8 Ways You Can Accidentally Break Popular Video Games
Who doesn't love being trapped on a planet with no means of escape?
When you think about how much effort goes into designing, developing, and then testing a video game, the amount of time it takes to produce a polished product is absolutely insane.
Just look at an open-world behemoth like The Witcher 3: some poor soul has had to trek through every inch of that vast map looking for bugs, and before that, another person had to think about where to place each building, NPC, and hidden treasure. That's not to mention the thought that goes into crafting solid mechanics and an engaging story, which most games would fall apart without.
With so many moving parts to take care of, there's always the possibility that the developer will put something in their game that doesn't always result in the player having a good time, whether that's an annoying or frustrating mechanic, a ridiculously tough enemy type, or a design flaw that halts (or even erases) progress.
And things like this can be easy to stumble across - often accidentally. By simply playing through a game normally, you might inadvertently run into a situation that destroys your enjoyment of the experience. How fun.
8. Provoking The Relentless City Guards - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The City Guards found throughout The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are really good at their jobs. Annoyingly, frustratingly good.
Usually seen walking around within cities or stationed at their gates, these guards will leave you alone unless you do something to pique their law-defending interests. But while policing systems in other games are generally easy to shake off - like GTA's cops - Oblivion's City Guards are absolutely relentless, to the point where they will chase you to the ends of the Earth and back again, even for the pettiest of crimes.
If you steal something - causing the guards to chase you - and attempt to get away with it, you might think that you can just run into the wilderness and end the pursuit. But nope. The guards can hunt you through forests, across bodies of water, and out into the middle of nowhere. Even if you kill the ones chasing you and head to a nearby city to sell your stolen loot, you'll soon hear another cry of "stop right there, criminal scum!" and have to run away all over again.
So while stealing might seem like a good way to make some cash, this act makes it difficult to play the game normally, since you can never be sure where a guard will pop up next. You could be walking around a city minding your own business, only to be randomly jumped by one. Bizarrely, they can even "catch you" through walls.
Plus, if you die while trying to escape - perhaps by running off a cliff in a panic - you could lose your last chunk of progress. Soon enough, you'll be hearing the words "Stop! You violated the law!" in your deepest, darkest nightmares...