10 Genius Ways Video Game Developers Outsmarted You
2. You Will Trip Over If The World Hasn't Loaded Yet - Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
It's become increasingly common over the years for games with sprawling open worlds to only render portions of the environment within the player's sightline, as was demonstrated so impressively in Horizon Zero Dawn.
But back in 2001, years before Horizon was even a twinkle in Guerrilla Games' eye, the first entry into the hit platformer franchise Jak and Daxter employed a frankly awards-worthy means of buying itself more time to load in assets.
Basically, if the game was struggling to keep up and build the game world around you, it would force Jak and Daxter to trip over, wrestling control away from the player for around two seconds while it finishes loading.
Though most players will only come across this occasionally, speedrunners can find themselves becoming frequently unstuck by it, given that it's effectively a safeguard to stop players from running ahead of the game itself.
As far as creative solutions to nagging technical issues go, though, this is masterful. And why would anyone expect anything less from Naughty Dog?