10 Video Game Clichés Everyone Is Sick Of

5. Super Steep Mountains EVERYWHERE

Skyrim Falskaar
Bethesda

Something happened with the geography in most open world video games that don’t take place on an island and that’s a whole crap tonne of mountains on the perimeter.

This is a tough one to call games out on because everyone has a different preference for how to handle world boundaries in open worlds. The invisible walls have few fans, the mountains make an appearance in what is conservatively just about every single open world fantasy game ever made, and games like Cyberpunk 2077 just throw up a notification telling you that you need to go back.

The mountains in games like Elder Scrolls titles, WoW, and The Witcher are an especially weird one just because it means all the geography of these places ends up looking similar, and where there is a mountain you will find a sea of gamers trying to find their way over it.

And inevitably hitting an invisible wall at the top. Well played.

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Jess has been a journalist and content creator in the games industry for over 15 years and has been WhatCulture's resident Australian import and sorry cop since 2020, upping the quotient of swearing and apologising in WhatCulture Gaming's annual blooper videos considerably. She previously worked at GameSpot for 10 years, most notably hosting GameSpot News in addition to E3 live shows, and PAX panels. She regularly livestreams a variety of games on her 'jessmcdonell' YouTube and Twitch channels and hosts the 'Do It On The Day' podcast. She has won awards for her news and feature work in gaming as well as an accolade for her comedic writing (likely an admin error). She can be found on X at @jessmcdonell and Instagram at @jessicamcdonell sharing her current videogame fixations, industry insights, and videos of her cat, Karma.