8 Ways Video Games Blew Your Mind (Without You Realising)
4. Explosive Barrels Are Full Of Tiny Invisible People - Star Wars The Old Republic
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away there existed a little game called Star Wars: The Old Republic, a beautifully crafted MMO which gave wanna-be Jedi and those itching to be a Sith the chance to swing sabers with the big boys.
Yet in a time not so long ago and in a hive of scum and villainy (also known as 2022 and Twitter respectively) lead combat designer Georg Zoeller revealed that there was a lot more going on within this game than meets the eye, and detailed the rather humorous case of the explosive barrels found within the game.
It turns out that these barrels are actually filled with, and this is as insane to type out as it is to read, tiny explosive humans as the game was unable to allow damage to be inflicted on an object and so the barrels had to be reconfigured to be humans that detonated upon death.
Another reason for the odd change is that originally the barrels had much more complex designs that worked around the "who can receive damage" quirk but it totally tanked frame rates when implemented, thus the tiny humans in barrels solution was reached.
And what a solution it was.