10 Secret Ways Video Games Totally Waste Your Time

One of the worst trends in modern AAA gaming is the over-reliance on needlessly long context button prompts, whereby players will need to hold down a given button for up to five seconds in order to throw a switch, open a door, pick up an object, or a similarly mundane activity.

Recently, Final Fantasy VII Remake was especially awful for this, filled to the brim with infuriatingly time-consuming "press Triangle to do thing" prompts, which over the course of its 30-hour story, surely bloated the play-time out considerably.

While games can sometimes get away with the excuse that the prompt is an attempt to disguise the loading of new assets in the background, it's clear that this is hardly always the case.

Everyday actions like this need snappy, responsive context cues for the player, rather than infuriatingly time-consuming prompts.