10 Video Game Features Every Title Should Have Stolen

Dead Space's UI is STILL the future.

dead space
EA

We’ve all come across a feature in video games that’s just so freaking good we can’t believe every developer hasn’t copy pasted it into their own game.

Alright, so sometimes there are legal reasons stopping creators from lifting a particularly cool mechanic and plonking it into their game, but we can still dream. In the case of all the features on this list, we couldn’t help but imagine how other games could have benefitted by implementing the same clever mechanics that massively improved the games that did utilise them.

Whether it was a totally unique combat system, a feature that revolutionised conversations in games, or an excellent quality-of-life addition, these games totally nailed it.

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10. “GeoMod” Environmental Destruction Technology - Red Faction

Red Faction
THQ

There’s nothing quite as immersion breaking as shooting up the environment with your variety of guns and grenades and watching everything stay intact.

Sure, you’re probably shooting your enemies to smithereens but boy is that half a wall made out of crumbling ancient debris remarkably solid. Not so in Red Faction, one of the few games to implement destruction tech that makes you feel like you’re having an impact on your environment and not just the bad guys on the wrong end of your gun.

The feature is called Geo-Mod or Geometry Modification Technology and it enables certain weapons to blast holes in the environment. In the back end the engine is actually creating an empty space object to occupy that hole. The engine shone in Red Faction: Guerrilla and Red Faction: Armageddon and it’s a mystery why no more than a tiny handful of games have tried to do the same thing at the same level.

It’s 2021 and we now have PCs and even consoles that can handle the extra power requirements of destructible environments so, you know, let us blow stuff up, OK?

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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.