10 Ways Dark Souls Made All Video Games WORSE
3. Normalising UI As An Afterthought
I don’t care how much you adore Dark Souls as a series, there’s an element of its production that pretty much everyone agrees on: The user interface is pretty damned gross.
The thing is, no matter how grotesquely presented the UI elements are, or how unintuitive the menu flow is, it doesn’t affect the enjoyment Dark Souls’ fans have with the product - they love the game in spite of its gross UI.
And that’s... well, that’s a bit of a problem, because it’s normalised the idea that you can implement any old user interface, because people don’t care either way.
UI is so important, because it functions as a bridge between the player and the game world, and that means enhancing comprehension, feedback, and general good-feelinginess. I’ve never played a game that wasn’t enhanced and uplifted by good user interface - you tend not to notice great UI, but bad UI really does stick out like a sore thumb.
Making excuses for Dark Souls’ poor UI isn’t a great idea. It just opens the doors for other games to presume leaving UI as an afterthought (or just considered as relatively unimportant), when UI should be developed simultaneously (with as much importance) with other elements of the game.