10 Ways You Can Tell A Video Game Is Going To Suck

One of the most egregious tropes of modern video games is the forced walking sequence, where players are forced to walk at a snail's pace through a locale, usually while talking to another character.

If some might charitably consider these moments pace-setting "asides" between combat, they're more often than not used to disguise loading, and the fact that we're still seeing them on current-gen gaming hardware is infuriating.

Now, it's fair to say that some very good, even great games have featured forced walking in the past - The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption II, for example - but in 2023, where forced walking is basically a meme in its own right, it's an indicator that the devs are sleeping at the wheel.

Being forced to keep prodding your character forward while listening to a 10-minute exposition dump is, funnily enough, not terribly engaging in a medium all about interactivity.

This is especially egregious if there's no auto-walk option, which would at least allow you to put the controller down for the sequence and, y'know, do some laundry.

They're absolutely brutal if they're unskippable on repeat playthroughs, potentially killing the desire to replay the game outright, which is about the most short-sighted thing a developer can do.