8 Video Game Mechanics Harder Than The Final Boss
3. Real-Time-With-Pause Combat - Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Upon launch in 2018, isometric RPG Pathfinder: Kingmaker only allowed real-time-with-pause combat, as frustrated those who expected to be able to play the game turn-based, just like its tabletop inspiration.
Meld the enforced real-time-with-pause combat with some staggeringly unforgiving difficulty spikes and you've got the recipe for a wildly abrasive and unwelcoming RPG which many players even found unfair to the point that they called it broken.
But RPG fans are nothing if not a hardy bunch, and those who took the time to get to grips with the game's harsh combat were surely left firmly equipped to mop up the endgame some 70-ish hours later.
All the same, some players loathed the real-time system enough that they modded their own turn-based variation, and developer Owlcat Games eventually acquiesced to the colossal player demand by finally patching in a legit turn-based, tabletop-faithful combat mode almost two years later.
Those who plowed through the game the Hard Way on launch, though, are the real ones - no offense.