8 "Simple" Video Game Features That Took YEARS To Perfect

One man spent two years working on Batman's cape. Worth it?

Batman arkham asylum cape
Rocksteady

As gamers, we take so much for granted.

After playing for so long, basic actions like running, jumping and fighting have been experienced in so many different ways that anything other than perfect-feeling gameplay is seen as a major misstep on a game's behalf, while small, so called 'easy' features become completely decried if the developers mess them up even slightly.

After all, surely it must be easy to nail the swinging in Spider-Man (Just make him go faster! Make the webs connect to buildings!) or the sense of speed and weight in a racing game having so many examples to draw from, right? Well, not quite, and often in the world of video games, it's the small details that are the biggest pains for the creatives to actually nail.

These are features that seem so simple on the surface, and in the finished result might not even appear all that impressive, but which took the developers years of trial-and-error to get right - and it's time we appreciated the effort.

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Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked full time as a content producer at WhatCulture for nine years. In that time he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple channels, specialising in subjects such as gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 most listened to gaming podcast in the UK that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, covered breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.