10 Coolest Video Game Features (That Are Utterly Pointless) - Commenter Edition

5. Water Puddles Evaporate Over Time - Horizon: Zero Dawn

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Guerrilla Games

Water puddles evaporate over time. That’s it. That’s the entry, but let’s get a little more into it because this is completely pointless and completely awesome.

It should come as no surprise that the game that features colonies of leaf-cutting ants on the trees is riddled with lovely little attention-to-detail features. One of these is evaporating water which, let's face it, in a game this big, you’re really not going to notice. You’d have to deliberately stand in one place for a long amount of time looking at a puddle in the sunlight to even know the game did this but it is an awesome quality of life addition to the game world.

Puddles in GTA 5 and Breath of the Wild do this too so there you go, evaporating water is the hot new thing in video game design.

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Jess has been a journalist and content creator in the games industry for over 15 years and has been WhatCulture's resident Australian import and sorry cop since 2020, upping the quotient of swearing and apologising in WhatCulture Gaming's annual blooper videos considerably. She previously worked at GameSpot for 10 years, most notably hosting GameSpot News in addition to E3 live shows, and PAX panels. She regularly livestreams a variety of games on her 'jessmcdonell' YouTube and Twitch channels and hosts the 'Do It On The Day' podcast. She has won awards for her news and feature work in gaming as well as an accolade for her comedic writing (likely an admin error). She can be found on X at @jessmcdonell and Instagram at @jessicamcdonell sharing her current videogame fixations, industry insights, and videos of her cat, Karma.