realism
Don’t get me started with this one. Whoever came up with this concept deserves to get loading screens after opening every door. WOW. That one might be too far.
Seriously, why do 90 percent of new games have weapon/armor durability, hunger, thirst, sleep, cleaning weapons, and other features that I have to monitor constantly? Every time you play it has to be a tense experience and you can’t simply relax and enjoy games nowadays.
I have kids by the way and I swear, compared to keeping some of these game characters alive, they are easy to take care of. Heck, in some cases I’ll rather entertain 100 mean judgemental teenagers than have to deal with some of those ultra-realistic games.
Motion Blur
Last but not least is something I hate with a burning passion. I strongly believe there should be a law where they force these companies to make it off by default. The amount of times that I started playing a game and started feeling sick for no reason is absolutely angering.
Not only does it make people sick but it also makes the games look lower quality than what they are. Seriously, who came up with this feature and why? Imagine pitching the idea for it and how did they even approve it. Oh, it’s a feature that makes our game look bad and it might get some players sick? Sure, put it in. APPROVED
