10 Incredible Video Game Mechanics That SHOULD Be Everywhere (But Aren't)
In 2023 many video games STILL don't let you pause cutscenes. WTF!?
At their best, video games are a fantastic fusion of art and science - a glorious collision of storytelling and technically sublime programming.
We've all played a game and simply been blown away by a stunning mechanic, only to lament that this feature isn't available in more video games.
In the modern gaming era, the medium feels more accessible and open-ended than ever, but there's still so, so much work to be done, as evidenced by the fact that these 10 features aren't near-ubiquitous.
These fantastic gameplay mechanics have improved basically every single game they've appeared in, if only through giving players greater options to play however they wish.
They're such obvious slam-dunk features that it's genuinely frustrating to see them absent from even the most obvious of AAA candidates.
While game development is incredibly hard at even the best of times with a massive budget and huge dev team, that so many games come to market lacking these features in such an advanced era of the medium is hugely disappointing.
If studios aren't prioritising these brilliant quality-of-life mechanics in their games, they absolutely should be...
10. "The Story So Far..."
Have you ever returned to a game after a couple or weeks, even months, and had absolutely no damn idea at all what was going on in the story?
In lengthy games with complex narratives, it's inevitable, and so it's always a relief when a game has the foresight to include a story recap to bring affected players back up to speed.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt offers a good example of this, with loading screens recounting the story up to this point, while Dragon Quest XI literally includes cutscenes summarising everything that's happened so far.
And yet, both of these features for keeping players acquainted with the narrative are missing from so, so many story-heavy games.
When you're dealing with an RPG conservatively clocking in at 50 hours, there's no reason not to include this quality-of-life feature, because it'll help keep players with busy lives invested in the narrative and, therefore, far more likely to keep playing.