10 Open World Game Tropes We NEVER Want To See Again
7. Obnoxious Amounts of Weapons, Items, and Collectibles
Acquiring new equipment, clothing, and collectables as you dive deeper into an open world game can be very cool, with a seemingly limitless number of possibilities for designing a unique character, customising play styles and strategies, and hunting for secret treasures scattered around miscellaneous sites.
That said, the sheer volume of items to obtain, sell, discard and/or compare and contrast in modern games has become an issue.
As the quintessential looter shooter franchise, the Borderlands series was bult upon the gimmick of having a lot of guns to find. However, Borderland 3’s alleged one billion variations is clearly an example of quantity over quality, with players’ inventories inevitably bursting with firearms whose technical and/or aesthetic differences are negligible or indecipherable.
Even titles outside of that style – such as Cyberpunk 2077, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Elden Ring – contain excessive amounts of weapons, accessories, attachments, consumables, garments, and/or superficial collectibles. As such, too much time is spent managing (and trying to understand statistical information about) innumerable items.
We aren’t playing Hoarders: The Game, so why do we need to worry about so many inconsequential types of sniper rifles, explosives, swords, potions, beverages, snacks, hats, packages, and multipart sets?