9 Ways All Open-World Video Games Are Starting To Suck

9. Upgrade Systems Are Pointless

It was arguably Far Cry 3 that really brought single-player levelling up systems to the mainstream. Instead of just repeating the stat-based model you'd find in older RPGs, Ubisoft's shooter used its character upgrade screen to give players new ways to tackle situations, adding increased variety to the already deep gameplay with each new unlock in the skill tree.

Unfortunately, not only have games been content to rip off that system ever since, but they've somehow managed to completely miss what made it great in the first place.

Instead of awarding you a handful of skills to begin with and making them even better as you play, modern open world games are content to offer the player incremental upgrades to a wide array of similar abilities.

Rather than use the system to open up brand new gameplay experiences, developers tend to throw in skill trees simply because that's what players expect. They don't put any thought into character upgrades other than bog-standard tweaks like "+0.5% Accuracy" or " +2% Reload Speed", inconsequential additions that wouldn't be missed if players ignored the system entirely.