10 Gaming Mechanics That Developers Should Have Fixed Years Ago

Trying to craft a deep, compelling narrative in a game about a character who truly feels the weight of every person he kills can be difficult when that game is Grand Theft Auto. Many games are finding it hard to present a character who struggles with their moral choices whilst also presenting the player with a fun game to play. This attempt at balance usually ends up with cutscenes that show a character barely holding it together when faced with a moment where they have to kill, yet gameplay that shows a homicidal maniac massacring everyone in sight.

In the Tomb Raider reboot, Lara Croft struggled with killing in all the cutscenes, but the gameplay encouraged you to shoot flaming arrows at enemies and take them out as brutally as possible. In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko spent every cutscene trying to make up for his past mistakes and rebuild his life in Liberty City, but seconds later he could be shooting down a helicopter from a tank that’s driving over pedestrians in a busy park.

Games that show how characters respond to difficult moral choices are great and should be encouraged more, but there needs to be a better method of getting this narrative across than the abrupt personality changes that currently occur in the moments between cutscene and gameplay.