10 Gaming Mechanics That Developers Should Have Fixed Years Ago

NPCs have come a long way from the early days of gaming, from silent background characters to helpful townsfolk to fully-fledged companions who gauge an emotional response from the player. One major advancement in NPCs is the way they change as the story develops. As the narrative progresses, characters will stop doubting you and will start respecting and praising you when you interact with them.

Unfortunately, not all games have improved their NPC dialogue in this way. Fallout 4 fans will be familiar with Marcy Long, who will constantly threaten you in Sanctuary by saying, "You better not tell anyone about this place". This was irritating to start with but hearing this again after hours of gameplay that have seen you take on thousands of enemies, was absolutely infuriating.

Many games that involve leading/working for a large group (e.g. resistance fighters) also mess up their NPC dialogue. In Homefront: The Revolution, you’ll still get other Resistance members belittling and talking down to you, despite the fact that you’ve single-handedly taken back the city.

This is probably the easiest issue on this list for developers to fix. All they have to do is make at least two different dialogue strands: one for before an event and one for after, meaning that NPCs will treat you appropriately depending on what you’ve done. Many games already do this, so the rest just need to keep up and stop being lazy.