Explore the common annoyances in modern video games that players wish developers would address.
In recent years, the gaming landscape has undergone a massive evolution. However, as games have become more expensive and complex, many players have started to notice some frustrating trends. From repetitive gameplay mechanics to poorly executed features, there’s a lot that can irk gamers these days. Let’s dive into some of these modern gaming annoyances.
Open Worlds
There was a time when open worlds felt fresh and exciting, and each one was a joy to explore. However, those times are long gone. Instead of offering engaging mysteries and explorations, open worlds now often serve to unnecessarily stretch gameplay. Publishers have decided that the more time you spend in their game, the better it is. It doesn’t matter whether the activities are interesting: as long as you’re busy opening hundreds of chests across the map, it counts as keeping your attention.
Many of these issues can be traced back to the immense success of titles like Assassin’s Creed 2 and Far Cry 3. While these games are indeed excellent and important, their success is not solely due to their open-world format. The real draw was the attention to detail that made exploring them genuinely interesting.
Today, you’re hard-pressed to find a major game that doesn’t feature some form of open world or something similar. Consequently, we’ve lost many smaller, bite-sized adventures that typically last only 10-15 hours. Instead, we find ourselves wandering through expansive but dull landscapes. Games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, RDR 2, or The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are becoming rare exceptions to this trend.
Skill Trees with Useless Abilities
In recent years, RPG mechanics have seeped into a variety of game genres. Developers love to incorporate hero upgrades without considering whether they’re truly necessary. As a result, skill trees often end up cluttered with abilities that are completely boring and unnecessary.
Sometimes, you might find ridiculously convoluted skill trees offering passive bonuses like “+5% resistance to poison,” which are challenging to integrate into gameplay. There’s often little to no talk of adding genuinely interesting skills or new abilities—just flat bonuses to damage, defense, or elemental resistance.
Take a look at the Gothic series, where skill trees were nonexistent, yet weapon mastery significantly impacted how the protagonist wielded their weapon. Players could genuinely see their character evolve into a more capable warrior.
Microtransactions
“Buying a skin for the horse in Oblivion? It’s only $2.50, what could go wrong?” This was the start of one of the biggest problems in the gaming industry. Microtransactions in free-to-play games are a normal, even necessary phenomenon—after all, developers need to make a living. However, selling weapons in Far Cry 6 or experience boosters in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla crosses the line.
Some players genuinely don’t want to spend countless hours grinding through levels and are willing to pay to expedite the process. What’s not acceptable is when companies design their balance around the necessity of these experience boosters, forcing players to engage in mindless side quests just to keep progressing.
Bugs
Over the past decade, this issue has risen to the forefront of gaming frustrations. Rarely does a modern game release in perfect condition without needing urgent patches to transform a raw product into something playable.
Games in early access are exempt from criticism—developers are upfront about their unfinished projects and seek player feedback to help fix issues by the time of launch. Yet, it seems lessons were not learned from Cyberpunk 2077. Instead, the takeaway appears to be that anything can be released and patched later.
For example, developers of The Day Before intended to launch the game as it was on release day and then focus on fixes. Eventually, the studio closed down the day after the launch, and the game was pulled from sale.
MMO-Style Quests
Admit it, is there anyone who enjoys the fetch quests in single-player games? Tasks like “bring me 40 axes,” “kill 10 wolves,” or “run back and forth” have become way too common lately. These tasks often stretch already lengthy games and lack accompanying narrative elements.
MMO-style quests are better suited to multiplayer titles, where their primary purpose is not to tell an engaging story but to grind or socialize with other players while clearing locations of hordes of monsters.
Games are already time-consuming, and often players can’t find time for another long release. Yet these quests frequently alienate gamers, causing them to uninstall games during their initial hours.
Early Access for Preorders
“Pre-order the Ultimate Edition, pay an extra $20-$30, and get to play a few days earlier than everyone else,” is how developers lure players into their trap. This trend is unsettling, especially considering the condition in which games often reach the market. More often than not, gamers find themselves buying a pig in a poke.
Imagine waiting eagerly for a game, only to find that for a couple of extra bucks, you can access it a bit earlier. Yet, once installed, you discover that playing it without patches is nearly impossible. Ultimately, you waste your money and still have to wait for it to be fixed alongside everyone else.
Rather than providing this opportunity for free, charging players for it feels somewhat dishonest. This preys on the infamous fear of missing out—everyone else might be having fun while you’re left waiting.
Optimization with Focus on DLSS and FSR
PC gamers know this issue all too well. Developers often rely heavily on DLSS (NVIDIA) and FSR (AMD) as a sort of magic wand for optimizing their games. The problem is that it doesn’t work on all graphics cards, and sometimes games function poorly without these technologies.
Now, even system requirements sometimes include a stipulation for DLSS or FSR: don’t even try to launch without them. Initially, these technologies were created to enhance performance, not serve as a baseline for optimization.
However, there are exceptions. For instance, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 works beautifully on release, even on less powerful hardware, making it clear that games can indeed be optimized with the right effort.
FAQs:
- What are some common annoyances in modern video games? Many players are frustrated with repetitive quests, microtransactions, and buggy releases.
- Why do open worlds seem less appealing now? They have shifted from exploration to simply extending gameplay, often with dull tasks.
- How have skill trees changed in modern games? Developers often fill them with unnecessary abilities lacking real impact on gameplay.
- What impact do microtransactions have on gameplay? They can create a sense of imbalance, forcing players to grind for progression without additional purchases.
- Are early access games always worth it? Not necessarily; they can come with a host of bugs and unfinished content that may discourage players.
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