10 Gameplay Tweaks That Seriously Improve Video Games

It's the little things that count.

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Naughty Dog

One of the best and worst things about modern game design is a desire from publishers to please everybody. On one hand, a big part of that is giving players increasingly versatile ways to play their own way. Players almost never have identical experiences anymore.

On the other hand, that makes a lot of games overly streamlined right out of the box. Developers make an effort to create these awesome, complex systems, but are then cut off at the knees. Sometimes by a desire to please everyone, sometimes by dated tech, and sometimes by small, but significant, design missteps.

Fortunately, these systems allow for a great deal of customization. Making a small change to controls or playing a game in a specific way can make a huge difference, whether by fixing a problem or changing an experience entirely. Often these tweaks can be so small that they may not even occur to you.

But a small difference can make all the difference.

So, from simple settings adjustments to just some good old-fashioned discipline, here are some small tweaks you can make to seriously improve your favorite games.

10. Turn On Auto Loot - Horizon: Forbidden West & The Last Of Us

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Guerrilla Games

While it wouldn't be accurate to describe Horizon or The Last Of Us as "looter" games like Diablo or Borderlands, you can't deny that there is A LOT of junk to pick up over the course of these enormous games.

Crafting is a core element of each, and therefore, so is foraging for materials and scavenging metals and tools.

Though a minor inconvenience, it becomes especially exacerbated when, for example, you've stripped a Thunderjaw of all of its individual parts using Tearblast arrows, and now you're tracking down every little scrap of metal scattered across a space the size of a football field.

Mercifully, both Guerilla Games and Naughty Dog saw fit to ease this collect-a-thon grind.

Included as an accessibility option, it actually makes for a much-needed quality of life improvement in both games. After turning this option on across Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us Part 2 or 2022's Last of Us Part 1/remake, instead of having to stop and pick up every item, they'll be automatically added to your inventory.

Even better, in Horizon's case, this feature works while you're mounted, which puts collecting the items you'll be using in bulk almost completely out of mind.

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At 34 years of age, I am both older and wiser than Splinter.